Читать книгу Tamed By a Bear - Priscilla Stuckey - Страница 21

15

Bear talked a lot about being open. He urged me to cultivate a simple, open frame of mind at all times. “Simplicity,” he said one morning, “looks like a humble station from the point of view of the noisier parts of the world.”

Just the night before I’d done a radio show in which the interviewer was forever taking off into Big Stories and Universal Truths. I’d felt like a herd dog trying to bring the attention back to something simple and nourishing—like Bodhi nudging me patiently, over and over, toward the kitchen, where an empty soup pot is cooling on the counter so he can lick it clean.

“There are places and times,” Bear said, “when what is simple and open is regarded as too simple—and thus foolish. In those places and times, it’s better to be foolish.” Bear added, “Don’t be afraid to come back to what is simple and open because that’s where the voice of spirit, the heart, the Great Heart—whatever you want to call the bigger voice—is found. It is heard as a very still, small voice. That’s a good test of authenticity. Not bombastic, not certain, in that mental way of being certain. Not flying high. But calm and simple.”

Being open at the start of a Journey, I was discovering, allowed the Journey to unfold in the clearest possible way. Any strong emotion I was feeling got in the way of a conversation with Bear, shutting down the easy flow of communion. Irritability, discontent, dissatisfaction with life, dreading things to come—each of them obscured the Helper’s presence. On days that I felt them, my sense of Bear would fade and a sense of vacancy would follow.

But just as unhelpful were overexcitement, eagerness, a feeling of “this is so cool!—I’ve gotta do it!” Strong pleasant emotions would equally get in the way of hearing the Helper. Bear suggested they “can sound very good but again take one further away from that small quiet point of openness.” If I wanted to hear from a source wiser than me, I simply had to let go of how I wanted things to be. I had to be just as willing to hear Bear recommend the opposite of what I wanted as I was to having him agree with me. I had to approach a neutral frame of mind.

For me this was not easy. Not in the least. Bear wouldn’t have needed to talk to me about things that were easy.

I began paying more attention to my unspoken wishes, trying to discern any leaning toward left or right. I prepared for a Journey with Bear by taking a step or two back from all fixed ways of thinking, back toward neutral. Only then would I be open enough to receive images or words that I didn’t expect. I was glad for some training in mindfulness—many hours spent observing thoughts, watching them come and go.

When, after bracketing my own wishes about how I wanted things to be, I actually sat down and consulted with Bear, I was often in for a surprise. Bear might place all the options in a bigger frame. Or Bear might show me something else entirely, for instance, a countryside scene with beautiful pastures, where he might invite me to open the gate I was standing behind and walk outside the fence so I could appreciate a more panoramic view.

“The neutral place is the loving place,” Bear said. “It’s a matter of just being willing.”

Could it be that life was really that simple?