Come and See

Golden Hooded Tanager by Henry Collins

Yesterday on a tall bush in the garden was a new bird – the Golden Hooded Tanager, here called Siete Colores (7 Colors). The small warbler flitted here and there, each flight revealing a flash of bright turquoise. There was no one there to call to “Come and see!”

As an only child I often sat on the back step of my house and watched—the sky that was never the same as a moment ago, the row of crabapple trees, flower and vegetable gardens with their distinct four seasons, the carefully trimmed hedge that lined the wire fence, the lawn my father kept mowed but which still hid the pathways of insects.

In the early evenings my dad would be home from work, relaxing by reading the evening newspaper whose byline proclaimed, “There is no hope for the satisfied man.” My mother would be in the kitchen finishing dinner. I would have set the table before I went outside to watch the end of the day.

Sometimes there would be something so unusual or beautiful I would want to share it. I’d call out “Come and see!” It might be the sunset clouds, the apple blossom petals falling like snow in a small breeze, the bright green garter snake near the rhubarb, the weirdly colored dog sniffing the back gate with one eye on me. Now and then one parent, rarely both, would come and share the moment with me. I learned to hold the moment in me as long as I could.

Come and See

When we first came to Costa Rica a neighbor had a large jungle property with several cabins on it besides the larger main house. Young people on a pilgrimage to see and experience Earth instead of City would exchange living quarters and food for working on the farm. A requirement was to stop everything 5 minutes before sunset and walk to a point on the farm where the sunset would stretch across the sky. Gathered in silence, you watched the sun’s rapid descent into the sea. Then you all went back to the kitchen and did whatever duty you were assigned. The last years of his life my husband and I went to the back porch at sunset and he would play his flute, popping a note at the end when the sun slid into the sea. Silence would then flow over us, a moment or two before the night birds would begin their songs. I hope where he is now is as beautiful as this planet.

Sunset by Lola Wilcox

To be Seen, Heard, Felt as Who You Are

This phrase comes from Carol Hollander, my psychodrama teacher. When you take an auxiliary role in a psychodrama it is not about you. Your awareness is on the person whose drama you are reenacting for their benefit, the director, your co-auxiliaries. You are trained to follow instinct in the minute—not your instinct per se but the one alive in the action: what is needed in this moment. I think this same concentration is necessary for stage actors but not for movie stars. I know this ability is essential to being a good group facilitator: you are the transformer, and your task is to see, hear, feel what is happening in the moment in the whole frame of the experience, not just what is going on inside you. Your personal learning comes during the debrief after you lay down the part you became. Parents, friends, priests, supervisors… anyone in a role does well to remember to debrief.

One of the great benefits of competitive sports is the necessity of understanding your opponents. You are there, aware of the people around you, the goal, how your actions will make a difference in who wins. In my martial art there are several places to score a point, but the throat is reserved for black belt ranks. There was a very tall, muscled man who had a bully mentality and whose goal was to leave you with bruises. The teacher knew both of us very well and was watching every move in our competition. Tired of the man’s relentless flailing, but not yet a black belt, his throat point was wide open and I took it. Our teacher chuckled and flashed the flag for my point. The man was outraged and complaining; the teacher looked at him and said the last line of the school mantra:

Dojo Kun: Refrain from Violent Behavior

The day my husband died people attended his last hours. Friends far away sent suggestions for songs they loved for his son and daughter-in-law to play while he struggled to breathe. They sent poems for me to read to him. On one side of his bed were his head nurse, and friends who work on the farm several days a week. They saw, heard, felt and respected him. The women were sitting in tall bamboo chairs behind him, very still and holding the space. They were so still, so present and grounded they were like living statues of the Graces. The last poem was one by Antonio Machado, Last Night as I Lay Sleeping, and he left after its last verse:

Anoche cuando dormía
soñe ¡bendita ilusión!
que era Dios lo que tenía
dentro de mi corazón.

Last night as I lay sleeping
I dreamt – marvelous error! –
That a spring was breaking
Out in my heart,
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
Water of a new life
That I have never drunk.

– translated by Robert Bly

How to Be Here Now

If you live with an animal and are attuned to its signals you will learn how it hears and sees, often long before you pick up any clue. The animal is not thinking about itself.

The secret is to get out of yourself. This moment is the only true one, the only NOW. Whatever you are thinking is either past or future. It’s often about how much work there is to be done. Let what you are feeling be a response to the moment you are living now, not a replay of some other time.

The ability to be in the moment takes re-training. From your first moment of birth you have been distracted from yourself by someone doing something to or near you. No longer floating in Only This, no longer hearing the heartbeat of the mother, something is asking you to “Come and See.” For yourself and for the others please show up.

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