A Wisdom Community ‘Field Report’ From the Field – “Lord Have Mercy” by Amelia Weesies

Come back. Return. Remember. Where are your feet? My atmosphere is wide, like my liquids and veins, nerves, and digestive tract have stretched out across the Earth and have connected to places miles from where my body is. How did I expand so far out from my center? It seems my attention is digesting everything from Albuquerque to Egypt, in text messages, emails, relationships, planning, cleaning, tending, cooking, watering, writing, responding, worrying, and wondering. My goodness my first body can hold a lot.

I close my eyes and notice. No problem, no judgement, right here is what is. All Shall Be Well.

I remember my atmosphere and slowly invite all the places of my disparate attention back in close. No forcing, just a simple remembering that turns my many attentional heads back to the center and draws them back towards my hearth.

There’s a gentle presence asking me to trust that I can come back in, that for now All Shall Be Well. Return Amelia, come back in, this place is worthy of your attention.

There’s an ache that accompanies my collecting. How long was I out at sea? How long have I been away from home? Again I remember to notice, there’s no problem, no judgement, right here is what is. Breathe. Find my back body, rest into the seat of my being. I am here now.

Slowly a sense of ground, of presence returns and I am resting into something that is also resting into me. Like a water drop merging with another water drop, I feel myself rest back into my original home. 

Right Arm, Lord Have Mercy

Right Leg, Lord Have Mercy

Left Leg, Lord Have Mercy

Left Arm, Lord Have Mercy

Is it possible for my hands to cry? For my limbs to crack open as they are embraced in mercy? The ache of mercy as it’s received obliterates any of the pieces of me that were still holding on to wondering, “Am I enough?” Lord Have Mercy. It is almost too much for me to receive. There is no light as bright as the one that destroys my illusions.

Three rounds of Lord Have Mercy and my limbs are buzzing from receiving a grace that is beyond anything my self could conjure up or contain. 

The ache of returning to God pierces me as I breathe in this building energy “I” and send it down into all of me “Am.” The mercy received is bread for each of my centers. 

Is it possible to live from this Mercy? For world 24 to come crashing into 48, for my second body to lovingly swim into my first body, reminding it that mercy is the thread that binds them? This practice cannot remain only when my eyes are closed, this mercy is waves crashing on my day of emails reminding me that the question, “Am I enough?” is ready to be composted. Mercy is the force of rain that cracks open the seeds in me that have long been dry and yearning for a nourishment they didn’t know they needed. As my partner, Mike Petrow says, “Hell is not a place we avoid, it’s a place we invade,” this mercy invades my hells and if I can receive it, shows up as a reckoning that All Shall Be Well because doing or being enough was never in question.

May Mercy crash in on our days and may we find the resource to receive its nourishing obliteration of what no longer serves us.

*The Lord Have Mercy practice was taught to me by Heather Ruce, which was taught to her by Cynthia Bourgeault. The Lord Have Mercy exercise can be found in Cynthia’s book, “Mystical Courage,” on pages 11-24.

Author Amelia Weesies: I come into myself most easily in a forest, caught in a dance, and sitting in stillness. Questions intrigue me more than answers and I find this human experience to be endlessly curious. I am an aunt of 10 nieces, nephews, and niblings, I love donkeys, and am usually knitting. I’ve been a student of contemplation for the last 11 years, first through the practice of Vajrayana Buddhism and then through the mystical arts of the Christian Contemplative and Wisdom streams. I am a full-time graduate student pursuing a Master’s degree in Counseling and have an undergraduate degree in Indigenous Nations and Native American Studies.