Shifting to the Core

by Emma Laurence

If you’re like me, you’ve spent a lot of time with your thoughts.  At times, they’ve crowded the inner landscape to such a degree that you’ve exhausted yourself, become confused and frustrated, and had a hard time sleeping.  They can be of a negative nature or an excitable one; the impact on the nervous system seems similar.

The focus on thoughts in our world today—and plenty of words to describe them that get rehashed on media outlets—creates a loop pattern.  Certain ideas or beliefs run and re-run until a groove settles in that can then be difficult to undo.  Add to this that children take on the patterns in their home, society and culture of origin, and it’s pretty hard to tell which voice inside our heads is truly our own, if we bother to ask.

I have a steel-trap sort of mind that won’t let go.  It gets bored easily, wants to “figure out” everything, and insists it’s at the top of my identity’s food chain. 

I’m also blessed and challenged with a sensitive, empathic, easily hurt emotional heart that I’ve learned to protect and tend.

Yet beyond mind and heart lies a territory that we humans must explore if we’re to evolve.  At the core of any living being is a true spiritual intention that may or may not make sense to the mind and emotions. 

The core intention serves all life (within and without) from a higher perspective that embraces everything below. It’s the truth behind what we do. Like unconditional love, this core can resonate as respect, compassion, charity, or even bonds of brotherhood. It can express itself in any creative form.

I like the metaphor of the shinbashira—the central pillar of a pagoda’s construction that’s built to be movable, like the flexible spine of the human body. The shinbashira is part of what makes these beautiful, sacred structures earthquake resistant.

I also love the French word for heart, coeur, which is closer to the English word core.

The shift to living each day from a central pillar often follows a life-changing event wherein we’ve been “shaken to the core.” Paradigms reverse and perspectives expand. We become aware of a bigger picture in which we’re part of a living, breathing whole.

Priorities flip. Smaller annoyances shrink in importance as we recommit to the love in our lives (people, places, actions, arts) that make life worth living.

The transition is the tough part. We may find it difficult to calm the mind and heart enough to feel our shinbashira or hear our core truth.  Our faith or trust may appear intermittent as we work at realigning with a new way of being.

The current pandemic is more than an earthquake whose aftershocks we will feel for an indefinite length of time.  It’s the best opportunity we have for contacting our core. We’ve been given the chance to ground in our essential (coeur) intention, one that may hold a surprising, primal message awaiting our discovery.

Photo by Francesco Ungaro from Pexels

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When Life Brings More Than You Expect!

by Emma Laurence

Meet Zoey.  We adopted her a month ago after my husband spotted her picture in an online listing. I was making breakfast one morning when I heard him say Oh…in that two-tone descending pitch that means someone just stole my heart.  I stepped over to peer at his laptop screen as soon as I could leave the stove.

Oh, my… Yep, that’s her, I thought, as we read Zoey’s story.  She looked intelligent, petite and sweet.  She was just under a year old; the owners were moving and had to rehome her asap. 

We’d been scanning photos for months, during which time we’d met two cats that were not a match.  We wondered when our cat (or small dog) would appear.  That afternoon, honoring social distancing with the humans, we picked Zoey up and brought her home. 

Zoey needed a few days to get used to us, but she never hid in fear.  She loved the sliding glass doors to the backyard and the many windows of our townhome.  We played laser light tag with her and provided plenty of space/time to adjust.  After a few weeks, she made a habit of jumping onto my lap every time I sat on the couch.

Then an unexpected development unfolded.  I had occasion to lift Zoey off a forbidden piece of furniture when I noticed she seemed heavier than before.  She’d been eating plenty in the transition from dry to canned food.  Yet she carried this extra weight in her lower belly, and I got the distinct impression she was pregnant. 

I texted the previous owner, is it even possible that… was she perhaps in contact with…?  Answers came back with a sincere apology.  Yes, it was “possible.”  There had been a male cat in the household at one time, but they’d had no idea.  Did we want help finding a new home, or did we want to return her? 

Nope.  We just wanted to know whether to follow through.

With the current pandemic, Dr. Ricci was only seeing urgent cases, but she agreed to an office visit so we could confirm.  While she couldn’t feel individual kittens yet, she was 90% sure we’d have a houseful in three weeks.

Oh, what a perfect spiritual set up.  From the moment we laid eyes on Zoey, we knew she was part of our family.  We just didn’t know she’d bring a whole family with her! And though we didn’t ask for kittens (as my brother-in-law said, say goodbye to 2am), we’re excited.  It’s an ideal time for hilarity and joy that we could never have planned.

