Tag: suffering (Page 4 of 4)

Our Love Heals

September 13, 2012 / Tom

Photo by: David N Cooper

When I met her I felt I must be dreaming. I had to blink once, twice, a million times or more before I finally saw her as real. This great dream came true before my eyes, in my arms, now, then, forevermore. I still, a lifetime or two later, have trouble believing what I see, feel, or want to be true. I need to heal.

She smiled and the Sun rose above the horizon, exposing a fog lightly hugging the fragments of my life. I could see the firm ground where there was firm ground, but beyond that I could see a fine, white mist hiding parts of me I simply never wanted to admit existed. There was a fear there, a timely loss of awareness born as she slowly burnt away the veils that hid what laid beneath. Cracks in solid ground appeared as she dusted off those parts of me I had always felt and had always tried to forget. There would always be a shaky patch of ground in the otherwise solid earth, and she sought through no ill will to expose all of it. It was who she was, without excuse or apology.

Let’s not fool ourselves. There is a price to be paid for burning away the shrouds a man has donned in order to find security in this life. Fear shows itself to be a devil’s tool, a torture for the minds of even the strongest of men. Take me on physically, and I will stand firm. Challenge my fortitude and you will find layer after layer of a stone wall built by years of facing the shit thrown at me. Seek to find a trust from me and find a fear that can often create a Mr. Hyde running through the streets of our life. Even the most docile of creatures can become vicious when you touch their wounds, and I am no different. I don’t mean to react, I don’t want to react. Yet I flinch when the pain arrives and I suffer the moment I realize I have reacted.

These wounds are a strange thing. They are there, and they speak whispers whenever I flex the area around them. I’ve learned to ignore the whispers, but they become shouts the moment they are poked. There is my Beloved, running freely in the fields with me until she pokes unwittingly. I react, I pounce on my tormentor without ever realizing who is actually doing the tormenting. It is not her, it is me. I have not yet learned to ignore the wave of pain or the sinister thoughts that suggest she is somehow to blame for it. I cannot stop it, I cannot change it, I simply ride that wave as it crashes all around me often sweeping her up in the carnage. I try with all my might to stop it, but I am no match for the wall of water that has, by now, dwarfed even its creator in size. I simply stand by like a child as it destroys the landscape, ending the run and the freedom as the once-pristine fields become a muddy swamp of lost promise and torturous memory.

All of this because she unknowingly swept away the mist and touched the wound that laid beneath it. The ground shook and the wave came, and now if I am lucky we stand before each other locked in a steady gaze. A part of me feels grateful for her survival, for our survival, and a part of me seeks to protect her from further inundation. I want to take her to higher ground and leave her there, in tears, so that she may never have to swim for her life again. I am unsure and like a child again searching for her arms, her breast, her soothing voice. The tears I cry are hidden by the salty remains of the wave I let loose on the world, but they are there. Sometimes best cried in solitude, other times best hidden, especially from the parts of me that want to let them flow.

I know I have nearly drowned in myself, and I don’t want to take her down with me. I want her to leave, but I don’t have the guts to ask her to. I need her, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars as clearly as I need the breath inhaled upon rising from the wave’s remains. Where she stands is steady ground, and I want so desperately to be there. Yet my feet are stuck in the mud of my own design, and even as she demands me to “walk” I can’t even lift my leg. I stare at her, often hiding the grip of helplessness and fear that dominates my mind. “Please don’t leave me” I utter to her in words she will never hear.

She gives it to me. She gives me her embrace, her breast, her soothing voice. I exhale as if the air itself is burning my insides, but it is not. It was simply holding me up like the man I was taught to be, and without it I collapse into her completely. She accepts me. She loves me. And I am home.

I want her to love me, and soon I will forget this miracle. Another wound will be touched at some other time. Another wave may come, another time of reaching for her will arrive. I will touch her wounds, and a wave will hit me square in the face as she reaches for me. We both survive by loving the place where we stand together, strong and immovable even in the brutal face of human nature. The waves come so that we can experience each other after the crash, and in that experience we are healed.

