Transcription
Around the Cosmic Campfire by Tony Wright
Chapter 25: Dance of a Fallen Monk
It was a usual morning as I gathered eggs out in the shed for the old woman named Ethel, who I took care of half days for five days a week. Gathering eggs was just a plus for me because I always wanted chickens as a city girl, and this certainly was fun for me to experience. Sometimes the hens would just lay in random places or under the tractor, since they didn't have laying boxes or a real hen house, and it was like an Easter egg hunt every morning. I looked forward to that every day. Ethel was in her early 90s and had no family, and paid me to come and help her get in the shower, clean her house, fix breakfast and lunch for her. Not to mention, part of my small salary was for me to tolerate her horrible little chihuahua dog, Peevey. It was a terrible dog, and for some reason she let the nasty little dog bite her regularly.
On this particular morning, I was working in the kitchen and I had the radio on, listening to the beginning of a public radio interview while I threw some lunch-type food together for her. Of course, she didn't call it lunch but called it dinner, or dinner in Sal and Southern had to be a main meal, and it had to be three times three items that were all cooked beyond recognition. I didn't cook Southern, which is what she preferred, but I did my best to translate my Midwest American techniques into something greasy and overcooked, with too much salt or sugar, or with plenty of some cut pig for her. She loved it.
Once I heard the radio interview begin, I felt something within myself, kind of a surprising and quite vibrational as I listened to the guest being interviewed on the station. I felt captivated immediately within the rising and falling of his voice. He was talking about his new book and how we can change our lives at any time that we want and do radically different things that we've never done. I perked up as I was contemplating how to change my life from being in a long-term marriage and not having worked outside of the home for many years into something else. I didn't know what that was, but I knew I needed to find a real career and stop cooking bad food. I didn't know if I had any worldly skills anymore, and it was pretty frightening. I just knew caring for the elderly for six dollars an hour while smelling pig's feet cooking slowly in the crock pot were only temporary. The radio guest was going to be doing a book signing in Green Hills that weekend and invited all the good folks of Nashville to come and say hello. I had never been to a book signing, and Nashville was a long drive for me, but I somehow felt I had to go. It was one of those typical things I could not explain, but I went with it. It was one of those connections that made my hair stand up on the back of my neck, and I could never figure out why.
When the weekend came, I indeed got dressed for town and drove to Green Hills. I waited in a very long line at the bookstore to say hello to this man who was a stranger to me and shake his hand as I would get a signed copy of his book, *Dance of a Fallen Monk*, a book I could barely afford to buy. He was a world-renowned author, George Fowler. His story was that he had been an aging monk living in complete silence for years in a monastery. At one point in what I will call his monk career, he met an aging nun while on a business trip for her particular monastery; he was traveling for his monastery when they fell in love and both left their respective monasteries and got married. His book was obviously his story of falling from grace as a renunciate into the life of love, sexuality, and expansion as a normal human. He began doing all the other things humans do who aren't living monastically most of their lives. There was much for them to move away from and much to move towards. It was going to be a fascinating read for me to look on it, to look in on. I liked him right off; he was genuine and he didn't seem tired as he did the tireless acts of meeting individuals and signing books for them while inquiring about their lives.
After I got my book, which included his signature, I left the store and headed on home. I wasn't sure what it was all about. Why did I just have to meet him and drive in to get his book? Why? As it turned out, it seemed pretty benign to me, really, but I wanted to know him personally, to find out what kind of a man he was, now hoping to find out how his life was going. I felt ridiculously curious about him and his wife and felt their story had something for me, but I didn't know what. I pulsed on this all the way home from town for the hour's drive. I wondered how I could talk to him into coming all the way out to the woods, a couple of counties away from Nashville, and hang with me in the woods, but I didn't know him or anyone who knew him. Even as a massage therapist, I figured he would not be someone who would call randomly for a therapeutic massage while visiting from out of town, plus I didn't really live very close to Nashville, and I didn't introduce myself in that capacity anyway. I just kept seeing him coming for tea and talking and us getting to know each other. I sort of smiled at myself and eventually went on with my own business. I've always learned that seeing something in the mind's eye is quite powerful.
