“We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time meeting each thing as it comes up, seeing it not as dreadful as it appears, discovering that we have the strength to stare it down.” Eleanor Roosevelt
Years ago, I read a book called Mutant Message Down Under in which the vastness of the Australian outback became the teacher for author Marlo Morgan. She had traveled to Australia to accompany an Aborigine on a spiritual walk-about, a ceremonial hike into the desert wilderness. As she waited to meet her guide at a train station and begin her journey, she turned to see that all her belongings had been set on fire, including her credit cards. Her shock elicited a cool response from her Aborigine guide who simply turned and walked away, leaving her to decide whether to follow him on the walk-about or to quit and go home. Her decision to follow eventually stripped her of all the things she had held dear, materially and spiritually, ultimately leaving only herself to rely on.
Sometimes, it takes an extraordinary set of circumstances before we notice that we are flying in the face of what is true. Like the author, we can pretty much be guaranteed that we will at some point be face with a situation that is far beyond our capabilities and become the mutant message we must learn. We begin our own personal walk-about, often with no preparation or warning, and begin to leave our burning baggage behind.
I’m out in Arizona right now staring at great monuments of rocks and boulders that have been eroded by the elements for hundreds of thousands of years. They are like beautiful geological carvings, magnificent natural sculptures that are still forming, but seemingly impervious to the blistering sun and brutal desert conditions. The fact that they have not moved for thousands of years is a testimony to the unchanging nature of a desert.
I’ve had a chance to take in views of these huge rocks that are intriguingly balanced and whose striking outlines form the backdrop to the limitless desert sky. These boulders are the result of a force called diastrophism – the lifting, tilting, and folding and bending of the earth’s crust by tectonic forces moving molten magma and salt upwards. Although the boulders look like they fell from the sky and got stuck, they are the result of an upward thrust millions of years ago.
Observing these stones that seemed to teeter on their edges, I had to ask myself, what is it that allows them to stay so precariously balanced, to stay where they are and not roll down the mountain?
The secret is buried deep within each formation, as each boulder weighing hundreds of tons has a center of mass that lines up directly to the tiny footprint of contact on the stone below it. This physical property, coupled with their enormous weight, creates so much friction that the rock, appearing ready to tip over, instead stays perfectly stable. If you get down with a magnifying glass and look at where one stone meets another, you will see that the rocks are covered with granular stone bumps that act like sandpaper, interlocking with one another to hold the two surfaces magically in place.
There is another stone structure that I used to observe as a kid, a Buddha statue tucked back amongst the potted plants in my mother’s garden. It was a carefully chosen spot, away from the beaten path, where the air was still and thick with contemplation. Given my mom’s love for Asian art, I believe the Buddha’s presence was mostly decorative, yet at times, when my fidgeting and anxiousness got out of control, she would tell me to go outside and rub the Buddha’s belly for good luck.
I don’t know if rubbing the Buddha ever calmed me down or helped me through the day. I think my mother had her tricks for getting me out of the house before I destroyed one more thing. However, I do remember learning about an Asian temple whose Buddha had been rubbed so many times by tourists that the belly became an area of weakness. In the thickness of mangroves and tropical heat, the constant puddling of water in the Buddha’s belly button eventually created a crack in the stone that split the Buddha in half and caused it to crumble into pieces. Later still, when I ran across the same stone statue in a flea market, I knew that Buddha was probably destined for some digestive issues.
What is it then that is rubbing you the wrong way? Are there things that leave you with a sense of dread about your future or stealing your hope? Perhaps we do not need to burn our luggage as in the case of our Australian traveler, or to rely on the magic of rubbing a Buddha’s belly for our balance to be restored. Perhaps we need to be reminded that our strength is a powerful force that goes straight down to our core position and keeps us in line like the boulders here in Arizona. While those balancing boulders depend on friction and weight and gravity to hold them, a realization that we have a Rock that helps us hold steady can be equally powerful.
Many years ago, after a back surgery, I was sensitive to the pressure of the smallest weight, and even a winter jacket felt like a load of bricks. As my back got stronger physically, you would think that I would feel better, yet my mind was still carrying around imaginary weight – the pain and trauma of what caused the injury. If I saw a person lifting something that my brain said was too heavy, I got a trigger that made me physically uncomfortable. I knew I wasn’t the one doing the lifting, but the sensation of pressure was still very much present in my own head. Even though they were unfounded, those thoughts transferred to a feeling that was still very real to me, and it took a while to get passed them, to trust my stronger back, my new core and center.
Wellness books now talk about ways we can get healthier. A theory of “total load thinking” says that we are the sum of all the parts and remedies that keep us living and feeling good. From foods to fitness, we find that many of the things that are loading up our thinking are also loading us down and can be left behind or discarded. What is left is the stuff that will not slip away down the mountain or for that matter, succumb to some small indentation that makes us crack up and fall apart. We can stand in sometimes precarious situations with confidence and hope, land like the balancing stone, looking out into the broad desert sky and know that our footing will hold in a passing storm.
This is more than just courage. Eleanor Roosevelt said this way of thinking, if practiced diligently, becomes a way of living: “We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing as it comes up, seeing it not as dreadful as it appears…”
If we stop for a minute and allow it, we find a reminder of the core that connects us again to what is stable and unchanging. What is that for you? Will your core stand against your dread or a thought that something is tumbling down? Or could it be that you are realizing that you are perfectly aligned on the tiny, centered footprint of an immovable Rock?