Golden threads

Today a woman spoke about angels. Her partner had been injured and now she is living in a shelter, trying to care for him in a San Francisco hospital.

She sat very quietly in our circle this morning. It was the first time she came to our gathering. After the silent meditation, she spoke: “I was getting ready for bed in the shelter, along with the other women, when I saw angels. I knew then, that I was loved. I’ve never felt love like that. I didn’t know it was possible. Please tell this to the others.”

She didn’t speak until the closing of the circle, and the look in her eyes showed me that it was real. Here was someone who truly saw something, and in the space of our meeting at the women’s shelter, was able to share it.

Sometimes, the moments of a conversation or a story shared, hold something so essential to our lives and to life itself. I know that as we nourish our connection to life, we are healing the whole. We are caring for the roots of a tree, cut off by rational consciousness.

For instance, I became aware of a feeling of uneasiness about including a story about angels. So I stayed with this uneasiness until a deeper feeling arose, one that said yes, showing me how these stories are valuable, how they reveal the golden thread that runs through our lives.

Awhile ago, I ran into a friend by the vegetables in a local market. I hadn’t seen her for a long time. She told me about something that had recently happened. For years, she said, she had turned against herself. But one day she had a new experience. She was sitting quietly in meditation, when she heard from within the following words:

There is a hard constraint in you. Everyone belongs to the grace of creation. Make peace with who you are. Make peace with what you are.

This touched me deeply. For it has to do with love, and how we experience the divine in the difficult places; how light is born out of our need.