Fracture Zones
August 29
In geographical terms, a fracture zone is a rift, slip, tear or crack in the earth’s mantle. Often silent for years or centuries, pressure builds until a slip takes place and chaos ensues. On the ocean floor, such as the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone, a swift slip can cause a tsunami up above.
On a person, especially on the skull of a 95 year old man, a tear of the brain’s “mantle” can cause a subdural hematoma … a little tear on the surface of the brain producing a slow accumulation of blood, causing pressure, producing confusion, creating memory loss and shakiness of gait apparent on the man “up above”.
Such is the state of my father in the midwest as I left for France early Monday morning. With 2 hours before our arrival in Paris, and far above the Northern Atlantic, we may have avoided passing directly above the Fault Zone, but I am immersed and flooded with the direct hit of emotion from the landscape of my father’s cranial rift.
It was hard, so very challenging to not change plans and fly to my parents instead of to SW France and my Camino pilgrimage. I prayed, sat in silent meditation, held back tears (not so successfully) sharing health updates with Terry, friends, and family, and grounded myself in the deep deep belief that Spirit must’ve know this would happen back when the camino seed was planted in me 11 months ago. Either I believe that everything, every person, place, and moment in time is in Divine Right Order…or nothing is.
“If the law (of faith) operates automatically, then you do not coerce, concentrate or compel it. You provide mental attitudes which it may operate upon. You do not hold the law in place, you hold your ideas in place.” This Thing Called You, page 21
With dad recovering in the ICU, and mom being treated for a medical setback to the health of her gall bladder, I knew there was nothing I could do at this point in time that my family couldn’t handle back home. I rest my faith in the knowledge that stepping deep into contemplative introspection, of the kind I’m embarking on putting one foot in front of the other for 48 days and 500+ miles on a centuries old religious pilgrimage route is the best way to transmit powerful and faith-filled healing energy to dad and mom.
Santa Maria de Eunate, Navarre
I’d be disingenuous if I said I’m 100% at peace with my choice. Are any of us ever fully certain of our motives when choosing a path not clearly marked yet steeped in emotion? I doubt it. Unlike the Camino, where yellow arrows point the way forward at intersections and forks in a forest’s gravel path, I have to make my choice using only the arrow of faith. And for direction to come into clear focus, I must mindfully meditate, on purpose and without judgement.
“You are either attracting or repelling according to your own attitudes. You are either identifying yourself with lack or with abundance, with love and friendship or with indifference. You cannot keep from attracting into your experience that which corresponds to the sum total of your states of consciousness. This law of attraction and repulsion works automatically. It is like the law of reflection - the reflection corresponds to the image held before a mirror. Life is a mirror peopled with the forms of your own acceptance.” This Thing Called You, page 131
And so, with just over 1.5 hours to go on this flight, I’m more at peace and grounded in my choice than when I begin sharing with you over the fault zone. One of the lessons I learned in 12-Step recovery was “When you’re in your head, you’re behind enemy lines.” “Enemy” may be a bit strong for me at this moment; but there’s no doubt that getting stuck in mental indecision, guilt and self-blame is a spiral that leads in only one direction…down. When I share with you and others, talk it out while standing firm on faith and good intentions…well, I can live with that and I can clearly see that the yellow arrow of my personal compass is pointing in only one direction…up!
“There is something within you beyond all doubt and fear, something which has never been limited by your acts or destroyed by your feelings. This is the only something that can make you whole.” This Thing Called You, page 5
August 30 Update
As I write this during my first full day in Saint Jean Pied de Port, France, our father is struggling to speak and write coherently. Since it wasn’t a stroke, doctors are hoping that the blood on his brain has placed pressure on the parts the control communication. I stopped in an old church just across the Gare de Bayonne yesterday afternoon and held him and mom in prayer.
Prayer, affirmative thought, creative visualization…call it whatever you’d like; all I know is that it is powerful, you can feel it, and it transcends place and time. And so, as conflicted as I am about not being with them, I know deep inside that the best thing I can do here and now, and for the next 48 days, beginning very early tomorrow morning, is to put one foot in front of the other on this centuries old pilgrimage trail and know that divine right order is holding our parents right where they are. And…I am right where I need to be.
Scallop shell symbol of the Camino, on my backpack
