The Field of Ease and Peace

I had the kind of childhood that I barely survived. For most of the first three decades of my life, all I knew was a world of struggle that came from fear, despair and deep self-hate, which are often the side effects of childhood trauma.

The first time my attention popped out of the tight and small world of my struggling mind was life changing. Tears rolled down my cheeks when I saw that right outside of my struggling mind was a whole other world, a world that I experienced as Love.

It was at this time I came across a sentence from one of Rumi’s poems, a poem that was so obtuse you could hardly make sense of it, and yet this sentence has been lifted out of it and has spread like wildfire all over the world: “Beyond right doing and wrongdoing there is a field. I will meet you there.” In other words, beyond our minds that experience life through the lens of good/bad and right/wrong, the lens of struggle, there’s a whole other world that is our home.

The challenging thing was, after this glimpse of freedom, the world of struggle closed over again and I felt even more despair because I couldn’t get back to the openness, aliveness, trust, and Love I had experienced. I didn’t understand at that time that trying to get back to it was just more struggle.

Over the years, especially when I read Stephen Levine’s book A Gradual Awakening and had the wonderful grace to spend time with him, I saw that just like the sun in the early morning gradually floods its light over the world, that awakening was slow but sure process too.

In those moments of seeing through the clouds of struggle, I began to realize I had been and always will be resting in that field of ease and that forgetting it was a part of it. And what I needed to do is to recognize, piece by piece, the world of struggle that I took on that put a veil between me and my true home. In other words, be present for the fear, self-hate and despair that marked my childhood rather than falling into them or running away.

Still, I would remember and forget, open to this moment and then fall back into the world of struggle. I can remember during that time I felt a lot of judgment for myself. I would be at a long meditation retreat and when I opened my eyes when we were meditating, it looked like everybody else was resting in that field of ease and peace except for me. It took me years to see that they were at the retreat because they too were discovering how to not get seduced into the world of struggle they took on when they were very young.

Another pivotal moment in my journey was when I read Brian Swimme’s, book The Universe is a Green Dragon and came across a quote that help me to move beyond judging myself for how inept I was at awakening and thus allowed me to relax more and more into the journey of awakening.

“The desire to make us over into Love permeates the whole Universe. We are initiated into Love when lured into the intense pursuit of the enchanted lover and if the initiation is long and filled with doubt and suffering, the learning takes hold deeply.  The slow learner has so many more opportunities to see how shrewd Love can be as it penetrates all his character armor. Such stubborn human beings are the world’s greatest lovers for they have been through an initiation that demanded many resources of Love. They make themselves just as irresistible and intelligent as Love in drawing others into the joy of living.”

If this quote touches you as much as it touches me, then you are part of the slow learner’s club. And rather than being something you judge about yourself, it is an honor to be the kind of slow learner where it is taking all the resources of Love at the heart of life to bring you back home to the truth of Love.

If this resonates with you, invite you to listen to my upcoming radio show on Dreamvisions 7 Radio: The Peace that is Always Here. It will air on Thursday, March 20th and 27th at 5am and 5pm HERE. After the 27th, it will be available on demand, along with every other radio show I’ve ever done HERE. Please feel free to explore my catalog and listen to topics that call to you.

Offerings:

Free Live Call with Mary:

Thank you for another amazing and intense free live call. I’m excited to share the details of the next event! It will be called: The Field of Joy that is Our Birthright! We will be meeting, on Tuesday, May 6th at 5:30 pm PST for an hour and a half. We will continue to meet every two months, so keep an eye out for future events!

Here is a snippet of what we will be talking about:

We are living in a time that is superfood for our struggling minds, fostering fear, divisiveness and judgment. No matter how big the struggles of your life are right now, there is a field of ease and peace that is always with you. Join Mary in discovering how to unhook from the struggles in your mind enough that you can rest in the joy that is your birthright.

Don’t forget if you can’t make it on the day, you can still participate by sending your questions and enjoying the recording after the call at your convenience. I hope to see you there!

Click HERE to learn more and register!