Guest Writer: Something Large, by John Ames
The author of this newest Guest Writer post is John Ames, a rather dashing sort of guy, who is my editor. He edits both this website, and my books, and he does it all for love. It wouldn’t be precisely correct to say “for free,” because the funny thing about love is that when you give it away you inevitably get more back than you had to begin with. John would tell you that this has been his experience as well.
I can’t remember when I met John–it feels like I’ve known him forever. He began as a client and quickly moved into the confidante status. John has given me wise counsel on numerous occasions; his skills in the relative world are sharper than mine in some areas, and I can use all the help I can get. Being a spiritual teacher doesn’t mean you are automatically wise in every area of your so-called life. Indeed, the greatest wisdom any teacher or seeker can have is the knowledge that there is always room for more light, and that we may be sponsoring any number of completely blind patterns. To know that we do not know is a huge step forward.
John’s awakening has been of the “dawning” variety, which is pretty much what it is for everybody else, too. In this piece, however, he’ll tell us about how dawning awakenings can also encompass dynamic events–maybe even lots of them. It pays us to remember that where there is a sudden event within the continuum of awakening, that showy part is a spiritual experience (who doesn’t love them??) that’s accompanying a deepening of our realization. We have to be careful to not get hooked on these splendid vehicles while we overlook the vehicle’s cargo..
John Ames taught English and Film at Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida, where he still lives. He grew up in Tampa, Florida, about which he wrote a well received novel, Adventures in Nowhere. This is a terrific essay, and I’m very, very pleased to present it to you.
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SOMETHING LARGE
by
John Ames
Something happened to me recently and Fred Davis figured in. I got a dry socket, twice. If you do an Internet search on dry socket you will find some strong opinions. Here is one: “I just learned another name for Hell: it’s called Dry Socket. Holy mother of pearl…. When I got hit by a car years ago I thought I knew what pain was.” Poetic, yes, but take it from me, a dry socket is bad business. What was Fred’s role? I’ll get to that.
The tale begins the day my lower-right wisdom tooth was extracted. It was a rough procedure, lots of breaking up and grinding were required, but nothing really unusual. Two days afterward, I went in for a checkup, and my dental surgeon said I had a good clot going, so I should just sit back and heal. A clot is important for healing, and from the patient’s perspective one of its most crucial functions is to cover exposed bone. Bone, I have learned, is very particular about being inside your body. If it is outside, it sets up a deep aching pain that does not stop until it is inside again or at least covered up. Never mind that the interior of your mouth could logically be argued to be inside your body. Bone has its own standards for inside and outside.
Without realizing it, I lost my clot, and the pain began. However, having been assured that I was doing fine, I accepted the pain as a passing phase in the healing. As part of my work with Fred and others, I have been practicing acceptance and doing well. As you know, the goal of acceptance is not to put lipstick on the pig but to accept the fact that there is a pig in the area. Nothing says you can’t shoo it away, but don’t try wishing it away. That’s the path of suffering. Anyway, I didn’t shoo the pig. I let it trample me for two weeks.
After losing six pounds on a soup diet, I finally called my surgeon, who saw me immediately and packed my socket with gauze soaked in clove oil. This was helpful, but in the two weeks I had dilly-dallied, some squirrely healing had taken place. We worked around it, but the pain continued. The doctor wanted to do anything he could to avoid having to perform a gruesome cleaning-out-and-starting-from-scratch procedure, so we soldiered on, and eventually, after a course of penicillin, I was pain free and seemingly out of the woods.
Which was a good thing because just as I was feeling better, someone close to me had a medical emergency. There followed a quick progression of doctor visits and a couple of surgeries, but even during the climactic nine-hour day in the hospital waiting room, I was accepting. It was no picnic, but I didn’t wish or think that I should be anywhere else. Luckily, that medical situation seems to have been resolved in the best way possible, and none too soon because just as that episode settled down, my deep bone pain came back.
By the way, in the middle of the first dry socket business, I wrote Fred to explain why I hadn’t been very active on the website. After reading my description of the dreadful dry socket, he wrote back, “Wow! Take care of yourself,” which was pithy, appropriate, and much appreciated. But Fred was not finished, and neither was I.
