Kenophobia: Fear of voids or empty spaces

It is not open spaces I fear, there is a comfort in seeing the horizon, the blanket of stars, even something can be divined from a grey mass of clouds ahead. It’s the space inside, what remains when all has fallen away, the blank page, that repels me like an electric fence. While I was on retreat this summer my mind came up with all kinds of excuses why it could not move aside for silence, why I should urgently make my way another place, anywhere else. It flitted with agility from one problem to another, reminding me constantly what I should be worrying about: in the purity of morning amnesia, in the space between wakefulness and sleep, as other peoples lips moved in conversation, fluttering over their shoulders. To protect itself in the wilderness my mind held up its own mirror, like Alice's, a fantasy world where my identity was solid, my social standing unmovable, my rightness rocklike. I began to miss London, a place I had fought to carve an identity, where people knew who I was. The things I had attained there shone brightly in my mind like fools gold.

And yet in the real mirror I was becoming less and less defined. My hair grew long and I wore shorts and t-shirts for comfort, I was less and less a belly dancer, a business director, a Londoner, a follower of trends, and more and more a human, lighter from putting down my armour, and more fragile also. I no longer felt it necessary to define my "special" qualities to the world in return for its attention and recognition. Instead I became more free. The blanker my internal page, the quieter my mind, the more my creativity would bubble up in the form of words, ideas, sketches, colours. The effort and burden of perpetuating my London identity fell away. I craved to come home, I craved to stay in the stillness of meditation. I was happy and then sad. Everything made me laugh, I would cry over nothing.

I didn't know who to trust, the old me? the newcomer. The anger, the tears, the laughter. My teacher says the mind cannot be trusted, it is fickle, changes from minute to minute. But the soul just knows. It can sit silently for milennia with its knowing, listened to or not. In the power vacuum, in the intolerable emptiness, my mind, Bushlike, began to impose decisions (its sweaty hands gripping the sides of the rollercoaster ride) justifying them with a story, stamping them with a reason, filing them under right/wrong. Soon I was leaving the retreat centre, the relief of taking action, of a plan amidst the inertia was refreshing. I felt confident to be returning to the familiar.

On my return outside my window rain fell from the light of a street lamp. I re-entered the life i had built and found it to be inanimate, museumlike. My heart was homesick, searching, wandering in the no man's land, yearning for peace, for the kind of satisfaction that can only come from a quiet mind, an inner place of peace. A place I cannot not decorate, disguise or avoid. A simple uncluttered place of no furniture. A place were time expands and where the soul can rest for a while. Sometimes this is a place to be visited in sleep. But sometimes, magical moments of calm infused with rising joy take you there. And you just want to sit and sit, aligned in the silence of the place, forever, like a mobile phone on its charger, like a rock in the sun.

And yet my teacher says, if you are happy and satisfied in this moment, the future takes care of itself. Joy is not born of reason. It is something that rises from the playfulness of the soul and expansion of the moment. You can attach joy to a certain kind of weather, a certain form of love, a word, a goal, a compliment, even an inner peace. Or simply be it, now, exuding it, radiating, glowing, for no reason! Which makes me laugh - such a simple freedom! Reason is a liar, emotions do not have to follow its regimented lead, they are free of attachment and can arrive on the wind, or the lips of others. Or even emanate unfathomably from the deep silence of the inner space, its eternity like a rocking chair, empty and desolate.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
Some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
Who violently sweep your house
Empty of its furniture,
Still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
For some new delight.

— Rumi

I'm fine. How are you?

I've been thinking about what happens here, at the retreat centre in the mountains where I'm staying, and why I like it so much. I feel so much a part of the group here and that I don't need to have anything special to offer other than my presence as a human being. If I just begin to think about something I need within minutes someone walks by who can help. And its being helpless that facilitates this.

In London I'm fine. That's my catchphrase. I'm fine because I have my car so if I need to do some shopping or get to a class I drive there. If I need some food I walk out of my front door and I'm on the High Road, metres from the supermarket. If I need to know more about something I google it.

I'm fine. And yet it is a lonely existence, never needing or asking for help. It really hit home for me yesterday when I needed to pitch my tent. I was a little anxious about doing it on my own and finding a good shady spot under the trees. I began to hatch plans as to how I could get this done without asking anyone: pitch it myself in classic super-independent style, look forlorn while carrying the tent past a crowd of people, do without etc. All the indirect, complex ways I am used to concocting.

In the end I simply mentioned it to the friends I was sitting with and soon I had an entourage of three guys, one carrying the tent, one holding my hand and leading the way, the other figuring out the route to a good spot. When we found the spot, after dismissing several less superior possible sites, I began to read the instructions and direct them on how to pitch the tent. But one of the guys just motioned to me to sit down quietly next to him. "Let them do it" he said. And I sat and watched my tent being put up without interfering. It was an uncomfortable experience at first and then I began to relax a little when I saw that the guys didn't mind and perhaps were even happy to help. (Although I couldn't help myself from inspecting the final product.)

In some ways we are isolated here, stuck up a mountain away from the convenience of civilisation, and in others we are a community helping each other get what we need. If we only ask. It's a great lesson for the English, with our excessive politeness and "don't go to any trouble." In our Mr Bean mad way we would rather walk miles into town than ask for a ride and have to, as a frend put it, "push yourself forward".

And yet its these very things, the small things, that make up the satisfaction of life. The moments of real connection with a person, when you really take the time to hear them, the laughter with friends, the gentle wind through the vanilla scented trees that you can hear before it reaches you. These moments give us co-ordinates on the grid from which we can survey the world, they define us as a necessary stitch in the tapestry. They help us sigh an enormous sigh of relief. As in the Arabic/Sufi chant we repeated as a zikr (which means to remember) the other day here. Min ana, ana huna. Who am I? I am here. And that is all.