The Call of Spiritual Emergency: From Personal Crisis to Personal Transformation. Emma Inc. Bragdon

and ease.

      When I was seven months pregnant, I received word that my mother had killed herself. Less than two months later, I gave birth to a beautiful boy. Within the next twelve months, I experienced the deaths of Suzuki Roshi (leukemia), my employer (suicide), and my sister-in-law and her husband (killed by a drunk driver). Then I had a miscarriage, my father's companion died (overdose of drugs for heart disease), and then my father died (complications of alcoholism). My husband and I could not weather the stresses of this time together, so we separated. Our divorce came shortly thereafter.

      I think the only things that enabled me to live through this emotional war zone were my connection to my son, Jesse, my desire to nurture and protect him, and my connection to Harry Roberts and my therapist at that time. These very human connections made me want to keep my body healthy and use these heavy emotional experiences to grow spiritually. Without the comfort of Harry's and my therapist's companionship, their witnessing, their wisdom, and their strength, I don't know if I could have kept myself together. The money I inherited at my parents' deaths also helped in a literal way to keep my body and soul together. This inheritance relieved me of the worldly stress of having to work, so I could afford to have quiet time for myself, be with my baby, and receive psychotherapy.

      Paradoxically, I was experiencing so much death at the very time I was giving birth and becoming a mother. It was a clash of opposites, and the golden key to my opening new doors of understanding. The grief was too big to feel. There was too much disaster to come to terms with. My baby's needs were immediate and present. I went from numb withdrawal to feeling exquisite joy for each moment I had, because I felt that at any moment someone else whom I loved would be taken away. I was being forced to live in the present moment because the past held no promises and the future was unpredictable at best. Life and Death, the archetypical opposites, had made love on my doorstep. Now, change was the only constant—except for the predictable diapers and nursing. Those tasks kept me grounded.

      In the midst of this year, little miracles awakened me to the knowledge that there was a plan for my life, and it was good. One summer day I went for a bike ride with my son. We were both dressed in shorts and light T-shirts. He was strapped in the child seat on the back. As we cruised along at a moderate speed, a dog ran in front of the bike, causing it to fall and Jesse to be catapulted out of his seat. He fell onto the pavement and rolled along the asphalt. Before he hit, in that split second, I prayed my hardest that he be protected. My prayer was an arrow to the center of God, unwavering and without doubt. I then fell (getting heavily scraped on hands and legs), got up, and with dread walked over to my child, who was not stirring or making a sound. He looked up at me with a smile, as if he had just been floating on a cloud. He never cried. He didn't have a scratch on him. I never found a bruise.

      My prayers were also answered speedily when I decided to buy a house in Sebastopol, California. One morning I meditated on exactly what I wanted—a red house on a hill with a view, a rental cottage in back, two-plus acres a short distance from Sonoma State College, where I was to finish my B.A. degree. I contacted an agent. That afternoon the very house I had imagined came up for sale at the price I could pay. Nothing like it had been for sale for months. It was a dream come true.

      From these beginnings, twenty years ago, I have gone on to train myself in spiritual work and psychological work so that I too can help people to integrate their spiritual experiences with their ordinary reality, to reach levels of development beyond ego. I have tools to develop myself in my own ongoing spiritual emergence. Even better, I belong to a community of friends and colleagues who want to support each other and be supported in the continued awakening process of ourselves and our clients.

      Numbers of people are going through passages of human development into transpersonal dimensions. My story is just one illustration of this course. The next chapter delineates a general map that is applicable to all people. It charts the territory more distinctly as forms of spiritual emergence and the composition of psychological issues in that landscape. Metaphorically, we are entering into a wilderness experience—meeting the naked elements of life, trusting we have what we need to sustain and protect ourselves. Just as it is safer to have companionship in the wilderness, it is also advisable to have a spiritual friend with whom to share the journey into transpersonal realms. This becomes crucial in spiritual emergency.