Touchstone Friendships

What would life be like if everyone agreed with me and we all got on great? It would, frankly, be unreal and also would any of us really ever grow?

I have a friend who called me this morning and asked me about how my weekend had been. I shared a deep insight that had helped me greatly and had brought me into an incredibly good place and space - it was quite a breakthrough. My friend's response was "that's bollocks!"…

Now, I would feel more shocked if it hadn't come from this particular friend who is a yang to my yin and I choose to keep in my life for his refreshing and honest views which are often contrary to mine. I was shocked mind you that anyone has the brass to suggest that something someone is sharing really helped them would so radically deny it's value.

We bantered about it for a while but we both dropped it and moved on. What was most remarkable to me (with a long history of being swayed by other people's opinions no matter how out of alignment with my truth they might be) I noticed that the truth and the validity of my experience was unaffected by his challenge.

After he and I spoke I then had supervision and described the triumph of retaining my centre and personal opinion in the face of such a challenge and my supervisor described him as a "touchstone"…

What was amazing about this is that my supervisor doesn't know that I recently looked up the true meaning of touchstone for other reasons so I know that it is a rough stone against which precious metals are tested…

… and the character of Touchstone in Shakespeare's As You Like It is a holy fool and narrator that weaves together the story (see image at top).

So my belligerent friend is indeed a touchstone - testing my mettle and metal. And I can think of other people in my life like this too. My beloved is oft prey to tell me when I am saying one thing and doing another - "you were vegan last week now you eat meat pie?" "you are driving at 85 mph!" "you bully that cat, reverend"(I don't, we just have a banter) "you never wash up…

I can only retort that I am indeed a meat pie eating, fast driving, cat berating, housework averse slob (which my friend Lisa says "makes you sound ace")…

What purpose these touchstones that irritate and punctuate and drive against the flow of life? They test my mettle! What is authentic, what is false? What is real, what is lies? What belongs to me, what doesn't? Where am I polished, where is there still work?

As my supervisor pointed out; I must trust these touchstone friends deeply to risk allowing them close. And I do, I trust them, I love them and I thank them… often long before I forgive them *winks*.

Communicating the dancing stillness

In the beginning was the Word. The roundly resonant primal OM that shook life from chaos into order. The Word needed an ear; a heart to hear; a listener. The Word became the media between the sender and the receiver; the first layer of duality; the first veil. 

Behind that veil there is the primordial silence; the Void; the infinite horizon; the wilderness.

Sacred is that Word; the movement of sound; the transmission of That which originally speaks (or sings). Sacred is that movement of tiny atoms vibrating against the ear that hears, the Heart.

I remember a time before I trained as an Interfaith Minister; I time when I knew what I knew and I spoke with certainty. The truth I spoke was mine and I owned it. I was right and I was confident; the words spilled forth spontaneously and passionately. I knew what I knew and I spoke as I saw it.

As if the great Word Itself boomed through me and shattered my illusions to dust the seminary training broke me open; I no longer knew what I knew to be true; the axiom of paradox and parallels; my language my gift and my barrier… shaken and healed of my certainty.

Ordination. The touch of oil upon my head, warm hands on my back, and my internal horizon blown wide open. The wind of the wilderness kissing my naked body, the cool sun shining in my newborn eyes. The Void touched me. The silence enveloped me.

3 years, nearly, onwards and I am finding my voice once more. Finding a language that conveys knowledge of That without certainty. Respectfully finding words that lay open to interpretation; that liberate the spirit of the receiver. 

Paradoxically I am no channel as I speak the Word; for its genesis is within me and is not me. I cannot be free of responsibility claiming to speak what the Spirit has told me. The Spirit is me. I am no channel as I allow It to speak through me.

Wordsmith. Sear not the silver and gold in the cold waters but leave the forms to bend and flex. Words are no longer flat on a page but dance! Conveying the essence of stillness through the shapeshifting forms. A process, a dialogue - no longer simply the receiver and perceiver of the Word but a companion in discussion.

Oh that the still movement and dancing stillness could find their expression in the hearts of a wider audience. This is my prayer. I pray to find expression, to experience communication, to speak and hear the Word aloud and in community and in the nation and across the globe… I pray to find expression that liberates truth rather than delineating it. I pray to find my humility proclaiming my love for this planet from the mountaintops.

I can be still. But the Word is within me, the Word is me, and it needs to be heard.

Amen