Desperation

Desperation came to the seeker,
Who in all his focus
Lost sight of his bliss…

A strong voice became as soft
As the petal of the lotus,
And light grew within…

Fire burned within his eye.
Seeing tones of grey,
Water cooled his tired mind,
Washing fears away…

A calmer voice in his throat
Became as what it had seemed;
Beautiful silence only sought
By those who care to dream.

 

 

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It was in my junior year of college when I first began to meditate; in the eastern sense anyway. I remember that at first, it felt much like the Christian prayers my mother would have me say as a youngster before bed. These meditations too were complete with random forays into mindless rumination about nothing in particular.

 

Both reflective modalities provided a meandering riverbed for my flowing stream of consciousness. The trick was maintaining on course. It was about that same time that I first began to value the undeniable effects of stress on my body and mind.

 

Like most of my contemporaries the majority of my time as an undergrad was spent trying to figure myself out.  I was just starting the struggle to understand the world around me.   Some peaceful deep breathing was probably the healthiest of my coping strategies. The practice continues to help. Often still, like a diver adjusting his depth in the water, when I need to regulate my psychic buoyancy, I sit quietly and alter my breathing in an attempt to balance myself in time and space. One foot in the future, one foot in the past, and body steady in the present.

 

This morning was one of those times that self regulation was called for…

 

I walked down the well worn footpath to the sand at the water’s edge, and sat quietly. I’ve found that it’s always easier to collect myself when I am inspired by a natural view. As I settled in, waves of unnamed restlessness and irritation were crashing over and over again in my head. When the frequency and amplitude of these waves increase, I find it harder and harder to get back to the safe harbor of a quiet mind. I tried to synchronize my respiration to the lap of the warm water breaking against the rocks, and rushing over the sand by my feet.

 

Between internal screams of frustration, I began to regain calm. I noticed the client Tom making his way down to the beachfront. He seems to spend an inordinate amount of time down on the dock. Whether it be reading a book, writing into his journal, or just sitting under the cover of a white canvas umbrella; he’s always reflecting on this water.

 

Thomas Djarvek is sixty six year old retired army captain, turned landscape architect from Arizona. He found his way to the hospice, after brachytherapy, surgical resection, and a course of chemo, and biologic treatments failed to quell a progressive prostate cancer. The multifaceted attack on his cancer was profoundly successful in making him a frequent flyer at his local oncologist’s office.

 

Tom had struggled with many things in life, and now the repercussions of past battles were somehow influencing the ones he was facing now. Part of his past medical history involves toxic exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. Now he was one of the ill-fated tens of thousands to be feeling its devastating effects some forty years later.

 

“Agent Orange” was the handle given to one of the weed-killing chemicals used by the U.S. forces back in the days of its use. For over ten years, it was haplessly sprayed from planes, helicopters, and spray packs to clear dense Vietnamese jungles. This was in an attempt to remove leaves from the thick foliage that enemy troops hid behind. One of the chemicals in this deadly mist contained dioxin, a particularly nasty carcinogen that has since been related to several types of cancer and other maladies. Tom is of the minority of effected veterans who actually receive the VA benefit for the suffering related to his exposure to war. It was hard for them to deny his individual claim; after all, as a chemist he had been one of the unlucky servicemen enlisted to prepare the devastating cocktail.

 

Being the intuitively warm and social guy that he is, Tom made his way over to where I sat … “I don’t mean to intrude Mark, but I could see that your aura was off at breakfast this morning; everything alright?”

 

I hesitated for a second; after all I was rather surprised that he could recognize my inner discontent… “Yeah, I think so; I can’t quite put a finger on what I am feeling. I came down here to sort myself out a bit…try to give it a name or something…”

 

Tom replied with a modest and knowing grin , “I know how it is man, I do the same thing; couldn’t be a sweeter place to turn your focus inward… Just gotta keep track of your time in the sun, double edged sword for us gringos. That shit will give you cancer you know…” I looked over at him and smiled while holding up the sandy bottle of Coppertone.

 

“Tom, you’ve been here for over a month now, looking around it may seem like a stupid question, but are you glad you came?”

 

“Absolutely, my pain was getting terrible at home, and I couldn’t work anymore. It forced me to go to see the doc way too often…I was losing track of myself as ‘Tom the successful and happy landscape architect’, and was beginning to identify myself by my cancer. Everything that I was doing was becoming centered on it. I was tired of the amount of attention my God damned prostate needed; it was beginning to feel like being back with the ex- wife…” We laughed…

 

He continued, “plus every hospital, clinic, and support group that I went to was filled with guys that all looked like my friends down there at the VFW. I couldn’t help but feel responsible for all that suffering ; nope, way too much…” he hesitated. “I mean fuck, after all, I was the guy that mixed the shit up over there. I had to get rid of triggering those awful thoughts, I’d tried everything else, only thing I could do was get away.”