I want her vulnerable even if she tries to hide it well. I want her to collapse into me after the storm as she exhales her strength into the void between us. I want her to need me, want me, and know that I am there. I don’t offer more than to suggest that I will be vulnerable if only to her. I will collapse into her waiting arms and embrace her with whatever strength I have remaining. I will need her, want her, and know that she is there. The power of that awesome place we stand is found when the waves come, and together we face the storm and survive it knowing something that most may never see. There is a safe place. There is a harbor here. There is a heart that beats for you and arms built to embrace you even when you are soaked to the bone. Especially when you are soaked to the bone. You will find warmth. Yes, you, too, are home.

Imagine such a place called “home”. Imagine even a single piece of ground so steady and strong as to survive all things. Imagine a Love so real as to know humanity and Divinity in the same place at the same time. Then close your eyes and see her and know that it is real. Feel it in the essence of the man you are embracing the woman she is. Feel its power. At that moment you realize that you did not choose it, it chose you. You are powerful and powerless all at the same time just as you are in all of this existence. You fight it in your humanity and surrender to it in your Divinity.

Now you see it. The scars begin to heal. The wounds no longer matter. You freely expose the tenderness that makes you the man you are. You allow the tears that form in the corners of your eyes at the sight of her to freely spill onto your face. You have found your true strength that goes beyond the physical prowess you have developed and the mental rigidity you have been taught. There is a firmness there, on that ground you share with her, and you will not relinquish an inch of it to fear. You no longer see yourself as “just a man” and you realize you can stand up to the wave. True strength does not show itself as that rigid, emotionless, tough man you were taught to be. Rather, it shows itself in Love, compassion, and an unbridled devotion to be who you are outside of who you were taught to be; who you have chosen to be.

Want to know what strength is? Cry in front of a crowded room. Wear your heart on your sleeve. Surrender to the woman who shares your love. Forget. Forgive. Love. That’s where real strength is shown. Remember. Don’t ever forget who you are in spite of what they told you.

Your love will heal you. You love will heal it all. Just trust, and you will see.

Tearing Down the Walls

August 20, 2012 / Tom

∏

Today, this moment, this second, this place in time. Whatever. I feel a disconnect in my soul, and separation from the force that creates within me. It’s not a block it seems, it is more like when two of north poles of a magnet are led toward each other. They are led, they may even connect, but the natural course of things forces them apart. It is not either magnet’s fault. There is no wrong here, the connection simply is not natural and, therefore, cannot last very long. At least that is how it feels right now. It’s like I reach out to my creative force and as I get close some force directs me in an opposite direction.

So that’s it is within me right now. I settled down at the appointed hour to practice the craft I love so much. I want to write, to share the art within me and to make something out of this passion. I closed my eyes as is customary, seeking a connection with the inner force that creates within me. I am not an artist, I channel the Artist within me. What you see is not my work, it is My work. What you interpret and define my creation as is your work.

Today, I can’t seem to find my Artist. Perhaps it is the stress of preparing for another move. Perhaps it is financial stress. Perhaps it is the uncertainty of where I am. Maybe it simply is that I am failing to recognize something far greater than what I think. Maybe I’ve found the diamond but only see it as a lump of coal? Maybe I have found what I have always been looking for and I simply need to open my damned eyes and see it.

So, I open my eyes. Same old, same old. The laptop glares at me. The mess and chaos around me stir up the pot and I feel like I should be packing and not working or writing. I look at the clock, only about 20 minutes left in my lunch before I get back to selling something for someone else. I’ve spent 10 minutes complaining about how little creativity I have today and zero time actually creating. What the fuck is up with me? I laugh at the question.

My phone rings in a text from a rather awesome friend. “What to you like to cook?” I take time to answer. I like simple stuff because that’s what I’m good at when cooking. Make it science and my experiment will explode. Make it simple and you’ll like what you are eating. I smile, knowing that this friend is an artist and most likely will understand this post. I know she will put my craziness in its place and explain to me what the fuck is up with me. She’s undoubtedly been there, and at the end of that conversation we’ll both find something to laugh at in the mix of our humanity.

Again I stare at the chaos around me. The silence smacks me in the face as if to remind me that the chaos stems from it. Ok, fine Universe, I remember the lesson. There is order in this mess, silence in the noise, light in the darkness. Somewhere…find it, search for it, and it will come. Or not. Whatever you decide it will be the experience you are after. You want stress, you got it. You want peace, you got that too. You want war, you will find it. You want to be tested by trust and faith well guess what, you’ll find a test coming in short order.

