Last night, I was down.
My heart was aching.
I didn’t feel love.
I felt helpless about finding something that made me happy.
So I went to bed asking my inner guide to be in charge.
I woke up today, and right away I looked for a comfortable place to sit to meditate.
I don’t meditate to find peace or joy within me so that I can forget the problems I am facing in my life.
When I meditate, I am conversing with the parts of my being that I want to hear from. It’s a loud conversation at that—there must be some parts that are almost deaf.
With firm and loud speech, I ask basic questions: How are you feeling today? Why are you feeling this and that? What do you want to do today?
The inner me, answers these questions with a different tone of voice; it’s soft, slow, takes her time to answer, and doesn’t say what I want to hear.
It’s like I am talking to a friend who I haven’t spoken to in a while, who I have lost contact with and don’t know anything about anymore.
Thinking of this inner “me” as an old “friend,” the first thing I notice is that my friend is weak. She limps through her answers as if no one cares about what she has to say, and I am the only one she ever cared about communicating with. But today, I am listening.
And so, this experience feels very, very strange. It doesn’t feel good at all.
There is a cocktail of emotions:
I feel bad for my friend.
I want to take care of her.
I promise to talk to her every day.
I feel guilty. What have I done? I have forgotten about my friend and now she is not well.
She has lost strength and it is my fault.
And so, while drinking my cocktail of emotions for breakfast, more strange things start to happen.
I put some water on the stove, to make some green tea.
Then, I look around the living room; I see my plants, they need water.
I begin to water them.
I notice that one of them is hidden behind a picture.
She is not doing so well.
I haven’t watered her in a while.
I think to myself:
I feel bad for her.
I want to take care of her.
I promise to water her every day.
I feel guilty. What have I done? I have forgotten about my plant and now she is not well.
She has lost strength.
I don’t want her to die.
I water the plant and move her to the window sill. She might also need some sun to get better.
I then realize that there is a large, white sea rock lying on top of soil, the roots. A rock I found on the beach about a year and half ago.
The rock seems to be putting too much weight on the plant’s roots. It might be getting in way of her growth and health. I think.
My first reaction is to remove the rock.
Then, I notice that I had written a phrase on this rock.
“Hearts pulse with true love.”
I remember what the moment felt like when I wrote the phrase. I was convinced that I had found true love in my own heart. I had written a book with the stories that led me to this understanding. Back then, I really felt like I was finally on the path of the heart, which is paved with true love.
I stand for a couple of minutes in the middle of the living room, looking for a new home for my white sea rock with the heart phrase on it.
Then, I walk straight to the prayer corner where there are objects of devotion: the Heart of Christ, the Bible, a Hamsa Hand, an Angel, a Buddha statute, and mini Old Testament Bible within an amulet. An unused citrus candle is among them. I place the white sea rock in the middle of these devotional objects and light the candle.
The devotional corner feels like the perfect place for the white sea rock, don’t ask me why. I won’t know the answer to that.
I stand in front of the spiritual corner for a few minutes, not knowing what to do next. I stare at the candle flame for a while as if I want it to talk to me.
It doesn’t.
Don’t worry, this experience won’t become that kind of “strange.”
My eyes fix on the bible and I remember Corinthians. My friend Mary and I had had a phone conversation a few days before and she mentioned Corinthians when I told her that I believe in the connection of love and truth.
So I open the Bible on the Corinthians’ page and read a few lines. This will be my prayer for today, I think.
I was baptized by the Catholic Church, but I am not a Christian, and not a religious person.
What I try to live by, in a practical and “mystical” way, is to distinguish what is real from what is not. This can get very complex, so I stop here.
And so, I look for the Corinthians in the Bible. It is easy to find because I had placed a yellow sticky note in the Bible months before after a conversation with the same friend, Mary.
This is getting interesting, I think, my inner guide has led me here.
The yellow note reads: “I love your faith in God.”
The page it is stuck to is: 1 Corinthians 12: Spiritual Gifts.
Strange, very, very strange.
Then, I remember that I have the water on the stove. It is boiling.
The tea is ready.
Today is a different day. But not because it is Sunday, and yesterday was Saturday. It’s different because today, I am drinking the same tea, but breathing a citrus scent that hasn’t been there before.
