Beyond The Wall

Peeling the Onion

by Charles "Tom" Brown

copyright 2008

Circumstances of life often have a way of stripping us of pride and ego, and when layer after layer are peeled away, it’s like peeling an onion. Dropping all the layers that we carry – all our preconceptions, our lists of the ways we’ve failed and the ways we’ve been wronged, dropping all regret and expectation, allows us to be born again into the simplicity of spirit that arises from unencumbered living.

No matter how we protest, life keeps coming, and we cannot stop the river of time and its cleansings that scour us into who we are. Underneath our particular cuts and disappointments at how the dream has unfolded, we are all formed by the same force of life passing through. We finally realize that the only way to know the truth is to live through its many casings.

The current of life requires us to stand up again and again, and we are not defeated when we are pulled and worn down; we’re just exposed anew at a deeper level. In this way life keeps getting more and more precious. It is a natural law like gravity and osmosis: stand up and be worn bare. It is how everything in the way is thinned, so we can feel just how thoroughly alive we are.

In this process we find everything is lost and then rediscovered, hardship is followed by peace, suffering is followed by bliss. Everything is followed by love. Love follows even as we search for it. It’s the truth that we remember at the end of our lives, or perhaps at the end of the life of a loved one. It’s the truth we see when the superficial preoccupations that compete for our attention and rob us of our life force begin to melt away. When the core is finally reached, everything becomes more real, everything is felt in a new and deeper way.

No matter what occurs in our lives, we can become better people because of it. If we had not stumbled, we could not have gotten back up. And now that we have gotten up, our backbones are a little straighter and our step has more of a bounce. When we have suffered and transcended our suffering, we emerge with a sacred knowledge embedded in our cells. There is nothing more illumined than the new personality that emerges when the old one has been laid to rest.

1—25-08

Wow! The attorney has finally filed the papers with the Clemency Board and expects a hearing in a month or two.

He is asking for letters of support, so if you will send one, I would appreciate it so very much. As you well know, I’ve been turned down with my previous attempts at this, but with an attorney this time, I think I stand a pretty good chance.

The thought of getting out of here is both overwhelming and exciting…and a little scary. I know, though, that it will all work out, and there will be new opportunities to make a positive difference in the lives of others.

Enclosed is my latest essay – “Peeling the Onion”. Having been stripped of so much, I feel sensitivity and a connectedness that I’ve never felt before. Life has a way of peeling us like an onion, and as each layer is peeled away, life gets more and more precious.