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2.14 Trust of This Kind ~ Finding Inner Courage ~ Mark Nepo
Movement 2: Being the LionTrust of This Kind"To be invested with dignity means to represent something more than oneself." ~ Abraham HeschelThe Akasha FieldIn the summer of 2004, I was in Barcelona attending the World Parliament of Religions. One morning, I was sitting with a crowd listening to Dr. Ervin Laszlo, a scientist and philosopher trained at the Sorbonne in Paris. He was speaking through translators about the AKASHA FIELD.In Sanskrit, the word Akasha refers to a collective presence and memory among human beings. In the West we tend to ignore this idea, insisting we are separate and unattached. Yet there is molecular and biological evidence of our Oneness and how our very presence influences each other, how being influences being. These are not arguments to persuade, but glimpses of the fabric of life from which to draw vitality and strength. It is becoming more and more evident that we have an innate call to find each other and join. To begin with, it is now well-established that when placing two living heart cells from different people in a petri dish, they will over time find a third common beat.Dr. Laszlo went on to describe similar experiments with atoms. Once atoms A and B have been vibrating in harmony, atom A is placed in close proximity to a third unrelated atom, P. Amazingly, the vibration and harmony generated and experienced by atoms A and B is imparted to atom P. The reverse appears to be true as well. When Atom A is left with the unrelated atom P until they vibrate in harmony, and then atom A is returned to its more familiar partner, atom B, the vibration and harmony generated and experienced by atoms A and P is then imparted to the more familiar atom B.The same situation has been explored with meditators, and the same results have appeared. When Archie and Betty, who are intimates (partner, family, or friends), meditate together, their brain waves quickly harmonize. At this point, Archie is asked to meditate with a complete stranger, Petra, and amazingly, the state of harmonized brain waves is quickly imparted to the stranger, Petra. THIS SUGGESTS THAT THE CONDITION OF INTIMACY IS A CATALYST FOR THE EXPERIENCE OF ONENESS. All of this infers that there is a cosmic, unified field of presence, very near to us all, that ranges from atoms to cells to souls. The crucial question, then, is: how do we relate to this field? How do we tap into its energy and resources?As I was watching Dr. Laszlo speak, his words were swiftly being translated in clear booths into four languages at once, being whispered into everyone's ears. I realized that what he was suggesting was happening there in Barcelona. I was part of a short-term community of over eight thousand people from all over the world who had come together because of a common belief in something larger than ourselves. Regardless of our many faces and names, there was something shimmering there between us, like the vibration and harmony generated by those atoms put in close proximity with each other.It made me wonder, hasn't this always been the power of communities of care that somehow break through the trance of their times? Isn't this descriptive of the throngs surrounding Buddha under the Bodhi tree? Or the hundreds gathered to hear Jesus at the Sermon on the Mount? Or the thousands following Gandhi's march of salt to the Indian Ocean? Or the million crowding the mall in Washington to hear Martin Luther King, Jr. give his landmark speech? Isn't this the mystery of self-organizing moments of collective presence?These instances confirm that there is a subtle, if mysterious, presence that cradles us all, if we can access the Akasha Field and enliven it. Actually, it doesn't take much, once we are opened, to feel the pull of things coming together - whether that be atoms vibrating, strangers meditating, or hundreds gathering around an elder's presence. Like someone watching a river from its bank, the current seems impossibly fast until we step down and enter. But in the center of the current, the ever-present flow of life is illuminating and vital. In the center of the current, we are swept along into the very nature of how things grow.How Many Ways to Grow an ArmAn expert in cell biology, Dr. Bruce Carlson, director of the Institute of Gerontology at the University of Michigan, has pioneered research in limb development and regeneration. In conversation, he conveyed a startling fact about the fundamental nature of how life grows. He began to describe morphogenetic fields, a phenomenon that has remained a mystery to scientists since the beginning of the 1900s. In such a field, a group of cells, like those assembling to begin their embryonic growth into a human arm, demonstrate a remarkable property of regeneration. If this cluster of cells is split in half, like a worm cut in half, each will grow into an arm. If two clusters of such cells are joined, they will merge and grow into one arm. If such a cluster is cut into smaller pieces, they will reorganize, find each other, and grow into one arm.The fact of this is remarkable. Dr. Carlson suggests that this is a fundamental, biological condition, More than an analogy, this is a biospiritual property of the very nature of existence that holds Wholeness as an inevitable state and love as a force equal to gravity that, if allowed, will move living things toward that state of Wholeness. This inevitable impetus toward Wholeness informs our many senses of human community as more than a dream, but as part of life's regeneration system. Whether it be family, friendships, tribes, clans, or the complex hives of culture, we are all brought into life with an innate impulse to become whole if we are split, to merge into one when we are joined, and, most importantly, to reorganize and heal when we are broken into smaller pieces.This provides a cellular context for the Christian notion that where two or more are gathered, the Holy Spirit is present, and for the Buddhist notion of sanghas as communities of mindful beings invoking awakened lives more effectively together than alone. It provides a biological basis for how wounded lives gathering in twelve-step rooms or in cancer groups are stronger in each other's presence than when struggling in isolation. It proves why relationship-centered care - that is, the notion that relationships are part of the medicine - works.The mysterious truth of morphogenetic fields implies that it is the social constructs - the complications of our human will - that impede these innate, regenerative forces. It is often the social dis-eases of our will that prevent us from joining, merging, and healing into new wholes.The Four TrustsTrust of this kind - in the common presence of all things, in the fact that no matter how we are split, we will regenerate and heal; in the blessing that true intimacy will open us to Oneness; and trust that what churns up our bottom only deepens our flow - these mark THE FULLNESS OF TRUST IN GOD, which Sufis call TAWAKKUL.I ask you, how do these four trusts appear in your life? Which are your strengths? Which need more attention? What is your history with the four trusts? When have you been aware of the presence of all things, and what has that felt like? In what ways have you witnessed or experienced the mysterious process of regeneration? Tell the story of a "split that has grown back." How has true intimacy deepened your experience of life itself? By intimacy, I mean more than sex, but that safe truth-telling space that unfolds between two human beings when the humility of being alive opens the heart's eye. And tell the story of a time when life churned up your bottom, and how that hurt, and how, when the disturbance settled, you were deeper for it. If you haven't experienced these forms of trust, watch for them and talk about them. For the questions and the stories call them to our side the way native chants invite corn to grow.In truth, our relationship and comfort with these things never stand still. For me, the doorway to my work as a poet was shut until I could accept the common presence of all things. And cancer taught me to surrender to however life wanted to churn up my bottom. And the quiet days on the other side taught me that, when too exhausted to try anymore, I still was able to regenerate and heal. I am here to say that, after much painful churning, my masks have dissolved, and all of it has deepened my flow. And in the days that remain, I keep learning how true intimacy, the art of facing the full humanity of one another, is a blessing that surprises me into the vast meadow of Oneness where the unblocked light brings everything full term.I only know that risking these fundamental trusts enables us to experiment with the humble will to love, which, in turn, gives us access to the very fabric of life. I only know that, without such trust, we can turn blunt and cruel. At the heart of it, that we will fail and fall and make mistakes is not newsworthy. It is in facing what we've done or failed to do and how we get up that our character is defined. It is in what we choose to lean on when getting up that we leave our suffered marks on the earth. I only know that when face down, I have heard the breath of the Universe whisper, "IF YOU COULD SETTLE INTO THE SILENCE BENEATH YOUR FEAR, YOU'D COME TO THE SHORE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH AND SIMPLY HOLD EACH OTHER."~~~~Introduction and Table of Contents - Finding Inner Courage - Mark NepoSee More