I sigh. I have to find something to create. This lack of creativity is killing me. I mean it is rare that I just can’t sit down and create something “magical” that brings bumps to my skin. My erotic Self is left basting in a cauldron of apathy and disappointment. My romantic self seems to have been packed in a box somewhere. Jesus, I hope I find it when I unpack. I can’t see a box labeled “romance” or “erotica” anywhere. Damn it, I mislabeled it or, worse, misplaced it! I laugh at the idea as I wonder if I will ever be able to get back in my swing of things.

Well duh, of course I will. Too much travel for work, too many nights in hotel rooms and too little time with those I adore spending time with. I’m not just talking about the kids, I need them around and they just left me. I’m talking about adult friends who understand what it is to be an Artist with a blank canvas staring them in the face. Friends who know what it is like to have to deal with the issues of stress. Those who understand the fickleness of other adults who lose their way from time to time. Ah yes, a warm embrace, a handshake, and pat on the ass and then…

My head shakes me back to real time. I feel my insides being tickled and I laugh uncontrollably. “You moron,” shouts my Artist within, “look at what you’ve created in your non-creative state. Keep being this blocked and you must may win the Nobel Prize one day.”

Hardee har hardy har har. The Nobel Prize? Nice carrot but you forgot the stick Mr. Artist.

“No I haven’t. I’m about to hit you in the ass with it.”

Ouch. I get it. Stop looking at the chaos that only exists in my mind and start enjoying it. Stop worrying about if people are happy around you and just start being who you are. That will make those who matter in the Universal concept very happy and like butterflies they will fill your world with color.. Those who aren’t, well they will fly away like the mosquito you swatted away earlier this morning. The butterflies light up the landscape and fill you with life. The mosquitoes only bite and make you itch for some time after they leave. The mosquito bites remind you of a time when your skin wasn’t itchy, red and swollen. Your bliss. Your butterfly tree.

Now the Artist is laughing hysterically, clearly mocking me in my time of trial. Honestly, I start to laugh too. If anyone saw me they would think I am crazy but that’s only because they can’t hear the joke and I’m not sure many would get it if they could. Still, it is funny to me.

“Who built these walls?” asks the Artist in a manner one could find from the old, blind master in the Show Kung Fu I loved as a kid.

“I did” came my feeble reply. I know what is coming, so I grab my hammer in anticipation. No answer. Nothing. Only silence, not even a laugh.

“Come on, what the fuck,” I shout internally as to not alarm the neighbors to my conversation. I can hear the paddy wagon pulling up shortly thereafter and the rubber room door closing behind me.

“Just playing with you. Seriously, I thought you were going to hit me with the hammer young grasshopper.”

“The thought had crossed my mind, but that wasn’t my objective honestly.”

“Then what was?” asked my supposed tormentor and current Master.

I thought for a minute. I could have either chosen to build more walls or…

“I wanted to tear down the walls keeping me from you.”

More silence. I look at the clock and realize I have to get back to work. More walls. Same walls, whatever. I look at the stuff I need to do around me. Yep, walls galore. There’s nothing like looking at a beautiful rose and realizing that it is what you see that keeps you from it. It is also what you fail to see which, for most of us, is that we have already created a wall from the beauty without even realizing it.

Ok, fine. I get it. What you are reading people is my hammer, and it will tear down the walls. Actually, it already is.

Peace.

∞

Freedom is Not Free (Gun Control is Still Control)

July 23, 2012 / Tom

“We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.”
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

The tragedy in Colorado has surely renewed the debate over gun control and Second Amendment rights. It is also surely going to further divide a nation already fractured to its core. As typical on social issues such as this, I am lost in a sea of what I feel/want versus what I know to be true. Things like this are never easy, and such things often exercise our minds versus our values and should, if we exercise these things carefully and with awareness, leave us with a resolution to adhere to our values. Character demands nothing less.