Meanwhile, I got a new massage client who had been dating a woman I knew from a meditation prayer group I frequented in a River Rest condos. He was a nice guy and ultimately had split up from her after having a horrible speedboat accident and he was almost killed. He came to me for body work a couple of times, and I hoped I could help him with some of his pain issues. He was good to get to know; he was a great artist as well as a great person. One day, out of the blue, he called and wanted to know if there was a breakfast spot out here in the middle of nowhere so we could go to have breakfast and talk. He wanted to take a couple of friends who were out-of-town guests on some back roads to see some of the rural Tennessee area. I was indeed invited along for the journey. He thought it would be cool to sit and share spiritual stories and have tea and relax first at my retreat in the woods if I had time. His old friend was unbelievably George Fowler, the monk, and his wife, the wonderful once-upon-a-time nun. I could not believe my ears. I had put it out there into the universe that I wanted to meet them, have them come to the house for tea, and out of nowhere someone I only briefly and recently came to know called me and invited them to come to my house for tea. It was quite amazing. He had no knowledge of my going to the book signing either. They indeed did come out to the retreat, and we talked and talked. I felt I knew them for many years, right from the very beginning. They were very familiar to my soul, which is always on the lookout for other familiar souls. We then headed to the Beacon Light Cafe on Highway 100 towards Dixon for homemade biscuits and home-canned jellies and whatever breakfast fare we all chose. We talked and shared even more.
It was interesting to be sitting with a man who had been a monk for over half of his life, living in silence in that monastery, who then randomly met a nun, and they both sort of played hooky, left their posts, fell in love, and started a life all over again as two completely different human entities. It was like they had catapulted themselves onto a completely different planet to continue on in their lives. That was encouraging to me, to be reminded that we can do anything we want. They were reminding me that we can be anything we want; we can choose something for a while then choose again, keep sampling the world, keep growing without guilt and remorse. I was so happy to have this up-close and personal sharing of two powerful personalities who wanted to make sure I knew that I could be or do anything. Perhaps that's why they came to me.
One thing I always know for certain is that I can draw anything to me that I desire, and it's important to know what I indeed do desire so I can put my request out there and be patient until it shows up. Usually, it doesn't take very long for it to appear. It is certain that when I'm searching for answers to anything, the answers will come, and fairly quickly. They often come in the form of another person or some kind of very obvious message so I can carry on with the affirmations that I need to move forward. I don't ask for as many proofs these days about my decision. I live with a great deal of faith that I can hear my own answers now from the angels who keep me aligned with God, the Source. But it certainly is fun when the physical messenger shows up. Manifesting makes life so much fun. But it is not just about manifesting that we are here; we can bring things towards us all we want and still not be happy or satisfied. It's about having fun in the game we play of drawing things to us, sharing things we do acquire with others, and particularly being happy simply to play the game, whether or not any of it shows up at all. If we want something or someone and it doesn't show up, so what? What's the heck? Keep on playing, keep on having fun. We can't always be on hold waiting for our lives to start. Once we start having fun and having the attitude that life is incredible no matter what, knowing we are divine beings as well, it can't help but show up, no matter what it is. It's about the feeling of having fun exploring; be excited to be alive. Let me say that again: if we can keep the feeling of excitement and join our lives, no matter what we have or do not have, that feeling alone will help additionally draw whatever it is we want. Life should not be such a struggle; it should be glorious.
I have not seen the Fowlers since our first and last meeting. They were headed out traveling to the West Coast when I last saw them. I wish them well and thanked them so much for spending such loving quality time with me. I always laugh about who ends up here in the middle of nowhere at my retreat, either for professional bodywork or just for tea or a meal. It surely has something to do with the God station I listened to and the others who listened to it as well. Ultimately, I did move on alone after the breakfast meeting in my life, much less afraid to break out as a single mother, honing new job skills, although suffering from chronic illness. I did move on alone. It was the best thing that could have happened for me. I started then to get well. My mission is just to keep flashing my beacon for others who play with the light to come and find me, to share our journeys, compare notes, and keep evolving and growing as incredible souls and human beings. Somehow, indeed, great souls just keep showing up in my life. When someone does show up to learn and travel on my journey with me, I always have so much gratitude and joy. And to George, I can say I'm completely and utterly grateful for your enriching me for a moment and creating my very brief dance with a fallen monk.