When the second round of jaw pain started, I shooed the pig immediately. Ten weeks after my wisdom tooth was first pulled, I went in for a reassessment. My mouth didn’t look particularly good or particularly bad. The only thing we knew for sure was that the pain was back. This time the doc and I were determined to do whatever it took to fix me, which turned out to be that back-to-square-one procedure I mentioned earlier. I won’t go into the details, but it felt like he was dismantling my jaw with a chainsaw.
The day after, I wrote Fred again, describing the procedure in colorful terms, and he replied “Oh my goodness. You and yours have been through the ringer of late. As a human and a friend, I am so very sorry. As a teacher, I’m going to suggest you look closely to see if there’s Something Large to learn here. I’ve had my life–and health–shaken like this since my awakening. I know lots of others who have as well. Sometimes a bad thing is a good thing in disguise. I don’t mean this simplistically, nor am I playing Pollyanna. Just take a peek if and when you feel drawn to do so.”
This went well beyond “Wow! Take care of yourself,” but I trust Fred, so I cooly accepted his suggestion, just as I cooly accept everything else. However, I figured if there was anything to learn here, it was probably more of same, that is, acceptance. Nonetheless, I did what I could to be a more attentive witness.
The day after the second procedure, I went in to get fresh packing. We were not trusting to any blood clot this time. The doctor insisted on doing the gauze filler daily until I had healed to the point of no return. He took a first look and said “You’re a little puffy, but that’s to be expected after what I did to you yesterday.” Later that day, my girlfriend drove me to keep an appointment to schedule a colonoscopy. I had to laugh but weakly. The fun it seemed would never stop, and by the end of that evening there wasn’t much left of me.
The next day, I awoke unrefreshed and drove down to get the day’s filler. The doctor thought I might be a little less puffy. The empty socket was uncomfortable but tolerable and the rest of my mouth was okay unless I moved my jaw. That produced some significant pain. I drove home and spent the day on my back not moving my jaw. Yet I accepted, and I am not kidding. I suffered physically, but in no other way. I found I had given up my victim story. Things were happening but not because I was bad or the world was bad or because I was a tiny thing in an indifferent universe. Upon reflection, I thought this must be the Something Large that I was looking out for, nothing new but an intense manifestation of something already in place.
The next day, I felt a little better. Not much mind you, but enough to ignite a spark of hope. I drove to get my gauze packing and the doctor said he thought we were on the right track this time, which had a fine sound. And, as I was standing at the desk arranging my appointment for the next day, something funny happened. I felt an inexplicable surge of affection for the staff, who had greeted me so many times over the last few weeks. Now, I am always a polite man and under the right circumstances an affectionate man, but those circumstances do not include the reception desk at an oral surgeon’s office. Still, there it was, odd but pleasurable.
On the way home, I stopped at the super market for some necessities, mainly beer, and as I paused next to the cheeses, Something Large finally cropped up. Suddenly, everything in the store seemed dear to me: the teenager in the overlarge pants, the lady blocking my access to the dairy case, the produce man who dropped an item and apologized. All of them were more than accepted. They were cherished.
This, I gathered, was that impersonal unconditional love I had so often heard mentioned. It had come without trumpets or a choir of angels, and, though delightfully distracting, it did nothing to reduce the ache in my jaw. For the next five minutes, I moved through a field of easeful fondness, and I didn’t even note the cashier’s perfunctory “Have a nice day.” On this occasion, she seemed to mean it. Later, when a friend called me to check on my progress, I ended the conversation by saying, “I love you.” I thought I heard a kind of a gulp at the other end of the line.
So what happened? Where did my usual wariness go? My cool distance? My glassy witness? Did I lose something or gain something? Is anything different? I don’t know. All I can know is that something came up, and I went with it.
Certainly there are many clever explanations for what I have described and an equal number of reasons why I shouldn’t take it too seriously. Phrases like “physical and emotional exhaustion” could be brought to bear, but these days I don’t pay so much attention to third-party assessments. If my investigations have taught me anything, it is that for better or worse, the only point of view I can depend on is mine. You have to stand in your own two shoes, as I have heard it put, and trust what you can see for yourself. Or as Fred, would put it, “Don’t take my word for any of this.”
But supposing Fred Davis himself were to say, “John, you are so wrong! You have missed the point entirely. The “Something Large” to which I referred is certainly not some deluded moments in the aisles of a Publix market.” In that case, I could only respond, “Fred, I love you.”
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August 19, 2014 @ 6:48 pm
Thanks John. Reading this made me aware of my own cool but polite distance to many.