As true with my attitude on abortion rights (I am pro-life but believe everyone has the right and should have the freedom to decide for themselves) my views on gun control often inspire a reactionary event in those I know, love and/or discuss with. I would shrink from the discussion if it were not so important in our national discourse. My personality and my character simply does not allow me to hide in the shadows. That being said, I am nothing more than some anonymous blogger who loves people and values life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as inalienable rights bestowed upon us all by our Creator.

I feel a distinct and immutable sadness over the death, suffering and destruction created in Aurora. Tears well up inside me as I empathize with those who have lost a loved on to such a heinous act. My heart bleeds for those who were injured. My soul prays for healing and yes, it even prays for forgiveness for the person who created caused it all. Yes, I wish him healing and love as surely as I wish it on the victims. If that offends you, I am sorry.

I am no longer a man prone to violence, and I see it as the lowest frequency of human vibration. I see violence as fear’s lowest low, the moment when our human minds become their weakest, and our hearts lose their hold on the smaller part of us. In that light, I cannot react to violence with violence and expect the world to become a better place for my existence. I must find the strength, resolve and love in my heart not to beat you down but to find a way to lift you up when I feel you have done me wrong.

That is my way. It may not be yours, and I have found it take great resolve and strength to act in accordance with that vision even in the most benign of circumstance let alone in an event like the tragedy in Aurora. I struggle with adhering to this vision daily and certainly know the strength it takes to not react in fear’s grip when it is so easy to do so given our societal instruction from birth. I understand that we are taught “an eye for an eye” from birth, and that “domestication” creates in us a reactionary personality that feels the need to do something when we feel a wrong has been done. Sometimes stillness should be the answer, but we weren’t raised that way as a collective and certainly were never taught how to exercise that restraint. That “domestication” often makes hypocrites out of even the most peaceful and well-meaning among us.

Control is Control and Control is Oppression

To me, it is this simple. The mechanism by which a deranged human being carries out his fantasies is not the issue. A man bent on killing others will find a way to carry out is will regardless of what weapon we put in his hand. One such example was at the Happy Land Social Club, where an angry boyfriend used gasoline to kill 87 people. A difference here is that there is no “right” to gasoline, a gas can, or matches. The Oklahoma City bombing was caused by fertilizer and fuel oil. You simply do not need a gun to carry out acts of terror, vengeance or anger on other people.

So, while I personally see no need for anyone to have an assault rifle, I can’t inflict my attitude on those who do. As a vegetarian, I see no reason for people to kill Bambi at all, let alone with an AK-47. I read somewhere that about 13,000-14,000 a year, far greater than those who are killed by assault weapons every year. While speeding is against the law in the United States, I have heard no one propose that we take cars away from those who speed. They may lose their driver’s license after about umpteen tickets, but they still have their car. Guess what, there is no “right to own a car” written in the Constitution anywhere either.

While this argument may sound silly to you, the idea of punishing law-abiding citizens whose pursuit of happiness involves owning a Uzi because of the handful of deaths committed every year at the hands of assault weapon owners is just as silly to me. If they want to own a Uzi, fine, they should be free to own one. As long as they don’t shoot up innocent people as a result. People should be free to make choices for themselves.

Attitude is a dangerous thing, especially when some try to force others to adhere to their own. Gun control is not about controlling guns, it is about controlling others. It’s about keeping them from doing as they wish and distorting the Constitution to fit that attitude. The Second Amendment is not about bearing arms as part of a “well-regulated” militia, it is about ensuring that the People can both keep a well-regulated militia as well as ensuring the right to bears arms is not infringed upon by the Federal Government (study Tench Cox and the opinions of the delegates on the Second Amendment). Both things, the militias and the right to bear arms, were a direct result of real fears of our founding fathers pertaining to tyranny. They wanted to ensure that the government could not keep the citizenry from both militarizing and protecting itself from a government.

“Another source of power in government is a military force. But this, to be efficient, must be superior to any force that exists among the people, or which they can command; for otherwise this force would be annihilated, on the first exercise of acts of oppression. Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.”
Noah Webster (1758-1843)

This was a predominant fear, particularly of those who fought against the European monarchies and tyrannies. Understand that many Americans did not want a strong central government just for this reason. There was a real fear that everything they fought for against England would be lost by creating a government that could usurp the power from the People. The Second Amendment was considered, debated, and approved under that auspice; the People can fight back whenever the government becomes too tyrannical.

