Sacred Commonality

Barbara Ranch Heffel, RNC-OB (Retired)

ooking into the newborn’s eyes as he lay on the warmer in the delivery room freshly separated from his mother, I whispered, “Welcome, little one. Remember from where you came, and help us, would you? Earth needs your help.”

That morning, coming to work in our local hospital, the previous night’s meeting with my Gurdjieff group still resonated. Sitting still in a circle. Quieting my thoughts. Sensing my body while sloughing the day’s activities. Releasing the tension of the drive to the meeting through ever-increasing traffic. Now here. An ethereal, as-if Presence perceived more intimately with each moment as we began to speak from this new inner state, reinforcing that our lives are more than the usual busyness that claims so much of us.

The atmosphere of that meeting carried over as I walked the halls to my unit that early morning, the intensity of this “other world” wafting, sometimes forgotten for a moment, sometimes enveloping me as a gentle and sure reality that is richer than anything else in life. Sensing my body as I walked, as I reached for doors, as I listened to reports from off-going nurses, and then accompanying my body (or was my body accompanying me?) into the birthing room.

“Welcome, little one.” Yes, the Earth needs help.

* * *

Many years before this, my bare left foot hovered between stair-treads, an image that remains an impression even after sixty years. It was early morning, and as a teenager in the angst of life’s questions, I sleepily headed downstairs with remnants of pestering questions, “What, after all, is life about? Why does it have to be this way? It’s so competitive and narrow.”

And then, the Moment. Right at that moment, foot suspended mid-air, a voice was heard in my head whose words were only interpreted through my response, “Oh. That’s right. I’m supposed to be common this lifetime.” The earlier questions that had caused such tension dissipated. Peace enveloped me, my shoulders straightened yet relaxed, head and eyes forward: “Yes. That’s right.”

This memory has come to remind me (of what, exactly, is frankly not often clear) throughout my life. What, after all, IS “being common”? Gurdjieff speaks of a Normal Man,[1] which is a fairly evolved human being. Could “common” be a shade of this concept?

I became a Registered Nurse (RN) mostly to help our young family financially, knowing it was a “good” job, one that is needed everywhere. At least, that’s what I told myself and what seemed to justify the absolute focus and commitment needed to reach this goal. A further caveat of inspiration came from Gurdjieff:

I became such a professional there firstly because during recent centuries only such physician-professionals there obtain an entree to all their ‘classes’ or ‘castes’ … and, since they enjoy great confidence and authority, ordinary beings are disposed to a sincerity towards them that permits them to penetrate, as is said there, their ‘inner world.’[2]

I knew that if I were to be fulfilled in a job, it would need to have a higher than usual level of intimacy, something that reached for relationship, connection, and skill. I found that a nurse enjoyed this same entry point of which Gurdjieff spoke. Rich, poor, vain, humble, young and old, stripped down to the ubiquitous hospital gown, exposed not only their body but their fears, their hopes, their questions. We became essential with one another quite quickly. Some were more obvious in their fear or hope, yet with each one, an ethereal atmosphere would begin to hover.

A prerequisite for applying to the RN program was 300 hours of volunteer work in a hospital. My very first day I was assigned to sit with a dying woman. She had no family and had signed a paper that she was not to be resuscitated. So, my role was to just watch over her. I was a young mother, starting a new path in life; here was an old woman, letting go of hers.

As I watched, she died. As I started to get up out of my chair, I sensed a palpable peace in the air. Settling back, I said the Lord’s Prayer with reverence before going to tell the charge nurse that indeed this woman had died. I remember the absolute reality that “something” had happened beyond the “usual,” that two worlds had somehow opened to one another.

During this time, it seemed that my whole Being was in questioning and searching mode. These precious moments of “poking through the bubble of earthly existence” have peppered my life, seemingly by mere accident, as if there is a secret door to Understanding and Relationship for which I yearned but I had no idea how to find that door on my own.

Joining a group, this mysterious door appeared occasionally through practiced listening that went beyond the ear, a seeing as if from above, and a sensation enlivening the body and surrounding area. Intentional use of these “tools” propels an ongoing experimentation to experience the nature within myself that is related to All. Simultaneous to learning acceptance of the who and what my many layers hold, is building the ability to live from another aspect, one that is not “just me.”

* * *

Starting out in the surgical wing of a hospital, I soon transferred to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with daily one-on-one patient experiences, almost always with deep and sincere questions and decisions involving life and death.

Doing cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on a patient one night, suddenly my whole body was electric, and the room “opened” to something larger-than-what-was-in-front-of-me. How to attend to both the patient and to this “something else” at the same time? While continuing to do my best techniques of CPR, an accompanying trust, a certain vibration, enveloped the room as if to remind me that all was as it was “supposed” to be. In this trust, the outcome was not a sign of blame or success, but simply of life.

Ready for a change after several years, I did day-surgery where endoscopies were performed as well as the other minor procedures. It was a more relaxing job than I had ever had and was a rich time for simply sensing my body as I walked down the hall, walked through a doorway, and entered into the gaze of a patient.

