We awoke wanting it to be a dream, accepting even a nightmare, only the truth is, the awful terrible truth is our lives in this one day have changed forever. Personal events have conditioned us to change courses, our work, our love relationships, our friends coming and going, even a death in the family. We know how doomed we feel when life events seem beyond our control. Our music stops and the silence is devastating. Yet we pick up the fragments and move on.

This day and those that follow are different. There is not training, no personal experiences to guide our feelings to an easier comfort. As days pass an awareness seeps in. We will need different sources of strength to engage this epic tragedy, to become one with its heroes. We are, after all, only an everyday hero doing what we have learned to do to make our lives sensible, even happy, when we can. It was not always sensible or happy, but we had discovered finally some course to take, a decision that brought light and hope, knowledge that we can make changes and our joy, humor, and vitality will return. But this now is a collective grief, huge at this time, unspeakable, unrelenting, fearful, and our ordinary hero's wisdom falters. We are transfixed, caught in a harsh light grieving, unprepared.

What do ordinary heroes do when everything changes? How is decency, love, balance and sanity restored in the face of indecent hateful acts which have removed any sense of control we imagined we had? And in that second question is a beginning. Control of many life events is imagined, not reality. Frequently we ordinary heroes are given a personal crisis, a career or job that fails, a meaningful relationship that fragments, a parent or family member or perhaps a friend who dies. The small world we live in inexplicably becomes unhappy, we lack vitality, energy to pursue any goal or dream. And what is clear to us is that we could not control this outcome. The reality is change occurs with or without horrific acts.

If we can not control life events, if change is the floor we walk on, now more than ever, then where is the light, the path to love and decency, joy and vitality? In fact is there a path now as we grapple with the personal and the collective pain of our world?

Years ago I came to an understanding, a truth for me, that life is in life itself, that small things would give me an answer to the crises and catastrophes I would face again and again. And a second truth is that I would need to surmount the holes and wounds of my very being, some since birth, to make a difference in any new struggle ongoing in my life.

We never completely fill the holes or end the wounds. If we are to bring our best self to our life challenge we will understand, discover, and accept all that we are, all our spirit contains the best and the worst on any given day. Ordinary heroes are far from perfect and each one of us shares a legacy of damage. What makes the difference is the small choices, the intention to create an act of love, to be decent in a time of fear, and to seek connection, and understanding of those who faltered, including our self. Crisis is our best opportunity to restore our lost spirit and to stretch out our hand to another who is deeper within the darkness, so deep only our voice is a guide.

Out of the silent cry and rubble were ordinary heroes who took one small step and made an extraordinary difference. Each of us has an opportunity to make a difference in our own life and the lives of the humanity around us. Ordinary heroes have a rite of passage. Hate brings us now to our passage. We could not control the origin of our heroes journey, the unspeakable acts of hate. We can accept the rite of passage; it is here whether we accept it or not. We take one small step and then another and then another. The footprints are many sizes, many colors, many different dreams. The footprints are linked irrevocably. We come to our life and society not only to be molded by it but to mold it our self in small acts of love and decency, courage and vitality.

     "Do you believe the myth that you are alone as you fight fiercely to restore your lost spirit? All that you are is in some form struggling within other souls, six degrees of separation, you and I and all the voices journeying together. We transform something in our lives every day, and each day we go forward with a small, sometimes imperceptible change. As I sit writing, the oak leaves fall out of season, some trees shedding their dying, gray, unwelcome leaves, as other shoots are already showing themselves soft, velvet, green emeralds on gray branches.
     Small steps follow one upon another - - work, play, creativity, joy, purpose, love, attachment, passion. A lightening bolt of recognition rarely hits me. I have a brief awareness, a dim light of insight, an intuitive foretelling, a hand holding my hand warmly as I grope toward hope. The Tree of Life where I happen or try to be....It is as if I were but a kind of medium capturing or transmitting the vibrations of all that is, or that is not in the world.
     Off in the distance I can hear a flute playing. I know these sounds so well. Words accompany the music and I speak them softly to you.          There is a meeting place, a crossing over where heaven and earth weave wholeness, and balance is restored....This is the migration home, and the connection rests on a blade of grass...."

Biography

This article draws upon the experience of Dr. Beverlee Zell-Tamis, Ph.D., author of The Day The Music Stopped: Re-enchantment of Our Lost Spirit (Carlisle Press, Spring 2001). Zell-Tamis, a single mother with many careers has been an active psychotherapist in Phoenix, Arizona for 20 years. She gives life to her own experiences and gives the reader an opportunity to identify with widely diverse voices who tell their own stories. At a time when more of us are being pushed into drug therapy as the quick fix of depressive feelings, the author reminds us that the most creative help is from within our self.

Her book speaks openly about her own challenges and vulnerability, acknowledging that the flawed self is everyone's beginning, middle, and end. We all share a heritage of damage to our spirit which can be understood and accepted. She offers this book with the hope that it might make a difference in other people's lives, suggesting paths we might take to find and embrace the authentic and creative self that lies within each of us.

Beverlee Zell-Tamis invites you to share your thoughts. She can be reached at beverleesee4ever@aol.com or visit her web site at selfdiscoveryofspirit.com.


© 2001 Printed with the author's permission