“It is strange to be here,” wrote John O’ Donohue, in the opening lines of his touchstone book, Anam Cara. “The mystery never leaves you alone.” It IS so strange to be here. And as for the mystery, it has us by the scruff of the neck. Are we carried between its jaws like prey by jungle cat, or like kittens by their mother? On some days its hard to tell the difference. But being here with Viral makes me curious about it either way.
One afternoon, last week, with the clarity that sometimes flashes forth even in the midst of his fever-dazes, he says to me, “You have limited places where you can take wild swings. But you have to take those swings while you can. You have to show up on the playing field.”
Wild swings. Is this whole period a series of them? Is that how he sees this stretch of the road? Talking to Viral in these past weeks has often had a certain dream-like quality to it. This is heightened by the fact that hospitals are not tethered to the earthly rhythms of night and day, and also by the fact that right now, Viral is not moored to time or place in the ordinary way. At times, when he speaks, it feels like his words comes to us from between two worlds. He has always had a unique form of eloquence. That eloquence now, is the same but also different. There is a fluency, originality and poetry to it– these things were there before, only now they seem much less mediated by the mind. He speaks with heightened thoughtfulness, and yet there’s far less thinking behind the words. He is using the rhythms of speech– but it often feels to me, like a form of singing.
When I am not caught up in the many demands of this period, when I’m not devoured by its unknowns, and my own heartache, I discover that there is a quiet voice whispering to me below the surface. And I know beyond my earthly knowings that all is well and all manner of things shall be well. And I find that I am deeply grateful for, and delighted even, by the dimensions that are blooming in this crevice of timeless time that we have fallen into. This beautiful being whom I’ve been married to for almost nineteen years has never been so simultaneously familiar and utterly mysterious to me.
Sometimes familiarity and mystery, play against each other like the facets of a diamond. Each catching the light and reflecting it in dazzling ways. Viral’s body language is intimate to my heart. The way he tucks his chin in and cocks one eyebrow quizzically when he has his reservations about something, the way he wrinkles his nose and smiles with his eyes in response to humor, the precise way he clears his throat before speaking, the meticulous way he cleans the lenses of his glasses, the prayerful way he folds his palms over his chest when sleeping on his back, the manner in which his gaze softens and shines when it catches mine, the way he— I could go on and on. I know by heart the way he does a thousand times a thousand times a thousand different things. But now, in this altered reality, these intimately familiar gestures, shades and nuances of being flash forth, poignantly alternating and sometimes merging with, intimations of something more enigmatic, nebulous and inscrutable.
He is at once both utterly the same, and incredibly new. In this time he has been at once both deeply tapped out — and profoundly tapped in.
***
During the most difficult stretch of my chemo (which even at its most challenging was exponentially easier than the road Viral has traveled,) I wanted nothing more than to just be within the experience as simply as a stick on the ground, or a stone at the bottom of a river bed. Empty of opinions about the present, or ideas about the future. Carrying only the honest weight of my being, and the weightlessness of a transparent mind. Nothing more and nothing less. Watching Viral live through the intensity of the past weeks it felt like I was watching him enter that space of a paradoxically alive inertness.
“Where do you disappear to in those intense times?” I ask him one day.
“I don’t go anywhere, ” he says quietly, ” I am right here.
“Does your mind go to the pain and discomfort?” Guri asks.
“It’s not quite like that,” he says, “It’s just — moment to moment.”
***
It amazes me. The cogency, clarity and insight that has surfaced throughout this time, despite the formidable degree debilitation. At the mundane level there are blank spaces in his mind, that will need to be filled back in, but there are also dazzling connections being made, even in the midst of the storm. Even his doctors are starting to see it. “What I’ve seen in you over these past weeks,” says one of them, “Is equanimity. I don’t come across that in people in your circumstances. And yesterday you said something that really stayed with me. You said you are ‘trying to attune to whatever is arising.’ I don’t have many patients who think like that.”
That kind of attunement, in the crucible of this time brings with it the flame of quiet revelations.