A few more years, and I was pulled again toward a deeper level of intimacy with patients in my job. In the operating room, a cesarean-section delivery was in progress. I was the “circulating” RN, responsible to provide the needs of the surgeon and/or anesthesiologist, while keeping an eye on the patient’s well-being. The baby was born and whisked to the warmer in the corner of the room where a doctor and another RN waited. The baby did not respond to the usual stimulation leading to spontaneous breathing and suddenly the whole room was in emergency mode. Life-saving measures were initiated as more doctors and nurses ran into the room. Suddenly, the shift of the atmosphere was thick.

As if pulled by magnets, I went to the mother, still draped on the surgery table, with her husband standing in shock beside her. Their wide-eyed panic still reverberates in memory, and since the life-saving measures were in progress by others now, it was as if the newborn, the parents, and I, were cocooned in Love. “I know you are scared,” almost as if interpreting what was being offered by the Atmosphere, “and I cannot promise what will happen. But I can promise that your baby’s spirit is available right now and you can communicate. Your baby’s spirit is fine and is ready to receive your love. It’s time.” Peace and assurance bonded us as we inwardly communicated with the baby.

Oddly, I don’t even remember if the baby survived. I don’t remember taking the mother to the recovery room. I just vividly remember the moment we entered another world together and the serenity that encompassed us despite the frenzy in the room.

I began to ponder; perhaps this other world, this ‘Atmosphere’ as I called it, which was available on earth, yet also beyond Earth, was an area of existence for humans and spirit to commune. We meet there when jolted from the stubborn foothold we dig, or from a new intentional listening, like a common gathering room between two or more private rooms. I began to experience this “other more inclusive wholeness” of myself that belonged to this shared space, to live both parts of my existence, one that was in relationship with Atmosphere, and one that simultaneously belonged to the material body’s manifestations.

Later on, my first day back at work after a one-month intensive training in hypnosis for birthing, “Boy, do we have one for you” was the rolling-eyed report I received from the off-going nurses, “She is completely panicked and convinced she is going to die giving birth.”

Hypnosis fits right in with my Gurdjieff studies, attention to breathing, the releasing of tension, allowing circular automatic thoughts to quiet to the point of another intelligence being able to be heard.

Entering her room, Atmosphere was already present. Listen. Invite. Allow. Enter. Embody. “Yes, your dream seems prophetic. How wise. Your life as you know it, as a single woman, is about to die. You are to be a mother. You are having a child. Let’s see how we can help that.” She stared at me. Smiled. Nodded. And we got “to work.” She had to endure her doctor’s threat of a cesarean section if she didn’t progress on a certain timetable which was quickly approaching. Afraid to have an epidural, she was bearing the intensity of natural childbirth. After the doctor left the room, pausing to affirm Atmosphere around us, suddenly the top of the baby’s head was visible. I frantically paged the doctor back to the room “Stat!”[3] but she didn’t make it in time; it was the woman, the baby, me, and Atmosphere for the first several moments. I will never forget this young woman’s exuberant expression, “I did it! I did it!!” while the doctor, to her credit, sat rocking the baby, murmuring, “Wow. I have a lot to learn.” Over the next couple of days, this young mother remained exuberant, eyes shining, warmly bonded to her baby.

During another cesarean, I was the RN to receive the baby. It was a complicated birth, and this baby had difficulty breathing. The pediatrician was called, and we worked quickly, suctioning the lungs, giving oxygen, continuous stimulation, when he said, “This baby will need to be transferred to a higher-level facility.” This was an excellent doctor, and he didn’t call for a transfer until he felt he had done everything. Getting on the phone, I began the process, then went back to tend the baby while the doctor walked over to talk with the parents. I had had intensive training in a technique called Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), an alternative healing technique, and suddenly again Atmosphere prodded me to listen and act. Tapping on the baby’s meridians with my fingers while holding the oxygen in the other hand close to his nose, holding his head in a beneficial position while whispering to the baby, “I know you had a difficult delivery. But you made it. You can start to breathe easily and fully now. It would be good to stay here with your parents, it’s okay, you can start breathing normally.” The baby opened his eyes, looked deeply into mine, and began to breathe normally. The doctor came back over, “Whaaat? What happened?” Removing the oxygen, the baby continued to do well. The transfer was canceled.

Coincidence? Possibly. Yet, the taste, the complete awareness that “something else” was going on, comes back to me intimately and immediately with full sensitivity twenty years later. My own belief is that the baby was given a choice at that point, he could have decided to die and let go. One cannot be desperate for a wanted outcome; only to enter the place where acceptance is present and fear released.

“To be common” seems now “to be sacred.” To enter this realm of commonality between human and ethereal, where a new intelligence is available. It is a distinct change of existence from being alone to being accompanied, from being isolated to serving in a community.

May I continue to aspire toward, and enter into, this sacred common area. There is a sense of being “home” here, in this space, and just perhaps, my own words spoken to that newborn baby years ago come as a beckoning for myself today, “Remember from where you came. The earth needs you.” □

Barbara Heffel has been a member of Mr. Nyland’s groups since the mid-1970s, and for a 30-year period was also a member of the Gurdjieff Foundation. She also participates in experimental “non-denominational” gatherings where all lineages of Gurdjieff’s teachings can exchange their understanding. She lives in Texas and plays piano for Movements.