I sometimes get that cherished feeling for the known and the unknown “strangers” in my immediate vicinity too. Often after some emotional pain of some kind that wears the ego out temporarily. An overwhelming feeling of we are all one in the same boat.
August 19, 2014 @ 7:54 pm
John, I have had more of these types of situations than I can count. In fact, when my dentist suggested pulling my wisdom teeth, I said “Absolutely not! I want them crowned.” And that`s what he did. Lol. Before awakening I chalked every one of these up as `more trauma` and they were packed away in my Garbage Pail of Pain until it was overflowing into my life. My big lesson, though, was Unconditional Love flowing for mySELF, as I was always taught to love others unconditionally which I THOUGHT I was doing. But what a surprise to find out that no way I COULD love others without the ability for self love!! Self inquiry can be a struggle and often pain will bring us to it, but a more worthy way of Being I could not imagine. This is truly…Magical!!
August 19, 2014 @ 11:29 pm
Hi, Cheryl! Good to hear from you again! Thanks for stepping up and sharing your experience.
August 19, 2014 @ 10:55 pm
Hi, Robbin! Thank you for your comments.
August 19, 2014 @ 7:46 pm
Thank you John. This story really touched me. Reached through all the self protective layers and brought tears of love and tenderness to my eyes.
It reminds me of a story in the “Education of Little Tree” — an Indian boy raised alone in the deep woods of the south by his grandparents (in 1925 or so). At 14 he saw across a stream an Indian girl and her family for the very first time. They stopped spellbound. Then came to the edge of the stream and reached way way out until their fingertips just barely touched.
Magic! When one human really touches another.
August 19, 2014 @ 11:28 pm
Hey, Carter! Always good to see your name here.
August 19, 2014 @ 9:52 pm
Hi John,
Glad to see your face finally and read your writing after many references about you from Fred. I’m looking forward to reading “Adventures in Nowhere”. Please drop by the forum and say hi when you get a chance the guys on the forum are really transcendent, Oh My! I seem to be one of the few posting females for some odd reason besides being a moderator and its part of my job to get things going, I guess. I hope to meet you somehow in the future.
Love,
Arlene
Ps Oh Yeah that love thing when it hits is something else isn’t it!!
August 19, 2014 @ 11:31 pm
Hey, Arlene! John has a nom de plume he uses in the forum. Maybe he’ll come out and tell us what it is. I know (actually I’d have to track it down in email), but I ain’t telling!
August 19, 2014 @ 11:27 pm
Hi, Shelly! Good to hear from you.
You make a good point, which I addressed somewhat in the introduction to John’s piece, but I’ll see if I can clarify it a bit for everyone.
I see the real key as being to neither attach to, nor dismiss our everyday, or our extraordinary experiences. My mantra is that “everything counts, but (ultimately) nothing matters“. Things that come and go (like spiritual experiences and spiritual teachers!) can play a valid and important role in relativity. Just like the Absolute, the relative is not other than What Is. It may or may not be “real”, but our experience of it is real, and that’s close enough to win the proverbial Kewpie doll! We can’t deny it.
As apparent relative beings, spiritual experiences get our attention! They are often the conveyors of things that do matter. Think of it as candy with a medicinal center, only tasty!
The brain is a left-right, off-on, black-white sort of machine. It wants to know, please just spit it out, would you?? Which< is the truth?? The nondual view, of course, holds both. It is never exclusive, and always inclusive.
August 20, 2014 @ 12:23 pm
Thanks, Fred (and Shelly),
A beautiful, and gentle, reminder that everything belongs.
It brought to mind a similar reminder from Maharshi:
“The numeral one gives rise to other numbers.
The truth is neither one nor two; it is as it is.”
August 20, 2014 @ 2:49 pm
Hi, Joe! Good to hear from you! Thanks!
August 22, 2014 @ 1:58 pm
as Lama Surya Das says’ “things are not as they appear, nor are they otherwise!”
