TALKING BACK: A Critical Dialogue On Spirituality Part III

Jacques Fleury
Spare Change News

“Just for today, do not worry Just for today, do not anger,
Honor your parents, teachers and elders.
Earn your living hon- estly. Show gratitude to everything”.
-Dr. Mikao Usui

I have written about how my mother helped to create my own reality, hence my own identity. Now I will write about the need to create my own existence outside of my mother, whom I consider my primary spiritual leader.

“The healers’ job is to get out of the way, to keep the healing space open, and to watch and listen for signs of what to do next.”

The Reiki Page

The latter quote from the article “What Is Reiki” found on the Reiki website http://reiki.7gen.com/index.html and focuses on the relationship between healer and seeker. They must separate in order for “something to happen” between their “healing space.”

My mom and I often seem like we are joined at the hip. Sure, I understand our closeness has to do with the fact that she’s not that much older than me, and also I was her only child for 13 years before my sister was born. She made it her mission to mold and shape my cognitive demeanor and profile, ensuring that they don’t get too fragile. But by being so protective of my persona, she failed to realize that while I was strong in one area (her world), I was lacking in the other (the outer world).

After looking at myself through the eyes of those outside of my mother’s clutching womb, I started to experience myself as an evolving, well generated black man. I combined my mother’s well intentioned doctrinaire, with the knowledge gained through the wisdom of the eclectic external world. Mother had to “get out of [my] way,” but at the same time be sure to stick around “to keep the [nurturing] space open.” And while I was on my search, I often felt like wax, melting at the bottom of a candle, and with valiant hands reaching out for the light above!

It was during those times that I need- ed my mother, my spiritual healer, the most. As the quote offers, I needed her to “…watch and listen for [my] signs of [need and tell me] what [I should] do next.” But I reached for something deeper, something even my mother didn’t have access to, my own inner strength, minus my perceived limitations.

Breaking through some spiritual limitations with my mother only left me to wonder, what else is out there? What other spiritual wonders have I kept myself from, by being too uncertain of who I was to cut the umbilical cord, forever tying me to my mother? Reiki is only limited by one’s “old ways” of being, that one must challenge “old patterns” of behavior in order to “accept healing.” I used to only believe that what you see is what you get, that is “if it can’t be proven, it’s not real!” However I have since reconsidered my new wisdom that “what you see, isn’t always what you get.” As trite as it may sound, for me, it’s true. I have since decided to think outside of my enclosed box of suffocating limitations that reads “Do Not Open until I’m dead!”

Subsequently forsaking my own warning, I decided to open the box and dawned upon Reiki. I feel that Reiki, its inherent meaning being “Universal Life Force Energy,” was and has always been a part of me. I just could never see the energy because I had not yet “earned” a “critical eye.” Now that I have opened the box, so that dawn can charm the morning fog right off my squinting eyes, I intend to investigate both past and present limitations I have had infringed on me.

The article also purports that “The way we acquire deviations from our ideal form, is to accept [limitations] in our life [sic].” For instance, there had been a plethora of negative connotations associated with “mouthy” children in Haiti. You were not allowed to “speak up” during “adult” conversation. If and when you did, you were given a “silenced” glare, namely “the look of death,” to foreshadow your punishment. In other words, “Ya gonna hav’ ‘ta deal wit me later mouth!” The article agrees in that it discerns the latter by introducing the idea that “A limitation maybe a parent yelling ‘be quiet’ enough that the child learns not to speak.”

Growing up in Haiti, I was constantly told, “A child should be seen and not heard.” So I learned to shut up. Still in present times, I find it quite uncomfortable to speak up within a forum, where people express ideas deliberately and freely. I fear sounding unintelligible, like a deaf person, mouthing off the words he/she have never even heard.

The article also suggests, “In any healing, the goal is to find the limitation, recognize the pattern, recognize where it came from, and let it go.” So I am present- ly deconstructing what I’ve been taught, and relearning a new more enlightened set of wisdom. I am licking my wounds and stepping up to the podium. And the dust I find there, to me, represents the “old” knowledge.” I see the dust as scat- tered powder of self loathing, self deprecation, and self indignations and last but not least, self limitations! So I decided to blow it all off! All this gray stuff that was shielding my eyes! If I must have clouds in my life, I will have them be transparent, so that I can see the blue skies on the other side! All to make room for “new” information. I will use “old” information as a building block, and not a stumbling block towards the path to my “new” enlightenment.

“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore,” as from that movie “Network.” I have reclaimed my “ideal form” and “rejected” having the limitations placed on me. I am becoming free from myself and others in every way. I can only hope that you, the reader, can be just as motivated to continue to change your life, making each new year a new you. Role around in the colored leaves of autumn, or rejuvenate yourself in the silken youthful hands of spring. Then go out and rent the movie “Life is Beautiful!”

Affirmation
“I invoke the healing Buddha and the master spirits of Reiki.

I ask that my channel be pure and clean, without fear, and with honor and love for all.”
The Reiki Page

Jacques Fleury’s book: “Sparks in the Dark: A Lighter Shade of Blue, A Poetic Memoir” about life in Haiti & America was featured in the Boston Globe. Contact him at: haitianfirefly@gmail.com and visit his website at: www.thehaitianfireflyproductions.com.