Written by Celeste Zygmont, Nov 7, 2024

The accompanying video clip of two cranes, who live at the Maryville Retreat Center in Holly, MI, was taken during Deep Spring Center’s fall retreat October 14 to 18, 2024.  The two cranes walk along the grassy lawn, dancing a bit, and when they reach the top of the hill, they take off together in flight and land near the shore of the lake.

In this blog, I‘d like to speak to my profound gratitude for the 30-year path I’ve followed accompanied by Deep Spring Center’s ever-evolving teachings, a path that has involved walking, a bit of dancing, and a slow but steady soaring to new heights.

Several years before this retreat at Maryville Retreat Center, I was at another fall retreat where Aaron gave a directive that lodged itself in my mind.  Has that ever happened to you?  It’s like the words were meant to be heard by you.  Your mind receives the message as if on a movie screen and you’re the only one in the theater.

Aaron said, “Be in the moment.  That’s all you really need to do.  Be in the moment.”

It’s not like I had never heard that before, but I was maturing along the path, and this time I incorporated the meaning of it more skillfully and permanently.  To me it meant, use your growing skill in perceiving objects of consciousness, and the spaciousness they inhabit, over and over again.

An object of consciousness.  I knew those arose based on conditions.  I knew they lasted only as long as those conditions gave them birth.  I knew not only because I was told; I knew because I had watched mind’s display and saw that it was true.  But there was another aspect of my learning that needed to blossom more:  to be able to identify that the objects which arose in consciousness didn’t need to be self-identified with and be used as conditions for the next moment, which would perpetuate a sense of a separate self living in ignorance.

And it was this directive to be in the moment, watching what arise over and over again, year after year, which honed a skill, the skill of access concentration.  Now, Aaron says that access concentration is not the end goal, it is a tool which can open new doors along the path.

Picture being in the hustle and bustle of daily life, mundane consciousness and your particular habitual karmic patterns feeding the various states and stages of consciousness.  Then presence identifies something that can be looked at more closely.  Access concentration, understanding this object’s nature, holds it in a spaciousness where there is no self-identification with it.  It can be seen for what it is, nondual, not separate from the divine.

Let’s say, it’s unpleasant, and maybe one of your lower chakras feels the effects of it.  Or let’s say, there’s disliking, but it continues to be held in spaciousness and known for what it is until it dissolves.  Or let’s say, there’s wanting to get rid of it, but wisdom and compassion provide a perspective that brings light to the conditions that are causing the underlying suffering.  More informed and freer, that particular karmic pattern is identified with less and less until access concentration opens a new door, where it can be known in a different way.

So for me, my understanding of Aaron’s guidance to be in the moment is like being back in that movie theater where my momentary experience is on stage, the star of the show on display, in all of its nonduality.  One can imagine how much nonattachment can be brought into the moment.

Of course, though, there are experiences of mind wherein there is so much self-identification with the object of consciousness that there is no stage, and no theater to get into.  Where ego wants to hold onto its karmic formation so much that commitment to the path leads into the dense woods of ignorance.

But at a retreat, commitment is pretty high.  You’re in the movie theater, in your seat, looking at the stage, and getting up only every now and then to see what’s offered at the candy stand in the lobby.  But you’re aware that you’re looking at the candy and aware of how your taste buds would tingle from the salt on the popcorn.

They say the teacher comes when you’re ready for it.  Little did I know that a ‘teacher’ would visit me at this retreat, would show up on stage with the stage lights intensifying its singularity.

What was the teacher?  An expression of the divine, of course.  A dark, heavy, very unpleasant one.  I knew it arose from conditions and I knew it was impermanent.  I knew it was empty of self, but the challenge was in maintaining that clarity.

There was an enticing pull to take it up as self because of the pain and anguish involved.  The vulnerability of the heart felt raw and unprotected, but the dharma is light-filled.  Commitment to the dharma and practicing the truth of nonduality give us what we need to greet the teacher, no matter how intense, and like Milarepa who invited the demons to tea, to allow it to take center stage.

I’ll make the attempt to describe it in more depth to you, but please, just know that hearing my details is not that important.  Instead, it’s understanding the clarity and perspective which derive from commitment to the dharma and the skills which are begotten.  For it is in the power of all-embracing nonduality that darkness becomes sacred darkness and that service to all beings can flow forth.  So I encourage you to stay open to your own demon, for your learning and for your service to all beings.

We each have our own teachers; mine at Maryville went like this.

Aaron says that it’s access concentration which opens doors.  To me, in addition, it’s Aaron’s teachings that have been opening the doors.  I am so grateful, and I hold him dear as a teacher whom I trust and open myself to.

At the retreat, I looked forward to asking questions about my experience to make more sense out of it.  During the question and answer period, I asked.  My question was about the characteristics of supramundane objects.  By the end of the question, I was fumbling for words, but Aaron stopped me and said he understood.  Being stopped from talking, I’m finding out lately, is a sore point with me.  But ok, there was solace in being told that he understood my question.  I relaxed and waited for clarity on this long-held query.  Ugh.  His answer in no way approached my question.  He addressed the arising of anger and being with it.

