Good morning. For those of you who may not know me, my name is Matthew Crowley and I am a Shumei staff member here at the Crestone Center. I am humbled and deeply honored that I was asked to share a story with you at this auspicious moment. This is a true story. My stories have no beginning and no end, so I choose a place to start and hope to lead us…somewhere.
I could begin October 19, 1996, A point in my life when I felt about as spiritual as a piece of broken glass. I was at the base of another mountain with the warm light of an October sun shining on me in Stowe Vermont, when what felt like a very strange and foreign thought “appeared” in my mind - - “God is smiling at me”…God is smiling at me? That moment began a relatively short and intense spiritual awakening. As is with awakenings in this life, I would go back to sleep for a time. But I have come to believe that we reach a certain point in our journeys where there is no turning back. Or perhaps it is as I once heard Chief Arvol Looking Horse, the spiritual leader of the Great Lakota Nation say – “Some of us have no choice.”
This morning I’d like to start my story 5 years ago, on a snowy Spring morning a few days before my 36th birthday in the Berkshire hills of western, Massachusetts. I was living the American Dream. I had the big car the big house and the big job. There were moments of happiness, but I felt like I didn’t really have time to be happy. My life was out of balance, I knew it, but I couldn’t see how, or didn’t feel willing, to change it. How could I pay for my big car to drive to my beautiful house without the big job? I felt trapped and I knew I needed to do something.
A sense of spirituality had reawakened in me by this point in my life. I had taken to praying in my car on my way to work, out loud at times. The only time I had to do so in my 14-16 hour a day – pressure cooker of a job. It was dawn and I clearly recall the rosy dawn light shining on a snowy hillside as I rounded a bend in the road and spoke the following words out loud to God - - “Help me to be closer to the Earth I love.” Very directly, the clear intention in my mind, beneath those words was to see my way out of what felt like a trap I was in. There was a sense of awe and power and clarity in that moment and I didn’t know why. I was weeping and not in sorrow. Later I wondered if the rosy dawn light was reflected in the tears running down my cheeks.
“Help me to be closer to the earth I love.”
As it turned out it was easier than I thought. 40 minutes later I was laid off from my big job.
And I got it, right away I got it. I understood that this was a direct and dramatic answer to my prayer. A few hours later I was on my way home, with the realization that for the first time in 18 years, a half a life time, I had time. I thought “maybe I’ll take a few months off before I look for another job.” It would be closer to three years.
I’d sell my big house, my Cadillac and trade my Suburban for the black Subaru out in the parking lot with somewhere over 150,000 miles on it today and I’d “hit the road”.
I digress for one moment to say I am reading read today’s keynote speaker, Dr. Carol Pearson’s book - The Hero Within - six archetypes we live by, a book that is amazing me with it’s relevancy and truth. Dr. Pearson will surely recognize this point in my story as a “Fall” from the Orphan archetype and into the “Wanderer”.
I would “wander” this beautiful world of ours, crisscrossing the continent, finding community, and meeting more friends than I ever dreamed I’d have in a lifetime. Many, many stories and lessons I’d find during this journey. Eventually I noticed my wanderlust would begin to be balanced only by my equally strong “nesting instinct”. I missed having a spot I could call my home. I had a great resume and a continent of wonderful choices of where to land, and believe me Crestone was not on my radar screen. The truth is I followed an Indian, who followed a bird down “T” road to Crestone. I gave a friend, a Sundance Chief, a ride home from Sundance one year but that’s a story for another day.
On January 3, 2004, by the light of a full moon I arrived just a few hundred yards from this very spot in a U-Haul loaded to the gills with stuff that had been in storage in no less than 3 northeastern states. I was seriously questioning my sanity on the cross country drive. When I shut off the truck around midnight and stepped out into an utterly silent and moonlit night, I still didn’t know why, but I knew I was home.
I knew it would be tough to find a job in a place like this, but I really had no idea how tough. Amazingly I found a job where I could make unlimited income. There were 2 catches. One - I had to drive 3 hours a day. Two - I had to fundraise my own “unlimited” income. That lasted 8 months until I realized I was about the 12th Executive Director of what was a sort of “unfunded” mandate. I had raised enough money to either pay my self, or fund a meager budget for 2005, but definitely not both. I arrived at my board of directors meeting in November and suggested to my board that they lay me off - - 4 years earlier I had to ask God to do it. I guess that’s progress.
I had no idea what to do next. November in Crestone is only the beginning of a loooooong winter. By February, I was broke and paying my rent with a credit card, and frankly pretty depressed. My back up plan was to put my “self” back in storage (a Freudian slip I kept making when I meant put my “stuff” back in storage. - - any materialistic thinking going on there? Do you think?) I thought I might squat in an abandoned cabin on Forest Service land in the mountains outside of Boulder for a while. I really didn’t want to leave my new home here though, I kept thinking why did I come here? Why, why, why?
One afternoon well into the long, long winter, I was sitting in front of a bowl of soup laconically pondering my fate when the phone rang. I very nearly did not answer it. I was much more interested in staring into my bowl of soup at that moment. But, I got up and grabbed the phone. “Hello is Cary there?” a vaguely familiar voice said. I replied dejectedly and maybe even a little annoyed. -“No, there’s no Cary here.” “Matthew?”, the now slightly more familiar voice inquired. “Linda?” I said finally placing the voice. “Oh, I’m sorry, I called the wrong number. I just wanted to let Cary know we would not be doing interviews for a few more weeks.” “Interviews, I need a job, what’s it pay?” I said in an offhand, joking way.
And that was it - - that right there, is why I stand here today. That and a thousand, million other reasons I suppose. What I mean to say is – it’s all connected - - don’t you think?. At times like these though, these confluence of events so clearly and dramatically remind me that it’s not MY plan. A wrong number….can you believe it? Thank you Meishusama.
So of course there’s more. There’s the story of moving from “contract employee” to Shumei member to the opportunity to become an official Shumei staff person. Receiving my Ohikari September 11 last year (now THERE’S a day that can use some Light!). My journey to Misono – “God’s sacred Garden” this past February - - a place that succeeds – on so many levels – in an “other worldly” experience. An experience truly of Heaven on Earth. There’s all that and more, but we have a big, wonder-filled day before us and there will be other days to share stories… I warned you my stories have no beginning and no end.
[pause]
I wish to thank Kaicho Sensei for traveling from around the world to be with us and share her Light with us today. For all our friends from Japan and around the world. For our wonderful friends from this community without who’s kindness and support this kind of celebration this beautiful weekend could not take place.
And now I will end where we began. Shumei has three most sacred sites associated with 3 elements on this planet. Misono, our international Headquarters in the Shigaraki Mountains of Japan associated with (as is Jyorei by the way) the element of fire. Kashima island in the Seto inland sea, also in Japan, associated with…you guessed it – Water. And completing a “trinity of sacred sites” - Crestone - associated elementally with Earth. Here I testify before you today. Shumei member and Operations Manager for Shumei’s Earth Center – and I remind you of a prayer spoken out loud at dawn 5 years ago -
“Help me to be closer to the Earth I love.”
Thank you Meishusama. Thank you Kaicho Sensei and thank you all for coming to our 4th anniversary Sampai.
