The beauty of the broken thing

In the Huichol tradition, the deer is a sacred animal, the ‘deer spirit’ an omen of power, gentleness and ransformation.. I was that baby shaman who at a very young age faced my primal fear and transmuted it. I created a mantle of 'total amnesia' around a childhood trauma. I pushed it down and locked it up, to save my mother’s life, and my own. I allowed it to surface only when I was spiritually mature and ‘awake again’ so that I could properly deal with it.

Primal fear turns to primal passion, and this underground sizzle has lent a certain intensity to my life, has been the fuel for me to rise above mediocrity, travel to strange lands, find ways to sweeten the alienation and separation that was the bitter fruit of the experience. It has made me a storyteller, finding meaning in darkness and suffering, finding them to be the necessary ground that fertilizes the growth and blossoming of enlightened consciousness.

Today I went for a sunset walk in the park with Elvis. I wasn’t planning to go, but he wanted to and he ran out expectantly, as if something very exciting lay await for us. Beautiful evening. Soft breeze, pale pink wash over the sky, trees in magnificent foliage.

At the park, I slipped off my sandals and walked barefoot over the damp cool grass, enjoying the contact with the earth, feeling her energy rise up me. We walked towards the far end of the park. Suddenly, Elvis dashed towards the fence, and I heard the clatter of hooves and the flash of two deer running against the fence. One of them disappeared in a great leap over the 7 ft. chain link fence. Elvis meanwhile was within sniffing distance of a very young fawn, only a few inches taller than him. Elvis, who has often been compared to a deer himself, was only chasing as a game. But the little fawn was terrified. She squealed in fear, and the sound pierced my heart like an arrow, as she tried vainly to jump over the fence. I called Elvis away from her, and he obeyed. She repeatedly kept trying to jump over the fence. I felt her panic and her fear like it was my own, and my heart bled for her. Now she was trying to ram the fence and go through it. She would run a few yards and then throw herself at another section of fence, and her panic grew with each failed attempt.

I thought I would follow her so that she might find the opening at the far end, but she was too distracted to run all the way there. I heard the mother pacing back and forth on the other side of the fence, waiting for her Bambi.

If only I could just grab the little fawn and help her over the fence and put an end to her fear. But I was the one she was scared of, and paradoxically, I was capable of rescuing her, if she would only let me. But of course that would never happen. Her fear although instinctual, was an illusion, because Elvis and I were no threat to her. Its all an illusion. I got close enough to touch her, and she squealed again and ran the other way. Finally, I realized that all I needed to do was leave, and the mother would find her way back into the park and get her child.

As I was walking out, at the edge of the park, I took one last look, and when I turned around I ran into a metal pole, I hit my upper lip, and chipped a tooth on it, bringing me back to reality with a jolt of pain. It had been a battle and I was wounded. My chipped tooth gives me ‘Shibui’ the beauty of the broken thing, as the Japanese say.

Remember, primal fear leads to primal passion. This is the gift.