So my anticipated sense of safety and clarity upon knowing the answer to the question was shattered.  I also felt subdued in not being able to finish my question.  And I felt unknown and rejected at not being understood.  Those objects of consciousness were there, but I turned attention away from them.

I had written down three questions, and that had been one of them.  The next one, I hoped to have addressed in my small group meeting.  At this point, I don’t remember what the question was about, but Anna (the grandmother of Yeshua) had incorporated in Barbara and I took the opportunity to ask.  Again, while fumbling around with wording, I was stopped from talking.  Anna’s hand came toward me in a gesture that invited me to take it.  I did.  I know she was being gentle and caring.  I am familiar with her loving nature from her past teachings and from the book (Anna, Grandmother of Jesus).  She explained that she didn’t know about meditation questions like Aaron did, implying that she couldn’t address mine.

I started to feel sadness arising as an object of consciousness and didn’t want anybody in my group to see the tears that were forming.  I sat down but had to leave to find someplace to cry.  I felt rejected and tossed out of the Garden of Eden.  It seemed like the Brothers and Sisters of Light were all criticizing me.  My heart felt trampled on.

The vulnerability of my heart was great because of the trust and respect I have for these entities. And so the pain was great as well.  My chest felt hollow and dark and contracted.  This persisted.

Later that day, we all went down to the dock on the lake to rest in pure awareness.  It was a beautiful fall day.  While people were gathering, I noticed that a moored paddle boat had drifted in front of some people sitting at the edge of the dock.  I decided to move it away for them, so I went over and unhooked the mooring and pushed it into the nearby shallow water.  Figuring it would stay there until we were done, I sat down again.  But low and behold, after a bit, the wind coming down the hill began pushing the boat toward deeper water.

When I found out this was happening, I felt instant horror.  I was the one responsible!  I take responsibility seriously, so failing at it fills me with anguish.  Our pure awareness time was being disrupted — because of me!

Now, I need to inform any reader who doesn’t know, that our sangha is a very loving sangha, many of whom have known each other for decades.  We are all warm with each other whether we live near or far.  It comes partly through the sharing of the sometimes very difficult personal inner work we do.  This, however, also opens the door to a lot of joy and laughter.

My beloved sangha, upon seeing this situation with the runaway boat, began warm-heartedly laughing, as we had done many times during the retreat.  (It was our first face-to-face retreat in 5 years, which also added to our relief, joy and laughter — and hilarity.)

However, I was already experiencing what felt like the depths of hell, so this laughter felt like it was aimed at me.  That I was being laughed at.  It compounded the being-cast-out-of-the-Garden-of-Eden sensation.  I had to continually remind myself that these were warm-hearted people laughing unto themselves.  I had hopped into a canoe to retrieve the boat, and from the water the laughter could be perceived differently.  It was one big roar, and it was also individual bursts of laughter.  My heart was so raw that each individual laugh was like an arrow being shot out of the group and into my heart.  I stayed on task though.  The boat was retrieved (through a united effort), and the meditation continued.

By the end of the retreat, those feelings were resolved.  Let me tell you about it.  Although my mind can’t remember the details, I’ll say what I can remember.

I can remember that words were spoken to me.  As I turned to go, I decided to allow the kindness in the words to absorb into my chest.  A visual came into my mind of a thin ‘blanket’ floating down, and my chest contained different sizes of oblong shapes.  As the energy of the ‘blanket’ touched each one, the disturbed, contracted feelings released.  It all happened quickly but gratefully with each release.

Afterward, breathing in air felt so good. I wanted to keep expanding my chest to get more of the good feeling.  But my lung capacity was limited, so instead, I quickly exhaled and started another breath.  Then I saw another visual in my mind.  It was a thick white energy with a slight sensation accompanying it.  I wanted to say the sensation was love but wasn’t sure.  So I used bare attention and bare perception to zoom down into it, to be right there with it, and guess what.  It was love!  I was so glad.

Can you see the dynamic of darkness’ transmutation to sacred darkness?  Rather than me self-identifying with the humiliation pressing on me and turning to a perceived other and yelling, “You laughed at me; I don’t like you anymore!”  “You rejected me!  I’m outta here!”  Rather than that, the heart/mind wielded attention and perception, and held fast to wisdom and compassion.  This is how we can perform service in the world through sacred darkness.  With the dharma, we can attain different levels of mastery with different skills inherent in us and help bring light to the planet.  We can raise its vibration with our conscious intention.

The Mother said to me at a recent Remembering Wholeness session:   “You are love.  There is nothing you cannot do with that love.”  The more I mature in the skills that meditation brings, the more I realize the importance of love.  Thank you, my sangha, for the heart-felt work with which you light up this Earth.  I love you.