Separation

The following might seem an odd addition to a blog on nurturing and home self-care practices. Yet, the interesting thing for me is being present to all of what comes up connected to the motivation for health and renewal. I look at health as being on all levels: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual and I am aware that sometimes the external practices just don't make any difference when there is internal struggle. It is at those moments that I ask myself, What is at the core of what is longing to be healed? Ultimately, I would have to say that it comes down to a sense of separation--from source and/or connection to others.

I once heard an accounting of a conversation someone said they had with Christ. I don’t discount such possibilities and simply take the words within to see if they contain truth that resonates with me. In the reported exchange Christ explained that there had been a misinterpretation of the crucifixion and that the gift of it was not that he came to die for our sins. Rather, he had come into this world unseparated from God and the gift was his agreement to separate and to know the pain of separation, which he experienced fully as a part of what led up to the crucifixion moment, and then to bring love to it that separation may be ended. Upon hearing this I was suddenly without resistance as the walls of protection melted into a pool of gratitude, washed by my tears into the stream that carries all human experience back to source. He also said that the root of the word judgment means to separate and that it could have been said, Separate not, lest ye be separated.

As spiritual seekers there seems an underlying desire to transcend our humanness, rather than just being present to all of it without judgment and bringing love to it. I had a profound experience of this when I learned of the suicide of a woman I knew from a new age community. It evoked the following poem.

Prayer for Your Passing

I did not know you well,
the proper hostess,
offering a variety of perfectly presented affirmations and awarenesses.
Yet, I was hungry for something more.
It was you I wanted to savor—
to chew the fat of life together,
wrestling with the gristly questions
that get at the heart of what it is to be human.
To offer less, even in brief encounters,
is to deny ourselves access to life—
the energetic flow which sustains—
and we are left longing.

Would that we could see each other’s pain.
To look without judgment or
need to offer prescriptions for healing,
but to meet in a place where we simply
hold each other in love,
knowing that this is our birthright.

For you it is too late.
I mourn that you, a gentle, lithe being,
could not feed yourself from the bread you broke,
the bread of your body that you gave in offering
that we might see the tragedy of our illusive ways.

Released from the limitations of a mortal body,
and railings of a condemning human mind,
may your spirit be free.
Unencumbered, pure light,
now one with the questions unanswered.
Sing and dance among the stars,
the flame of your spirit shooting across the heavens.
We wish upon you tonight
that all may join in that place where there is no hiding.
This is my prayer in honor of your passing.

~ Dawn Griffin

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