We all look for this on some level, it seems. That sanctuary, that enclosed safety, which assuages and protects against times when life can become thorny. When the path ahead might seem dark and dismal.
It’s a natural gravitation, this falling into the soft, the gentle, the nurturing. We are drawn, we are pulled, toward safety and comfort. The human psyche loves these.
But, what is the very definition of safety, of comfort? Wouldn’t a defining element be a constancy which infers an “always there”…a total dependability?
I remember years ago when still in college, I was attending a lovely Fourth of July event at the British Embassy in Brasilia, Brazil. (Yes, it was intended to be humorous, the fact that the Brits were hosting this occasion! It was all done in good fun!)
I was speaking with this fellow about something or another, and as I was leaving he suddenly turned to me when I was a few feet away and pointed his finger at me, saying, “Remember. Constancy!”
This was a total non sequitur. It had nothing to do with our previous conversation. But, I understood, as the years went by, the gem in it.
We can’t really find constancy in the transience of life, can we? And the mind, with its current of thoughts, cannot provide that either.
So where to find this immovable, entirely dependable, intimate soft place to land?
Another memory from several decades ago comes to the fore…I was then living in an ashram in India. One day I happened to be standing near a statue, a murti, of a very great saint - Jnaneshwar Maharaj - who came from the state of Maharashtra in India. This statue was located in the beautiful gardens of the ashram.
As I stood there, an insight arose unbidden. It was as follows.
Truth has no content.
A feeling of home arises upon reflecting on these pointers to the immovable, the constant.
Going home to ourselves…A journey that can be so very much long and winding but really is tracked from the mind to heart. Physically, a very short distance but, my, it seems like it can take lifetimes.
And the heart…Not the heart as perhaps commonly understood but the great heart of being.
It feels like this is constancy’s invitation. To become constant in this trajectory toward home, as well as the constancy of that ever present destination.
An invitation to connect with, and abide in, that constancy.
An invitation to discover that soft place to land.
Allow yourself to accept this invitation and
just be.
Annie Kiyonaga
September 6, 2022