The Field

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
Doesn’t make any sense.
~ Jelaluddin Rumi, The Essential Rumi

To love someone, with all your heart and soul, free from the constraints of society, free from fear, free from judgment, free from pain, free from misunderstanding. We all strain toward that, don’t we?

In learning to live again after divorce, messages to my soul have been arriving one after another after another. Some of them are difficult, challenging, make me weep in anguish or frustration. Some sooth my soul like balm on a fiery burn. Some make me go still and quiet and begin to listen with the quiet core of my soul.

I suspect it’s those messages that I should most pay attention to – the messages that slide deep into my quiet inner core. The ones that make me go still, and sink deeply into myself. The ones that help me lose all sense of self while contemplating an essential truth, a truth about myself, a truth about the world. Those messages hold my soul in thrall with the essential rightness that I need for learning at that moment.

I also have friends that take me to that field where ideas and language don’t make sense. They are the friends who see clearly in the world, who can say words to me that cause me to stop, take stock, and give my soul another eternal moment of pause to be, to grow, to acknowledge my essential self. Friends like that are rare; I cherish them beyond words, and find myself grateful every day of my life to have found them.

To my friends who are there, meeting me in that field beyond ideas, language, or even each other, namaste.

May you join me in the field often.