Wir sind alle auf einem Weg

Oct 2

This blog is taking me awhile to get out. I started it in New York and am finishing it here on a train from Berlin to Munich. As many of you know, I am always trying to push myself to overcome my fears. I try to be as honest as I can on here about my nonlinear route through the murky waters. For the title of this piece I wanted to write “We are all on a path” in German so I wrote what I thought it might be, “Wir sind alles im Weg.” Then I put it into Google translate to find out I had written, “We are all in the way.” Which is also true. I am in my own way more often than not.

The fear I was experiencing last week, as I was anticipating my departure, is different than the fear I have this week, while I stumble around Germany. We can pretend things are back to normal with the pandemic, even President Biden declared the pandemic over, but the residual damage has been done. It’s been years since I’ve been away from home this long. It’s been years since I’ve been out of the country. And to say it’s been an easy road back to opera for me would be an outright lie.

But where is this fear? What does it want? Why does it continue to creep up from the depths of my abdomen and grip me from the inside out? I sat quietly and let myself visualize falling deep into the fear. And here’s my story

I stood on hard rocky earth and took a step forward. I could feel the ground beneath my feet slanting towards a concave hole. I inched closer and took a deep breath as I let myself fall into the opening. Surprisingly, I felt light as a feather as I fell down, deeper than could ever be possible, yet I still kept dropping. I dropped for what could have been hours as the tunnel grew larger around me. Finally, I started to slow and I landed easily at the pit of the hole.

I didn’t know exactly where but I knew my fear resided somewhere here in this dark, cave which in the center held a mysterious pond, maybe 20 meters around, filled with a dark, thick liquid. I looked around at the circular walls rising up to the opening many feet above my head. They were dripping with the sticky remnants of the black liquid from the pond, indicating a previously higher surface level. I realized the entire place was a basin for this pond, perhaps completely filled to the brim only moments before I dropped.

I moved closer to the pond to get a better look and saw that the liquid was moving slightly. Was it liquid? No, it was too thick to be liquid. It was more like sludge or goo.

I knelt down close to the pond and saw that the sludge was oozing from a creature. Or was the creature made from the sludge?… I’m still not sure. The creature looked like a viscous shadow with a piercing eye. I felt the creature's fear but it held my gaze.

“I mean to be here.” I said to it. The creature shuddered a bit as my voice echoed off the cold sticky stone.

“I want to be here.” The energy of the room felt frozen, like a predator before a lunge.

“I came specifically to see this place and I’d like to stay if you’d let me.”

I could feel the creature's nervousness building, the sludge was creeping up the side of the walls and the entirety of the pond slowly began to rise.

I asked the creature, “What do you need? Is there something you’re trying to tell me?” The creature swayed and rocked making the surface rise higher and lap with thick black waves, cresting and clashing into each other. I backed away, inching myself closer to the wall that I knew would soon be covered. I was moments from being swallowed up when I said, “I know it takes all of your energy to bring yourself to the top of the cavern. So I’ve to come to you! Tell me what you need!”

The creature settled and slowed its swaying. I don’t think it trusted me but it had at least stopped to listen.

“I brought you a gift,” I reached into my pocket and pulled out some flowers. I scattered them into the sludge pond but it was like throwing roses on lava. They sizzled and fried as the creature devoured them. Its curious eyes met mine and I dropped more flowers down. It ate them as well. So I dropped more. And more. And more. My pockets were endless, more endless than the drop down to this cave. I generously and lovingly dropped the flowers, blessing each one as I did, knowing I could never run out.

Finally, one flower didn’t get devoured by the sludge, it floated on top of it as if it were a lily on a crystal blue lake. I could see the creature’s confusion so I said, “That’s enough for today. I’ll come back later.”

The fall down the tunnel to the cave felt familiar the next time I made the trip. It didn’t seem, quite so far, not quite as scary.

When I landed, I looked around the walls and noticed a change. I could still see spots of old residue where the sludge had climbed but I could also see something new glistening in the dimly lit cave. There, adorning the walls, made from sludge and as black as onyx, crystalized flowers had begun to sprout up the sides of the cave. I looked back and the creature was there, observing me. It still moved in a careful way, but something had changed for it. It had produced something new, something beautiful and although it was still incredibly frightened, it moved with a fragment of pride.

I felt an immense love for this frightened creature, even a companionship growing. When I came here before I had said I wanted to be here but I didn’t know quite what I was wanting. Maybe just to extend a hand to a lonely being. I reached into my pocket and there were more flowers. I dropped them down and promised to be back again soon.

The next time I went back, the creature was waiting for me again with something new. It had painted the walls of the cave with all the rainbow colors hidden in the darkness of an oil slick. The creature's eyes looked at me with such gratitude at being seen, at being visited. It was still a creature of fear, and it would always be afraid, but now that it had been comforted it could express through that fear and trust that it would be looked after.
I thanked the creature from the bottom of my heart and watched as this frightened being exuded just the tiniest bit of love back to me. I told the creature I would come back again and I will. Whenever it calls to me, I promise to come to it. In fact, I can’t wait to go back. I can’t wait to see what my fear will build for me next.

Fear is really tricky because it can feel so isolating. I’m reading Tara Brach’s “Radical Acceptance” and she says, “In facing intense fear, we need to be reminded that we are part of something larger than our own frightened self. In the safe haven of belonging to others we can begin to discover the sanctuary of peace that dwells within our own being.” So I hope that in coming to this story today you can feel the connection of our spirits. My pockets are still filled with flowers and I want to continue to scatter them for many years to come.

<3 Reb