Chapter 9. Courage, New Hampshire, October 2012
Dearest Reader,
I’m still on Captiva Island, but today I’m feeling called to share with you this serialized chapter 9 from my yet-to-be published book, The Rising of the Divine Feminine and the Buddhist Monks Across the Road: A Memoir.
Chapter 9 below is from Part One, where I play with time by braiding two narrative threads: Jamie’s journey through cancer and my journey through interfaith seminary. You will notice that I’ve temporarily skipped chapter 8, which is the next chapter in Jamie’s cancer journey. Today I sense I need to share this chapter 9 about spiritual practice and courage.
If you are new to the story, you may want to read a description of the entire book at the bottom of the post called, An Invitation. You can also go to the Table of Contents and read from the beginning.
Enjoy!
April 2023 UPDATE: In October 2022, when I first began releasing serialized chapters of The Rising of the Divine Feminine and the Buddhist Monks Across the Road: A Memoir by Camilla Sanderson (yours truly), chapters were free to all subscribers. However, chapters are now released and available to read for free for one month after publication, after which they move behind the paywall. If you like what you’re reading and want to start from the beginning, I urge you to buy a subscription to keep reading.
I also provide other free content here.
To read a description of the book, please read the bottom of the post: An Invitation. You may also visit the Table of Contents.
Copyright © 2023 by Camilla Sanderson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or reprinted without the author’s written permission.
Chapter 9. Courage, New Hampshire, October 2012
A week after Rev. Stephanie asserted the fact that a daily spiritual practice is the most important element of any spiritual journey, I drive the thirty minutes to Amherst, New Hampshire to meet with her at the Tree of Life Interfaith Temple. Again we settle into the peaceful atmosphere of her inner sanctum with the sun streaming in through the windows. We sit on her wicker chairs, facing each other.
“I think I’ll commit to a daily spiritual practice of thirty-one-minutes,” I say. “I read in the coursework that this amount of time brings changes to the pranic or energetic field of the body, which I have a sense is right for me.”
“That sounds good,” Rev. Stephanie says, nodding. “Now let’s talk about the structure of your practice.”
I reach into my bag for a notepad and pen. As Rev. Stephanie waits, I have a sense that she’s very comfortable with silence—that she even welcomes the silence. I will later hear her say that silence is the language of the soul.
When I have paper ready and pen in hand, she continues, “It’s important to begin by stating your intention aloud. This can be stated as a ‘Thank you’ intention—which you can say both at the opening and the close of your spiritual practice which, as you know, is also called a sadhana. I’m planting this seed of ‘intention’ with you now, and we’ll give it some time to germinate. After we consider some possible mantras, we can talk more about what your intention may be.”
“Okay,” I say as I jot down some notes.
“After stating your intention aloud, I think you may benefit from three-minutes of a breathing meditation.”
“Mmm hmm,” I nod.
She suggests a Sikh breathing meditation and models how to do it. Holding her hands up next to her shoulders with palms facing forward, she sticks her tongue out of her mouth, up against her top teeth, and breathes in through her teeth, and out through her nose.
“Always keep bringing attention back to your breath,” she says. “This will ground you in the present moment and help to release any subconscious fear.” She goes on to describe how a chant or mantra could come next, and how I can use a mala’s 108 beads to keep track of where I am in reciting the mantra 108 times. (Later I will buy a mala with 108 small rosewood beads and do just this.)
“After the mantra, you could either do a traditional silent meditation or Centering Prayer which we’ll study in Father Thomas Keating’s book, Open Mind, Open Heart.”
“We chant to experience the energy in the silence that follows,” she says. “I do so love that sweet silence.” Her smile is beatific. “You can end your practice by re-stating your intention.”
I’m still writing it all down. After finishing, I look up, expectantly.
“For the chanting part,” she says, “you can choose one of these three chants I’ll sing to you.” She sits up straight, closes her eyes, and begins to chant and sing. I haven’t ever heard any chants or mantras like these. They’re in a different language so I can’t understand the words, but that doesn’t seem to matter. I love the sound of them. I place my pen and paper beside me, lean back into the chair and soften my gaze. I feel relaxed, open and receptive.
After two different chants, she sings one called Gobinday Mukanday.
My whole being lights up.
