… je sais que ce lieux où j’habite est celui où j’entends le mieux respirer Dieu. Non pas, je le sais, que Dieu ne soit pas présent partout ailleurs aussi. Mais c’est ici que je l’entends le mieux.
– Christiane Singer, “Rastenberg”, Albin Michel 1996, p.17
… I know that here, where I live, is the one place where I hear the breath of God the most.
Not, I know, that God is not also present elsewhere. But it is here that I hear Him best.
– translation Marie Cornellier & Anne Imrie
∞ ∞ ∞
This is a question that I like to ask myself, especially when I am traveling, when I am out of my comfort zone, or when I am confused about where or what I should do. Because this question creates a much wider perspective in my mind, reframing my daily reality as I am taking the time to get in touch with the Essence of All there is. The space, that I know, will bring and keep me whole.
And strangely, and not so strangely, because that question is always relevant, regardless if I am sick or in top shape, if I am following la mode du jour or I am wandering in the wilderness of nature, or the wildness of my heart.*
It has not always been an easy question for me to answer. To know if I could be whole in a job, a house, or with a partner. Sometimes it took me several weeks, even several years, to get to the bottom of one of those questions. Primarily because I was proceeding only from a head point of view, disregarding any emotional, physical, or spiritual inputs.
In fact, earlier in my life, I have to be honest, I was blind and deaf to those inputs, didn’t feel them, didn’t know how to recognize them, didn’t know how to interpret or process them. So to get to know thow core benigma of mine, I realized, I had to start investigating, studying, practicing otheir ways of living. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from always taking the well imprinted highways of my unconscious patterns.
I had to become the observer of my intentions, thoughts, and actions, so I could truly become the creator, the healer, the transformer of my own reality. So I could be whole where ever and whenever I wished too. Hopefully this means all the time.
* It is interesting that Thoreau did not say “in wilderness.” ( “In wildness is the preservation of the world.”) There is, after all, as he perhaps knew, a difference between the two. The general argument, put forth most recently by the poet Gary Snyder, is that wilderness is an entity, a place, and a fragile place in fact, that can be very easily destroyed. Wildness, by contrast, is more deeply rooted. It is an ancient, life-sustaining current, a force of nature that can be most easily experiences in wilderness, but also lurks in the wilder corners of suburbia, or even in cities, and exists as potential even in some of the most barren, devastated environments. In wildness is not only the preservation of the world, but also the restoration of the world. – John Hanson Mitchell, The Wildest Place on Earth, Counterpoint, 2001, p.13
mari.e cornellier 