At the back of the car, covered with suitcases I looked out of the window, “drinking” in the sights of the beautiful land on an early Monday morning. I don’t know when will l have the opportunity to be present with this particular piece of beauty again. My heart is contracting with pain pangs. Each contraction is being released with a deep sobbing. I’m opening my heart fully to my experience, letting my grieving fully be. It continues in painful contractions in my chest, and I’m committed to staying with myself , even though I notice a part of me that is resisting the pain, a part that is habitually conditioned to protect.
Long minutes pass as I say goodbye to the familiar beloved views of Oregon House, California.
Slowly my body relaxes into a quiet state of sadness.
As we are heading to the San-Francisco airport, a thought comes up that mourning is really a celebration. The celebration of the gifts of life, that I value so much, and that I will now be missing. Sweet sweet pain…
The images of the faces of my friends go by my mind, like a sliding show. Camila showing up at the evening before we leave, with all her beauty, offering to help us clean the house. Rachel with her offerings of practical love, bringing a huge pot of pasta for dinner. Victor spending hours with me, teaching me how to get friendly with my birthday gift of my community’s fund raise, the elegant Macbook Air lap-top computer. Peter, helping me to check-in to our flight on-line, trying different combinations, looking for a way to sit us all five together, unwilling to let go.
Anicca washing dishes again and again, and hugging me, alternately. Farzad dropping by every hour or so, finalizing the last details of driving us to the airport, looking rather sad with his smiling face. More and more faces go by, sometimes without names, like the anonymous friends who secretly cleaned our house at the night of our goodbye party, leaving no trace of it, as me and Shahar crashed into our bed with exhaustion (if you happen to read this now, would you let us know, please? We would like to thank you in-person…)
My heart stretches with waves of love and gratitude, as each face goes by…. As I'm being touched by the depth of the care I’ve been held with during the past 4 years, living in woods of Oregon House, where interdependence became a living experience, a flow of giving and receiving, in an organic heart felt way. Oh how I celebrate having lived this experience ! what Marshall Rosenberg call “ playing the game of making life more wonderfull”.
As I reflect on all the gifts I’ve received and offered, I am in awe about the power we each have to contribute to each other’s lives, bestowing our unique gifts. I tap into an inner place of deep deep trust in the web of life, in the abundance of resources that are available , right here and now, to serve life, to meet needs, so that each of us can experience what I have, a sense of mattering to life, that in return grounded me in deep trust that I'm safe.
I let my self be nourished with the vision, of how the world would look like once the dominant scarcity mentality is transformed, in each of us, into this place of trust in the sufficiency of resources to attend to all needs. I connect with the enormous amount of energy that I used to invest in worries that there would not be enough, love, money, care, etc. for me, and the win/loose strategies I used to practice in addressing those worries (which are really loose/loose). I connect with the consistent state of stress my body used to live in. And then I notice how little energy is occupied inside of me with worries right now. How, even so I don’t know where would I live and how am I going to provide for my family, there is peace inside, that is stimulated by my faith in that my needs do matter, and that there are endless ways available for me to meet them. And that I'm deeply cared for by life itself. And so instead of being stressed, I become curious. I wonder how will the magic unfold…
It is very clear to me that this doesn’t mean that I am to sit and do nothing, waiting for others or some mysterious force to care for me, quite the opposite. It means, to me, that my inner life force is free to listen to my heart’s voice and creatively imagine possible ways of following it ,in my pursuits in the world.
The other side of this inner sense of trust in my safety, is that my energy is released to want to care for and support others by offering my own gifts to the world. I notice my passion burning in me, to bring this experience of living our interdependence to anywhere I go. God, how I want each of us to live in this heaven.
As my first morning in Israel arrives, and the sounds from the street enter my consciousness I carry with me the faces of my friends across the ocean, letting their spirit strengthen me.
Immersed in the beauty of my experience I’m plunging into the unknown of the next coming months.
