Digging Holes

One night I dream of falling into the ground, moving through it as though it were air. There is a rock house that I live in with a rabbit and a mole. I taste the earth when I breathe.

In the morning I wake up and discover I am living on solid ground. I get up to wash the morning dirt off my face. I putter around – sipping coffee, going to meetings, driving around in my fast car. Before long, I become restless. I cannot stop thinking about falling through the ground. I tell my wise friends, and they tell me to focus on enjoying the air around me.

It is sound advice, but I seem to be a creature of the dirt. Before long I am spending a lot of time staring at the earth. Like a crazy person, I crouch on my neat square lawn and talk to the worms, making jokes they do not understand about how the weather is down there. I find myself digging small, secret holes all over my backyard. One day when I am the last to leave work, I uproot our office’s potted plant and dump the dirt all over the floor. It is a good feeling, but I hastily clean up the dirt and leave an apology for the janitor, scampering down the stairs with a feeling of greatness and self-loathing. I dream that one day I will quit my job, give away my car, buy a month’s supply of coffee, and give myself to the dirt. Eventually I discover something special in one of my small holes, and I am inspired to expand it. I pull out beautiful shells and buried treasures, ancient artifacts and lots of dirt-life. I show my friends and a few of these things excite them. I introduce the items to my meetings. Sometimes people come and dig with me, now. Then one day with half my mind in the air and half my mind on the dirt, I put my shovel in the ground only to find that it is just a crust, and there is nothing left under it. I fall through to a strange place, the ground I once stood on crashing down all around me.

Sitting in the shatters of your world is not a pleasant place to be. Really, it sucks. This world under the crust is not a place to build a home. It is unsafe and inscrutable. There are scary monsters lurking out of sight. I spend a while trying to light a torch with words until the futility overwhelms me. After that I cry a lot, but this unknowable realm has a heart of stone, and remains unmoved by my poetic despair. As my tears dry up but my pain does not, I feel as though I am approaching an invisible canyon. I try to dig in, to run backwards to avoid falling over the edge of the cliff, but time moves me forward at a steady pace until the moment of terror right before gravity begins to take me, and then –

And then the next moment comes. More follow. I am rooted to the spot, held down by the shattered pieces of my world, and that is it. There is nothing to stand on, no more to see, think, or do. There is just my continued and inexplicable experience of existing.

I love the dirt under my nails and I love finding buried goods, but I think the real reason I dig is to be able to once again just inexplicably exist. When I feel the ground I stand on start to cave, I cry out in alarm. My fear is tempered, though, by a weathered inner voice that says, “You forgot, but you came looking for this. Let go and fall with grace.”

My holes, my digging, my inexplicable existence are all very personal. However, I do not feel lonely in them. I believe I share this space with others – others who lose themselves through meditation, through work, through prayer. Perhaps this strange and inexplicable place is where I practice my faith, where I learn to believe. When I can make sense of nothing in me or around me, I realize that I still believe I am here. I believe in the beauty of being. I believe in deep laughter. I believe in the inevitability of change.

At one point I fall asleep and when I wake up I am in my bed again. I am back on solid ground. It feels strange, but I am happy to be back, knowing what lies underneath. On my bedside table is a compass. I open it and see that it points down. I let out a deep laugh. I get up and walk past the bathroom – I will leave the dirt on my face today. I drink my coffee and get in my fast car. I go to my meetings and am full of new ideas and energy. I go home to see about my holes, but find that my lawn is smooth and beautiful again. I smile – what magic. I put ‘dig new hole’ and ‘inexplicably exist’ on my to-do list and go inside to work. With my renewed energy, I have been able to take on a lot of important new projects at my meeting. It will be a busy month.

Months pass, and my lawn remains well-mowed and undisturbed. I am too busy to dig holes – there is important work to be done. Lately, though, I find myself dissatisfied. I start to dream of my rock house in the dirt again. I take the problem to my most important meetings, but find that no one can tell me how what we are doing relates to the place under the crust. Many people refuse to believe such a place is real. I pull out my compass to show them: down. They nod supportively, and ask whether I am saying we should move to a lower floor on the office building. I try to explain the place below the crust, but beneath our window is miles of pavement. I am sorry, they say, but I do not see how we can dig there. We would need heavy machinery, and a lot of money. People would have nowhere to drive their fast cars. Pull out your compasses, I tell them. Then you will see. But their compasses all point different directions, all perpendicular to mine. We appreciate your input, they say, but ‘down’ is not a direction on the map. Maybe you can re-group around a more realistic option.

I go home and sit on the grass. I like my meetings. Everyone’s direction seems interesting. I want to create something beautiful for all of us to enjoy. Something does not feel right, though. I do not know whether I can continue to live across when my compass points down. I hug the ground. I begin to dig new holes.

What is the connection between the important meetings, the earth, the pavement, the holes, and inexplicable existence? As I dig, I think of different ways to bridge the place below with my world above. Maybe I need to make more times to dig holes, or invite some of my friends to dig with me. What would it be like to spend my whole life digging, and abandon the world above? Or, perhaps I should go back tomorrow with pylons and a jackhammer and show it is possible to crack the pavement, that there is rich earth underneath. Perhaps we all need to point our compasses downward, and dig up the whole city, so we can realize the ground we stand on is not as solid as we think. Another possibility is that I can find a way to ‘inexplicably be’ without digging at all – then I can go down and across at the same time. Actually, how do I know down is a good direction at all? Maybe the only person who needs to go down is me. Or maybe no one needs to go down, and I should choose a direction that is on the map. I do not remember why I put so much faith in this compass in the first place…

My shovel breaks into empty space, and I try to fall with grace.

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