Mother’s Cedar Chest

Investigating those things we’ve tucked away

 

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. – Lao Tzu

 

When I was growing up I was fascinated with a rather large cedar chest that sat at the foot of my parent’s bed. Whenever Mom had it open I was drawn into their room like a moth to a flame. I remember sitting on the floor as mother lovingly put things away ¾ special tablecloths, delicate sweaters, hand-made decorations, fragile souvenirs … memory makers and keepers. The smell was mesmerizing but it was the love that I noticed.  She gently tucked everything she valued beneath the lid of her big wooden chest, everything material that is. Cedar chests were called a special name by girls of her generation. They were called Hope Chests. Before young women got married they filled their chests with linens, a special dress, sometimes a baby’s christening outfit … those things they hoped and dreamed for, those things that symbolized their growth into adulthood.

 

During the past two weeks I have been looking into my own hope chest, but unlike my mother, I do not have a literal wooden chest in which I store the significance of my life and the dreams for my future. Besides, my generation would have needed a chest much larger ¾ cavernous and capable of expansion. I couldn’t have been satisfied with a wooden chest that fit at the foot of my bed. Everything I dreamed of wouldn’t have fit inside. Perhaps I would have been better off if it had.    

 

Over the past many years I have been emptying my chest of all its needs and desires, trying to find out who I am without them. While in Mexico on our year-long sailboat trip I had experienced emptiness and the immense connection to all that accompanies such a Divine encounter. With that understanding I knew there was something more to life than things, that what was important was simple and clean, loving and pure. Nothing else mattered beside Love. In the end, Love would be all that survived.  So I began purging myself of everything I believed I needed to survive. God was my help mate showing me things I hadn’t considered and assisting me to strip away everything that wasn’t His Love. All that happened ­¾ Ken’s illness, money concerns, family issues, the success of others … everything ­¾ had to be cleared out of the chest. What amazing grace.

 

Last week another Divine intervention took place. In the flash of eye I saw my emptied hope chest and in the corner was a rather large speck of dust. We are converting our property and hopefully our neighbor’s property into an intentional community. One of the partners in the endeavor is an amazing woman with a brilliant husband and two small children. She is a remarkable healer and spiritual teacher in her own right. We were considering the four of them living with us while all the details of creating an LLC ¾ getting permits, plans and construction ¾ are completed. That could take a while depending on how cooperative the county planning folks decide to be. In order to do that a downstairs carriage house remodel was required. There’s an apartment upstairs and the two floors together would give a family of four enough space. As I was trying to renovate my husband’s attitude about lessening his storage space, it came to me that his acceptance had to be intentional as well or the community we wanted to create could not thrive.

 

That in and of itself was a worthy speck of dust but the insight that happened later that night dwarfed it like a giant. As we were watching a mindless television program I saw a speck that I still cradled in my chest of hope. Something inside me wanted to watch mindless programming and hang onto a bit of human normalcy … to be like other people and not dissolve fully into Love. I wanted to hold onto life like most humans live it so that I could fit in (just a bit) and not be completely off the charts. With another spiritual teacher and her family here, I knew life would be different, more focused on the Divine. I had caught sight of a well-hidden safety deposit box inside my hope chest.  

 

Is it gone? Have I processed my desire to keep the contents in the small corner of my chest ¾ my self obsession? The desire still moves within and I sit in awareness allowing it full access to my mental, emotional, physical and spiritual bodies. At times it feels like a war inside, guns blazing and cannons exploding. Then it settles and softens before the war rages again. It is interesting to watch and to experience. Writing about it today and sending it out to you tomorrow feels cathartic.

 

We all have things we hope to hang onto, things that keep us from experiencing our wholeness and from a face-to-face meeting with God. When all is said and done, nothing will remain but Love. We are each intended to realize this Love fully and share it with our brothers and sisters while we are still in a body and here on Earth. We are this Love. It is a choice that we each must answer for ourselves.

 

Lindsey Kelloway: What are people like, on the inside?
Powder: Inside most people there’s a feeling of being separate, separated from everything.
Lindsey: And?
Powder: And they’re not. They’re part of absolutely everyone, and everything.

From Powder: 1995

 

 

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