So this isn’t about Bambi, or Aurora, or Columbine. It is about the real fact that we have a right, liked or not by all, to keep and bear arms in this nation. That right exists more clearly than the right to abortion, the Separation between Church and state as well as many other “principals” many of us hold dear.

Freedom is Not Free

The price of freedom isn’t always about currency. It is not always about fighting foreign dictators or evil empires. It’s not always about liberating the oppressed. Sometimes the supreme sacrifice made in the honor of freedom is found in movie theaters, in schools, in dark alleys, or on college campuses. Sometimes those who die for freedom are not part of a well-trained military unit, but our neighbors, friends, husbands, wives, and children. It sucks to say this, in fact it pains me greatly to say this, but we can’t honor those who have died for freedom by eroding that freedom out of fear just because we don’t happen to like something.

Yes, my attitude may be dramatically different had I lost someone close in Aurora. Anger does that to a reasoning mind. Sometimes we have to allow cooler heads to make decisions for us when in the throes of an angry reaction. I sincerely want the person who did this to be punished for his crimes, but I don’t want to punish everyone for them too. I don’t want to allow this government to take any freedom away from you, from me, or from anyone else. I simply don’t trust it enough.

I realize this may create some angry reactions. Understand that it is very hard for me to not only take this position, but stick to it. Stick to it I will if only because I am sick of being told what I can and can’t do because of the attitudes of others. I have to wear my seatbelt (I always wear it anyway, it is the have to I dislike) for instance. Hey, if I want to drive down the road without my seatbelt and suddenly wear my windshield as a necklace that’s on me. And for the love of all that’s holy don’t tell me about the monetary costs created by those who don’t wear their seatbelts. Freedom is not free, and sometimes we pay a monetary price to allow others to exercise their own.

I pray we can have intelligent, wise and controlled public debate on this issue. To me, freedom is the issue here, and what we are willing to sacrifice in the quest for a false sense of security that will never exist.

Peace.

My Garden of Gethsemane

July 17, 2012 / tomgrasso

In my Garden of Gethsemane

I walked along with her

She could not know my suffering

A worm stuck in my own cocoon.

The wounds I bore

She touched them

And they opened

I screamed silently until I could be silent no more.

She did not mean it

She could not see they were there

And I hid the bleeding

Until our river ran crimson with untold memories.

By touching them

She healed them

The flesh, it tore

But allowed the Light to enter.

There are some Souls

Who bless our lives with presence

Who heal us even amid the suffering

Such is Love.

I wonder what wounds I touched in her

And I weep at the thought of the injury

Even as I pray that I healed her too

A reflection of the Light she is to me.

I can see her now, clearly

The clouds of torment gone

The attention to wounds forgotten

Love eternal reigns the day.

In the ending a new beginning

In the loss a prize eternal

I bask in the tears I shed for her

Such medicine the salty rivers give!

I feel her now not through a pain soaked curtain

But through a warm vessel of Light

The Sun, the Moon, the Stars

The Glory of a Dancing Tigress.

I felt the Universe unfold in beautiful awe

As she fell into my arms weeping

Telling me a million stories

Without ever saying a word.

And I heal…

That moment I came down off my cross

And turned it into just another tree

I fell in love with me.

Right there, in my Garden of Gethsemane

Where the Beloved showed me who I am

Right where the wounds became no more

Right were she touched where no one has touched me before.

I wrapped my arms around her

Our sweated Beings merged

I loved in that moment like I’ve never loved before

I swallowed all of her she’d allow me to have.

I ceased to be in that moment still

The final thread of my veil fell away

Or so it seems that weighted cloak is gone

Lifted by a selfless act of Love.

I do not pretend to know tomorrow

There are many crosses with many weights to bear

Yet in this instant I fear no more

I am free in this, my Garden of Gethsemane.

The Pond

July 16, 2012 / tomgrasso

“It is not what you look at that matters, it is what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

…

Love is the greatest source of pleasure and pain ever created by the Universe. It proves to us we are alive, and gives us a reason to look at ourselves through eyes full of both clarity and clouds of tears. It sums up the human experience provided we experience its opposite, and such a relationship between love and fear allows us to know who we are.

