A Guide For Compassion

by Traci Hodes

For several days in a row, I felt an irritation of sorts, an unsatisfactoriness.  My husband was getting the brunt of it.  Across those days,  I returned to the inquiry, “What is this?”, and each time, I released the question and moved on with my day…

Yesterday morning (it was a Saturday), it was very quiet when I woke up -- my husband and adult son asleep, the space within our home mostly to myself.  Before I sat, I did the dishes I’d avoided the night before and then settled on the couch, Lucy our Beagle beside me and Scout our cat, climbing in and out of my lap as if to entice Lucy in some way.  Slowly, my eyes closed, feeling Scout’s fur as she kept climbing over me, keeping one hand on Lucy’s back as she warily watched Scout.

I went to Red Bird… Some might say Red Bird’s a figment of my imagination.  Others might call her my Buddah-nature, or my Higher Self, or True Awareness, or that part of myself so deep inside, it has only my highest good as its sole intent… I call Red Bird my Guide, one of my spiritual teachers. She is the first guide I ever met, and she taught me about boundaries -- something I was woefully loose with before I met her.  I came to meet Red Bird when I was on a self-retreat and I had a lot of healing to do.  Each morning I went into the empty Meditation Hall and I lay down and meditated… I brought myself into a beautiful field, and there was Red Bird… at first, I don’t think I really understood what she was to me.  But she kept showing up during my sits giving me teachings, and throughout the years, she has been a guide of compassion to me, showing me how to hold difficult feelings and so much more.  Red Bird taught me what happens when I don’t listen to my own need for boundaries.  Through her communication to me and countless times, she has held and protected me.  Through years, I have grown to deeply trust her, which is really another way of saying I’ve learned to trust myself, to trust my experience.  Not such a little feat for a person who grew up not knowing what or whom to trust.

So I digress… back to yesterday morning… Yesterday morning, I asked Red Bird to show me what this irritation and unsatisfactoriness was that I’ve been feeling… and what came to me as I saw myself laying down in the field where I often meet her, in such a caring manner, Red Bird cradled me… I cradled myself… I held myself, Red Bird held me… and showed me what I was feeling wasn’t irritation, it was sadness… and then the tears flowed, and as Lucy sat next to me, and Scout kept climbing in and out of my lap, more tears flowed, the morning sun shined brightly through the window in front of me.  I’d open my eyes and look out the at my favorite tree, the tears would dry, and then I’d go back inward again, back to being held, back to holding myself, and more tears would drop…

And then it was done… as quickly as it began… I sat with gratitude for the clear seeing, the relief that Jack would no longer inadvertently receive something that wasn’t his… relief to be able to witness and be with sadness and also to feel it pass. So very grateful for this practice and the trust that’s developed.  

There are endless doorways into mindfulness, into clear seeing.  I don’t always go to Red Bird -- often, my sitting practice feels like me being aware of body sensation, wandering mind and coming back to body sensation… but sometimes, when something feels too big for me to carry on my own, that’s when I go to Red Bird, and what she reminds me is she is there for me whenever I remember she’s there… I am there for myself whenever I remember I’m there…