Everyone’s experience with the pandemic is unique, but for some of us, one of the gifts of the current global retreat is the experience of slowing down, an opportunity to become present, to discover who we are. We lose so much in all our doing—mostly we lose ourselves. One of my therapy clients, expressing her feelings about how her life has changed so dramatically since the pandemic, made this comment: “My life has become unfamiliar to me.” Our outer lives may become almost unrecognizable, but who we are always remains the same. This mandatory seclusion can be an opportunity to become familiar with the unchanging core of our being.
Like other areas, Hawaii, where I am living is shut down, but there is a secluded beach trail known as the ‘fisherman’s trail’ that is still open. It follows the rocky coastline along the water’s edge. My sister, who is an avid mountain climber, is living in an area where she can still roam around, climb mountains and explore the wilderness. I wish I had more room to roam, but I have my one little trail and the more present I am, the more I realize it is always a new trail. It is never the same—the sky, the ocean, the rocky shore, the wildlife are always in flux. Yesterday was bright and sunny, today is windy, and the deep blue ocean is stirred up with whitecaps. Another day the sky is filled with clouds, the ocean gray and calm. In one area, sea turtles gather like rocks resting motionless on the black sand. A variety of unique bird songs fill the air. Our lives are like this ever-changing trail—the body with its trillions of cells, the thoughts, the emotions are constantly in flux. Discovering the still, changeless center is our evolutionary journey.
Recently, I saw a documentary on Jane Goodall, who studied chimpanzees in the wild in Africa. For years, she silently and patiently observed them in their natural habitat. Gradually, they allowed her to come within close range. She became intimate with their behavior due to her extraordinary gift of stillness and presence. Following her example, can we slow down enough to become intimate with our own lives?
By now, we have all heard the term mindfulness, even if we aren’t Buddhist. Mindfulness techniques seem to have penetrated every aspect of society. I teach them to my therapy clients. But mindfulness as it’s commonly used in the West—as a tool to feel less anxious, or to improve performance—is only part of the story. To be truly present requires an inner transformation, an awakening to a new way of being, a shift in consciousness. As long as there is a “me” being mindful, there is duality, separateness. Mindfulness is the awareness that our life is living itself and we are the ever-present witness. It is experiencing every breath, every step as a sacred gift of grace. For many of us, the pandemic offers an opportunity to cultivate the ability to be here and now with what is happening in our inner and outer worlds. This is the purpose of the spiritual path.
Someday, the world will open up again along with the beaches and trails here in Hawaii. But for now, I’m traveling the ‘fisherman’s trail,’ observing my internal landscape and discovering who it is that’s witnessing it. Like Jane Goodall observing the chimps, this requires slowing down and being present for all the subtleties.
Observing the sea turtles is easy, as, unlike Jane Goodall’s chimpanzees, they lie motionless in the sand for hours. Their perfect stillness invites you to slow down and experience your own inner silence. I sit with them for a long time. Finally, one of them slowly lifts its head a few times, then gradually turns its large body carrying its shell with distinctive geometric design on its back. Crawling painstakingly toward the ocean, resting for several minutes along the way, it finally reaches the water’s edge where it disappears from view as the waves carry it out to sea.
There is no need to rush. Where were we all going in such a hurry before the pandemic caused us to slow down? To some other non-existent future place and time beyond the here and now? As we navigate the pandemic with all its uncertainty, can we allow it to teach us to connect with our inner self that is always present and unchanging?
BE WELL.