In Love, we can both experience the suredness of solid ground but also the impermanence of our own foundations. We can observe the unsteady security of where we stand, and we can easily lose our focus unsure of our own existence. We can seek the safety of the ground while flying high above the clouds, and once landed seek to fly again. We can feel grounded while floating among the stars if for only a moment to realize that the ground is nothing more than a figment of our imagination. The real glory lies here among the stars if only I could shut my mind down long enough to see them.

The mind’s purpose in this seems to be to both define and distort Love. When I see the mind working, and I ignore it, Love stands as the foundation for my life’s purpose. I feel Love, I am in love, and I know where I am clearly and without reservation. When in mindless focus, I hear the voices of the past dictate to me what this is. The mind creates stories, withholds truths, plays games and creates conditions by which Love is, and surely this distortion creates the suffering that only Lovers know. We create conditions, we create stories, we play games and then we suffer from them.

The Pond

So, you come upon a pond. It’s still waters invite you as you feel a thirst within you. You walk to its peaceful shores and kneel to take a drink.

You pause, seeing its beauty you don’t want to disturb. Such tranquility, such peace and such beauty are found in this place that even

Photo by Tom Grasso

through your thirst you take a moment to soak it in. Soon, however, the thirst takes over and you cup your hand to drink.

You break through the surface of the still water creating ripples that extend far beyond where your hand meets the water. You drink, feeling the coolness of what the pond offers travel all the way down into your Soul. You realize now how dry you were, and you now cup both hands to drink larger quantities of water. The ripples are now larger, but you fail to notice because you are now focused on your thirst. Soon, you are full of the water and you barely notice the pond at all.

Your thirst satisfied, you now realize that you are hot from the afternoon sun. You strip naked, and dive into the pond without paying attention. You reopen an old wound on a rock and the once-clear waters are now stained with the blood from this wound. You are now bathing in a mixture of the pond and your open wound, they have almost become one. You splash and play creating some fresh wounds in the process. The pond is no longer a beautiful, peaceful place but rather a place of turmoil and injury. You lose sight of what drew you here in the first place and become selfish in your need for more. The once calm shorelines of this pond are now rough with the wakes created by the action/reaction of flesh, mind and water. The waters once crystal clear are now clouded by the silt stirred from the bottom and the blood from wounds created in mindless activity.

Soon, you are near drowning with exhaustion, and you begin to fear the pond. You barely make it back to shore when you collapse.

Photo by Tom Grasso

You look at the cloudy waters of this now rough pond and you wonder what ever led you to such an ugly place in the first place. You dry off, pick yourself up off the sand and travel onward until the thirst returns. The pond becomes still again, and the silt once again settles to the bottom revealing a calm, peaceful, pristine place. Another traveler will soon be welcomed here, drawn by the beauty of this place.

A Choice

We all have a choice when we find our pond. We can’t help the stories our lives have created in us. We cannot help the wounds we bear from our journey. We all get thirsty, and we all want comfort. Yet, we often find our search for satisfaction creates the opposite in those we cherish the most. We aren’t satisfied with just a drink, we need the entire cup. We aren’t satisfied with the immersion of our Selves into the cool waters on a hot summer day we need more. We aren’t mindful of our actions and the reactions they cause. We forget that the pond has silt on its bottom, and we have our wounds, and mindlessness only seeks to activate both.

We all have a choice to make in our own relationships. Remember what drew you to her in the first place. Remember the beauty of this pond and the reflection its stillness provided. Remember that your story is only important if you make it important; your wounds will only reopen if you push them to break and if they open they only matter if you allow them to bleed.

Drink from the pond with care. Walk in, but do so with peace in your purpose. Sit, and enjoy this place and the moment you have. Allow it to embrace you, to comfort you, to hold you up and offer you a place to relax. When the winds come and the waters become rough, all it to be without your wounds being opened. Sense that “this storm too shall pass” and that what drew you here in the first place will return. Remember that the tears that you shed become One with this pond. Be still as often as you can be. Enjoy.

This is the lesson I have learned painfully over the past few months. I realize that I don’t want to leave this place, that exhaustion too is impermanent. I love it here, and I want to be here in the stillness and peace that Love provides me. It’s beautiful here, and in knowing this I can only ask for forgiveness and healing as I wait for the waters to become peaceful again.

