TO COUNT BY TOUCHING

“We need to count by touching, not by adding and subtracting.”

~ Anonymous

When we count with our eyes, we stall the heart. For the eyes can see clearly what is broken without ever feeling the break, and the mind can calculate the loss without ever sewing up the wound. Without touching the life coming apart before us, we can race to rebuild before the wrecked dream ever hits the ground. While this makes us resilient and efficient as ants, it also keeps us from ever living in what we build.

Alas, what makes us precise and efficient can also begin a life of neurosis; not touching what we see, not feeling what we know. This is how the mind skips the heart’s step. How we forget that blood on the news is real, that the cry from the street is attached to something living.

I remember waking after rib surgery to find a dear friend at the foot of my bed. I was elated to have arrived on the other side and called to her, but she was staring off. I knew in that instant she was already mourning me, and so she missed me coming alive. She was already preparing for life without me, and so, the deeper closeness awaiting us was never felt or worn. We think we protect ourselves by taking inventory and moving on, but we only spin our web tighter.

Recently, another friend had a dream in which we were building a home with sturdy shelves for the things we loved. She tried to count the shelves, but couldn’t keep the numbers in her head. She had to go over and count the shelves by touching each one. Mysteriously, as she did this, the shelves kept multiplying. Her touch made more shelves possible.

Such a profound and simple lesson: to count with our hands brings us deeper than all counting. Then numbers give way to notes, and sums give way to song.

~ Sit quietly and meditate on three things that you hold dear. One might be the love of another; a second, your love of the sea; a third, a special piece of music that makes you feel whole.

~ With each breath, let the image and feel of these things rise before you one at a time.

~ Keep breathing and count these dear things as they come into your awareness again and again.

~ Keep feeling them until the numbers - one, two, three - drop away.

~ Keep breathing steadily and let the feel of these dear things mix and touch each other.

~ Carry this mood of holding what is dear into your day.

The Book of Awakening

~ Mark Nepo