finger of the mind...

“You are asked to believe in the invisible, in something beyond all known experience. We ask you to keep the finger of the mind on this awareness of presence. Every time you press that finger on a given inner spot the wishes of your heart will be filled...” paraphrase from the book, Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood

I used to press my physical finger on the back of my grandmother's hand tracing an intricate map of blue lines and wrinkles, which my being four, she called her "stand up roads." I still can feel the love and fascination I felt at the end of my fingers as she sat next to me, a patient and caring presence making my world right and good.

The quote above from an anonymous author says the Divine asks us to "believe in the invisible" which seems a juxtaposition to our visible, material reality. Yet in-turn, I ask the Divine to be as real and tangible as the feeling of rightness, lightness, love and the fresh breeze of presence when pressing my physical finger on my grandmother's well-worn hand. But alas how does that happen.Where is this "given spot", this interior finger I can stretch out in my inner landscape? What inner place allows me, when touched, to experience a "heaven" in small things like the aliveness of early morning light playing on my bed covers as it creeps toward my chin.

Several decades ago, when I came home from Arizona in the spring, I wanted to feel a Love and Intelligence which was independent of what people gave me. I wanted to touch an inner spot that would allow me, even in the traffic of the day to stay alive, to experience this velvet, personal/impersonal love that surrounded me. I did not want to merely exist, going from one thing to another, mindlessly. Busyness, habits, patterns and ordinariness attached to me like iron filings to a magnet.

To find a spot to touch, I needed to create a meeting place inside and outside my skin and return to the same place every day. Living in a three story house, the stairs figured dominantly in my day. In the stairway hung a painting and a plant. I made a deal with myself. "When I start up or down these stairs, passing these two objects, whether I feel like it or not, I will try to press the "the finger of my mind" to a remembered fun or love experience and hope like rubbing two sticks together a flame will ignite."

However, I unhappily discovered, this path was not instant, it had to be worn, built, focused on and attended to. And in spite of my resolve, those stairs remained relatively spirit-less for too long. Some mornings, heading for the coffee pot, I whipped past plant and painting, mindlessly. Other times, these objects did prod me to fling out my thought-finger and eventually I began to be feel a glow somewhere behind my rib-cage.

Finally, I wrote in my journal: "Two or three steps down the stairs I started laughing. With one foot in the air (descending), a love washed over me as rich as velvet and tangible as the physical encounter with my grandmother's hand. A flood of gratitude sat me down on the step. To the seemingly invisible, I could only say, "thank you, thank you."

Now, several decades later, having learned I am more than my emotions, my thoughts, my personality, my identity, I sense the Divine waiting like a lover for me to wake into my minutes and my hours. This love and intelligence has accepted my "deal" to be as real and as tangible as a physical touch which, indeed, fulfills the wishes of our hearts.

image resource: fotolia.com