Scattered Sprigs of Wheat by K.L.Kivi

”Listening to the heart - following the heart is not the same as following the emotions, wishes or ideals.” So writes Reverend Master Koten in response to my question about the role of discernment in the Buddhist philosophy of letting go of judgement.

Like Luanne Armstrong, in her blog entry “Beat,” I’ve been listening to my heart as well. But it isn’t the physical heart that I’m trying to tune into, it’s that metaphorical heart, the one Reverend Master Koten alludes to, the one that supposed to let me know how to make the appropriate decisions in life. After seven months in Ontario, caring for my ailing elderly parents, I returned home to these Columbia mountains that shelter my kind, and collapsed. I felt like a sheaf of wheat that had had its string cut; the pieces of me have been strewn about ever since, pell mell, in the sun and in the rain. I putter around the land, stopping to catch my breath, wondering at my exhaustion and then remembering: we’re at elevation here and everywhere the paths are steep. Seven months: was that all it took for my body to forget what it takes to live in these mountains? And though my body is out of practice, it’s really my mind that’s given way, relaxed the tight string of the daily demands on a caregiver.

And mostly, it’s okay. This piece of Earth has always received me well. But sometimes
I pause and think: I should start picking up those sprigs of wheat soon, make up the sheaf again. It was in one of those moments that I wrote the Reverend Master. Ten days of wandering from land partner’s house to land partner’s house mewing to be fed started feeling uncomfortable. The least I could do is make meals for myself again. I picked up that sprig of wheat but continued to look at the rest of them with bewilderment. What do I want to pick up? What of my old life feels appropriate? I feel paralysed to make decisions. How does one tell the difference between the desire of the heart and those of “emotions, wishes or ideals” anyway?

And so I listen, not quite sure what I’m listening for. My heart feels naked and lost, bobbing out in the sea with no land or ships in sight. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Lostness is a place of fertile possibility if one can avoid panic. Knowing why I’m lost is helpful. There’s nothing quite as disorienting, as heartbreaking, as watching a parent lose their mind and turn into a kind of child before one’s very eyes. Dementia calls for very concrete action in terms of care, but subconsciously, another process is taking place, re-ordering the known world of my psyche.

Rebecca Solnit writes in her “Field Guide to Getting Lost” that “to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery…And one does not get lost but loses oneself… a chosen surrender, a psychic state achievable through geography.” So, basically, I’ve come home to the piece of the Earth I know the most intimately in order to get lost. Here, I realize, it feels safe to be lost. Each tree seems like an old, kindly friend. There were very nice trees – oaks, maples, hemlocks, ash, pines - in Ontario; why does this particular forest possess such nurturing benevolence for me?

And so, I give myself over to lostness. Simply. And try to pacify my mind that wants to command this situation – well, to be perfectly honest, every situation. I practice listening, waiting for the metaphorical thumps that make up the beat.