The Fence...

Life, as it always does, afforded an opportunity for me to see things differently last weekend.  Who knew that a Fence would become fodder for awareness, and a blog post. :)

Our neighbor came to the door Friday evening wanting to know if he could take out the split rail fence on the property line between us, saying that the fence was not functional.  The real issue was that it kept him from easily accessing our side of his raised garden beds that abutted the fence, which meant he had to stand in our yard and lean over the fence to get to them. 

The fence belonged to neither of us, but had been put there by the developer many, many years ago.   My husband answered the door. I was preoccupied somewhere else in the house and missed the whole thing.  Anyway, B said – sure!    And then came to tell me what had transpired.

Enter drama…

My ego-mind immediately took over.  What does he mean that a fence is not “functional”, of course it’s functional, it sets boundaries! – I retorted.   It’s symbolic I argued.  It’s the principle of the thing, I snorted, feeling dismissed and disturbed that I had been left out of the decision. (No control issues there! :))  I felt myself go into resist mode.  My husband thought I was crazy and couldn’t believe I was making such a big deal about it.  He said to say no would have created uneccessary tension between the neighbor and us.  Maybe so – but still, I felt it necessary to defend my point. :)  Isn’t that the way the unawakened mind works… :)

It was obvious, even to me, that something in me had been triggered.  I suddenly felt vulnerable.  I watched as it took our neighbor about an hour to lift the fence posts out of the ground with a hydrolic car jack, and dismantle the fence.

For some crazy reason I felt sad, felt a sense of loss of what it symbolized – the letting down of boundaries, and a deeper fear of being more open; something that, from a spiritual perspective, I thought I really wanted anyway.  But now that it was really happening, in a symbolic way, it made me uncomfortable, feeling somehow unprotected and vulnerable.  Interesting how we are wired for safety and protection, and our egos become fearful of emancipation.

As Yoda said in a movie once – “You must unlearn what you have learned.”    

I am aware enough to know that a fence is only a symbol of a boundary.  That in reality there is no separation, no dividing line.  And yet, my mind *likes* the *idea* of separation, of yours and mine, of “other” who needs a reminder to keep from violating “my space.”  How un-enlightened of me. :)  Robert Frost, a New England poet, had a famous line in one of his poems, Mending Wall: “good fences make good neighbors.”  That has always seemed to work for me! :)  But an awakened view of the world requires a letting go of boundaries, of the sense of “other.”  I was being faced with that in real life, not in some idealistic spiritual concept.

Each day it became less and less of an issue as acceptance set in; cautionary acceptance, “what if” acceptance – like: what if his teenage son sees this as an invitation to come into our yard; not like the fence has kept him out before!  Once again, it’s only symbolic.  It doesn’t really keep anybody out.  It just makes *me* feel better that there is an *illusion* of a boundary that one must respect, providing a false sense of security and protection, an *illusion* of safe separateness.

Isn’t this how the world works too.  We create these false boundaries thinking it will keep us safe, like fences between countries.  We create tribes, communities, circles and in-groups.  Even beliefs and belief systems become fences that we create to keep us separate and safe.  But something always manages to get through – whether literally or symbolically.  Something crosses the boundary that we have created, disturbs our comfort zone, and forces us to awaken from our illusions of our separateness; our illusions of control; our illusions of safety.

Yet, there *is* something about a fence that I like. :) 

Mirabai Starr recently wrote about this sense of “other”, of separation, in her blog post “Otherizing.”   Here is an excerpt that struck me.  I highly recommend you read the whole post to get the context.

“The illusion of separation is what causes violence and oppression.  The minute we identify an individual or a group as being Other, we banish ourselves to a spiritual wasteland and justify treating someone else with anything less than loving kindness. [We] draw artificial boundaries to bisect a circle of our inter-connectedness with all beings.  [But] when we sit together and begin to peel back the layers…..it turns out that just about everyone everywhere affirms that Ultimate Reality is a unified field, and that no matter what names we ascribe to it…..it’s name is Love.”

Top Photo is not "the fence" at the property line :)
Unfortunately I didn't have a picture of that one.
It is another split rail fence from another place

in the neighborhood.
Sorry for the poor quality...

2nd photo - neighbor's garden beds
right up against the property line
where the fence used to be...