Читать книгу Tamed By a Bear - Priscilla Stuckey - Страница 19

13

During April the Journey process filled a great deal of my time, for in addition to spending twenty or thirty or fifty minutes almost every day in a conversation with Bear, I was trying to transcribe each session as well, which took twice that long. Between Journeys and typing, I might meet on the phone with my few remaining editing clients and then plan the details of the next workshop, the next trip. The shakiness from some weeks ago had passed, but now I felt like an astonished visitor to the world, needing to pay close attention to find my way around in this new land because it didn’t operate quite like my old one.

Even when traveling I set aside time for Journeys, mumbling softly into my phone recorder in the privacy of a guest bedroom or a basement. Bear, I discovered, was ready to offer advice about leading a workshop, and his suggestions always settled me closer to the heart.

“The communion is the thing they come for,” Bear observed as I prepared for a writing workshop in North Carolina. Keeping close to that warm heart of communion, he added, would allow the workshop to speak to people in the best possible way.

Early on the morning of the workshop, huddled under the covers in my friend’s house in Durham, I thought about all the prep work now completed. I’d considered every minute of the three-hour time, juggling the segments once, then again, for the best possible experience. I’d talked through the lineup, timing each anecdote. I felt prepared. The workshop was ready to go.

Even so, I asked Bear if he had anything more to show me about it.

In response, I saw an image of Bear’s head with his jaw wide open, two sets of bear teeth gleaming. They were huge! And sharp! Bear was pointing to his enormous teeth.

What could he mean? I had no idea. Puzzled, I asked if he could show me something to shed light on that picture. Then I glimpsed people in a room playing with an inflatable plastic ball, like a big balloon, batting it up in the air over here, over there, all around the room. Having fun.

This made no sense whatsoever. I figured I must be seeing things—mind wandering, a little jangled from traveling. But I was beginning to learn that images from Bear didn’t always make sense in quite the way I expected them to. So to give Bear a chance, I asked, “What could this possibly have to do with your teeth?”

Instantly Bear’s quiet thought came: “And what happens if you sink these teeth into a ball like that?”

Easy. “Well, it will burst. It will deflate, just like that.”

“Sharp teeth are for when you mean business,” Bear said. “If the topic is light, they have to be used lightly.”

Finally I got it. I needed to have more fun with the workshop, not let it get in any way heavy or wordy. Just enjoy!

That afternoon I cut out most of what I intended to say. I told people not to take the process too seriously—that if they found themselves working a bit hard, just to mentally sit back and enjoy a little more. I watched shoulders loosen and smiles break out around the room. A feeling of zest and warmth then filled our time together.

“Keep enjoying!” Bear said later.

Of course.

“One’s movement is most pure and effortless when it comes from that enjoyment,” he added.

On a different morning of that same trip, feeling off-balance from too much motion and too little sleep, I reflected on how I’d been looking forward to a touch of warmth and bright blooming flowers in North Carolina. Spring was supposed to be here by now! Instead, all I’d seen so far were low gray skies and chilly rain.

“It’s really faith you’re after, isn’t it?” Bear observed.

I thought I was after warmer weather.

“It’s faith you’re after,” Bear repeated. Faith, he said, was a deep sense of the rightness in the world. He added, “Enjoyment is the quickest route to faith.”

I paused. “Did I get that right?” I’d never heard things put in quite that order before.

“Enjoyment is the most direct way to balance,” Bear responded, “to feeling the deep rightness, which is faith. Enjoyment is a direct line to faith.”

Outside the window a bird called and whistled in a voice I didn’t recognize. Later that morning, as I walked through the rolling woodsy hills of the neighborhood during a break in the rain, I spotted the noisy singer. A cardinal, oh, joy! In my childhood their scarlet cloaks had leaped from snowy yards, but now, with binoculars, I could study them up close. Such fat, bright red beaks! On brownish females it popped like a Christmas tree light. Such vivid red feathers! And raucous calls! I listened and watched, absorbed. And when I returned to the house, I felt steadier, calmer.

“This is how one soothes the tummy and calms the nervous system,” Bear said. “Just keep dropping into enjoyment. Robust enjoyment.”

Later in the week the skies cleared, and before I left Durham I enjoyed rhododendrons bursting into magenta and fruit trees draped in white lace.

Back home again, one morning I asked, “Is enjoyment the theme for today?”

“It’s the learning of a lifetime!” Bear replied cheerfully.