Peace as a Calling
I’ve learned to recognize when something arises with in me as a calling, a directive from my heart. (Warning: this post reeks of privilege.) Distinct callings: to experience peace of mind; the La Plata mountains and the Animas River; to have a second child despite how incredibly difficult life had become upon having our first child; to home-educate our children; to assist others in experiencing peace of mind.
To assist others in experiencing peace of mind - to be a healer.
When I was 21, in a deep dark night of the soul, I wound up as a student in a single dorm room in Washington, D.C. I say wound up because I don’t remember the efforts I made to look up this program. I don’t know what prompted me to choose Washington, D.C. over a foreign country, but one I can guess that I wanted to present something palatable to the adults who still controlled much of my life. This was one early occasion of expressing my truth, even though I didn’t understand it entirely myself. I applied for a single dorm room, and before I learned I needed to provide a doctor’s note, I pleaded for a single room:
“I am very easily distracted and very easily annoyed, which leads to being very frustrated, often outwardly, and this is not something that I would like to put anyone through. I am excited to meet people and make new friends in the dorms, but I do not live well in small quarters with others.”
All the things signified by this self-description aside, because that’s a can of worms for another day, I got a single dorm. It increased the cost significantly. Right at that time, I learned I was going to receive money from the estate of an elderly man I had known who was a friend of my great uncle’s. The amount was the same as the increased cost of the single dorm room. With utmost gratitude I received the money and sent it to American University.
The whole process, from the “how did I even end up finding this program?” to the logistics of the estate and tuition, remains pretty fuzzy in my memory, like being picked up out of stormy waters, through the chaos, and placed gently on the shore. Looking back, it all seems like the graceful support of the universe.
I realized as I lived in that single dorm room, that I had just placed a very high value on my peace of mind. I did not have money sitting in my bank account that could contribute to a down payment for a house or a car purchase like others in my family. I needed to get out of the situation I was in. I was seeking solitude for personal peace. I was grateful for the privilege of being able to act on this longing. The money was gone, but I found peace.
And from then on I have deemed internal peace paramount.
The path of personal peace necessarily has opened my understanding to the peace of all beings and of mother earth. We are all connected, and each person’s personal quest for peace contributes to peace on earth and within all beings.
I feel this calling for peace in my heart.
