Desire

I am sitting in the airport in Newark, NJ on my way to the NOE retreat in Bermuda. I have a four hour layover and so have a moment to write.

From my recent dream:
…I cry out. I know the man will hear me and come because He is my caretaker. Even though He is very far away, I hear Him say my name softly… I realize that He is right beside me.

He is right beside me, head pressed to mine, his presence like a hot ocean around my body.My world tilts. And so, I find the place of desire. It comes to me in a rush of sensuality in my body, a shivering that catches my breath. It is unexpected, shocking, a feeling I did not notice in the dream, but experience in the place of my homework, working with my dreams. I am driving in my car on Monday to a Vermont business who is awaiting my presence for an audit. The incongruence is jarring, but I do not jump away. God is anywhere I seek Him, in any moment. For about an hour, I am in this ecstatic state of knowing my desire for the Divine. How do we feel desire in the context of a spiritual experience? It is hard to describe, but it is not base. In our human bodies, we can experience it as sensuality, nerve endings tingling, skin shivering, heart beating slightly faster, exhilaration. There is everything here to desire in this moment including my own inner love, my own connection to spirit, my own breath, my own desire, my own innocent girl soul, the shared world soul.

The feeling stays with me as I greet the business owners in their home. They have the appearance of old Vermont hippies. The office manager has her 3 or 4 year old daughter with her. The business owner reads to her. Slowly the ecstatic feeling dissipates as I review financial documents, tax filings, ledgers, insurance policies; the mundane financial trappings of a small business that teaches children around the country the craft of writing. I listen first in fascination, then horror as the owner moves into her outrage at “No Child Left Behind” (which she says should be called “No Corporation Left Behind”) and what it is doing to our children’s education. I climb up into the mechanical mind. The gears grind, gnashing out the future possibilities in a world where text book corporations dictate what is taught to our children. The revisionists, busily re-writing our history and getting our children “work place ready”. I do not have children and yet I still feel the gut wrenching anxiety and anger at the Borg-like assimilation our young people. Resistance, seemingly, is futile.

Later in the afternoon, I am in full-fledged reaction, projecting fear and anger onto my partner, caught in the numbing, twitching stagger of the zombie that lurches forward knowing only the need to seek out and devour the flesh of the innocent. The desire is terrifying and any “cause” will do to take me right out, up and into the mechanical mind. The world of outrage at injustice. The place where I want to Occupy Wall Street, take action, protest, be angry.

What is so terrifying about the desire? Why do I jump away? Perhaps I am afraid I will become lost in it. A terror similar to what I have experienced going into grief, pain or facing into my traumas. What will become of ME? What am I, if I am nothing without Him?