This Terrible Love, a journal of nonduality

  The artificial silence of a silent retreat is basically a prohibition on verbal communication, though this year it also means all 6 attendees/guests/experimental subjects have agreed to go without internet or phones. But the retreat owner encourages artistic collaboration, which is difficult if no one can communicate. So this year’s innovation consist of three white boards in the dining hall. One upon which I write koans and quotes; two, a board where people can post activities/projects they invite others to, whether a walk, a jam session, dance, camping trip, etc. Since there are no clocks, the times are vague ("after sunset," "before dawn," etc). The third board has the daily menu, which makes it my favorite. The 18-year-old dancer invited people to a session of ecstatic dance. She wrote “late night.” I passed by and saw her in the main cabin, which has a beautiful wooden sprung dance floor, sitting alone. She had some drum music playing on the speakers. I thoug

  The email says: "Miranda, don’t you remember when we used to lay on the grass at lakefront park between rehearsals and talk about every feeling and it felt like we’d known each other for eternity?" Such questions. Memory, well that’s not an easy topic now. Do I even remember the face of the girl--- the woman, as that was over a decade ago in human years and we are both past 30--- who writes me this message? Ostensibly to let me know about an opportunity at our old dance company, but also to, as she says, “re-connect.” Such words… as if there was ever anything connected or not connected…. Nonduality speakers sometimes say this is death, and in a way they are right. For some that death is a gift, a mercy killing. Life was so painful they wished to physically die rather than continue to suffer. But for others, who deeply felt the delicate intimacy of imagined reality, something appears to be lost, something that was never truly there, but a bit like waking in the morni

    In the lake, when the atmospheric conditions seem just right and the banks are not too muddy and slippery, I can lean over and see what I believe is my own reflection. I do just that, and there is a face surrounded by water, engulfed by sky.  Rustling sounds happen, and my mind interprets the sound waves as meaning they are happening nearby. The girl moves next to me, and seems to imitate my gestures. I imagine that when she looks in the lake, she sees a different reflection, one she has learned to call an Anna, who she believes has lived 18 human years and is from a strange land far, far away called the United States of America. We seem to stand there a while, in silence because it is a silent retreat, but even were it not, what words would be said? I gaze at the lake and the sky and the trees and birds, so many things that I conjure up like a magician whose thoughts create reality. That’s what the newage people say, isn’t it? Your thoughts create reality? I smile and laug