I'm a great critic.
I can pick the negative out of anything without batting an eyelid. Introduce me to someone new and I will find their weakness within seconds. So they've won awards and donate money to the orphanage, who cares? What I'm going to remember is how they dropped out of high school and did that terrible thing with the boy down the street. It's the way my mind's been programmed: dissectation and fault-finding. Maybe you're the same to some extent. Hell, we've all been raised in a scientific society that strives for perfection. It's the way of the world right now and there's no one to blame for it.
Two years ago I met an guy who doesn't operate like that.
It was on my vision quest, a retreat led by a South African man called Lance who now lives in Norway. He was assisted by two woman deeply entrenched in wilderness and spirit work and between the three of them they held the space for the rest of us to let go of everything and plunge into nothingness. Let me tell you, that's no small feat.
The quest lasts for 10 days: the first two or three is spent with all participants becoming clear about their intentions for the quest and sharing with the group. When I first met the other participants I immediately put them all into neat little boxes in my head, labelling them and berating them in my mind for being such weirdos. What kind of flakes attend these retreats anyway, psh. But Lance made a point of lifting out the positive attributes each person brought to the experience and dealt with everyone with great integrity and love. I was waiting for him to get frustrated and start to find fault though. Hey, it was bound to happen at some point and I was ready to put in my 2 cents worth when he got there. I was a beast waiting in the wings.
By day 3 we were all asked if we were ready to go into the wilderness to stay in seclusion for four days without food or shelter and we all agreed that we were ready. The next morning we began.
My quest wasn't easy. In fact besides for my initiation as a Sangoma it probably qualifies as one of the hardest things I've ever done. Sangoma initiation is about community and being part of a group. A vision quest is about being alone and facing yourself.
It's the last day of my quest. It also happens to be my 32nd birthday. I'm sitting in a kloof against a mountainside about an hour and a half's drive from Monteque and I'm completely overcome with fear. I don't want the sun to set because I'm afraid. I don't really know what I'm afraid of anymore, I just know that I'm absolutely petrified. I also know that there's no longer any turning back.
At sunset Lance comes to check on me like I've asked him to. The other Questers have been living in solitude but I haven't been able to. The fear has been too much. So, as the sun dapples through the trees one last time before nightfall I see him gradually working his way up the mountainside towards me. I wait clutching my knees and staring off into the distance. How are you he asks when he finally reaches me and settles down on the ground. I'm scared I say. I don't think I can do this. Lance is quiet for awhile and looks out over the small stream I'm sitting next to. A frog on a rock croaks drily and a hot wind blows through the trees. I'm filthy and covered in scratches and bites. My tarp lies bundled to the side and there are prayer flags haphazardly sprawled overhead in a scew circle. I believe they will protect me. How about if I come and check on you tonight, he says leaning back on the ground. Do you think you could stay up here if I checked on you once every hour? It's my birthday and all I want is a cake with candles and people who care for me. It takes me awhile to answer him. Ok I say, my voice dropping down into the mud. But you have to come every hour. Ok he says. And then we sit in silence for awhile until he disappears between the trees and the rocks again.
Night falls. My heart is pounding like a drum and I put on my flashlight everytime I hear the crack of branches closeby. I am stranded here till morning and there is nothing I can do about it. But then I hear him. I can hear him humming on his way up and finally he materialises out of the darkness and helps me to make a fire. It's small but big enough to light up a little patch of ground, a small warm heart for me to hang onto. The night is crazy dark. I shuffle as close to the fire as I can, anxiously feeding it little pieces of wood to ensure its longevity. The cold has plunged into the kloof and I now resemble some kind of alien mummy. Maybe I think that the clothes will protect me from whatever I'm afraid of. Later he leaves. I cling to my fire, swaying a bit from time to time. No sleep for 3 days and fasting makes for weakness and all my defenses are down. I don't know how much time passes but a while later I hear the humming returning out of the nothing-ness. A sound and then a face in the light. He sits down on a log and makes his small offering to the fire: sandalwood, tobacco.
Hold this:
The dark, the small fire. Endless stars. Me filthy and all eyes. Lance staring into the flames and singing me home. (You don't know the song but it sounds like your heart.) Him singing and my eyes full of water, not because I'm sad but because a song is holding me together.
In the days that followed we all sat around telling of our seperate journeys and quests and he would find the good in each person and compose stories around it, like singing a hymn in honour of them. It brought all of us to a place of humility and grace we didn't have before we came.
In Zen Buddhism there are the three pure precepts and the ten grave precepts. One of the ten grave precepts are this:
See the perfection. Do not speak of others' errors and faults.
Maybe if I can stop seeing the faults in myself I will stop seeing the fault in others. Maybe if I stop fixing me and just accept what and who I am today it will just fall away.
Maybe if I love myself unconditionally I will be able to do the same for others.
That's what those songs gave me on the mountain.
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