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One of my Beloveds passed away recently. Michael.
He was my psychotherapist off and on for twenty years. Buddhist, Jewish, New Yorker. Referred to himself as a Jew-Bu. He was in his late 70’s, still practicing psychotherapy. He passed over 33 days after a cancer diagnosis. He thought it was gallstones.
Michael told me that as soon as he got the prognosis, all of his anxiety went away. “All of it.” Mmm, I nodded. I could feel myself craving that kind of relief. Wondering if it was possible without the end of my life being in close sight.
He knew my deepest, deeply. And not because of everything we dragged out in therapy. Not because he saw me weep and rage and question existence. Not because we talked about how I always felt on the outside with my peers, “Stay there,” he said. Or how the Prajnaparamita Sutra comforted my aching for The Divine Mother to delight in loving me. “That’s what you deserve,” he said. Om gate gate para sum gate Bodhi svaha.
He knew my deepest, deeply because we related. (At least, I like to think so. At his Celebration of Life a lot of us laughed at how he made each of us feel like we were “the only ones.”) But I felt a mutual, heavy loneliness. And a kind of lust for the Divine that made for a lot of short hand and finishing each other’s sentences. I was always a bit in love with him.
We talked about cars. And cashmere. Michael’s therapy office was a room with afghan carpets and pillows on the floor. Patients sat on the ground and he served up tea in small ceramic cups. I kicked off my Frye boots one day. I wasn’t wearing socks. “You don’t wear socks with your Frye’s?” he asked, “Never. Socks are for sucks,” I smiled.
He looked at my empty boots. Slowly nodded to his black Frye biker boots in the corner, then to his bare feet. It was us against the world.
I got to see Michael a few weeks before he left Earth. It was one of the best days of my life.
Michael was RADIANT. You know when you meet a new baby for the first time and it’s all quiet hush glowy precious and time sits still and you’re in utter awe? That’s what it was like to be in his presence. In his cashmere shawl-collar cardigan, a beanie and silver bracelets. Pain masked by meds. My two friends and I, sitting at his bare feet.
“So like, are you thinking in terms of regrets?” I asked him.
“Nah, well… there were a few women who really loved me and I was too cavalier. And you know, I wished I hadn’t given into the depression as much, because it kept me from this…”
He gestured to us, drawing a circle in the air. “The depression kept me from this kind of love.”
We didn’t know whether to bawl or to bow.
“Intimacy junkie.” I said.
He looked at me, and remembered. “Riiight, intimacy junkie,” he nodded.
After a particularly cathartic therapy session, I blew my nose and looked at him, “I don’t know how you f*cking do this. This one-on-one work. Doesn’t seem very efficient.” We burst out laughing.
“I’m an intimacy junkie,” he shrugged.
And that became my aspiration in that very moment. To be brave enough to love my darknesses, in order to help other people love theirs. A Michael mantle. Awkward and courageous. Material and ephemeral. INTIMACY AS THE INTENTION.
Michael’s passing shattered something in me. Like a glass window breaks and lets in the warmth and the wind. Closer to nature. But… exposed.
“You know, Thich Nhat Han was right,” Michael told us on the Day of Radiance.
“About what?”
“He said that we got The Four Noble truths wrong…”
I’ll pause here to paraphrase The Four Noble Truths:
“It’s not about the suffering!” Michael punctuated. “Ya ya, there’s suffering. But the teaching is really about the joy. We missed the whole point. Follow the joy… Follow the joy.”
We hugged goodbye for a long time. And I think we told each other everything we needed to say—ever. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you…” Michael said over and over, overlaying me saying, “I Love You, I Love You, I Love You, I Love You…”
Warmth and wind. Suffering and joy.
…
Michael and I spoke music to each other.
Here are the two playlists I made for him most recently.
He said they helped.
What you stop doing is as important as what you start doing, I always say. We don’t need more goals. Just less bullsh*t and toxins.
Zero to very little:
1. Monday meetings. Revolutionary. I keep my Sunday-sacred-fresh-vibe rolling and use Mondays for quiet creating.
2. Biometric face scanning BS in airports or concert venues. I just say, No Thank you. By law, they need to let you on the plane or in the venue because you brought the ticket. Get informed.
3. Wifi at night. Shut it off before bed.
4. Earbud air pod things. Brain fryers.
5. Microwaves.
6. Corn. Found out I’m allergic—which explained why I’d wake up with sore joints after movie night (inflammatory.)
7. Rice. Carries mold. And mold did me real wrong these last few years.
8. Peanuts + peanut butter. Also mold carriers.
9. Gluten
10. The “News” 🤣
11. Polyester—read my fabric breakdown here.
12. Teflon. Watch this documentary: The Devil We Know. Better yet, toss all your teflon this weekend.
How do you thank someone who’s saved your life in so many ways? I wrote this poem for Michael and Anne Davin (my other psychotherapist). I was booked to be on Russell Brand’s podcast the week the world fell apart in 2020. I’d planned to read this in our interview. Here we have it:
Thank you for your exquisite suffering
(how to show gratitude for being saved by someone.)
— Danielle LaPorte
When someone gives you their medicine
first notice: how it smoothes your shattered edges.
Then: how they placed hope into you so precisely
it seems that they brought it back from your future.
And the ultimate blessing: when they walk with you so steadily,
so full of Faith in your Life Force that they
re-set you to your original channel of Love.
They do not let you fall back asleep.
They remind you one more time and one more time and one more time
that you belong and you are wanted and needed and that you are God’s sunrise.
Their certainty is your restoration.
How can you thank another human for that Holy showing?
Your life is beyond words.
But now that you’re stronger, reach deep into the natural order of things
and with your hewn respect
thank them for their own exquisite suffering.
Pay homage for the terror they wrestled into Grace
and the doubt they digested into crops of Blessings.
Thank them for the pain they churned with their mercy-begging for so very long.
Kiss their precious addiction on the mouth.
Look them in the eyes and thank them for
befriending the demons who live on the bridge to becoming The Blessed.
They’ve done the work, mortified and lost, maybe even more lost than you.
Be in awe.
Revere.
Bow. And stay there long enough to see how
someone’s unearthed and cut jewel became your beautiful latitude.
🌕 Full Moon in Capricorn on Friday, July 21
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WANDERLUST PALMAÏA
December 4 – 8, 2024 | Playa del Carmen, MX
Where the zen of the white sand meets the mystery of the Mayan jungle… Danielle will be joining many renowned teachers + speakers with Wanderlust for their next event: Wanderlust Palmaïa.
Palmaïa, the House of Aïa, is unlike anywhere you might have wandered: a secluded sanctuary in the Mayan jungle that also offers the best in beachfront relaxation. It’s a mystical place, where ancient roots and sacred rituals interact with contemporary wellness and exquisite plant-based cuisine.
From the transformative temazcal to yoga decks in the jungle, consider joining Danielle in Mexico this December, where you can find your true north… by heading south.
At long last, better than ever. This Fall.
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Follow the joy,
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🏝️ WANDERLUST PALMAÏA December 4 – 8, 2024 | Playa del Carmen, MX
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