August 22, 2014 @ 2:09 pm
🙂
August 20, 2014 @ 4:44 am
Hi John and Frd,
Thanks for sharing this lovely story. I would like to share this over powering of ‘love’ that takes over me every now and then. It happened a few years ago when I was working in a school. I step out of my office and this wave comes over me and I have this urge — more like an uncontrollable craving to run and hug, actually give them a tight squeeze. There is this conscious mind staring at me, almost laughing at me, it seemed. Of course, I didn’t hug anyone. But passed them all by smiling and saying Hi! The five people I passed by said, ” You look happy”. ” You look radiant”, ” you look like you just ate a bowl of icecream”, and so on. It would all have been ok , except that just the day before my mother in India had passed on, and I had gone into work to let them know I will be taking time off to visit my family. I returned to my office still feeling quite ‘high’ Then the thoughts came flooding over , questioning this inappropriate time for whatever it is inside me to evoke this ecstasy. This kept up for a few months, so much so many thought I had become ‘crazy’ losing my mother. I didn’t know anyone to turn to to ask what this was all about.
Most recently, my daughter had a baby 6 months ago. When I am around the baby ( she is absolutely divine). Her gaze is so profound I don’t have words to express the love that floods over me. Sometimes it over powers me. Even my daughter can visibly see it in my eyes… and jokingly says, ‘oh oh here comes gramma for a squeeze and a hug’… and will mockingly run away with the baby.
It’s all a lot of fun. Then my daughter too has started feeling this way when she is around the baby and will say to me, ” Mom it’s coming,… this love thing”… ‘I have to give her a big squeeze”.
This energy is very real and powerful. You can feel it as real as anger. You are drawn to it like you feel aversion to anger. “. It is so palpable when it descends . It comes from head to toe and it has an exit path too. I feel like it goes out the fingers and toes. It’s beginning to happen every time I sit down to quietly rest and watch my breath.
August 20, 2014 @ 2:58 pm
Hi, Durga. The baby radiates love, because that’s what it is, and it hasn’t forgotten that as yet. It’s in the no-witness state; there is witnessing, but no witness. It doesn’t know its the One, but neither does it know “other”.
Who can feel the energy you’re describing? Is that energy coming out of those fingers and toes, or are those fingers and toes coming out of that energy?
August 20, 2014 @ 10:27 am
Thank you John for sharing this. I hope you’re mouth is healing to the point of no return. Speaking metaphorically it would seem the journey to the heart is a long and winding road with medical interventions coming at it from both ends. The God of my understanding has a wicked sense of humor. I often wonder if my life is not strewn with subtle gifts that I am too preoccupied to notice or give thanks for. I sometimes feel like I’m a fish swimming in a clear cool pond saying to myself “Someday I’m going to find water. I have faith!”
So, as a fellow slow dawner I enjoyed your understated story. thanks again.
August 20, 2014 @ 2:52 pm
Hi, Philip! Find out who the swimmer really is. Turn your attention upon itself. Can you find a swimmer, or just swimming? 🙂
August 20, 2014 @ 7:19 pm
This place is a real party 😉 I might visit more often. Great comments. Divine humour.
August 20, 2014 @ 8:44 pm
Yes, it’s a swimming party for waves.
Love to you all,
The Ocean
September 4, 2014 @ 4:05 pm
I have found all of John’s writings very thought provoking, to the point, and expressive of our human experience…thank you, John, for sharing your thoughts (and your obvious considerable writing skills) with all of us! We are enriched by your wonderful offerings!…
September 4, 2014 @ 4:09 pm
Thank you, Jan! I know John will appreciate this.
In joy,
Fred
September 14, 2014 @ 4:33 pm
Hi
As I read Fred saying “look closely to see if there is Something Large to Learn here”
The Tears came and came
Story of my childhood victim came forefront
And I was loving ” my self ” overwhelmingly
Had always looked outward for that love etc etc
And now I was being flooded from within
Thank you
September 14, 2014 @ 5:08 pm
Hello, Lana! Thank you so much for this beautiful, moving note.
Ultimately this path is about being willing to tell ourselves the truth. Deciding we want to be free more than we want to be right, or be a victim, or anything else, this is the typically the huge step toward the recognition of our True Nature.
All love,
Fred
September 14, 2014 @ 8:31 pm
Hi
As I read – being willing to tell ourselves the truth –
Amazing – one would think that that would be easy or shall I say of utter importance so to speak
And yet the making/allowing or being able to make the movement from victim to truth -the wanting freedom more Than – hmmm
Soo much mind construct/thoughts/stuff
It happened as I read what you wrote and it resonated all the way
A deep let go a deep sigh – a willingness this I had no control of
Lana
September 14, 2014 @ 8:33 pm
There. That’s it.