Life Purpose: Service
Life Lesson: Family / Community
Formula: Must you be a lone wolf to gain control over your life?

If you have never been to East Texas, you probably have the wrong picture in mind. The Piney Woods in and around Nacogdoches are greener and more comfortable than hard-scrabble West Texas, more solid, not as mossy mysterious as Louisiana to the east. They have a look and feel, a smell, a taste, an inclusive embrace all their own; genuine and unpretentious, a not-trying-too-hard beauty. It was here, just south of the Arkansas border, that I read for Emily and her circle of friends.

Emily's home sat at the end of a two mile dirt road, more an extended driveway really, surprisingly unrutted, almost carpet-like. I parked behind a dozen cars and pick ups scattered in the front yard area and followed a path of gardenias toward the house. There, a porch swing with a commanding view of a distant tree line swayed slightly in the breeze, too new to creak. I half expected an apple pie to be cooling on the window sill and Lassie to come out and greet me. Instead, a scotch taped note on the front door told me to just come in without knocking. I did and took in my surroundings.

The Homestead

The ranch house was simple, refined, spacious and cozy all at the same time. Beautifully furnished with handsome antiques, family heirlooms and old portraits, though only a few years old, the home felt lovingly lived in, as if it had been in the family for generations. Her husband Fred had built it himself I was later to learn, along with several other houses in the nearby hills. Hospitable, with a firm handshake and clear eyes, Fred quickly excused himself, going upstairs to be with his two young daughters.

Entering the hallway, I scanned the wood paneled walls and looked into the proud faces of great grandmas and grandpas, photos that must have been at least one hundred years old. Their eyes spoke a certain continuity, an unbroken chain to Christmas dinners and christenings. I felt an ache come over me, a longing for family, stability over time. It reminded me of when I came into possession of a wedding photo with my father at age five, flanked by all my great aunts and uncles I had only known as senior citizens. They had been young moms and dads once, were old when I first met them, no longer alive now. Would my early black and whites evoke the same feeling some day in my forbears? Who would rebuild my barn if it burned down? Richard! Get back. You don't have a barn. Oh yeah.

The Reading Circle

Onward to the forty by thirty living room where the hand reading circle awaited. Emily offered me one of the two mahogany rocking chairs that faced the large rock fireplace. More pictures, in color this time, graced the mantelpiece, above which hung a spectacular quilt, a work of art so large and so well made, no one person could have crafted it themselves I decided.

I flashed on the medieval tapestries hanging in the Cloisters in upper Manhattan. They too must have been lodged in some castle in their youth, the backdrop for long forgotten gatherings, part of the furniture, priceless museum pieces not yet aged into gracious maturity. What conversations had they heard? What as yet unlived dramas would this quilt be privy to? I would soon find out.

The reading circle proceeded as usual. Tonight's group was all women and we were bonding and connecting, sharing and laughing together. I felt welcome, one of the girls, catching up and reminiscing. Emily's hands were the last to be read and she took the reading chair eager and seemingly unconcerned.

The Cosmic Staircase

Emily's hands revealed the Cosmic Staircase Configuration, a series of five indicators that, when taken in combination, suggest a person at a crossroads between their current path and an emerging spirituality. While not necessarily troublesome, I sensed that for Emily this was not going to be easy.

I run into the CSC only once or twice a year. Usually the owner has started to see things they realize others are not seeing, intermittent glimpses through the veil, an accelerated self awareness that signals a kind of spiritual apprenticeship. Show continued dedication to one's spiritual path, eliminate that which does not belong in a spiritual life (whatever that means in each individual case) and insightful wisdom becomes a focal point for a deeply rewarding career. Life coaches, therapists, personal growth workshop leaders not yet employed as such are standard auspicious outcomes for just such persons. But first, stark dedication to one's own process must be demonstrated.

Spring Cleaning

For Emily, this meant the possibility of expanding her role as spiritual guide and facilitator for her comfortable circle of friends and family to the public at large, the public outside the confines of the Piney Woods of East Texas. With this new role, if she accepted it, her entire life as wife and mother would be up for review. Not that she needed to change everything. But… what belonged in this life of her's and what did not? Other indicators in her hand told me I was looking at a marriage crisis that had not yet hit the fan.

I had seen this before. One woman I remembered with similar hands had stopped having sex with her husband after her third child was born. Two years later, that Fred accidentally ran into an old girlfriend and began the affair that would terminate the marriage. The aggrieved spouse gained ample support from her network of friends, but what I saw in those hands on a different day was relief, not sadness or anger. She had wanted him gone and he had given her the perfect out.

Spiritual Union

What Emily wanted, what was becoming more obvious to her but harder and harder to admit, was spiritual union: a marriage of two lovers climbing the Cosmic Staircase together. She needed a life partner she could share her inner life with, someone to talk to at the breakfast table about last night's strange dream.

What use would it be to Jacques Cousteau to have the most beautiful wife in the world if she didn't like diving and didn't care to discuss the oceans? That would be fine for a part time sailor, but for the King of the Seas, a proper Queen has different requirements than for other men. Emily was in the same boat. She needed a husband who would be part of her journey. All Fred's other attributes were secondary.

In the hand reading circle I talked of her special gifts that were rapidly increasing, her big heart and how meaningful a contribution she was making to an ever growing community. I hinted that even bigger circles were currently being prepared for her. But the next day, in her private session, I discussed the full import of the CSC. She was twelve months celibate, she confided. Fred was disgruntled but still affectionate. She felt cornered by something but hadn't been able to put her finger on it.

