It Came to Pass
It Didn’t Come to Stay.
Impermanence.
We know about it.
We understand it.
We logically can grasp that everything is coming to pass,
That all things are in constant flux and transition,
And eventually things cease to exist.
We totally are aware of that.
In our minds.
But when Change happens,
When loss unfolds,
When our hearts are broken,
When our bodies are called into transition,
When life demands of us to feel,
Everything changes.
It gets real.
We are broken open.
We are transformed.
My first and most profound experience with impermanence happened 615 years ago when I was a senior in high school. My beyond-precious Girl Scout Camp, Camp Archbald, played a massive role in my life; I know camp saved my life. I lived for the summers, to go back to those precious trails, that sweet lake, that perfect matriarchy of girls and young women. It was the only place in my young, tender life in which I relaxed, in which I thrived.
The school year for me was colored by my stuttering and my wanting to kiss girls. I knew I needed boy-dates. I couldn’t bear it and I knew that made me vulnerable and suspect. So confusing, so blindingly painful. I didn’t fit in that world. But I had to try. The concept “lesbian” would not be given to me for a few more decades.
But camp! No trying there to fit in; it was effortless for me. Swimming and canoeing! Boating and building campfires, sleeping out. OMG. Just talking about it now, 200 decades later, brings a fluttering to my heart.
The counselor-in-training program was a two-summer program, Junior and Senior C.I.T. I was a bit of star, but still so tender and shy. We had to teach different ages of campers campcraft, singing, boating, etc. We were evaluated. I was beyond-competent. Yet, on the final day of C.I.T. training, when we one-on-one got our results and then graduated together, something odd was in the air. Our counselors, Dimmy and Uns, were acting strangely.
The unthinkable happened—I didn’t pass.
Everybody always passed C.I.T. I didn’t. It was terrifying. Heartbreaking. Devastating. That which I knew would never end was over. Just like that. Its abrupt ending shattered my heart.
Eventually, we figured out, my monogamous friend Gladys/camp name, Cauliflower—Cauli for short—once we outlived it for a few years; it was a political thing.
I think I was too-too much of a little lesbian for the camp administrators. Miss Anna, our short yet stout mega-figure-of-a-camp director, lived in the Lodge with Miss Joanne. In later years, it became perfectly clear, they were attached, in the biblical sense. Somehow, by just being me, I rocked the boat oh, too-too much.
Knowing that came later. Camp, the foundation of my world, was gone, right when I needed it the most, as I was preparing to go away to college. I was truly traumatized. This happened, and my life changed.
Of course, I outlived the trauma, and the story has a happy ending. I did what was requested of me—can’t even remember their demands—perhaps some volunteer scout work during the school year. I eventually did become an Archbald camp counselor and had several summers of wonderfulness, claiming my place, offering my contribution. Being on that side of the camping experience was part of my growing into young adulthood, part of my natural bend toward teaching. During my early time in the Kripalu ashram, I took a week off and went to volunteer at Camp. I remember that as being a profoundly special week.
Being asked to let go of something so precious, so fundamental to my being, was shattering.
Yet I found my way through it.
We find our way through it.
Don’t we?
~~~
When and how have you experienced impermanence?
What has it taught you?
How did you find your way through to the other side?
~~~
This video!
I’m taking a program this month called Reclaiming Peace, led by a team of two peace workers, one Palestinian and one Israeli. Emma and Dina are skillful facilitators who base their work on the writings of Etty Hillesum, a remarkable young Dutch Jewish woman who was killed in the Holocaust. This video they shared is of two women musicians, a musical team called Hamraaz. The string player is from Iran, the woodwind player, from France. The video is filmed in Bulgaria. I find the music haunting and timely. From my heart to yours:
Information about Emma and Dina
~~~
Friends,
Water to ice,
Ice to water.
And so it goes.
Changing,
Returning,
Changing again.
May we be present.
May we be whole.
May we ride the waves of our lives.
May we live in peace,
No matter what we’re given.
May all beings benefit from our shared words.
Stay blessed,
Aruni