By Jim Lawer
I wake up before dawn, slowly climbing
off the back of an owl that has flown me up the side of a tall
mountain to a glass windowed greenhouse, where I will work with
healing herbs. The dream slides into the dark around my bed. I am
still looking through the windows to the expanses of cultivation and
towns spread into the distances. The sun is warm. The owl stands on
the worktable as I stand handling mounds of fresh and dried plants.
These sensations are tingling my skin as I slowly realize I am
putting my feet on the floor and forming relationships in this world.
Consciousness comes gradually. The feel of the worktable knife, the
shape of bowls and the smell of herbs begins to dissipate. In the
dark I touch a rug. I hear a small bedside clock ticking. A sudden
implosion of images of the confusion at my workplace crowds around
me. No, I say, I will not bow down to you. There will be no
subservience. In the dark I am facing this murderous deity. Today,
then, I say, today it is. Consequences will follow. I know this will
happen. A tree in the yard on which I hang prayer ties reaches out to
me through the pre-dawn and embraces me. Slowly the gray dawn seeps
in. The pattern is engaged. I begin to ride this energy towards what
is about to happen later this morning.
Outside, another day of fog drips
through our small, coastal city. It’s been like this for several
days, an expression of the confusion enshrouding my work site. I work
for a local, nonprofit hospice. Akin to most other hospices in
America, it struggles with matching the requirements of the medical
model, while believing it can remain rooted in its ancient origins in
spiritual community—an uneasy compromise. All over the United
States hospices have skipped away from spiritual soil towards a new
definition as “palliative care.” “Keep ‘em comfortable” is
the new motto. But not for the original intention of palliation to
assist patients in engaging fully in the most spiritual act we do:
forgive all, resolve differences to move on, put our affairs in order
so as not to burden others, lean into the ultimate act of trust, let
go into the mystery, and die well.
What is an uneasy compromise in some
places has become a rupture in mine. The word “productivity” has
replaced any semblance of an altar anywhere in the agency. The sudden
appearance of consultants has virtually supplanted the informal ease
with which staff supported each other in this most stressful job.
Anxiety is medicated; end of life visions, hallucinations and dreams
generate the ingestion of even more pharmaceuticals; sorrow demands
drugs. I have spoken against this repeatedly. Having seen the
trajectory even this hospice is headed, I have confronted nurses and
the administration. Professionally, of course. But clearly. It’s a
bane of being articulate, and I’ve been politely warned. But still,
though I can make it totally clear that a patient’s visions are not
confusion and should not be medicated, I find out a nurse on that
same day claims he’s confused and assigns him Haldol. When I make
it clear that a patient’s dreams, visions and hallucinations are
spiritual material for him and me to work with, the medical staff
overrides my judgment and eradicates the rich inner material being
revealed. I grieve about this. Openly.
When I climb off the owl’s back and
out of sleep, what lies before me is a meeting at which I know I will
allow the Master of Confusion to speak through me, to let him take
possession of me with my permission. I will retain 1% of
self-awareness: I can end it at any time. Even so, I will speak it,
then speak of it and speak to it—Bardic, Ovatic, Druidic. I
practice my priesthood at work far more frequently than in rituals or
groves. I am a daily priest in this druid tradition. I put on my
shoes, eat breakfast with all the intentions I take in, weigh the fog
in my soul, thank the prayer tree for her embrace and drive to work.
Later that morning, the meeting is
convened. In the course of it, I step aside and let the Master of
Confusion speak. The ferocity of his voice startles even me. My arms
are like a white crane trying to take off, unsuccessfully. My body
cannot be still. My 1% knows I am framing an energy everyone is
feeling but no one addresses. Now He’s here. I hear myself naming
all that has gone on. I hear myself naming the vision of what the
administration ought to be doing but is not. I hear myself give full
emotional voice to the confusion of the contradictory messages, the
emotional drain among the staff, the fear from having been penalized
for not matching autocratic mandates as different from one day as the
next, the cry of those who do the work separated from the deciders
who now have offices in an entirely different building, the
depression of those who no longer know why they come to work at all,
and the unending changes with no rest. And where, the voice cries,
Where is any manifestation of our spiritual heritage? I do not care
if the Executive Director has an intellectual affiance with some
unnamed spirituality. She is way off the mark with no assertion of
her vision, and so I have come to play here. I, I, and I am fierce
with jubilate and wreckage!
Just as suddenly, I can no longer let
Him work through me like this. I see tears rolling down faces. Others
are moving their hands in the air to support me going on. There is
fright on the face of the administrator, and I know that I will be
blamed. So it is. I know what is next. The administrators will avoid
me and among themselves explain it all away with analyzing my
personality. And yes, that subsequently happened. But not all is
lost. One staff reveals that she has been to a social workers
conference recently, where social workers were told that they should
go back to their local hospices and “fight” against the very
divorce between hospice and palliation which I am also addressing.
Another social worker says that they need me and the other chaplains
to keep addressing this openly: they need us. Another looks at her
hands and remembers her own struggles. Another intimates that the
agency is going to loose some of its best workers if the situation is
not straightened out.
Throughout the day the word got around
about what happened. One nurse came up to ask if I was okay. She had
heard that I had a “meltdown.” Another staff wondered when I was
going to submit my resignation. Others gave wide berth when passing
in the hallway. Others became remarkably cheerful in my presence. And
the administrators all looked away in my vicinity. And so it passed.
My supervisor wanted a hug. A woman who was raised Sufi in Germany
wants to get together with me for dinner with her husband: she’s
the one saying good people are going to leave.
Then, three days later, a staff came in
excitedly to tell me that a space had been cleared for an altar.
As for my relationship with the Master
of Confusion, I don’t recommend him to anyone. Especially at your
work site. He’s rough. Rougher still, on the other hand, is how
much control he exerts by not being called out. What I did next,
however, was my own honoring of my priesthood. I said to myself that
as long as I was going to be the center of attention, I was going to
stand with dignity in what I had done and to walk calmly and upright.
None asked about the triumphant “I am fierce with jubilate and
wreckage!” My supervisor says she’s a witch, so to her alone I
say that what happened is my priesthood, that I say what is not being
said and speak the unspoken truth, else nothing will change and
confusion will demand servitude. There are rapid meetings happening
everywhere. But I am not being fired. On my next paycheck the
Executive Director writes, “We are thankful you are with us.”
After two more days, the fog eases, and
we have sunshine here on the coast. The gods of decay are chewing
away on the earth. This dance of fragility into deeper roots goes on.
The leaves have all fallen, those that will, and I go home to a house
empty of partnership, to quiet candles and rest. In the presence of
the dark goddess, to which I have committed myself, to emptiness and
the uncertainties of mystery, I replenish my own being and wonder why
anyone would ask to be a druid priest. This is no longer a choice for
me. My work at hospice, with the dying and with the agency both, is a
fulfillment of my being a priest. And all the potential that can come
because of it.
To you, my druid friends who have read
this, I wonder how you are living Druidry in your lives. What story
will you share with me? I welcome your responses and can be contacted
at jameslawer [at] sbcglobal [dot] net.
First frost has now come as I write these last words, and the land is
settling deeply into quiet roots. May your lives be enriched with the
blessings of this season and the wonder of the dark time.