Sister Assumpta – The Story of the Monk and the Scorpion

August 24, 2011 / tomgrasso

When I was but a wee lad (that’s the Irish in me) there were many difficulties facing me. Those difficulties translated themselves in tough times both behaviorally and socially. This was, of course, no more evident than in my school life.

Needless to say, the fact that I was having a very tough time was an understatement. Yet, through it all, there remained this tough old nun (I went to Catholic school) who was there for me in some of the darkest moments of my young life. Her name was Sister Assumpta, and although she was tough I have yet to meet a person who offered such unconditional love to me as she had. In some ways she was a savior to me, and although it took many more years for my savior to arrive, she was there to do her best in guiding me through a time when I was utterly alone.

So, in this post, I wish to honor her, and you, with a story and explanation. The story is one that she told me during one moment when I felt an intense anger and was suffering horribly from it. This moment was a harbinger of things to come, but in this instance she was there to try to light a different, truer, path for me. It is with tears in my eyes with love in my open heart that I offer you this memory in honor of a loving woman who will live eternally in my Soul.

♥

A monk was walking besides a river swollen with torrential rains looking to see if there was anyone he could help. As he scanned the raging river, he noticed a scorpion struggling to stay atop a boulder. It was surely going to be swept away as the river rose.

The monk noticed a tree near the river’s bank that offered a sturdy branch reaching out directly over the scorpion. Without hesitation, the monk climbed the tree, shimmied across the branch, and reached out to grab the scorpion as a large crowd gathered to watch.

Each time the monk reached out, the scorpion would sting him. Still, the monk persisted until finally, after many, many tries, he successfully grabbed the scorpion and carried him safely to the shore. The amazed crowd watched as the monk let the scorpion go, staggered, and fell at the base of the tree surely to die.

“Why would you kill yourself to save a scorpion?” someone in the crowd asked. “Surely you would know he would sting you and you would die!”

“Of course I did,” said the monk. “Yet just as it is the scorpion’s true nature is to sting in fear, it is my true nature to serve in love. We were just being true to Who We Are.”

And with that the monk died, a free man true to his Self.

♥

Now, I altered the end a little to more fit my current understanding. I simply added those seven words that, to me, sum up the moral of the story. What Sister Assumpta was trying to tell a young boy losing himself in sadness, anger and chaos was to not lose sight of the true Self. Even then I understood what she was trying to say, but at that stage of my life I wasn’t sure who my true Self was. It seemed my true Self was the one getting me beat at home, teased at school, and in trouble everywhere. I simply did not have the tools or the experience to take that understanding and do something with it. Frankly, those few moments with Sister Assumpta just were not enough to stem the tide of the raging river within me. I eventually changed from being the monk to the scorpion and back to the monk again.

Actually, in my current understanding, I have always been the monk, the scorpion and the crowd. Those experiences are “who I am” in this lifetime. Today, however, I understand I have a choice. I have no need to protect myself. I have no need to cater to fear. I have no need to worship the ideas of who you are or who I am; I simply have the understanding that we are truly no different except in those meaningless ideas. In those moments when my ego rears up I try to go back to that scared and angry little boy. I see the smiling face of Sister Assumpta as she grabs my cheeks in love to share some light. This time, however, I smile back and tell her, “thank you, I understand, and I love you too.” Those moments of focus are coming quicker to me now as the hold anger has over me evaporates with the ideas that spawns it.

See, the scorpion allowed the monk to be who he was in shining glory. “No greater love is there than when a person dies for his friend.” In return, the monk allowed the scorpion to be who it was. Both allowed the crowd to be who it was. All accepted and none suffered.

I love you. I can’t help it. Even when the scorpion decides to sting (both when I am the stinger and the stingee) I love. As my mind conjures up ideas about you and yours about me, we both love each other in ways we simply have yet to recognize. I have to find ways to recognize that love in myself and express it to you. That’s the light that needs to shine. If Sister Assumpta tried to do anything it was to shine a light for all to see, and I will be eternally grateful to a woman who can still inspire a warm feeling of love within me.

Anyway, I hope this foray into memory and love had some meaning to you. I look forward to seeing your light shortly. Peace!