Dalliance in Dallas

She explained: "I was at a workshop in Dallas last month. Late Sunday night, after most of the others had left, I found myself bearing my soul to this young man whose eyes opened up and engulfed me. I felt so fully seen I wanted to dive right in and be embraced forever - until I caught myself mid-dive. I hurriedly made my retreat and drove guiltily home, confused but somehow elated as well, as if sneaking home from my secret lover."

"It is only to get worse," I suggested. "You can do what you want but you glimpsed your new life, wanted it, and I doubt you are going to get it out of your mind. Not this particular man mind you - your new life."

"But I love my husband, my life here, my kids, my home."

"Yes."

"I don't want to leave."

"Of course."

"Are you saying I should tear up my family over some vague desire for who knows what? My girlfriends say they have desires that they don't act on. So what? That's life."

"Emily, you love Fred and he loves you, right?"

"Yes, but that man last month. I can't explain it. He was offering something Fred can't. If I had stayed two more seconds I don't think I could have stopped myself. Then I come home to my handsome husband, a wonderful man with whom I've built this wonderful life and nothing. No response at all. What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing. It is just that your inner awareness is getting so acute, you can't avoid it."

"If I am so smart then why am I so confused?"

"Have you told any of this to your husband?"

"You've got to be kidding."

"No. I'm not saying what specifically you should say, but I have seen this several times before. Usually, the man or woman is considering leaving a good job or dropping some long held habit like the four nights a week bowling club in order to free up more time for spiritual pursuits. In your case, the focus is on your marriage."

"I do not intend to break up my family for anything."

"I agree. But if your husband knew how important it was to share what is happening with you - that your life together depended on it, who knows what he would do."

"But he's not into any of this stuff."

Kryptonitis

"I know. But listen. Let's say you had this rare disease: kryptonitis. I'll bet Fred would drive to the ends of the Earth to help you. He'd read up on kryptonitis, accompany you to kryptonitis support groups, etc. He didn't pick this as something to be interested in, but that's life. He married you for better or worse and kryptonitis is just what happens to be the truth of things."

"Emily, you have a form of kryptonitis, but it is not a disease and it is not fatal. But it is not going away either. If it was clear to him that the future of his family, not to mention his sex life, depended upon his ability to learn and participate in the kryptonitis story, I would not be surprised if he shifted gears."

"But I have already asked him to come with me to these seminars. I have given him several books to read to help him understand what all this as about. He's just not interested.
"Maybe - but I am telling you, I would bet almost anything he doesn't know. Of course he knows about this part of you and your interest. But I'll bet he doesn't get it, that his marriage is at stake - because I am guessing you've never actually told him."

"That guy last month (a stranger really), do you think he or someone like him is going away? Are you willing to scuttle your spiritual growth activities to keep a lid on it? Is that what either of you actually want?"

The reading took a different tone at this point. The outcome was not guaranteed, but it was clear to Emily that she needed Fred to see her like the mystery man had and for that to happen she needed to reveal more than she had so far.

Emily had Sacrifice for Family as her fingerprint story and here she was, twenty nine years old, and for the first time the life theme was obvious in its full glory. Of course, looking back, earlier incidents were consistent, as would future events as yet not dreamt of. Perhaps in past lives she had given up her dreams to please her family or the reverse, others had done so for her. That brought up a recent dream, she told me.

In the dream she was a soldier, a partisan during World War II and when captured and tortured, had given up the names of her comrades. Her captors, in their cruelty, had made her watch as they rounded up and shot the lot. She didn't like the dream, but could not place it in her life story. Now she could. "What does loyalty really mean?" she stated. "To whom and to what must I be loyal."

Mischigas

More commonly, those with these fingerprints face dysfunctional family issues from the birth family to their marriages and community life as well. Abuse victims, codependents, lives of silent desperation - these themes often crop up when the fingerprints reveal Family as the Life Lesson. Other times, the Goldilocks Rules bounces the other way. Instead of too much Family impinging on one's life, this alternate version of these fingerprints yields the Lone Wolf. Like Jeremiah Johnson, they flee to the hills in an attempt to avoid the Family Mischigas (Mischigas is Yiddish for messy entanglement. I learned the word from my grandmother.) only to find that there is no avoiding one's Life Lesson. Sooner or later the Mischigas finds them. Then what?

The goal here is to contend with the Big M, not run from it - to wrestle with its implications, to come to terms with one's need for Family without becoming a slave to expectations.

Of course, some with this chart balance Family / Community with personal needs and for them, the Life Purpose blossoms. But in most cases, some epic battle must precede such outcomes. And, for a select few, having survived the mother of all battles, Community Leadership emerges: the Life Lesson not only out of its closet, but fully held and lived as a focal point.
Epilog

Two years later I heard from Emily: her husband had died in a head on. I was stunned - the man with the clear eyes. What a tragedy. I offered my condolences and agreed to see her in a few days. I hung up the phone and tried to take a deep breath but couldn't. I paced around the house but this thought kept imposing its way into my mind: was this some kind of weird Sacrifice for Family? Had Fred left the planet the better to keep his family intact?

I tried not to think about it. I went out for a six mile run. But under the trestle, at the four mile point, the jogging path came to a small grove of tall pines and I was back at Emily's ranch. I upped my pace and upped it again. I was sprinting, not touching the ground. It was like a treadmill was moving underneath me with realistic yet painted scenery passing to the rear on all sides. I ran to exhaustion and walked the last half mile in some sort of out of body daze. At home I stood under the shower until the hot water was gone and stayed a few moments more until the cold water brought me back. Too tired for anything else, I went to sleep and woke up twelve hours later - no dreams remembered.