This May I flew to Santiago, Chile to go with friends up to Punta de Vacas Park of Study and Reflection, almost 10,000 feet up in the Andes between Argentina and Chile. Celebrations were taking place all over the world for the 50thAnniversary of Silo’s talk on the “Healing of Suffering,” and I could have stayed closer to home, but it was time for me to go to Punta de Vacas. I hadn’t been there in almost ten years, since Jorge died, just before the culmination of the World March. This time I would be traveling alone, and I was thrilled and not a little nervous.
Waiting for my connection at the Houston International Airport, I thought about how other people see me, and how I see myself…
Self Portrait
On the outside
this is what
I imagine
you might see
as me:
An older woman
with an ingenuous smile
who often does things
that are absurd
like when her son
wants to show her a picture
on his phone
(which of course glows
with its own inner light
just like she does)
and to see the picture better
she holds it under the light
of the table lamp.
She would give you money
if you were sitting on the sidewalk
with a sign,
and would believe you
if you were faking it.
Arriving at her seat
on the plane
she asks the nearest young person
‘You’re strong, right?’
and they smile
and put her suitcase up
with utmost gallantry
and later help her find
her bottle cap
that has fallen under the seat,
and for all of this
she is glowingly grateful.
That might be
what you see
as me
on the outside.
What you might not see
is the me
inside:
A whole Universe
of Universes,
an emptiness
that magically contains
everything,
an ageless
clarity
that is looking through these eyes
giving its benediction
to the world.
- Trudi Lee Richards
To read more about my trip, go here –
