Bare Feet on Holy Ground

It happened again this morning. Deep sadness. Almost grief. So I asked myself, “what is this? Why this grief? Why this sadness?”

These same emotions churned deep inside me all my life. When I was younger, I’d salve that pain with some sort of religious practice. That quit working for me. It’s one of the reasons I’ve tried to learn to mediate.

This morning, in the middle of this pain, I heard this phrase in my head, “The unbearable lightness of being.” I never saw the movie, but the phrase seems true enough:

I Am.

I exist.

I am a Being.

And sometimes, simply being is almost unbearable.

There’s this scene in the Bible, in the book of Exodus, where a dude named Moses has an encounter that changes him. He’s out in the desert, watching sheep and – as best as I can figure – not doing much else.

He’d been raised in a royal household with all the rights and privileges that accrue to royalty. Then he had the mother of all mid-life crises. He killed a guy, renounced his royal blood and fled to the desert. Completely screwed himself.

At the time of this encounter, he’s at the tail-end of his life. Or so it seems.

Now, we have the advantage of looking at his life from beginning to end. We can see the entire story arc. And as shitty as it must have seemed out in the desert, it all worked out in the end.

Moses had to live it one moment at a time. (Just like we do.) He had no idea where his story was going. He didn’t know how it was going to end.

Anyway, back to his encounter.

Moses is wandering around the desert, herding sheep, and he sees something weird. A bush was on fire, but wasn’t being burned.

So he goes closer to check it out and he hears this voice. It commands him, “take off your shoes Moses, because this ground is holy.”

When Moses asked the Being there at the burning bush for its name, the Being said, “I Am.”

Perhaps Moses had gotten into the 1500 BC equivalent of mescaline. Perhaps he was hallucinating.

Whatever.

The way the story is told in the Bible, it was God that was speaking to Moses.

I dunno.

But those words? Those words ooze with meaning.

And his experience – whether real or a hallucination – changed Moses permanently.

We wear shoes to separate us from the dirt of the earth. And the voice told Moses to take off his shoes because the ground was holy. What about me? What about you? Is it possible that the ground under our own feet is holy?

In my past, when that pain would hit, I’d hypnotize and narcotize myself into not feeling it. I wanted to avoid the unbearable pain that comes from simply being.

No longer though.

I’ve started doing something different.

When this odd pain comes up, I don’t flee from it. I’ve chosen instead to simply sit and observe that pain. To let it be what it is. And in doing that, I’ve made a surprising discovery.

The sensation I described as “pain” isn’t actual pain. Instead, it is an extraordinary intensity of experience.

I Am.

For these brief moments between birth and death, I Am.

What happens before birth or after death? Who knows?

For now though: I Am.

“This ground is holy” were the words Moses  heard. So Moses took off his shoes, put bare feet into the ground, and walked out of that desert into history.

The lesson for you and me?

Get in touch with the dirt and the earth and the real stuff that simply is. Stop separating yourself from intensity of feeling. Embrace the unbearable lightness of being.

Let yourself experience the I Am-ness of simply being alive.

You are not what you do, or who you know, or how you spend your time, or your loves or likes or hates or prejudices.

Just to be here – alive, breathing, thinking, feeling, doing and being – is a miracle.

You Are.

I Am.

Now go. Create. Walk into history.