Two more writing exercises during my time at Esalen Institute

Photo - sunset at Esalen Institute, Big Sur, September, 2017.

In day three of the workshop, we were asked to write about:

What is sacred?

I spent three years in a boarding school and every Sunday during that time we went to church. The principal would come and inspect us in the main hall before our leaving on the school buses for the Presbyterian City Church. Shoes polished, check - hat, gloves, pantyhose...if there were scuffs on our shoes or a run in the pantyhose, we were promptly ordered to return to our rooms and rectify the misdemeanor. 

I found solace in the church, a place where I could just sit and be and feel at home. Our bony teenage butts on those hard, wooden pews - sitting obediently among the student brethren and other church goers, idly playing with the ribbon that marked a page in the Bible, or flipping through the hymn book and mouthing the words of a verse. 

There was a sense of being taken care of in the church - something greater had your back. I developed that feeling very early on and it continued after boarding school, when I was living with my parents again and would accompany my mother to church most Sundays - something her breast cancer diagnosis had prompted on. The ritual of church fostered a special connection with my mother, something I continued to have with her until she died, and her funeral held in that same church we'd been attending for five years together. 

After university I took off for Europe, as a 21 year old backpacker, and whenever I felt homesick or lonely, I would call into a church and just sit. There were some astronomically beautiful churches in Europe and I especially remember one in Bruges in Brussels where I sat and prayed for my mother. Great wooden paneling, intricate stone carving, gleaming lead-lighted windows depicting all the great religious motifs. 

Two years ago, I was in Rome and received an email from my cousin that my uncle had unexpectedly passed. He was a beloved fellow, jovial, and wily as a young buck. A farmer his whole life, he had some fantastic stories about time on the land. I responded to my cousin that I was in Rome, but it a most suitable place - the holy city - to be on discovering this sad news. Later that evening, I found a quaint little church just down the road from where I was staying, and said a prayer for my uncle - wishing him Godspeed for his journey on. 

Another writing exercise was to talk to...

Your heart's deepest yearning

Whenever I'm feeling alone, and that 'woe is me' feeling of despair has crept in, I will sometimes look to the times when I've felt pure contentment (or close to it). Most people think having a partner is what's going to make them happiest, but so far, I've experienced better times single. Truest to my heart is when I am on my own.

Having said this, I am never quite on my own during these times - and the desires that drive that yearning - is for connection. It's a bonus when understanding is also thrown in. Some form of contact with another living person, animal or thing - can turn into a nourishment that uplifts the soul, or keeps it steady and stabilized, saving oneself from the perils of despair.

I've found that in a community of day-to-day interactions. The morning visit to the local cafe, exchanging small talk and general observations with the barista; seeing my yoga teacher, and her acknowledgement by way of a nod, that she's glad I "showed up" to class. Doing the weekly rounds of poking my head into my colleagues offices at work to check in and see how I can help.

I also yearn for new experiences and like a butterfly that has broken from its cocoon, it's in this environment - foreign and new - when I lose myself from that conditioned trap of self. Away from routine, my senses become keenly acute and it is in navigating these circumstances that I sate a yearning to be free and content and thrilling.