Golden Wedding Day

Patoker/Gamble Horse Stables and Campground

near Paintsville, KY

September 5, 2011

1:45 p.m.

Golden Wedding Day

Put on your old grey bonnet with the blue ribbons on it

And I’ll hitch old Dobbin to the shay;

Through the fields of clover we’ll ride down to Dover

On our Golden Wedding Day.

Before I can tell you how Viveka, Richard and I resolved (or failed to resolve) our differences so that the Sole 2 Soul Mission could continue, I must fill you in on an important part of the process.

While I had chosen to confine myself to the RV during my 4 days of prayer and fasting, practicing what I have called “Tantrum Yoga,” it became clear to me on the “inside,” and to Viveka and Richard on the “outside” as well that I was embedding myself into a “cocoon” for the purpose of some kind of a transformation.  From Viveka’s point of view as the director of a documentary film, she had a “star” who was refusing to come out of her trailer!  From my point of view as the “star” -- the heroine of my own play -- I had come to a point where I simply could not move forward or backward or side to side.  I had to find a way to boost the energy to make a quantum leap into a different orbit.  I had to move into another dimension, as from a two-dimensional to a three-dimensional reality.  What was needed, although I wasn’t even fully aware of it at the time, was some new thought/energy/spirit perspective from “outside the box.”

As luck, or divine order, or providence would have it, I was praying and reading sacred texts, and meditating with the full concentration that only fasting can bring.  I was leaving no possibility out, no stone unturned.  I was invoking all forms of help, from saints, and angels, avatars and ancestors; exploring all pathways, minor and major.  

It was probably on the third day -- although I can’t be sure -- that a series of events conspired to give me a great gift -- from another realm.

When I fast I begin to become aware of the fat disappearing from my bones.  One of the places it leaves first is from the underarms, and then, also from my fingers.  After three days my rings were feeling looser!  It had been close to 30 years since I had worn a wedding ring, but on the fourth finger of my left hand was a very handsome amethyst ring, with a cluster of four good size stones and a small diamond in the middle.  It had been a gift from my mother.  Tears began to flood my eyes as I recalled the story of the ring:

In the Spring of 1984, when my father was just about to leave on a Grand Tour of the Far East with his third wife, he called me with a request.  “I am sending you an anniversary card and some money,” he said.  “I want you to buy a beautiful ring for your mother and give it -- and the card -- to her on what would be our 50th wedding anniversary.”  (I believe the date was in May.)  I agreed, and took my two daughters -- Lila 16 and Viveka 14 -- with me to the mall to make the selection.  My father’s birthday was February 5 and my mother’s was February 12, so we agreed that an amethyst ring would be best to honor their joint Aquarian birth signs.  The ring we chose was the one that pulled my focus to it that afternoon while fasting in the trailer “cocoon.” 

And in that moment of musing it also occurred to me that the date -- that very day -- was August 27, 2011.  Exactly 50 years ago to the day, in 1961, I had been married to Laurence Edward Davis at Fallen Leaf Chapel near Lake Tahoe, California.  Our honeymoon had been a bare bones camping trip into the high sierras above the timber line in a wilderness area called “Desolation Valley.”  How well I remember the adventurous spirit with which we had chosen to begin our married life.  And what a prophetic metaphor we had chosen to challenge ourselves with:  “Desolation Valley.”

This very day was my 50th Anniversary, and I was celebrating it in a very intimate, fully conscious way with my parents’ beautiful anniversary ring, and with only the memory of my deceased ex-husband.  And yet a great gift of healing was given to me in that moment.  The best way to describe it would be like a golden balm or elixir dropping down from above.  The words from Shakespeare’s play “The Merchant of Venice,” accompanied the feeling:  

“The quality of mercy is not strained, 

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath.  It is twice blessed --

It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.”  

Suddenly the world was illuminated with the freedom of forgiveness:  My father wanting his ex-wife, my mother, to know that there was still a special place in his heart and in his life for her.  And my mother making sure that I had the ring to remind me always of that love.  And my daughters‘ part in selecting the graceful and distinctive piece of heirloom jewelry, symbolizing the family bond that would always exist.  A gift of mercy and forgiveness had dropped down, like a balm from the realm of the ancestors.

There came upon me at that moment, a great sense of completion and fulfillment.  I was overcome with gratitude for everything in my life:  the way things were as well as the way things were not.  It was all so perfect, just so, as it was (and was not) and as it is (and is not) and as it will (and will not) be.  I had reached an unattached and neutral space, simply enjoying the way it IS.

On the following day I came out of the trailer, transformed from the inside out.  I was ready to talk to Richard and Viveka, and to begin to discuss ways that we could come to a win-win-win solution.  After all, there was nothing that I needed to learn or know other than that I was loved, and always had been, and always would be, and that because of this I could reach out to extend that same love to others.

*   *   *  

Viveka and I decided to move on together towards Washington, D.C. on the Sole 2 Soul Walk that we had begun on March 8, 2011.  Richard and I chose to move on through our impasse as well.  Materials were purchased in order to complete the project.  My only request was that we put our agreements and understandings in writing this time, so that there would be no more vague recollections.  I have put my ideas and requirements in writing, waiting for Richard’s response.  At the moment I have done all that I can do to let my positions, preferences, requests AND boundaries be known. 

Clearly, we are not out of the woods, yet.  It still remains to be seen whether we can leave off the recriminations and mutual assaults long enough to get on the same page to put our signatures to our mutual understandings.   But for the moment we have agreed in principle that we want to work something out between us that will benefit all and bring the family healing that is so dearly required.

We left the Cliff View Resort in Rogers, KY on Friday afternoon, September 2, headed towards Campton, KY and the West Virginia border, with only 19 days remaining to arrive in Washington, D.C. on September 21.