The Panegyric

Last night I had one of those 4am moments. You might be able to recognize it: waking up, staring at the red digital numbers displayed on our ceiling by a Batman-esque alarm clock, wondering if I had made a difference in the world, wondering if I would ever again move into writing professionally, writing for my living as I did when I lived in England.

Four in the a.m. is a kind of witching hour. I'm confused, in a fugue state, particles of my dreams swirling, dressed up like reality.

I thought of those people who'd decided to leave the planet early because they couldn't take the pain they'd carried: Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe. For some reason, my mind chose two people who could have been as much pushed into Beyond, as gone open-armed to it. They stood in front of me, so much good in their lives, but also that gnawing pain.

This morning I remembered this passage from Robert Louis Stevenson: "We must all be ready somehow to toil, to suffer, to die. And yours is not the less noble because no drum beats before you when you go out into your daily battlefields, and no crowds shout about your coming when you return from your daily victory or defeat."

Uncomfortable words for us modern-day, post-The Secret, positive thinkers. Toil, suffer, die. Yuck! I like the words: ease, choose a higher path, and cross over.

But I also really love the word sacrifice. It means "to make holy." Every time we choose that path of integration over the path of escape, it's toil. Turning the other cheek when someone spits on you is not an easy path. Transforming stinky energy instead of attaching to it is not an easy path. Going back into the past and healing old wounds instead of blaming the actors in the play is not an easy path. That is my definition of TOIL.

Washing those wounds to make them holy - that's pretty much suffering. Feeling that pain all over again while I heal it, that's not ease or fun. But the strength, the integration, the sheer ecstatic bliss when the work is done - that's ease. That's the higher path.

Yesterday when I came across the word 'panegyric' on my GRE review, I looked it up. I had the sense it was an elegy of some kind, but no idea it defined the times when we receive public praise. How many mothers out there put in a day of wiping bottoms and cleaning up dishes and wish for their panegyric? How many dads go to a job they don't enjoy and come home wishing for their panegyric? These are blunt examples, but we all have times when we wish for that moment that someone will eulogize our hard work.

We have our panegyrics: an acknowledgment at a wedding, or a graduation. A hug. They come at unexpected moments. Take photographs. Indulge in those memories.

We have many more days of going out into daily battlefields, when profound ambivalence, silence, or ignorance, keeps those around us from noticing the daily victories and defeats. That's when we have to create our own panegyric, and give it to ourselves.

I'm working with two practices at the moment. The first is out-loud gratitude. I say "thank you" to the Divine whenever I receive a blessing. Any blessing, no matter how tiny.

The second is to ask the Divine to align me with my purpose as a soul on this planet, and to align me with Divine Will, and show me a day that's in alignment with that Higher vision.

Talk about ease - every day I do this second step, I have a day of complete ease. Everything gets done, within the amount of energy that I possess, on time, and unhurried.

These two practices have become energy-generators for me. In a sense, they perform the function of daily panegyrics. They don't keep me from seeing my fears displayed at 4am, they don't stop me from having challenges, but through these practices I feel rooted and centered and peaceful.