The Who Of a Mystic . . .

Daddy, daddy don’t hit him! He is my brother!  I screamed and my father  was confused because he was protecting my life and my brother was out to kill me.  I was the younger sister who craved the balsam to squash with my teeth and his was the dream of building the perfect plane model.

I was the cause of the trouble and their emotions landed in my stomach as the anger of my father whose peace was disturbed and the frustration of my brother whose dreams were shattered.

My own emotions collided with theirs.  I was possibly 9 years old but already handicapped by a stomach that was a pit stop for the emotions of our whole family of ten.  24/7. . .

Born into this world with a foot still in the world I left is not easy.  It leaves one vulnerable from birth unto the grave.  Can one be a mystic in a secular world?  A mystic is someone who takes the essential elements from religions and the highest principles they claim from other worlds and tries to make them work where they are.

Children automatically do this. When thrust into a family who are simply versed in the secular and orthodox religions, is at best a trial.  At its most difficult,  puts one in a place where one is different but for unknown reasons.  Just different.  Not special, not spared, just forced to participate to be like everyone else.

And never knowing why one feels outside the circle, sees and hears what others do not, learning early to be careful with speech, never sharing one’s thoughts for fear of ridicule.  I ran home from kindergarten as fast as I could because hearing sirens I thought my house was burning and my mother dead; somehow feeling responsible.

Being born with memory puts one on the defensive early.  In religion class I told the priest what I knew.  And it was not what he was teaching.  My head spoke in languages with those I held to be mentors from an ancient past.

Into adulthood I was appalled by the actions and words of those held in great repute.  Yet needing to be sure of being an anchor to those I was committed to.  It is possible as I chalk off another year in my dotage,  I say it is possible to be a mystic in a secular world, but not without peril.

That I crashed in my third decade in the midst of life too busy for composure, was simplified by the psychiatrist saying ‘I don’t know how you have managed so well for so long.’

Life holds sounds more than the average person hears.  Life holds sights more than the average person sees.  There are more levels of everything evident than what daily occurs to people.  One cannot imagine what these words imply.  What more?

I try to explain but words fail.  Just as I do not understand why what is evident to me is not so to everyone.  I know this only because I have lived it and have had years of mental therapy.  The medical conclusions, ‘you’re different.’

I was happily raking leaves off a neighbor’s lawn because they were busy with family when another neighbor approached asking, ‘you doing this for fun or money?’  ‘For love’ I said.  Puzzled, she said ‘you are so different than others, you know.’  Lacking the courage to hear her reasons,  I did not ask why.

Life would have been simpler if I had parents educated in the deeper aspects of life.  Immigrants worried about bread on the table.  What we do is what we can do.  I took my commitments seriously and books were best friends.

I am, I guess, an example of someone living to old age with knowledge, not faith,  of life ongoing and other worlds.  The psychiatrists called me mystic when I did not know the meaning of the word.

Not easy, but unacceptable would be anything else.