Pendueles 2

Day 18
Day off walking; a day of simple pleasures on the beach, writing, going to church (Mass, which was the celebration of Confirmation, with the Bishop! Great friendly feeling in the congregation, standing room only), talking, reorganising my things... and a return to this Best of All hostels. The right decision.

Something that's unfolding in me is about having an empty heart, which is not the negative opposite of a full heart (full of joy or love, or overflowing), but a state of being, where the edges of my existence are coming to be less relevant, as if they didn't really even matter in the first place. Dissolving, like soap sheets for laundry. And that “I” find myself simply part of the Whole, the Other, the Rest. I’ve feared not knowing where my heart is, feeling its hardness, blockedness, nothingness; but somehow where I thought it should be doesn't matter anymore; it feels more just “me”. More belly-ish less chest-ish. More “essence”, less “element”. Reminiscent of TS Eliot’s “know the place for the first time” and Augustine's “you were within me but I was outside myself”. “Invite Jesus into your heart” proves to be a falseness. I understand there is a “letting”, but to me now it’s so much more discovering what already was. All the hiddenness of myself, the shame (and maybe also the joy?), the thoughts and feelings, unexpressed or only given the smallest chance to show: were you there all along? Do you know all my shamefulness, my anxieties, my “me-ness”, deep dark down there?

Amused to find my flute-y stone twin in church

Erna, and Dieuwertje, and John, Netherlands, wonderfully deep, personal conversations.
Ernesta, Lithuania.
Josh and Katelyn, Washington, US.Read more