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| Center of Sun Wheel created by students at U Mass in Amherst |
News of our assignment to Australia - to Oombulgurri Human Development Project - occasioned terror and the injustice of leaving the children behind balanced by a sense of the call to great adventure and participation in a grand strategy to alleviate human suffering globally.
Mimi Shinn and her husband, Ed, had begun the project. She had stories to tell of what she had encountered returning to what had been an abandoned mission for some twenty-five years. Local wild life had claimed the abandoned buildings as their homes - most particularly the snakes.
The world atlas showed that the highest concentration of poisonous snakes in the world lived in the Kimberly region - where Oombulgurri was located.
The most vivid story Mimi told was of her taking a nap one hot afternoon when they first arrived, surrounded by unpacked boxes, on a cot in the middle of the room. When she awoke, there were snakes dangling from the boxes in every direction. She had little choice but to stay right where she was until they slowly slithered away.
Hearing that story left me in a place of sheer terror. I was terrified of snakes as it was, but the pending reality of having to live with them was reason for consideration of what it would take to actually give in to this great adventure.
My husband and I took trips to the Chicago zoo and I would stand in front of these glclass cages with snakes inside in snakes. Each time one so much as moved, I panicked. Adjustment and desensitization to be in charge of the terror took several trips, none of which I was willing to venture off on my own to do.
We spent ten days in Singapore on stand by. While there we participated in the festivities of the Year of the Snake. I remember still how that celebration and the snake like decorations weaving through a parade, provided a more receptive image of the possibility of encountering a snake.
While in Oombulgurri, I finally adjusted to the fact that snakes were somewhere and I learned to be wary, as I would of crossing a street in NYC or Chicago traffic. When I would take an early morning walk to the river, there were many tracks showing where snakes had crossed the sand path during the night. There were tracks left by a snake now and then that had come through a hole in our bedroom and left.
One of the elders of the community taught me how to walk through the grass so as not to disturb or frighten a snake, and thus be safe - not that I ever had the courage after that to walk through the grass. But, I was grateful for the skill of learning to walk like a feather.
When my sons finally joined us in Australia, they cut loose and ran fearlessly through the fields and everywhere else their feet would take them - while I held my breath through it all.
The truth is, I only actually saw a snake three times while I was there. One time, the young boys in the village chased me with a door snake - a harmless, yet ominous looking thing.
The second time, one was swimming along the new boat that the Department of Aboriginal Affairs had given to the community. That snake was longer than the boat.
The third time, there was a lorry load of blokes driving out to Jandungi. One of the youth spotted a snake, jumped off the lorry, picked up a stone, and bulls eyed the thing, killing it on the spot.
Jandungi was a pool at the beginning of the Forrest River, probably created by a spring. The layered red rock rose high above it on one side. The other side was a sandy beach in a gently wooded area. Ancient lore had it that it was the home of the rainbow snake - the beginning of alllife. I loved to go there . It was a sacred spot and I felt very safe., whether or not there was a rainbow snake or any other kind of snake there or not.
There is something about encountering sacred space in an otherwise unwelcome environment that makes the terror of the unknown there worth it all.
I have since found other sacred spaces in the wilderness, but none quite as special as was Jandungi, near Oombulgurri and all its terror of possibly encountering a poisonous and deadly snake.
And guess what, I am still here to tell this story.
What is your story of experiencing sheer terror and then finding the safe sacred space within that environment?
1 comment:
Oh, I remember that time in our lives: We were privileged to bring your handsome young men to Australia. For the life of me, I cannot remember how they got from us to you. I never got up to Oombulgurri, but what experiences you must have had with living with the poorest of the poor. And the snakes!
One of my most terrifying moments was receiving the assignment to go teach RS-I as a 3rd teacher.
I could handle 4th teacher, but the thought of having to give a talk or do a paper was unthought of terror. I remember trying to come up with an excuse
that would wash with "the authorities" of assignments. I thought about saying that a parent had died and then thought how that could be like praying that they would die. I wanted to be sick, but not so sick that I would die. I thought maybe I could break a bone or something like that. I literally grew sick at my stomach with the anxiety of the assignment. The next morning as we did the canonical hours, the scripture reading was so pointedly for me that I knew I had to make a new decision.
I recall that it was from Romans:
And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? 15 And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent?
Well, I thought the word of the Lord had clearly spoken to me and got up the courage, like many before me, to say "yes" to that assignment. Robert and Cheryl Truman were in that course and later joined the Order, which was a high moment in my being able to make a response to teaching. As you know I still struggle with this, but occasionally the scripture comes back to remind me of my being "called." Love and care, Lynda
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