Blessed Emptiness
Touching the Sacred Within
My favorite quote from the poet Walt Whitman is only seven words:
We were together. I forget the rest.
—Walt Whitman
Perhaps those words awaken a memory in you—a time when you were completely lost in the moment, swept up in the feeling of the experience. Maybe it was with an intimate partner or with family or friends. Or perhaps it was something about a place, or a moment of awakening or transformation, or even transcendence. The details of may not be so present in your memory, yet the feeling comes back right away.
As summer draws to a close, I’ve just returned to my home in Massachusetts after spending six weeks at my beloved Chautauqua in western New York. Reflecting on my time there, I have my own version of Walt Whitman’s sentiment:
I was at Chautauqua. I forget the rest.
What stays with me is how it felt to be there. No, how it feels. Because even though I’m no longer there, I can still feel Chautauqua. It’s always present tense for me. It’s like some part of me is always there. It’s my spiritual home. It’s the one place that has been constant in my life since I was 15 years old.
This summer brought reunions and deep conversations with long-time friends as well as spontaneous exchanges with people I never met before. I witnessed some extraordinary performances by the symphony, ballet, and opera, and guest artists like Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. I heard a number of powerful lectures that opened my heart while also challenging and expanding my mind.
Yet Chautauqua 2024 was so much bigger than any of those things. It was about coming home to the deepest parts of me. A feeling of home within myself I’m not sure I’ve ever known before. In the end of June, I described the first week of my Chautauqua summer in “Coming Home Again for the First Time.” Looking back now, I realize that during that first week I barely had a glimpse of what was to come.
From my first morning, I arose every day with the dawn light, spending the first two hours of the day walking and meditating by the lake. Breathtaking sunrises re-awakened light from deep within me. Misty gray mornings healed and cleansed my soul. Some mornings the fog was so thick I could barely see the lone kayakers or fishing boats just offshore—a gentle reminder that there were parts of me that I was missing—parts that were covered over or hidden from my conscious awareness in the shadows of my being.
Some mornings were so still that all I could hear was the faint lapping of water against the rocks at water’s edge and the haunting calls of geese and gulls. Other mornings were fierce with rough winds and choppy waters. Both mirrored my inner world.
Yet no matter the conditions, I felt held and supported as I walked and sat on what felt like sacred ground under a boundless sky. Each morning brought a deeper opening within and more emptying out. Until one morning in the beginning of my last week, I heard a still voice from deep within whisper the words blessed emptiness. That feeling is still with me.
I was at Chautauqua. I forget the rest.
I can only remember two other times in my life when I have experienced such blessed emptiness. Empty head, heart, and body. Profound stillness. What they have in common is that each time I was on sacred ground surrounded by the wonders of nature—a week of sunrise meditations on a solitary beach in Florida, three weeks on a mountaintop in Costa Rica, and now six weeks at Chautauqua.
Years ago I heard comparative religion and spirituality scholar Huston Smith speak at Chautauqua. It was an experience I won’t forget. In that talk, he said what makes a place or experience sacred is that it evokes the sacred in you. And that can mean whatever it does to you. I love the spaciousness and possibility within that definition. Yet what I keep learning again and again is that a place or experience can only evoke the sacred in us if we are willing to be touched in a sacred way—if we are willing to truly rest in the heart of being.
I was at Chautauqua. I forget the rest.
Blessed emptiness. It’s not the same as bliss. In fact, it often feels anything but blissful! I worked through some big “stuff” this Chautauqua summer. The rotating healing spiral that I wrote about three weeks ago helped me plumb deeper and deeper to find parts of me still waiting to be healed, revived, and restored. I touched parts of me that I hadn’t been able to reach before because I was “too full”. Yet I didn’t realize I was “too full” until I found myself in the blessed emptiness again.
Chautauqua 2024 wasn’t always comfortable or easy. Nor was I necessarily happy to be touching and exploring some of these deep chambers of my being. Yet at the same time, it was a relief to finally go there. I can breathe deeper now, both physically and spiritually. Blessed emptiness.
When I pause to focus, I can, in fact, remember specific moments from this summer. Yet what stays with me the most is simply the feeling of Chautauqua—the whole of my experience, the depths of my soul in which I was finally able to rest, and the healing and restoring of my spirit.
I was at Chautauqua. I forget the rest.
Simply beautiful Alan. Soothing for me to listen to. x
What evokes the sacred in each of us ... such a beautiful way to bring us to self, honoring in that moment, our connection to everything.