I Really Wanna Know You*

Hi, everybody.

I drive by Theory Wellness daily.  For these last months, despite the weather (rain, snow, ice, heat), lines and lines of people curl around the block, waiting to enter the cannabis store, which grossed 10.3 million dollars in its second quarter here in the very blue Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

I smoked pot daily for twenty years.  The first time I met my soon-to-be-best friend, marijuana, I was a freshman, sitting on the floor of my college dorm room, towel under the door, heart thumping, black light flashing on the poster that said:

WHAT IF WE GAVE A WAR AND NOBODY CAME?

The last time I smoked pot, twenty years after that, I was standing under the full moon on Disappearing Sands Beach, Kona, Hawaii, sobbing and swearing and screaming out my pain.

Just for today, I’m not getting into the line at Theory Wellness.  I smoked all the pot allotted to me this lifetime, and for several other lifetimes.

Squared.

Times several dozen.

I smoked pot to quiet the silent screeching of the hungry ghosts inside of me, to use Gabor Mate’s brilliant image.

I smoked pot to feel good enough to walk down the steps and into the world, literally and figuratively.

I smoked pot to be brave enough to touch another woman’s body.

I smoked pot to run from my own.

I smoked pot to amuse myself at the mundane ridiculousness of life.

I smoked pot to assure myself I was better than the ridiculousness.

I smoked pot to run—to hide—to appear cool—to not appear at all—to show up—to fully enjoy (Ha!  That didn’t work) all that I was given.

I smoked pot to assure myself and you (whoever you were) that I was different, more connected, less bought in, more alive, more marginal.

I really wanted marginal.

I smoked pot because I wanted something more than the mundane.

I smoked pot because I wanted to be with god.  

(Small letter intended here, folks, stay with me…

Fill in the blank, that god-blank, with whatever works for you:

God, spirit, energy, something else besides ourselves, higher power, name of a teacher, chi, nature.
Whatever.)

I smoked pot because I wanted to rest in the arms of something comfortable.

To hear the spinning of the planets.

To see the perfection of the squirrel with the giant acorn in its mouth, scampering across the road.

I smoked pot to find god!

Here is the deepest truth I know,

In me there lives a deep, deep spiritual longing.

I am writing this blog to confess, to admit, to declare:

I need something besides my own humanity to be comfortable.

I need something besides my own mind to find my way.

I need something besides my own agenda to age with integrity and vitality.

I need something besides my own will to see the beauty around me.

I need solace.

I need perspective.

I need help.

I need reassurance.

I need connection.

I need love.

And there is zero—nada—no human being or—zero—nada—no external thing that can offer me this.

I need the solace of Grace.

I need connection to that which is greater than us.

I always have.

I always will.

Today, as a tiny yet impactful example, due to uncontrollable technological issues, my total Achilles heel, I felt frustrated and scared and helpless.

I am unable to send outgoing mail!

The world shook.

My world shook.

Seriously.

I might die.

It did feel momentarily life-threatening, truly.

That’s where I go, to that extreme.

That is why I need something else.

That is why I need, 

To imagine,

To remember,

That I am not alone,

That we are not alone,

That this, too, shall pass.

That it’s coming to heal me

To heal us,

This human moment,

That it’s coming to bless me,

To bless us

This human moment,

No matter how we are feeling about it.

That’s what I need.

That’s the god I need,

The god of assurance,

Of perspective,

Of tender silent

Inspiration.

I need the god of the sunrise in the picture from outside my house,

The god that lives inside the trotting of my senior dog’s legs.

I really want to see god.

I really want to live in solace, in trust and faith.

I do live there, in slivers of time.

I do live there, in moments of breath,

Moments of reunion.

Much of the time, I worry.

Some of the time, I am quiet.

Pretty consistently, I do realign.

Always, I practice coming home.

Always, I practice coming home.

Here is a song from the brilliant, the wonderous, taken from us, oh, too soon, George Harrison.  This song I played at different times in my life, over and over and over again.

This song, I played today over and over again.

To remember

I really am not alone.

I really want to know you.

Dear Friends—
I see us

Leaning toward
The fragility
Of 
Our
Faith,

Trusting
The 
Evolution 
Of 
Our
Souls,

Honoring 
The aging
Of
Our
Bodies,

I see it happening
With 
Humility.

 

Dear Friends,
What about you?  Do you need something greater than your mind?  For what do you long? How might you describe your spiritual urge? 

This blog feels like a coming out of the closet, a declaring—I need Grace.

What do you need?

How do you access it?

Please come join me for the Yoga of Recovery, November 22-24.  We all qualify with our compulsive minds, behaviors and relationships to others, with compulsive minds and behaviors!  

Link to Yoga of Recovery http://bit.ly/2JoJEP7

All voices welcomed—please let me know.  I am aruni@rnetworx.com.

All blessings—
Dear friends—
With prayers,
With 
Humility,

Aruni