Pushing the Plow

Everything Is Relative

“It is so much harder to stay holy when you're in the dirt plowing the field.”

Naomi Levy (Einstein and the Rabbi, p. 253)

As I've mentioned before, I studied for four years with a Lakota shaman. She led ten day retreats, usually in a desert setting, and away from the rest of the world. We spent most of our time either in silence or in circle learning and sharing. We drummed and journeyed and brought back teachings to share with the group. During those long retreats, we immersed ourselves in the mystical, and learned an entirely different way of seeing. As you might imagine, reentry into everyday life was rude. Particularly the noise level and speed of movement were a cold slap in the face. Sometimes, I just wanted to run back to that quiet, safe world of elevated thought and mystical experience and never leave.

But, here's the deal: there is no point in gaining new insight if it doesn't in some way serve the greater good—at least, that's the way I came to see it. Mysticism and transformational experience become just another way to feel “special.” The gift I gleaned from those days is to understand that I stand at a single point in space and time. Ten years from now, the view from this point will be entirely different, and if I were to change my location today, I would see it differently right now. If I were to spend a day in someone else's skin, walking in their shoes, I would have an entirely different interpretation of life. There is no one truth—everything, as Einstein observed—is relative.

I am forever grateful that I had the experience of those desert retreats, but only because they help me understand this world a little better. Out here in the field, pushing the plow, I find the holy in the mud I'm churning up, in the life that resides in ordinary soil, and in the potential harvest waiting there.

                                                        In the Spirit,

                                                             Jane