Innocence

On the last morning of the retreat the meditation was a phenomenological exploration of how we each perceive sound moment by moment.  When the Zoom gods sent us into breakout rooms in pairs I was delighted to see a familiar face appear on my screen (there were only a handful of people I knew in over a thousand participants).  The delight was mutual, I’d forgotten to unmute myself, smiling when I heard her say “Hello sweetheart!” just as I said the same words.

From previous meetings we know of each others’ experiences of traumatic violence - her father assassinated by Mossad, her partner recently taking her own life.  At times this friend has seemed to carry the pain of the entire Middle East, as I have carried the pain of my ancestral lines.  An understanding has grown between us over the years.

When we began the inquiry my friend felt prickly and defensive against the world, against sound itself, wanting to ward off any intrusion, any contact. As we continued questioning I began to hear her voice tone change, or was it just that I could hear her more clearly?  I could not tell.  It was as if we were speaking in Alpine air.  I could feel the qualities of my own voice change in response to her every utterance, as if my voice was evoked by hers.

I closed my eyes the better to hear the sounds flowing between us, we continued the inquiry ‘blind’.  Without the visual input what I knew of her history, my idea of her and of our relationship, my memories of her all fell away one by one.  Till all I could hear was the ever sweeter melody of our voices arising from, melting into a spacious field of exquisite sensitivity and contact.  So pleasurable was this immersion that we continued to speak with eyes closed long after the time for the exercise was over, fearful that our eyes might resurrect our familiar identities and ways of relating.    

I feel that this depth of contact was the direct result of the previous day’s events.  It would not have been possible for me to open in this way while that particular layer of unappreciated scar tissue occluded my heart. 

Together we were returned to a condition of pristine innocence - eyes, ears, hearts cleansed of the histories that had made us forget our original innocence.  Lingering pain had coloured our perceptions, blinding us to our own innocence.  

As Rumi says “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there.”  It’s a beautiful place of peaceful power and delicate sensitivity.  Let’s meet there, often.  On a good day we already do.  Xx