Coffee shop spirituality

 

I had been travelling in Asia and just returned home. I felt deeply dissatisfied with my journey. The wisdom I had hoped to find in India simply did not materialize. Instead, I was struck by the extreme inequality within the cultures, the underlying hierarchies of class and race—and by the lack of genuine knowledge and guidance among many of the teachers I encountered.

Soon after returning, I met with The River, a channeled fellowship of beings who gather with the intention of supporting humanity’s evolution during these tumultuous times. For approximately thirty years, beginning in 1984, they were accessed through a deep trance medium. They remain available to those who seek their guidance through prayer and intention.

 

 

As therapy for the ennui I felt after my international travel, they suggested that for the next fourteen days, I go to a local coffee shop and speak with a stranger every day.  I was to notice people, events and environment during my interviews, taking notes and later reflecting on my experiences as opportunities for learning. They told me, “This exercise will reveal what it means to be spiritual being who is at the same time engaged in the world.” I decide to call this World as Teacher practice.

 The task frightened me beyond almost anything I had done before in my life. The thought of approaching a stranger and connecting with light conversation sent me into frigid paralysis. The assignment seemed odd and out of sync with what I understood as ‘spiritual growth’. How could I become a more evolved person by going to a local coffee shop and talking to people? Secretly I wondered how was this practice going to attain oceanic experiences of oneness, cathartic insights and inner knowledge?

For fourteen mornings, I drove religiously (pun intended) to the local coffee shop in my hometown, dutifully bought a Cupa joe and wandered through the establishment looking for people I could engage with my homework assignment. The first time out on my task-oriented coffee break I saw a couple I knew a few years previously. We had a good connection then. I was involved with a program that brought students and teachers from Thailand to spend time with Canadian families in Canada. I liked the idea, but once I had committed to the program, I realized that hosting an adult teacher and teen student would be difficult and expensive.

However, I followed through with my commitment and learned to change my perception of events to appreciate how it was a joyous time filled with laughter, exploration and interesting differences that we all valued.

I approached the couple cautiously, but they appeared to be engaged in a heated conversation. I said hi briefly but was wise enough to leave them alone. Not a great start. I took notes with the intention of bringing my insights back to the next River session. I noticed some other people and interactions in the bakery, which I also recorded, wondering if they could be significant. A young woman had just bought this bakery; it was a new venture for her. I watched her scurrying around the shop and pondered how her business would fare. Would she be able to survive in the competitive world of small coffee shop bakeries?

Next day I drove to another coffee shop. Again, I bought a drink and then wandered the seating area like a hyena seeking a kill. I noticed a woman sitting alone against the wall who glanced at me with an empathic look. I strolled over and created a cover story to explain my intrusion into her quiet time. I felt that disclosing that I was on a mission from a disembodied fellowship to go out and talk to people in coffee shops was just…well… weird. So told her I was doing an article about people in the valley and wondered if she would be alright talking with me and answering some questions. Strangely, she agreed. I sat down and we began an interview that quickly became interesting and deeply personal. She shared that she came to this coffee shop because no one knew her there and she could sit and be anonymous, free to observe but not be observed.

I was successful that day.

The next day scouting for world wisdom, I observed an elderly man sitting by himself. I felt it would be alright to approach him. I was right. After introducing myself to him, with the same cover story of writing an article about local characters, he began a narrative which has since stayed with me. He told me how he was sent along the beaches after the 1944 Normandy invasion to collect the bodies of men who had, in his words, given the ultimate sacrifice. I listened with entranced intrigue as he disclosed how he managed the gruesome assignment as a young man of twenty-two. He received a wound from shrapnel during the cleanup, which slowed him down, but with sufficient analgesics, he had carried out his duties with courage and precision.

That conversation brought the experience of trauma into sharp focus. I found myself comparing his wartime experience with the concerns some young people bring to my office—being spanked as toddlers for acting out, having their phones taken away, or being restricted from seeing friends until their homework is finished. Trauma cannot truly be compared, and I recognize that. Even so, the contrast stayed with me.

I was so moved by that conversation that I wrote an article which I sent to a local magazine. But it wasn’t accepted because they felt it was the wrong time of year, more of a memorial day article. I kept it for October, and it was published later that year.

Again, I took notes and reflected on the meaning of all three of these interactions. Now, years later, I understand the extent and importance of this task. I am solidly an introvert, which is why I write, because it’s a safe way for me to communicate without having to greet people directly. I know-I should do better. I’m working on it. The River was trying to break me out of my isolation habits as preparation for the role of spiritual leader and therapist that I now assume.

After completion of this task, I reviewed the meaning of each interaction. I took the three that stayed with me. Though I wanted to connect with my first try, the couple were embroiled in more urgent matters The first interaction taught me that people have the right to refuse conversation, advice or information at any time. And on a grander scale, anyone at any time can refuse to interact, whatever their reasons.

The second interaction taught me that sometimes serendipity waltzes in and guides us in very positive directions. My interviewee has since become a good friend, and we have shared many educational experiences together. We asked her to come to our wedding and currently we attend her yoga school several times a week.

The third was a profound insight into the sacrifices that our ancestors made for our freedom and how we should be grateful to them every single day of our lives!

 

I have since given this task to my patients to help them connect outwardly into their world. Especially for shy or intensely isolated or introverted people, this is a good start to developing outward connections with others, and also in a wider sense of finding themselves reflected in outer interactions.

World as teacher applies also to those who travel long distances with arduous travel arrangements and expensive accommodation for personal growth or for plant medicine journeys. Once the mind opens into multidimensional spaces, it doesn’t matter where you are! You can be in the middle of a jungle in Peru, in a spa in Hawaii or in the mountains of the Himalayas. Once safe set and setting is created, once you create inner peace and access to inner wisdom, you can travel interiorly to wherever your Soul draws you. Into the past, into parallel or concurrent lives, into the future, to other planets with beings who are not of this earth. No travel arrangements needed. As the Zen koan states-wherever you go, there you are.

Or you can go to a local coffee shop, and with intention and quietness of mind, notice the world as teacher. Sunshine on Sitka willow, sound of song sparrow, scent of wild rose- these are our everyday teachers, if only we can listen.

If you want, you can access the entire direct transcript at my blog site- link below.

https://longboatcounselling.blogspot.com/

For a more in-depth exploration of the River, you can check out two River books available at this link.

https://www.amazon.ca/River-Books-Three-Soul-Paths/dp/B0GCDMWVV7/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0

Joy in the journey.