Transcendental Laundry

Striving to live in a conscious way, one of the tensions I encounter is how to hold a larger awareness alongside the daily demands and rhythms. Literature constantly pulls me towards a larger view—considering how we are moving in history, what we are doing to the environment, how our understanding and definition of the Other is shaping or opening—how we are resolving the ancient questions around belief, time, mortality and identity, intimacy and relationships. These thoughts and discussions are deeply satisfying: in the midst of this work, I can feel my mind opening and ascending—I sense a more textured engagement in the moments of life.

But the laundry piles up. And I fall behind in my emails—and start composing more in my head than I ever actually write—I feel fragmented as mother, partner and friend, I forget to feed the dog. So what is the good of thinking big thoughts?

Last week the news broke about the teacher at the Southbank International School in London who for many years took advantage of his position as a trusted and beloved teacher to violate young people in his charge. This did not remain in the distanced realm of news for me as my work has brought me into contact with members of the Southbank community. I listened as parents talked through their anger, sadness and overwhelming feelings of betrayal at multiple levels. My heart breaks for all those involved while my other response is a visceral and raging anger: I hate this man for decimating the trust and compassion that I think is essential in the learning relationship. I hate him with a desire to see him bleed and suffer as I hear the suffering of just a tiny portion of those his calculated actions have impacted. Of course, he is dead by his own hand so it is a suspended rage—what justice can there be?

Then there is briefly a meeting of the levels of thought: the conversations we are having in the Moby Dick Salon give me a picture of rage that leads to monumental obsession…and I observe and consider how Ahab draws those around him into his obsessional picture of the world. I am leading a study at City Lit on Ulysses and I am swept up again in Bloom’s struggles against injustice and how he maintains equilibrium—even glimpses of joy—over the course of a day where he much that he holds dear is threatened or tarnished. Bloom has the gift of holding the universal alongside the moments of life—the sweet memories a smell gives, the savour of a good meal, the possibility of new friendship, the pleasure of the sensations of the body.

Connections with others also help to give proof and channels between the daily and the metaphysical. In the context of our Moby Dick study, one bright voice observes: ‘We are all so terribly human…’ Our striving, our hopes for what we can be must sit alongside the flaws, pettiness and horrors of the human soul. There are many ways to feed hope—a day’s escape to a day spa with a lovely group (in the context of a Salon, of course), a run through silky Spring air with a springing Spaniel, a hard and deep study of a great work with sparkling minds…so though this tension may be unresolvable, within the struggle is the gift of awareness.

Back to wading through the piles.