 

“How are you doing with it so far?” I asked

 

“Well, I realized that the triggers are everywhere, in the trees, on the boat, in my mind… I’ve tried to forgive myself for what happened, but this sadness lives on a different level, it always has…It won’t die. It won’t go away… In some ways, I think my mind is convinced that it’s committing suicide whenever I try to forget what happened. Seems like the memory itself has some notion of self preservation… It really is psychic torture.”

 

“What helps you breathe easier?” I followed…

 

Tom thought for a minute and replied with a questioning sarcasm, “A fifth of vodka and a big joint…. Well, not anymore… I stopped all that junk twenty some odd years ago after the divorce; but it really worked… until I regained a healthy consciousness anyway.”

 

I could certainly understand what he was saying; hell it was only three short months ago that I was testing that same hypothesis, retreating from my own despair…

 

“What about meditation, I see you down here all the time on the dock; can I assume correctly that’s what you’re doing?”

 

Tom shifted this position in the sand, “Much better for you, and a whole lot easier on the body, never mind the wallet… I started in ’71 after I got back from my second tour. I was living in California at the time and there was a lot of this ‘new age’ mumbo jumbo floating around. I got into transcendental meditation for a while -then some Kundalini yoga. I even found myself at an ashram weekly getting advice from some knock-off guru. As it turns out, none of that stuff ever had the same effect if you were also stoned out of your head while doing it.” He pensively looked into the distance…

 

“What made you stick with it?” I asked. “I mean after you gave up the junk?” I clarified…

 

Tom went inward for a minute, and I thought he was getting tired of the questions. When his focus returned, he asked if I wanted to hear a story. I turned my shoulders towards his, smiled, and he spoke…

 

 

“Back in the early eighties, I went to India on a bit of a spiritual journey. It had been about a decade since being in Asia, and I thought I’d find the balance and an answer; the proverbial yin to my yang.  I found out some truths alright, but none more poignant than the use of being centered… When I was there, I met this real cool cat in Bombay; what’s now called Mumbai… I’ll never forget his mug, or his lesson… He went by Ramesh… He was an unassuming guy who was a professor at some medical school over there… Basically he detailed a story about when he was a boy. The town he lived in had a festival every year to celebrate the Lord Ganesh, one of the Hindu gods revered as, among other things, the Remover of Obstacles, and the Lord of Beginnings… You’ve probably seen pictures of Ganesh –  deity with an elephant head… Anyway during this celebration, they would march decorated elephants in procession down the city’s narrow streets, leading them to the town center; to the marketplace plaza where the festival would kick off and eventually come to a close… For years they had so much trouble with the elephants. They couldnt walk them through town. Every ten God-damned feet, the things would stop and grab some item belonging on one of the street vendors’ displays with their curious trunks. A shiny piece of jewelry here, a ripening melon there… Slow and unsteady was the pace.  After a few years of this pattern, it became a joke. The fucking elephants never even made it to the plaza; it kinda blew the punch line, you know?”

 

I was entrenched in the story, and he enthusiastically continued…

 

“So this one day, a sage comes down from the mountains just before the annual parade… The town elders who were looking for a solution approached him. They tell him of the difficult time they are having with these enormous mammals, and keeping them on track… Sure they could throw a dress and some make-up on ‘em, but they couldn’t make ‘em dance…”

 

 

At this point I was trying my hardest not to laugh; but he was so serious about this story…

 

Tom continued, “The sage thought for a while, and then gazed at a tamarind tree that one of the largest, and most wild, elephants was secured to… He walked right over to the tree, snapped off one of the branches, and handed it to the curious giant… The sage suggested the handlers then do this same thing with all of the elephants…Wouldn’t you know it, when the parade began; those elephants marched swiftly, and with more purpose than ever before… They were tempted by their natural curiosity, though always focused on that damn stick… They made it alright; right to the plaza in record time, and with record turnout…Times were good, and again Ganesh was the hero. They partied and the festival was never better…”

 

I sat stupefied, and sure that I missed something in his story… As if the look on my face didn’t already beg the question, I blurted it out, “What does all that have to do with mediation Tom….I think I lost you?”

 

“That’s what I said too Mark.” He encouraged…

 

“So this whole story, he tells me, is a metaphor relating to meditation… Those wild elephants and their distractions represent our clumsy and large minds, always tempted by the next fleeting thought… The tree branches that they clutch represent what meditation  is. A simple tool, always in our reach, that can provide among other things, a ticket to the party. You know a device to re-focus your ever fleeting and wayward mind upon.” He continued, “just gotta make sure that tree branch isn’t a drink, a pill, or some other shit that’s no good for you…”

 

We both had a solid laugh, and then sat quietly enjoying the air… “Thanks Tom, you’re a good guy, a weird guy – but a good one.” I said.