The Voice - Part 2

I didn’t used to pray and meditate so much, but over time I’ve found that it’s a good practice to connect me to the Source and my Self. It’s a quiet time to be in that space of mind and heart for even a brief moment. By simply acknowledging my life with its beauty and sadness, I learn to be more often in a state of thanksgiving and openness during the day so that I’m aware of possibilities. If I fill my mind with internal noise and ceaseless chatter, then how can I discern the voice that suggested seminary and the voice that gets me into the shower every morning?

When I’m feeling good, balanced, in the flow, inevitably there will be those moments when I yell and stomp my feet and all good intentions go out with the baby and the bath water. I try to give daily thanks for the peace and love I want to engender in my life and in those around me so that it will go out into the collective conscious and hopefully make a difference. It’s all well and good to say I pray and meditate to find balance, but I’m also human and know that life is frequently dirty and messy. I’m often impatient. I lose my temper from time to time over things that afterwards make me shake my head and laugh at my own foibles. I kick and spit, and that’s okay, too.

The true test for anyone seeking peace and balance in one’s life is the New York City transit system. For those who believe they’ve attained a sense of nirvana-like patience and presence in the Now of possibility, it’s the measuring stick by which all spiritual aspiration can and should be measured. I’d like to put the most spiritual person on earth down in depths of the metro and see how long it takes before they were cursing vehemently.

Last week I was tired, grumpy, and simply wanted to be home with a glass of wine on the back deck. I stood on the 96th Street platform where the local and express trains come together and go off on their rarely merry and timely ways. Delays on the 1 mean that the pile up of express train traveler transfers becomes almost overwhelming, if not overbearing. There’s a mesh-like tapestry of impending doom that falls down over the throngs of people who are thinking the same things as me: I am getting on the next train...no matter what.

I bit at my thumbnail and grumbled: Where’s the 1 train? Why’s it taking so long? Three express trains have shown up in five minutes, the platform keeps filling up with coughing straphangers, and the 1 train’s nowhere to be seen. The MTA does it on purpose. I know it. And they want to raise subway fares and cut service. Here it comes. Finally. There’s too many people on the platform. We’ll never all fit. I’m going to be on this train even if I have to push this little troll of a woman in front of me out of the way – cane or no cane.

At some other time, I might have seen the beauty of humanity on the platform and felt a sense of connection to all around me that would a smile on my face. Not then. My claws were out, ready to strike. I did get on that train, but was pushed up against a woman in nurse scrubs, her face beleaguered. I smiled because when you're smashed up against someone whose nose is close enough to smell the sweat in your armpits, it's really the only thing to do.

Nothing – painting, music, writing, crunching numbers, dressing in drag, or whatever it is that one does in a day – comes fully without practice. By creating a daily ritual, by saying that time be damned, I’m going to have five minutes to sit, meditate and pray, I’m connecting more to Life and its elegant flowing stream and my place in it. There are moments like the one on the subway platform when all my love and good intentions vacate the premises because of dreams of strangling the conductor. I often wrestle with the efficacy of prayer and meditation in my life, but the more I do it, the less I feel a struggle, and the less I have moments when I say, “Humanity…schmanity!”

Sometimes I feel a bit foolish sitting on the floor in lotus position giving thanks for a hedge of protection I want around myself as I leave the apartment and go out in the sometimes dangerous world of the city. Who am I talking to? I don’t have the answer and I’m okay with that most of the time. I do know that when I finish my prayer by giving thanks for another day to live, love, learn, laugh, and grow, I feel lighter. Yes, I’m light in the loafers already, but I’m talking about mental, physical, and spiritual lightness.

The point is we are all endowed with a mysterious gift called Life, and that no matter what we believe, it’s important to take time every day and simply acknowledge the beauty that in an ever-expanding universe, we are here, right now. We can either feel overwhelmed by it, or majestic. The time for personal prayer and meditation on my life becomes a daily moment in which I acknowledge all this. Simply doing that is miraculous and expansive. When I have moments in which I spit and curse, I can remind myself of the big picture of my life, and it takes my breath away.

For me it’s a constant practice, and the more I take the time to set my intentions for the day and give thanks for the things I want to manifest in my life, the more likely I am to be awake if that inspired voice comes again to tell me to call a friend, write a new story, or go for another degree – please, not a PhD! It’s like attaching a permanent cell phone to my head so that at any time, I’ll be there to accept the call.

On the last day of school, a teacher said to me, “You say you’re going to do something, and then you go do it. How?” Ego aside, I was touched by that. As the Rolling Stones sing, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try some time, you just might find…you get what you need.” I don’t get everything I want. I definitely ask and give thanks as if what I want has already happened, but if it doesn’t, then perhaps it’s not part of my path, or maybe I just haven’t given it enough time.

I looked at the teacher pensively and didn't answer right away. I thought about her question and my response was that if you want something, it all starts with intention, with saying it out loud so you know exactly what you desire in your life. The next step is holding onto the steadfast belief that it will happen. And the third, ironically after stating to hold onto the wish, is letting go of it, sending it out to the universe, and dwelling in a space of acceptance.