The Terror & Joy of Realizing Oneness with the Soul

The Rune Hagalaz: Elemental Disruption

From the Radiance Sutras*:

That space is bad,
This space is good,
The ride is rough,
Or the going is smooth,
We are thrown into suffering,
We are thrown into joy.

Beloved Soul Mate-
Find the space in the center,
The shimmering spaciousness
Encompassing all opposites.
Here the essences of creation are at play:
Earth, water, fire, air and space,
And the senses that perceive them.
The center is the dancing ground.

It's one of those weekends. We've all had them. Every effort seems to be thwarted or even repulsed. This weekend we cancelled a long needed camping trip due to thunderous winds and pelting rain. My beloved partner was sick with a cold. The new computer was on the fritz, needing a  reset. The barn leaks into the open tool boxes. Then to top it off the dogs on either side of us begin a duet in sharp staccato. Enough whining...You get the picture. You've been there. Seemingly important stuff being thrown under the bus of fate, out of your control. None of it is life threatening, but the feeling of resentment, or worse, may rear it's tentacled head.

For me, the resistance to what was/is came forward in the straining to not hear the barking dogs. I have a particular panic response to the sharp barks of dogs. For whatever reason, my pulse flashes, my thoughts turn in fast circles and I feel beside myself through the barking. The dog near the fields where I work all day has been on a tear. Hours of barking, right at me. Well, his lurching songs finally spun me into a panic last night. Then he began again at 5:40 this morning, a series stabbing surly complaints. Canines bared. It was all quite loud, at least to me.

At 6AM I put a note on the our kind neighbor's door. "Can we check-in about the barking?" I query. Fear of offending our good neighbors was knocking inside my head. I walked back down their driveway. The mist was rising just above the lemon sun. Suddenly all was a sweet silence. I was not out of my body, looking for the noise anymore. I was present.

So, I prayed the sweetness into me and back out onto the land... and to the dog. A young rabbit watched me pray from a clump of rye grass.  Then he fled. The panic from the primal barks. the fear of offending friends, the wondering if i'm inadequate, all went scampering away upon the nape of a rabbit's neck. All the shadow material flew off into the hedge, there to hide and shiver in the thickest tangle of thorns.

The Loving Spirit descended and said "They are all Me: the neighbor, the snarl, the staccato stutter of sunless sounds, the bent man called by your name, the rabbit in the beauty, the fear itself... All Me."

"Hmm." I replied. "I still feel the weight of this world and the meanness of struggle. I still feel the collective loss of our world at large: the cutting remarks, the stupid wars, the cowardly killing with words, even the loneliness of God walking on a country lane."  Yes, God walking back home with a fearful man. With me! The Fear itself, like an element of silent sky came crashing through the darkness and into the dawn. Then it dissipated for luxurious moments. Enlightenment... for moments.

Whatever the struggle, it's just another experience. Joy comes wrapped in every guise possible, even in the voices barking from the dark woodland, or the worries spun around a sleepless night.

Love,
Rick

* The Radiance Sutras Are an ancient yogic text. The title roughly means "The terror and joy of realizing oneness with the soul." There is a nice little translation of the Sutras by Lorin Roche, forward by Shiva Rea.

(c) Copyright Richard Sievers, February 2014, All Rights Reserved.