It’s as though she pours a warm, bright, golden light into my heart. Like her soul communicates directly with my soul through these sounds and foreign words. Bypassing my brain and rational thought. My eyes sparkle with tears. Even though I have no idea what the words mean, my whole being resonates with this sound current. As though my soul is being tuned like a musical instrument.
On an energetic level I feel nourished. I sense into a connection with this acoustic experience in a way that is beyond my mind or understanding. Like my heart knows this language she sings, even though I’ve never heard these words or melody before. It’s like a dream where she’s not speaking words, but she’s communicating with tonal vibrations, each of which represents a feeling. Certain harmonic vibrations invoke certain emotions. And the roots of each feeling reaches deep into my subconscious. Like she’s tuning into the part of her Self that knows what I need to heal within myself, and she sings directly to that wounded part of me. That wounded part of me that doesn’t yet have the courage to claim my spirituality in the world and give it voice. To claim how spirituality is expressed through my being, through my presence, through the simple essence of my soul. Not by how someone else says it “should” be expressed. I feel like I’m glowing with a warm love she’s pouring into me.
When Rev. Stephanie finishes singing, I sense her whole being emits a gentle and peaceful, yet powerful energetic field. It feels as though she glows with a golden light. She opens her eyes to see me wiping tears from my cheeks.
“I guess I’ll be practicing Gobinday,” I say, smiling through the prism of a tear.
“Gobinday is a mantra for courage,” she tells me warmly.
“Mmmm,” I breathe in her words. “Perhaps my intention can be, Thank you for the courage to claim my spirituality in the world.”
“Beautiful,” she smiles at me.
My heart pulses with gratitude. Not only has this spiritual teacher introduced me to a mantra that resonates on a level so profound it brought me to tears, but also that she simply knows the power of sacred sound and mantra prayer, and that she sensed Gobinday may be the right match for me.
I later learn that the Sikh guru Yogi Bhajan says about this mantra: Besides helping to cultivate courage and cleanse the subconscious mind, it balances the hemispheres of the brain, bringing compassion and patience to the one who meditates on it.
On my drive home, in attending to the more ordinary details of my life, I stop at a pre-arranged appointment for a car service. While waiting in Honda’s customer lounge and connected with their wifi, from the Spirit Voyage website Rev. Stephanie told me about, I download onto my iPhone the album PREM with Snatam Kaur singing Gobinday Mukanday. Back on the road, Snatam’s luminous voice beams through my car’s speakers like the sun beaming through my windows. I have a sense of my heart radiating love out into the world around me as I sing along. The whole of Snatam’s rendition of Gobinday is only eleven minutes, but I can’t believe how uplifted I feel.
~
Within a few years Rev. Stephanie will complete a PhD in theology at Andover Newton/Yale Divinity School. It’s not until I read her thesis about how “sacred sound awakens mystical unity” that I will gain insight into what I experienced when I first heard Gobinday. With her wise and intuitive guidance, she opens up a new world of ways to heal and nourish my soul with mantras and chants. And it is a world I continue to explore.
~
And so I begin a two-year journey with a commitment to a daily spiritual practice. But over the following months, I will discover how it’s not always easy to fulfill this commitment. I’m surprised at how much resistance arises within me.
Maybe I don’t have to do it today… Who’s going to know… What’s it going to do for me anyway… I’m too tired… I think I’ll sleep in a bit more… I just can’t be bothered today… Who says this will serve my spiritual journey anyway?… How does she know?… What a waste of time…
I didn’t anticipate so much internal resistance. I discuss it with Rev. Stephanie and she shares her own experience with me. “Most often, on the other side of the times when I’ve felt the most resistance, have been my biggest breakthroughs.”
In reflecting back on that time, I wasn’t even aware of my fear within, and how I could face that fear by cultivating courage. It’s only now that I can see how scared my younger self was, to be all of who I am. For 20 years I hid behind a ‘professional’ mask.
It was this spiritual journey through interfaith seminary that empowered me to drop the facade.
It’s only now that I can see how my blocks and obstacles within have all revolved around fear—fear of humiliation, of not belonging, of not being loved, of not being approved of, of not being enough, of being ostracized—all fears that arise when I want to show up as who I truly am. Without masks. Without pretense. With all my gifts and my muck, knowing that like the lotus flower, I will blossom because of, not in spite of my muck—these words and image of a lotus flower now tattooed into my heart, mind, emotions, and soul.
Click to read chapter 10