Finding Healing on this Coronavirus Retreat
by Cara Geary based on a talk given in November 2020
In 1999, I moved to Cincinnati to start a Neonatology Fellowship and during a call night in my first month, I was asked to take a baby off life support for a family that I had gotten to know. Despite being well-trained in the medical and procedural aspects of why this was an appropriate plan of care and the steps needed to withdraw support, I was not even remotely prepared for this experience. The storm occurring inside me was nothing like I had ever experienced before, and it would be years before I could find the words for it. It was months of internal inquiry and six baby deaths later before a state of grace found me.
I want to share a poem and an approach that has brought me back into practice again and again during some of the more challenging times during the past two decades.
I said to the wanting-creature inside me, by Kabir
I said to the wanting-creature inside me:
What is this river you want to cross?
There are no travelers on the river-road, and no road.
Do you see anyone moving about on that bank, or resting?
There is no river at all, and no boat, and no boatman.
There is no tow rope either, and no one to pull it.
There is no ground, no sky, no time, no bank, no ford!
And there is no body, and no mind!
Do you believe there is some place that will make the
soul less thirsty?
In that great absence you will find nothing.
Be strong then, and enter into your own body;
there you have a solid place for your feet.
Think about it carefully!
Don't go off somewhere else!
Kabir says this: just throw away all thoughts of
imaginary things,
and stand firm in that which you are.
The wanting creature inside me did NOT WANT it to be this way. And yet it was… And even more, I could be of service to those suffering within it by accepting that IT WAS this way and taking that one more step. This education eventually brought me to practice and practice redirected my life.
Five years later, I heard this poem at a training. Within this training I realized how much I did not want to be with my own demons and also how this wanting creature simply wanted me to stop trying so hard to get this ‘life thing’ right. To let go of the striving towards some ideal state.
This wanting state is part of our nervous system. It is fun to call it a creature. But it is a fundamental part of being human. My Zen teacher used to talk about the four types of wanting:
Wanting something and getting it. I am an essential employee and have had many days recently where I want to be put in quarantine for 14 days. If I got it… I would likely have to start trimming my grass with cuticle scissors to keep myself entertained.
Wanting something and not getting it… like this Coronavirus experience. Do not know of anyone that wants it.
Not Wanting something and getting it… this is usually the practice that teaches me the most.
Not wanting something and not getting it. One of my brothers is living in this state of suffering. He is doing a surgical scrub repeatedly during the day…..in his own house…..with dish soap despite not doing anything to be exposed to the virus. His two kids and wife are not really going anywhere or seeing anyone, and they have been locked down for a month. His skin is raw and cracked. He does not want Covid 19 and he is not getting it.
I would like to offer another story to illustrate this veil of wanting and how it is its own source of suffering that our nervous system just creates like a gift for us to repeatedly see through over and over again. And I would like to apologize for my stories being about sick and dying babies. It just happens to be where much of my education arises.
I was starting in the NICU and the previous run had been one of keeping babies alive. As I started it was clear that some babies were going to have horrific outcomes if we continued keeping them alive. I asked my team to start setting up meetings with parents of 3 devastated babies. They independently connected with these parents and inadvertently set these meetings up to occur at 1pm, 2pm and 3pm on the same afternoon. After two of these meetings my Spanish interpreter looked like he was going to be sick and when I checked on him, he assured me he was fine to do the third one, but would be having one bourbon for each of these three conversations that night. When I came out of the meetings, it did not take me long to realize what I was feeling was similar to how I felt when I started this work in 1999. My innards were shaking, I was trying to not succumb to feelings of overwhelm… because I was standing in the middle of the unit at the time. So I stopped, stood still shaking internally and took a breath and asked myself “what was going on?”. The wanting creature groaned or cried I DON’T WANT IT TO BE THIS WAY. And I sat there in that discomfort and shakiness and breathed. As my nervous system responded to this stillness, it became clear that there was an “I” that was suffering because “she” did not want things to be the way that they were. But then reality whispered gently, very gently, ‘but it is this way’. And a veil dropped before me. And it was clear that what I needed to do in that moment was to take a couple steps and place a hand on one of the baby’s mother’s shoulders. I still remember that touch. It is this way. It is everything. And we can meet it.
This wanting creature, or specifically this ‘don’t want it to be this way’ creature appears at times. Hurricane Ike followed by firing 25% of our faculty and staff followed by the 2008 stock market crash was a great opportunity to relearn that it is this way. And, it is possible to be of benefit.
MBSR actively points to our tendency to lean towards pleasant events and away from unpleasant ones and then helps us build the capacity to be with things as they are.
This Coronavirus Retreat we are all on is going to be a long one— months and likely years. Some of the sittings are going to be quite long. And I have no idea who is keeping the time for these sittings but some of them have gone on for days. Lots of opportunities to see me search outside myself for salvation. Practice helps me catch this wanting creature much more readily. Just a week ago, I was staring into the abyss of my refrigerator searching for happiness in food, I found myself again wishing I could call my mother… who had been dead for over 3 years. Just my nervous system craving a salve of some sort… there was nothing in my fridge. And sitting with this awareness, my nerves settled themselves after simply being offered some attention and understanding.
May we breathe in the strength of our Ancestors on this path
May we breathe out resilience for all those struggling to be with this adventure
May we breathe in the love and support of this entire sangha
May we breathe out love and support for all beings
May we breathe in the wisdom and understanding that everything changes
May we breathe out as beacons of Wisdom and Compassion for all beings