***
“You have certain choices. Is this a period of determination versus I’m just here for what’s going to happen? First and foremost it’s a practice of just being true to your journey. What is it that we are empowered by? What is it that we are empowered by, even when we are being challenged by something, or being driven to do something different than what we wished to do in the moment before? That’s kind of what I get interested in– like, what is the true exploration?“
Do you trust life? I think you generally have to- but you also have to have a healthy ability to go either direction.My natural orientation is towards the unknown. What does it mean to be at the edge of discovery, the edge of aloneness? Things are always knowable to the next level of your understanding, and that edge is not something to shy away from. It’s something to attune to. That attunement is the basis for the confidence to go forward. How do you have your own experiments and learnings that you adopt as time goes on? And how do you make it so dynamic that it’s not about what you think it should be? It’s about what is moving your heart. You value the depth of the discoveries you’ve made up to now. Then those things start to be combined. New combinations and permutations happen, and at some point something new emerges. In this process we keep coming back to some form of experience. Maybe it’s something you need to iterate on for a while. Maybe there’s some evolutionary honing that’s happening in the moment. The process is dynamic and courageous…
Ultimately what I want is to be more of an expression of what is goodness.
***
From a conversation yesterday morning…
What is your spirit doing in this time? Attuning to the emerging nature of things. More specifically, [inquiring into] what is healing? What is the role of the individual, and the role of the collective? And what is the intersection between the two?There is something about living into that, as unknown as it might be. There is something to a playful dedication to this collective set of principles. It feels so satisfying when creativity is there, playfulness is there, and the emergent and collective nature is there. Then we start tapping into the source of things. I’ve also been playing with certain inquiries. How do you receive? How do you offer? How do you experiment and synergise intentionally?
Is opening yourself to receiving the same as opening to learning? Nice nuance there. I think receiving is a precursor to learning. If you’re opened yourself to receiving, you’ve opened yourself to learning and to acting. Your being is available to integrate yourself into whatever you’re inspired to do.
How do you open to receiving? I think you actually have to gauge what your authentic relationship is with that which you are trying to open to. What is it that you are connecting to, and how resonant is it to open yourself up to that.You want to open yourself in a healthy way — not overly opening yourself up in an untimely or unskillful or unwise way.
How can you tell whether it’s skillful or not? Ultimately I guess from your own experience but until then I think from your intuition. Asking 1. Is this worth learning from? 2. If yes, how so, why so, where so?
***
Watching him over these past weeks that were filled with such physical pain, at times Viral has seemed to have the face of a child. His eyes gazing at the world around him, with such heartbreaking innocence, trust and vulnerability. At other times he seemed positively ancient. His face in those moments, the face of a very old man– hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, shriveled mouth. How strange it felt to see past, present and future in a single beloved countenance. A reminder of how we carry it all within ourselves.
***
He is doing better now. What a blessing to be able to say that! There is still a ways to go, but the signs of improvement are many and meaningful. The last three days have been a turning point. He is regaining mobility, clarity and capacity more quickly than anticipated. Today he sat up, he walked, he ventured outside of his hospital room, he wore his regular clothes instead a hospital gown. He was able to remember the names of his nurses. He was able to interact with multiple groups of people, and able to enjoy a small celebratory dinner with Nipun, Guri and I. These are small things at one level, but right now they count as enormous.
“What feeling-state do you find yourself in right now?” I ask him this evening. “I feel deep relaxation,” he says, “and tenderness and the sense of a very clear emergence, and an emerging stability. In an odd kind of way, this time has also been very humbling. Not conceptually but in a more lived way. Along with this there is a strong component of letting go, letting grow, letting flow. There isn’t a defeated sense of, “Oh no, I can’t do this!” Instead there’s an attuned clarity, joy, purpose, interest and heart movement. These things seem ultra important. Not just at the individual level but also the collective one. Why are we attuning together, and for how long? Maybe it’s for five minutes. And maybe it’s for 500 years.“
The Poetry Of 