Monday, June 18, 2012

No Mud, No Lotus.

Unlike Humpty Dumpty, one month ago I was, literally, glued back together again by my orthopedic surgeon after total hip replacement surgery. The eight-inch incision runs across my left backside like a railroad track with steri-strip, instead of wooden, ties. Just twenty-four hours after surgery I was up walking on the “operated leg” with less pain than before surgery. After four days in the hospital, two weeks of skilled nursing care at a spa-like rehabilitation facility, and two more weeks of home care by my dear friend Joanne then my son, Grant, I can manage on my own. Not yet released for full activity by the surgeon, whom I see tomorrow, I did drive Grant to the airport, myself to the store and then to church yesterday for the first time in months.

Father’s Day was the perfect day to be at church. One of the ministers shared the quotation, “No mud, no lotus.” Buddhist monk and author Thich Nhat Hanh explains the interdependent nature of the mud and the lotus - how a lotus cannot grow without the mud. He likens the mud to the suffering in our lives. The growth and blooming of the lotus represent the transformation of our suffering into happiness and love. The lotus symbolizes the expansion of the soul into a living enlightenment.

A month before surgery, I received a loving note of support and a healing CD from the husband-and-wife ministerial team at my church. I listened to it for 30 days. The CD encouraged healing not only physically, but also mentally, spiritually and emotionally. I became aware of previously unrecognized connections between living in Albuquerque for a year when I was ten years old and living here again now. I was able to descend into the mud of painful childhood memories to understand the root causes of my hip disease. Amazing insights came about family wounds that occurred here and my return to heal them 58 years later, which was not arranged on a conscious level. I was startled to realize my mother could not manifest her dream of becoming a registered nurse here for lack of childcare, and I am here to manifest my writing dreams. I was stunned to remember my mother’s sweet peas and morning glories climbing white cotton strings in front of our Navy housing as morning glories now germinate in my own garden from seeds my neighbor gave me. My Santa Barbara Reiki instructor was eerily prescient when he shared with me his experience of living in New Mexico for three years. He mentioned that in ancient times, New Mexico was the bottom of a huge inland sea (witness marine formations and fossils at the 10,000’ summit of the Sandia Peak tram) and carries feminine energies associated with emotional healing. My hip was that.

Understanding my own childhood suffering, I can understand my brother’s suffering growing up fatherless in a home with four women – two sisters, a mother and grandmother. His commitment to being there for his own children has caused him great pain. The lotus can only grow from the mud of suffering into soul-expanding enlightenment. With my heart open in compassion, I admire the many ways in which my brother has expressed his love for his children, appreciated or not. Grant’s father, my former husband, also grew up in the mud of an absent father, suffering in the presence of a critical, disapproving mother. He made sure his inheritance skipped his generation and was left in trust as an annuity for our son. The mud of his suffering allowed him to bloom into a loving, supportive provider for our son, who plans to invest part of the funds in himself to obtain an MBA.

Thich Naht Hanh says that getting in touch with our own suffering, recognizing it rather than avoiding it, helps us see another person’s suffering and helps compassion be born in our heart. “A majority of us do not like to get into touch with our suffering,” he says, "but when we do, and try to understand it, we suffer less and can help others do that too." In that spirit, I called the men in my life who are important to me yesterday, including my brother and ex-husband, to acknowledge and honor the lotus in them and wish them a Happy Father’s Day.