Mercy!

Photo by Camila Cordeiro on Unsplash

Two nights ago, I dreamt that Dolly Parton and I were singing a duet. She was on the keyboards and I was on vocals. Of course she was on vocals too--she’s Dolly--and we were singing The Far Side Banks of Jordan, which is what my sisters and I sang at my mother’s funeral. Sometimes I was a little flat, but other times I sounded pretty good. Dolly didn’t care. She kept singing along with me, telling me to keep going, that’s all that mattered, and this song went on and on in my dream life and when I woke up I wished I could have stayed there forever. Well, I thought. That meant something. I wasn’t exactly sure what, though.

Now I do. It meant now is the singing time, little sparrow.

This year I turned 57, and I feel like I am finally coming of age. I am leaving behind as much self-doubt as I can. I am leaving behind feeling bad about not liking people. I am leaving behind thinking that other people know more than me.

I know how this sounds—once I told my sister I was done with being taught and she said, “Do you know how arrogant that is?” I said I didn’t care . What I meant was I was tired tired of the whole expert-on-a-pedestal-machine, tired of listening to other people’s modalities, because I wanted to listen to my own soul which has always known what’s best for me. You know what I mean? Your soul knows what’s best for you, too.

But if you stop turning elsewhere for inspiration, where do you go? I'll tell you! You don’t have to go very far! You can close your eyes and say to your heart, “What’s up woman? What do you want me to know?” She’ll answer. The heart always does.

Once I said to my heart, “Hey, Lady, what’s happening? Are there any helpful spirits around me right now that might have something to say?” Instantly I saw Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo. Van Gogh was wearing a sunhat. He had a paintbrush dipped in gold and showed me how the work comes through in a direct line from the stars to the heart out the paintbrush or pen. “It goes stars, heart, brush. brush, stars, heart.” he said. “Like a circle. That’s how you create. That’s all it is.” He made it so easy!

Frida came in on a river of light and flowers, wearing a thousand orange carnations.

She said, “"It’s the way we live that makes our stories sing.”

“Yeah, be the story!” said Van Gogh. “I was the stars and the stars were me! We loved each other to death.”

I said, “But you two had to suffer so much!” and they laughed and said they were past all that. “I had so much freedom in my painful, gorgeous life,” said Frida.

Anyway, they said, all that’s over now. You don’t have to do it like that.

Good, I said, because I don’t want to.

Why am I telling you this? Maybe because I think we are all coming of age, and this moment in time is asking us to stop listening to other people because most of what we hear is group thought contaminated by colonialism and a deep loss of connection to the spirit of the land and the stars. It’s claptrap. It’s fear that breeds fear that breeds violence and separation, and we know how this story ends and it is devastating.

We don’t have to do it that way.

Our souls know this. Our hearts do. You know, this, I don’t need to tell you.

Why am I still talking?

A few days after I dreamed about Dolly I woke up thinking, you know what event I want to attend? I want to go to an event where hundreds of thousands of people sit down and be quiet at the same time. For 15 minutes. That’s it. Groups of people sitting quietly, envisioning together the things all humans beings want. To love and be loved. Peace. The freedom to take pleasure in being alive on planet earth. Asking for mercy and protection for all victims of inhumanity, including the bears, honeybees, the snow hares, and the sea. Sitting quietly, dreaming of all of us laughing together, sharing meals, enjoying this gift of a life! Letting go of politics and phones and media and who is good or bad, just for 15 minutes. Maybe 20. (You can go back to all of that any time you want, don't worry!)

Breathing in mercy, breathing out peace.

Breathing in peace. Breathing out grace.

Telling the earth how much we love her. Thank you! I love you. Thank you for all the support you’ve given me, every day of my life!

Forgive me.

To all beings hurt by other beings: Forgive us.

Breathe in hope, breathe out mercy.

Breathe in mercy, breathe out delight.

Maybe this happens in Washington. Or maybe we sit quietly in our houses, all at the same time. A million people. Six million! All over the world! Breathing in peace, breathing out grace. Breathing in grace, breathing out love. Praying for protection and mercy for all victims of inhumanity. Asking that all inhumanity be transformed into grace.

Call it organized gentleness.

What would the police do? Come to the door and say, “Are there women in there, siting quietly for 15 minutes? Asking for things we all long for? We can’t have THAT!”

Breathe in rage, breathe out sorrow.

Breathe in sorrow, breathe out hope.

Breathe in hope.

Hold it. Hold it. Hold it.

Breathe out love.

I think of my great grandmother who was shunned by her church for getting pregnant before she was married. She was told she would have to stand at the front of the church while the whole community—family, friends, everyone she'd grown up with—publicly shamed and humiliated her. She chose to leave and go live with the father of her baby, even though he wasn't a kind man.

I think, who wins these games of judgment and shame?

I think of my grandmother, who, after she died, came to me in a dream and said, I broke a cycle of violence in this family by marrying a tender man. That is why you are happy.

I think of my mother who taught nonviolence in prisons in her 70s. I think of my grandfather, who left Germany because of Hitler, and a great aunt who stayed and married a Nazi. I think of how Dolly Parton’s song, Coat of Many Colors, makes me cry every time I hear it. I think of all the animals that have suffered and died because of human disconnection from the earth.

I think, Mercy!

I breathe in sorrow.

I breathe out grace.

I breathe in love.

I breathe out the sun.