Unfurling Fern Frond

At times, my life appeared to resemble an unfolding fern frond. An inner force pushed me to create and face hard challenges: a career teaching adults, public speaking, forming enduring relationships, becoming an exhibiting artist, child-raising, learning meditation and aspiring for enlightenment and founding two civil right organizations (the Ingraham-Garfield Student Exchange Program in 1964 and the Hawaii Friends of Civil Rights in 2008). The drive to do each of these seemingly impossible tasks proved to be relentless and pressed me through to completion. I could no more stop these urges than the baby fern could halt the life energies that continued its slow unfurling toward becoming a lacy, expansive green frond waving in a breeze. In retirement, I fondly looked back on my accomplishments. I’m enormously grateful I had the fortitude to pursue my goals.

Life provided another kind of impetus toward growth. At times, each of us unwillingly endured devastating blows: death of loved ones, the end of relationships, severe illnesses. When my time came to face nature’s wrath, I made decisions that, in the turmoil of loss and grief, I could only hope were right. While recovering from each of these traumas, I sometimes found myself going down a road of victimhood and bitterness. These feelings seemed appropriate when nature or a loved one had slammed me. I angrily lamented, “No, it’s too much. Nature is cruel.” or “How could he or she have done that to me?” 

After a month or two, I found I didn’t want to wallow in these feelings any longer, no matter how much my bruised ego loved the blame game. I asked my meditation teacher how to let go of inner hostility that should have run its course long ago. He told me to find a prayer I could sincerely say to the person who had wronged me. It took three months to locate a prayer I could honestly say in a heartfelt manner, mentally, to the person who had hurt me. It’s called the Metta (Loving-Kindness) prayer from the Buddhist tradition:

May [the person’s name] and all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.
May we be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May we never be apart from the sacred happiness which is free from suffering.
May we dwell in the great equanimity, impartial, free from attachment and aversion.

When I examined my heart, I discovered I truly didn’t want the person to suffer. Selfishly, I didn’t want to absorb further negativity that would build in me if I sent ill wishes. I enthusiastically hoped the person who had wronged me could gain equanimity and impartiality; then we might communicate better. When he or she became free from aversion, the whole world would be a better place because this person could no longer harm others. I loved visualizing this outcome when I said the prayer. 

When I faced adversity, the unfolding fern leaf remained the right image for me. I might choose to develop with compassion or I could stunt myself with pessimism. When I observed these two basic forces in my life – the push toward hopefulness or the tendency to wallow in despair – I better understood my internal dynamics. The negative and positive both gave me an equal chance to create growthful energy. When I buckled down, determined to oust destructive thinking, I accomplished significant positivity, symbolized by the expanding fern frond.

---

---