My late former brother-in-law gave it to me. Then I lost it. Then I found it, and used it, and I credit to it some exercise of patience I generally don’t have, that was useful at a challenging time.
Later I went through an even more challenging time, and I was trying to figure out if my brother-in-law’s mantra had a particular meaning, and though I never did find an answer, I came across this site: Home - Blue Mountain Center of Meditation (bmcm.org)
and this section: Thought for the Day - Blue Mountain Center of Meditation (bmcm.org)
and though I’m temperamentally not the meditating sort, I recognize wise words when I encounter them. And I encountered these:
To have courage for whatever comes in life – everything lies in that.
– Saint Teresa of Avila
A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don’t know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox’s or a bear’s, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.
– Meister Eckhart
and it seems to me that whatever beliefs one holds about the existence or otherwise of what we term for convenience God, those two quoted above gave some pretty good advice for decently getting through life.
The site has plenty more. There’s no dogma, and one can search according to one’s own spiritual or intellectual parameters.
My brother-in-law was said to be a mystic, gifted with second sight. Rationalists can argue about that and it’s not my intent here to dispute anyone’s point of view.
Kasir knew I’d need what he gave me and a decade later I did. He himself was dead not too long after that visit. When I’d seen something terrible in his face the now-unhusband dismissed my concern and said he’d always been a thin ascetic person. But the cancer was already ravaging him. That unexpected visit—he was a renowned poet and his admirers settled in the West had sponsored a mushaira so they could have the pleasure of hearing him in person; he was with us for only one night and the now unhusband was on his own very best behavior.
But Kasir knew. And perhaps he knew, too, that someday I might have this little means of sharing his gift to me.
“The now unhusband”... the best gift I ever gave myself. I’m not sure how much longer I would have survived , mentally or physically. But I always knew that no matter the circumstance, I would be healthier and happier. Regaining one’s strength is almost intoxicating. And I forgive myself. I always knew I had bad ass potential...it just went mia for far too long. Great piece!