Zoey expands our hearts’ capacity and stretches our ability to flow with life’s unexpected surprises.  Life will have Its way.  True and wise abundance brings gifts in all forms that we can trust are just right for us, right now. 

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Lie Low to the Wall

by Emma Laurence

The deep and far-reaching impact of our planet’s pandemic drove itself into my mind and emotions these last two weeks—boring holes into old traumatic tissue. 

Have you ever experienced a kind of loneliness in which you crave compassion?

I simply wanted to know that another human being, at any point in history, experienced a similar suffering.  During this painful process, I sought uplifting, comforting words. 

As often happens, Life provided an unexpected gift.  A poem by John O’Donohue, 20th century Irish poet, philosopher, priest, and Celtic spiritualist, entered my email box via someone I don’t even know.  It read:

This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.

These words shook my world with profound relief.  They gave me permission to lie low, arrested my heart-scraping self-talk, allowed me to remember who I am, and invited me to accept my own hesitant light.  They supported my generosity. 

I remembered the feeling of new beginnings, fresh air, hope and promise.

Shortly thereafter, pressures lightened a bit.  I found myself able to enjoy cleaning my home, something I’d previously had no motivation to do.  I rearranged my office, cleared my desk, and finally put up the acupressure poster that had lain curled up in a corner. 

I slowly began to release torturous self-judgments and to re-engage what I believe to be true—that everything is happening just the way it should. 

It’s essential to note that tending tasks was now done very, very slowly.  I moved in slow motion, breathing deeply as I worked, paying attention to my body, surrendering the need to think, letting the emotions rest. 

In essence, I was lying low to the wall and in gentle motion, at the same time. 

I’m finding this way of “working” so pleasurable.  It is low stress and invites ease.  It’s inclusive and accepting.  It feels both effortless and fulfilling.

While I, like many who want to serve in these times, may not know what steps to take to be more available and helpful, there is an ever-so-slight fragrance in the air, as if a sweetness is coming soon.

I welcome the changes we’re creating, even now, to unite us in new ways for the good of all. Many kindnesses will rebuild the fabric of our community in bolder colors. 

I choose to embrace the new harmonic resonance that’s calling us to be the best we can, to do the best we can, and to love the gift of life, truly.

photo by Pixabay

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How Social Distancing Can Bring Us Closer

by Emma Laurence

This week, as I ventured out for essential errands, I noticed a phenomenon caused by social distancing.  People may be staying six feet away, but they’re looking me in the eyes. 

Have you noticed this, too?

I often hear within this mutual recognition of a smile or nod, I’m OK.  You OK? Good.  We’re both good. Sometimes the look says, This is wild, right?

The recognition of one another as alive and well is a welcome shift.  There’s a feeling that we’re all in this together, and we’ll get through this, even though it may get more challenging before it gets easier.

My husband and I chatted with a woman from North Dakota as she helped us custom order a gluten-free pizza at the deli.  She reminisced of the days when kids were simply thrown out the back door to go play in the dirt.  Now when her grandkids visit, they say to her, We know, Nana.  Where’s the basket… where they leave all electronic devices at the door.  They run out back to play beanbag toss, or do art projects and baking indoors.  By the time the visit is over, they don’t want to go home. 

Let the kids eat some dirt and worms, she added.  Then they’ll be healthy.

We haven’t had a crisis like this in nearly twenty years—the kind that touches the whole world and changes daily life.  Long lasting changes will come from this, too.  Perhaps more of our freedoms will be taken away in name of safety, security and health.  Maybe more of us will get involved with democracy rather than assuming the government will take care of us.  Or we may awaken to the reality that we’re all connected and begin to take more responsibility for ourselves, more stewardship of other life forms on the planet.  We’ll see.

But we do have an unprecedented opportunity to trade in entitlement for gratitude.  What a shift that would be in our country if gratitude took hold. 

A pandemic can help us be grateful for the time we do have in the company of family and friends, grateful for the hugs in greeting that we used to take for granted, grateful for any occasion to gather in one place at one time.  Meanwhile, there’s an opportunity to see one another in the virtual landscape.  It’s not the same, vibrationally speaking—anyone who has Skyped with a spouse overseas or a grandchild across the country knows that—but it is being together in time. 

We will each experience this period of history in our own way.  We have choice in how we respond.  We can be an uplifting presence no matter the circumstances, draw our loved ones closer in our hearts, and give more charity to all.

(Illustration: Ari Saperstein for LAist)

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