Falling Upwards
If you are outrageously optimistic it feels a bit like flying
Life in the medicine never gets dull. In fact, boredom is a sure sign things are about to shift in unexpected but necessary ways. I try to pay attention to boredom, so that I’m less surprised when a storm comes through to shake things up.
Soon after moving to Asheville I got a job representing service members and their families injured by contaminated water at Camp Lejeune Marine Corps base. It came at a time when I needed a job, and I’m grateful for the grounding effect it has had on my life.
For most of the past year I’ve been honored to do that work, and felt like it was a good use of my time and energy. But in recent months things have shifted and my vital energy hasn’t felt put to good use. I’ve been restless and bored, and haven’t felt nourished by the work I was doing.
I greeted that boredom like an old friend. It was a familiar feeling. One that I’ve spent most of my career experiencing. But it wasn’t enough for me to walk away. There is a season to everything, and I hoped this one would pass and that I would eventually find my way back to feeling in alignment.
But life and the medicine had other plans. Last Friday I was laid off, along with some of the best attorneys I’ve had the honor of working with. The reason was standard corporate jargon: budget cuts, downsizing, restructuring, etc.
It was a bit of a surprise, but not entirely unexpected, and in a way it came right on time. I’ve been through quite a few “restructurings” over the years, and can honestly say I’m grateful for every one of them.
When things fall apart, the only thing to do is let go and fall upwards. I’m getting use to falling upwards. If you are outrageously optimistic it even feels a bit like flying.
I did my part to help the service members and their families injured at Camp Lejeune, and will continue to pray for them. The power of prayer doesn’t translate easily to billable hours or a metric on a spreadsheet. But I believe my prayers did more good for my clients than anything else I did over the past year.
Moments after I received the news the restlessness I’ve felt in recent months transformed into optimism and excitement about the future.
In a month I’ll be returning to Austin for Parker’s second annual memorial meeting. Not unlike this year, a lot was up in the air when we gathered to pray last year. I had just moved to Asheville, but still had legal trouble looming over me in Kentucky, and was waiting to find out if I had gotten the new job.
A week after the meeting I got the job, then on Winter Solstice the charges against me were dismissed.
I have a lot to be grateful for. I love my partner, family, home, and community.
But I have a vision for a bigger and more beautiful life that has yet to be grounded into physical reality. There is a lot the creator wants to do through me, and I pray for the means to do it.
One of those things is a return to the road of pilgrimage. There are sacred places calling out to me, inviting me to gather with kindred spirits to pray, and recover the scattered pieces of our souls.
My family and I are also praying for land and home, for a place to put down deep roots, live in community, and continue to learn how to live and learn together in truth and love.
Then of course there is Ramaka. The vision that has possessed my soul.
The gift of a vision is an awesome responsibility. One that I’m still learning how to live with.
A vision is an insight into reality that once seen, cannot be forgotten. Because once we glimpse truth, we are irrevocably bound to it.
Ramaka has become the rallying cry for the golden path of my life. When I am lost in the wilderness of uncertainty, I say its name to remind myself of what is true.
Ramaka is being born through me. What it will become is yet to be seen. But the shape and contour of things is clear.
Ramaka is a temple of the Infinite Way, a point of singularity, where the divine masculine and feminine join in sacred union.
It lives in my home, as my altar, and in the living temple of the natural world.
I built this shrine on a hike over the weekend, and took joy in listening to what the stones wanted to be. It assembled itself through my hands and strong back. But it was already there, waiting for someone to put it together.
Ramaka is much the same. The pieces are already here, and the Platonic form exists eternally in non-physical planes. I just need to keep listening, and when the time is right it will put itself together through my hands.
For now listening means continuing to be useful as a lawyer in service to the good of all. That’s what I’m most comfortable doing for bread and butter, and where I have the most agency to effect positive change in the world.
The people and planet need good lawyers who are willing and able to fight for what is right and hold power accountable. But peacemakers are also needed, to help mend the threads of broken relationship and restore trust. I hope to do a bit of both of these things in the coming days. The pieces are scattered about me, and it is time to put them together.