Welcome, dear reader, to another month of taking metta off the meditation cushion and out into everyday life.
Last month found the Dharma nudging me to take a step back from meditation altogether in “Metta’s Gardening Leave.” This month, it coaxed me to take a new step forward into an unexpected bardo.
When a former course-server heard about what had happened at the Vipassana center I had been serving at since last August, they jokingly offered to be my life genie and grant me three wishes as best they could.
After sleeping on their kind offer, I narrowed it down to just one surprising wish: to truly be able to hit pause on life, all I could think of was the 1960s musical Stop the World – I Want to Get Off!
How did that wish translate into reality? A few months of breathing space in a vacant family holiday apartment on Spain’s Costa Blanca. As a thank you to my life genie, I offered to help prepare their UK garden for spring after being an afterthought for years.
It proved to be a fun challenge and, after some heavy-duty pruning and clearing and mowing and raking, the garden was in decent enough shape for my life genie to plant flowers, dine al fresco, have barbecues, hang a hammock, and walk barefoot on the grass after recovering from serious illness. If the term earthing is new to you, it refers to the healing properties of making direct contact with the Earth’s surface and its natural electric charge.
As I pruned my own belongings down to meet the airline’s baggage weight requirements, it dawned on me that I had not been aboard a plane or even traveled abroad in a decade. My previous visit to Spain had been some 20 years ago to walk the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route.
In the airport departure lounge, I sat for hours transfixed by the comings and goings on the runway, as if it were my first-ever flight. It was both thrilling and comforting to feel the first glimmers of excitement bubble up after so many heavy months. The next morning, I headed out first thing to explore my new surroundings, only to find myself completely alone! It was like lockdown revisited: the weather was colder than in the UK, all the shutters were closed, all the shops were shut, and I was the only living soul on the wet and windy promenade looking out onto the Mediterranean gone grey.
I must admit, my first thought was: this was a huge mistake.
Before full-blown panic set in, the Dharma coaxed me to keep taking steps into the deserted town until I found myself standing outside a shop front decorated with a mosaic of the Banksy image that has kept turning up in various forms since the events described in “Metta Lets Them.”
Slowly the shutters all around me rolled up and the shops opened their doors, as locals stepped out onto the streets like film extras that had nearly missed their cue.
It took a few more soggy days for the Mediterranean to turn turquoise blue, but when it finally did—oh wow! After so many months of digging in inner and outer dirt, the feel of the cool water over—and warm sand under—my feet was next level earthing. All around me were miles of white sand dunes and tourist off-season emptiness, yet inside me a tidal wave of jumbled memories and emotions unexpectedly came crashing down.
I must admit, my first thought was: this really was a huge mistake.
Before full-blown overwhelm set in, the Dharma coaxed me again to keep taking next steps, come what may.
The stormiest of those days found me passing one other brave soul desperately hanging onto their umbrella, turned inside-out, as we grinned at each other twirling a gone loco finger to our temples. And the sunniest of those days found me passing local dog-walkers, litter-pickers, fishing enthusiasts, volleyball players, barefoot runners, kite-flyers, yoga practitioners, and newly arrived tourists braving the still-cold water, collecting seashells, and building sandcastles with buckets and spades.
When I reached out to a dear friend for support with my unexpected inner overwhelm, after so much digging and feeling so at odds with the peaceful emptiness all around me, she reassured me there was nothing wrong and wisely told me to give it all back to the sea now or to an inner f*ck-it bucket until further notice. It proved excellent advice. With each next step I took, I asked the sea to take what was no longer mine to carry and refill me with fresh metta and understanding for the future.
The waves of memories and emotions washing up and then ebbing away made me laugh, made me cry, made me shout, made me quiet, made me speed up, made me slow down, made me curse, made me reflect, and everything in between. I carried on, with a hand on my heart, asking it to tell me everything come what may. Some days I worried I was just wallowing, while on others I could sense the first glimmers of an inner sea change.
I smiled at each being I passed—human, bird, dog, cat, or sometimes even crab—nodding ¡hola! and offering a silent metta blessing. Otherwise, I kept myself to myself and—after a quick shower to rinse off the day’s sand and salt—fell into bed before dark exhausted each evening. When panic or overwhelm sometimes seeped in during the early hours, I reassured myself that they would shortly be returned to the sea at sunrise or relegated to the inner f*ck-it bucket.
Before I knew it, I had easily walked another Camino and then some, trading pilgrimage blisters and sore feet for bardo baby-soft soles!
A Northern Irish Catholic friend once explained to me their tradition of a month’s mind, one I had not come across despite my own Catholic upbringing. Not unlike the concept of a fourth trimester with pregnancy and childbirth, having another get-together a month after a formal funeral gives space for one’s grief to breathe and evolve rather than be squared away. Plus, it is also a good excuse to enjoy a second wake!
After wondering that I had somehow turned into Forrest Gump, with no finish line in sight, a month later the sense of bardo ebbed away again and I unexpectedly found myself wanting to just lie on the beach and instead read random novels from the local book-swap shelf.
A new simplicity slowly washed over any remaining overwhelm, and a new curiosity washed over any remaining grief.
After sitting my first 10-day Vipassana course and needing time to recover from years of serious illness, I had turned to house-sitting. Those seven years of combining meditation practice with location-independence—what I liked to call lily-padding—taught me so much; primarily that home is not a place but a feeling.
And after lockdown in Liverpool, I threw myself into volunteering on organic farms and then retreat centers, with a view to eventually setting up my own peaceful smallholding. Somewhere along the way, however, following that dream woke me up to very real forms of harm and self-harm in both land-work and spirituality. I witnessed far more disempowerment than self-sufficiency, and far more service-to-self than service-to-others.
Why on earth had I kept going? Had it all been a really, really huge mistake?
Yes and no and everything in between. Those three years combining meditation practice with my love of the earth also taught me so much too: primarily how to cultivate my own peaceful smallholding within, rather than needing to translate that wish into a reality. Sprawled out on a beach towel for my first proper siesta since arriving in Spain, the innocence my dear friend could see in me all along finally dawned on me too. Fresh metta and understanding washed through me, telling me that there really was nothing wrong with me. I had simply outgrown playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey with others’ projections and hot potato with others’ responsibilities, so naturally others would keep kicking sand in my eyes until I finally walked away for good.
And so, dear reader, whatever outdated dream may still have a hold over you, please declare yourself innocent rather than judge yourself guilty for continuing to try to make it work, and consider giving yourself a month’s mind instead. Who knows? After that, you may feel ready to empty your inner f*ck-it bucket for the Dharma to refill with fresh metta and understanding to take healthier—and more importantly fun!—next steps.
Or, to metta-morphose the lyrics of the Bananarama song “Love in the First Degree:”
Last night I was dreaming
I was locked in a prison cellThe judge and the jury
They all put the blame on me
They wouldn’t go for my story
They wouldn’t hear my pleaOnly metta can set me free
‘Cause I’m guilty
Guilty as a girl can be
Come on can’t you see?
I stand accused of love in the first degree
See more
The Earthing Movie: the remarkable science of grounding (YouTube)
The Way – movie trailer (YouTube)
Tracks (YouTube)
Wild (YouTube)
Related features from BDG
Giving Metta Legs
Filling Our Bowl of Light: Rest as Resilience for Uncertain Times
No Rest, but Refuge
Layered Simplicity: Guiding Ideas for Creative Makers and Meditators
The Dharma of Travelling
