The Pebbles — by Elazar Aslan

By Elazar Aslan

My fiancé and I were preparing to go on a ten-day silent retreat. I had been many times over the years, she only once before. Regardless of one’s “experience,” each retreat carries its own power. We were also preparing for something else: the first part of a three part marriage ritual—the spiritual part in private, the official part in City Hall, and the celebration with as many people as our budget, room and networks allowed. We felt that starting our ritual at the end of a spiritual cleansing would be an auspicious beginning. But during our planning, we didn’t fully anticipate the silent aspect of the retreat.

Through some note passing and head nods, we did arrive at a spot in a small garden at early dawn of a full moon. The idea we’d discussed before we entered silence was that to create some spiritual union between us, we needed to clear all the obstacles to that union— though symbolic, it was rather powerful. Our understanding was that our families of origin did, despite their loving intent, give us some views and beliefs that were no longer helpful or necessary, especially for a healthy and intimate relationship.

The ritual that we envisioned was to take turns walking on the path, in silence, with pebble-filled shoes while the other person supported us. We spent the first ten days thinking about what those toxic beliefs might be and collecting pebbles to represent the pain they caused us as we walked through our daily lives.

By the time I showed up with a pocket full of pebbles after ten days of silence, I was feeling a great sense of anxiety. Will we be able to do this? How much will it hurt? Will the mosquitos be out in full force that night? The darkness of night did not help matters. In any case, I helped her do the four turns and sat down to fill my shoes with the pebbles. I happened to put all my mother-created pebbles in one shoe and my father’s in the other. I started walking. It really hurt. The pebbles were all jagged and sharp and obviously unrelenting. I even sensed my sock getting a little wet, indicating some bleeding. I kept walking. We had decided to walk four times around the little garden, counter-clockwise. I had only walked half way around once. The pain was overshadowed by fear. It wasn’t just that I was afraid I might have chosen the “wrong” pebbles and this would hurt too much, but I suspect the act of letting go of something, even something painful, is still an act of courage. It seems that many of us live in a three-sided prison cell; the only thing that confines us is our attachment to it and our aversion to letting go—after all, why else would we grab the bars tightly, complaining the whole time, when we could just as easily turn and walk out?

I kept walking. The pebbles kept hurting. I wasn’t even around the first turn.

Oddly enough, when I finished my first turn, the pain had subsided. In fact, the pain caused by sharp rocks in my shoe was totally gone. Rather than feeling good about this, I felt deep, deep grieving for that fact. Not the loss of the pain, mind you, but how quickly I adapted to the pain. How easily I identified with the pebbles as part of my foot, rather than things that didn’t belong there. For decades I had been walking on this earth thinking that the pain was because I had bad feet. I took on all the unnecessary and poisonous crap that was stuffed in my shoe and called it bad feet.

Luckily, though I did not feel the pain of the pebbles anymore, I did remember that they were there. This time, at the end of the fourth turn, I sat on the bench. I slowly took off my shoes and dumped out the pebbles—first the left shoe, then the right one.

As I walked back to the meditation hall, still in silence, I couldn’t help but feel how much room there was in my shoes, how freely my toes could move in them, and how much joy they were creating. And how much love and gratitude easily filled the space.

* * *

It is high time that we walk upon this earth without pebbles in our shoes.