“When the mandala is finally finished, however long it takes for the
monks to deal in this divine geometry of the heavens, they pray over it —
and then they destroy it. They sweep up every last grain of sand and give handfuls of it away to those who participate in the closing ceremony as a final memory of sublime possibility. Then, they throw the rest of the sand into the nearest living stream to be swept into the ocean to bless the world. And that’s it. It’s gone. In an instant, after all that artistry, all that work, it’s over.”

I am burned out.

I have spent the better part of today trying to sift through GoFundMe updates and re-constructing this blog based on them. Gofundme isn’t, as I’m sure many know, a blog, the updates don’t really work/flow like that. I was trying to cut and paste and get the dates in some sort of order so that it made sense – IE, it was chronological, concise, etc. For the most part, the cutting-and-pasting was fine, or at least relatively quick and easy. I would read just a few lines from each update, hunt for the photo contained with it, and then post it. This was like stepping on landmines. I became so triggered. It is a year out from my first transplant, but the memories are so fresh. Even if it were after a decade, I could easily feel this knee-jerk reaction and slip into this state of paralysis.

I don’t know why I keep pushing myself in such a way. I seek to escape to get over things. But I am in a labyrinth, walking around, disoriented, lost. Of course, healing is a maze, and one must work patiently to find the route. More so, which I know logically (philosophically?) but have difficulty accepting, is that one must embrace wherever he/she is – even if it is a confusing, endless maze.

I often think of a mandala. The metaphor is loosely connected to this, but it still stands. I think about these monks working endlessly on this beautiful sand “painting,” fastidiously laboring over it. The attention to detail is of utmost importance, but so is this sense of being present, of working in the moment. The work isn’t seen, or at least I believe it isn’t seen, as a whole. I believe the monks begin and work from breath to breath to breath. The skill they have acquired is so precise that they are masters at work. But the mastery comes with a patience that is only possible from moment to moment, from breath to breath.   

Try as I might, I am not in this place. I look in the mirror, and though I see the present Jeremiah, who looks back with brightness in their eyes, I can’t help but see Jeremiah, whose eyes have a vacant and sickly look. These two (and many other forms) stand side-by-side, I can’t.

How do I let this person go? I know it isn’t possible in all aspects; this person has defined me in many ways. But like the mandala crafted by the patient monks who let it go, destroy it by the hand that labored over it, wash it away in a river… how do I let the pale and sickly Jeremiah go, embrace the Jeremiah that is now?

“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”
Pema Chödrön