II. Iona – It begins with a dream

Hannah and I on Iona Island with the Abbey in the background. July 31, 2022

Excerpt from The Compass, pages 6-7

August 1, 2022

Insight Monday on the Isle of Iona, Scotland.

I awake with a clear lesson from my heart. I rise out of the half-dream, half-real conversation my body shared, like the condensation a misty fog leaves behind on a window. Here is what I wrote down in my journal:

RESENTMENT is seeking attention and compassion in my waking heart. It is the next layer, the next piece of clothing waiting to be disrobed, aired, and laundered. Learn of its origins and it can be folded and put away in the closet of the past. This will allow a greater peace to take root. This is the clue I’ve been waiting for into the nature of my separation.¨

I sit down for breakfast with my daughter Hannah who has joined me on this pilgrimage to Scotland. My various guides told me in meditation that the spiritual formation of my company, My Inner Lighthouse, could be found on this tiny holy place.

I’m here to find clarity and direction. I want to share a little bit of my world with my daughter. Part of my work is knitting together clues from the other side of a bridge. I nibble on my breakfast and sip coffee, noticing a small flock of nun finches outside trying to balance on a wire near a post. It’s next to a plain wooden bench. I see myself sitting on one end of the bench and then, little Sally, maybe four years old, walks up and takes a seat on the other end. As I watch, in my mind I welcome little Sally and after a moment or two, she begins to playfully swing and pump her legs underneath the bench. She is wearing white patent leather shoes with little white lace anklets.

A friendship is struck.

♦

I awoke with an immediate understanding of a hidden emotional stream, a bypass. A current was rising in my heart, trying to break the surface. I now realize and appreciate the intricate intelligence of the need to bypass this for so long. I scribbled more on my notepad:

This has been an emotional method for me for a very long time, this bypassing. I am denying feelings which brewed into resentment because of neglect. It is a most bitter brew.

I look up the definition online of RESENTMENT:

‘It’s been described as a mixture of disappointment, disgust, anger and fear.’

At this point, the Pixar movie INSIDE OUT comes to mind; the character of disgust being such a vivid teacher for me. I jot a note in my small pad that this movie would make an excellent tool for a boundaries lesson. Then, the four word lesson from Thich Nhat Hahn comes back to me. In my meditation, we face one another and with closed eyes and prayer hands, he simply states, “No mud, no lotus.”

Yup, I’ve reached me some mud!

Resentment is a residue. Left behind when a surface is wiped cleaned, too quickly, the servant in a hurry to please her master. Now, I am both servant and master. And the appointed time has surfaced.

I feel tremendous gratitude for this morning’s gifts. The first morning on Iona and already a worthy lesson.

I recall how everything was cleaned and wiped down in my youth. No room for the dirt or dust. No quarter. You don’t air your dirty laundry. That was the unspoken rule of the Mathis household.