First, as I read Br. David’s article I had to stop and let it just sit with me because it filled every cell of my body with joy. Every part of me understood, at a deep level, the truth of what he wrote and exalted in it.

I also took great comfort in his friend’s recounting of his peak experience and in the fact that he admitted it terrified him. I had a peak experience several years ago that felt very similar to the one described ,which also terrified me – terrified me in that I could be so all encompassing and so nothing at the same time. Yet from that experience came something beautiful. In the months that followed, and still to this day, I carry the knowledge deep in my bones of how connected everything is. How connected absolutely everything is.

I am grateful to this community as it gathers to share this on-line experience. I am grateful for each story written here and for each one that is not written here, but lives in someone’s heart.

I loved this session for reminding me of this holy ground we walk upon. Loved being reminded that we are both spirit and flesh and to live upon this is earth is to be both. Here is the ending of a poem I wrote years ago … it could have been called holy ground.

…Better for me to walk through dry grass
dusty bare feet
pressed warm against the earth
sun on my neck.
Better for me the ripe fruit
berry stained hands
the shimmer-shine of breathing
the thump-thump-thump of meaning.

When I stopped begging
When I started moving
the whole world
the great delight of it
the wild parade of living things
right there
right here
all of it
showing up for me.

And me
how I really am
finally
showing up for You.

I feel that I am on journey that more closely resembles Mary Oliver’s poem ‘Journey’. ‘… determined to save the only life you could save.’ I have spent a lot of years caring for other people – listening to their stories, absorbing their pain, soothing their hurts- offering safety and comfort and welcome. It was my life and I loved it. To this day strangers at parties or sitting next to me on a bus will tell me, without prompting, their stories and I listen and I am grateful that I am a safe place to rest, but I am tired now.
The glimpse on the road for me is of deep rest – a silent coming back to myself. I need to empty out, to release with love all the stories I’ve carried for other people so that I can hear my own. My own heart beating; my own breath shimmering in the air.

The word wholeheartedness, for me, embodies an idea of stillness that is deep and rich and saturated like the pause before someone tells you something important. It requires an expansive form of listening. A listening that begins deep in the heart and moves out to embrace everything. And trust, wholeheartedness, means trust -needs trust. To enter the world wholeheartedly we must trust.
I don’t do this often enough. I enter the world closed, protected, invincible. Of course, there is no invincibility I know this, but how tempting is it to believe there is?

It seems so many participants in this workshop are here because we have reached some form of Finisterre in our lives, and we are looking for a way to bring the next thing into being. At least that is true for me.
When we come to this kind of crossroads- this kind of shoreline -it takes great trust and courage to both let go ,and at the same time, allow. Letting go of what has carried us and allowing what may come. For myself, a sense of urgency and need to be active in the process always rises to the surface creating anxiety and fear. It takes me a bit of time to remember how to ease myself into a new place.
Mentally I will tell myself – ‘all you need to do is just show up, that’s all you need to do- once you show up then just do the next thing’.
Emotionally I soften- instead of going to battle with my fear by forcing it into the background I am gentle with myself- I allow my fear room in me, but not ALL the room in me.
Physically, and this is such a simple yet effective thing, I feel into my feet – how they rest upon the ground holding me here in this space- trusting they will move me forward when the time is right.