Photo credit: @hillary.hilaria
Lessons from Suffering
by Michelle Katz
An elder once told me, and even more so, throughout my life, several times implied, that you are not living unless you are suffering. In my youth, with my big smile and almost annoying optimism, I refused to believe her. In my late teens and early twenties, I found myself called to Buddhism, recognizing that I related so deeply to the four noble truths and the eightfold path. The first noble truth clearly stating, “there is suffering.” A familiar statement. However, this offered a little more wiggle room for other experiences as well. I suppose this truth of suffering became more and more clear to me with every big life transition. Though I remain adamant in my belief that life is not all suffering, it is an ever changing movement of many experiences: suffering, ease, joy, sadness, grief, love, and the endless spectrum between and beyond all these. How we meet all this informs our living.
Every year, around this time of year, I take a very particular walk. As the nights are long and dark and the sun slowly crawls its way back to us, I think about what it is that I intend to release, and what I wish to invite in for the year to come. On this walk, I contemplate, one intention at a time. I name one, I hold it thoughtfully, feeling if that intention is accurate for me with each step. If it is, I find a rock or stone that I feel embodies that intention. I pick it up and carry it with me for a time. As the next intention comes to me, I repeat the process, collecting about six stones, three to release, three to grow.
A Santa Fe snow storm came through this year, one we have been waiting for, and the sheets of white that have covered the landscape seem to shine and quiet the world. There is a mysticism in the blanket of white, like something out of a dream, there is this sense of wonder and awe that comes over me and this dreamy state is how I entered into this practice.
All this made it quite challenging to find intention stones. I found myself collecting the rocks at the roots of the juniper trees whose thick layers of branches have left small patches of earth beneath them bare and protected from the snow. The soil below is dark and damp but exposed and the home of many small stones. It became my practice to kneel down below the branches, crouching and tucking in, humbling my head to earth, getting close to the roots. I could not help but contemplate this repeated and necessary action for this task. I had to look toward the roots of what has grown in my life: my holding of my lineage, the dark unexposed parts of self that still feel the cold and wet of the world, the origins of my stories.
I began with what I wished to invite, what I wish to grow. First, the intention of love. Love in partnership and community, a sense of connection and belonging, a knowing that I can witness the evolution of a life and be witnessed in the evolution of my life, and be encouraged and challenged to do the good work we can only do together toward becoming who we are meant to be. A small red stone felt right for this. I picked it up and carried it in my hand. Then came the intention of good health, represented by a white stone that joined the red in my hand. Then, a life in balance, a multicolored stone shaped to a point, and I carried them all. Held them up in my palm, sometimes to my heart, repeating these three intentions as I walked on.
And because things are not all wonderful, because there is suffering, and the last year was not devoid of this truth. It came time to acknowledge the other side, the things I wish to release. First came dis-ease, the ways in which depression and anxiety show up in my life, the ways that certain moments of social awkwardness and discomfort in my body has me lose sight of the person I am, the ways that I can get caught in either/or thinking and not see the whole wild and wonderful spectrum of this world, represented by a large black and white rock holding this story. Then, brokenheartedness, with the symbol of a half heart shaped maroon and black rock. Then, the abandoning of self for others, all in a small black rounded square rock no larger than a marble.
I carried on in my walk, thinking of each of these powerful intentions, taking them for a walk, as if they were each a loyal sweet companion. Oddly enough, I noticed that I had unconsciously carried the rocks in separate hands. In one hand, the growth intentions and in the other, the give away intentions. I immediately came to cup my hands together, holding all six stones toward my torso, having them meet each other in the sandwiched shelter of my hands. The wet and the cold seeping slightly through the layers of my mittens. I chuckled at my love for mittens, not only because they are just so delightfully innocent and playful (which we adults all need a little more of) but more so, because I believe that the digits together create a supply of warmth that cannot be comparable to a situation in which they are seperated. Together the the things that are hard and the things that are beautiful sat in my hands, sharing space, meeting each other, rubbing up against each other, and getting warm.
I found my way to an overlook. I placed the stones in the snow, looked out across the vast landscape. One by one, I took the stones that represented the intentions for release and I named them and threw them into the abyss, with all the force in me. I watched each one take their own flight into the air and journey down with their full weight, to land in a place I will never know. (I wish I had a better throwing arm at times like these.) I came to the ground and whispered, “may these stories I have held take new form in me.”
I collected my growth rocks. Still holding them with both hands, feeling the difference in weight but the increase in moisture from their time in the snow. I thought of how it can become so easy to know ourselves through our hardships. How we can come to define ourselves by what we have endured. I so wish for these stories to change their meaning for me, to become transformed by them, while not becoming victim to them. To continue to know and nourish my strength, courage and incredible resilience.
I made my way to the lowest ground, to the arroyo, wanting to bury my growth rocks here so that they had endless sky to grow into, and that come spring they can feel the water flow over them and offer some nourishment and movement in their coming to be. I found soft exposed ground by three juniper trees. I dug into the earth, three small holes, mimicking the shape of the surrounding standing trees. Naming each rock, I placed them one by one into one of the holes. Love, Health, a Life in Balance. And one by one, with my bare hands taking in the wet soil in every wintered dry crack and underneath each manicured fingernail, I covered them with soil, whispering, “ May you grow well. Take Care. Find your way into being.” I stepped back, as far as I could, to gain perspective.
As spring comes, the flowing of water could have all things find their way to this arroyo. I wondered if what I threw out into the abyss, just further up the way, would find its way to this part of the arroyo. If, somehow, once again, that which I released would share space with what I wish to grow. Smiling at the thought. Yes, there is suffering, this is an element of being alive, and suffering moves, flows into and with all the other parts of life, making the sweet parts, oh so sweet. It is in the meeting of all these experiences that we come to know ourselves again and again. The sky grew darker, I stayed with it a bit and then I found my way home.
What are you letting go of and inviting in this year? How do you meet all the elements of your life? Connect with nature to help inform you in answering life’s questions. Check out Oak Counsel’s programs and offerings!