There is a field, and I’ll meet you there

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
Doesn’t make any sense.

Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks and John Moyne, from The Essential Rumi, published by HarperCollins)


I learned to meditate in April 1992 at the Victoria TM Centre. The man on the phone instructed me to bring a white handkerchief and some oranges, which I was asked to place in a large ceramic bowl on a carved mahogany credenza in the foyer when I arrived. I was interviewed briefly by a small, thin, bald white man who gave me a mantra. I then filed into a windowless room with twenty or so other people, an eclectic mix. We sat on folding metal chairs arranged in rows as the bald guy led us through the steps of meditation. Twice a day after that, I would close my eyes for twenty minutes and quiet my individual mind so I could access the collective consciousness.

A beautiful invitation

Yesterday, January 20, 2025, when the unthinkable was happening in Washington, DC, I joined a worldwide group meditation organized by the family of David Lynch. His children had posted on social media:

David Lynch, our beloved dad, was a guiding light of creativity, love, and peace. On Monday, January 20th—what would have been his 79th birthday—we invite you all to join us in a worldwide group meditation at 12:00pm noon PST for 10 minutes. Let us come together, wherever we are, to honor his legacy by spreading peace and love across the world. Please take this time to meditate, reflect, and send positivity into the universe. Thank you for being part of this celebration of his life.

David Lynch was a disciplined meditator. I lack his consistency, and I hadn’t meditated for a while. But the events of the day made me eager to participate. I wanted to merge consciousness with others who share my desire to find light in the midst of this darkness.

Beyond words

My experience was beautiful and ineffable. Beyond words—a phrase so ripe with meaning for me that I chose it when I embarked on my editing career. I consider myself to be a word person. David Lynch was not. He found words “insufficient. One-dimensional. Not up to the job.”

I think that’s what I was reaching for when I chose the name of my editing venture. Certainly it’s what I gesture to in this blog, even though I necessarily rely on words.

A secret language

For the most part I couldn’t follow David Lynch into the strange corridors of his mind. That doesn’t mean I couldn’t see his genius. I could, and I did. In 1990 I was enthralled by a TV show with haunting music, my own beloved Pacific Northwest landscape, and unforgettable characters like the Log Lady, Laura Palmer, and FBI agent Dale Cooper. The latter was played by Kyle MacLachlan, who became one of David Lynch’s avatars. MacLachlan wrote a beautiful essay in the New York Times about what it was like to be chosen by David Lynch to channel his “secret language.”

“As for the secret language, he’d give me direction like ‘more wind’ or ‘think Elvis.’ Other times, after a take, he’d come stand next to me, and we’d just both look out into the distance and somehow — I can’t explain it — commune in that quiet space. I received him. I knew what he wanted, and he knew that I knew.”

I don’t have David Lynch to stand beside me channelling ideas through me, but I have a place where something like that occurs. I can’t tell you Who I channel, because I don’t know. It’s a Mystery.

The place I go to is a field. I call it my church. I go there more often now than I sit to meditate, but I enter the same field in both places.

A willing channel

As part of my daily prayer I say “I am a willing channel.” What I receive in the field, when “my soul lies down in that grass,” is vastly bigger than words. There, “ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn’t make sense.”

That’s what I experienced yesterday in the group meditation. Though I couldn’t see any co-participants, I felt their presence. I was aware of being part of the collective consciousness, but the idea of “the other” evaporated into the air.

Kyle MacLachlan says of David Lynch:

“David didn’t fully trust words because they pinned the idea in place. They were a one-way channel that didn’t allow for the receiver. And he was all about the receiver.”

As a writer, my task is to take what I receive in the field and try to translate it into words. My skills are hopelessly inadequate for the task, but I persist because I cannot do otherwise. Like David Lynch, I don’t fully trust words, yet I have to rely on them. They are my medium. My work with words—writing them and editing them—is what I love. I dropped a link just now I hope you will follow: into the corridors of David Lynch’s heart.

Thank you for sharing your genius, David Lynch. Thank you for sharing your love.

 

6 Responses to “There is a field, and I’ll meet you there”

  1. carin

    This is everything, Leslie. The power of even one person putting forth ‘good’ is never a tiny thing. Thank you.

    Reply
  2. Joan Conway

    Thank you for this. I actually got to see Coleman Barks read in Vancouver about 12 years ago. He was accompanied by Sufi dancers. I would say it was one of the most exstatic experiences I experienced but also shattering in its beauty.

    Reply

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