The Past is Passed

"Writing is alchemy...truly a tool of wizards, witches and sorcerers. It’s the magic wand, the incantation, the wave of the hand that transforms all..."
~ The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write

One of the joys and sometime frustrations of writing from a place of deep surrender, I have found, is that the lessons of my words continue to echo in my life long after they were penned and published.

This seems particularly true of The MoonQuest, which, somehow through the miracle of that process, still regularly offers me reminders of its wisdom. If a few weeks ago it was about fear's sticky presence in my life, today it's about how the weighty baggage of the past can throw me back into doubts and second-guessing, can prevent me from moving forward...from taking off.

Last night, through the weird serendipity of the Internet, I learned about the death in January of a man who had once been a close friend. I met J. when we were both in our 20s, at the Montreal gay Jewish group that was so integral to my coming-out process in the more restrictive 1970s. After a brief mutual attraction that went nowhere, we became good friends. That friendship survived relocations and emotional turbulence but foundered on the shoals of one major life change: In 1998 I fell in love with a woman and got married. Although my other gay friends were initially confused, they quickly rallied, wishing me happiness in this unexpected turn in my life. J., however, seemed to view it as a betrayal of my gayness. We never spoke again.

I thought about J. off and on over the years. I even Googled him a handful of times. But his web presence was minimal and I never found a way of making contact...not that I'm certain I would have reached out had the option been available.

Last night, to help satisfy my addiction to the new Pinterest social network, I was online searching for a photo of the Toronto café that J. once held the franchise for. One of my Pinterest boards is titled Favorite/Storied Cafés, and his downtown Second Cup outlet, around the corner from my first Toronto apartment, definitely fell into that category. What I found instead was a photo of J., attached to a weeks-old obituary. He had died January 27 of an unspecified illness.

I was stunned...for many reasons.

Although I've experienced much death in my life, and from an early age, this was the first death of a contemporary at an age (mine, 57) when I'm increasingly aware of mortality. Both my parents died young: my father (though he wasn't my natural father) at 56; my mother at 61, J.'s age.

So of course, J.'s passing reminded me of the march of time, not a bad thing, and of the importance of focusing on what's important. I know little about J.'s life since our last conversation in 1998, so I can't know whether he, like my mother, died with the regrets of an unfulfilled life. I hope not. I do know that in my more centered moments, I have no such regrets. I've done my best to follow my heart and live my passions, to be true to the highest imperatives I can touch and to walk the talk of my writing, coaching and public speaking. If I were to die tomorrow, I would like to think that I would be able to look back with satisfaction over a life lived both transparently and authentically.

That's the theory. In fact, J.'s death prompted a different kind of life review, one filled with doubts, angers, fears, resentments and a renewed clinging to a past I thought I had long ago jettisoned. As the evening wore on into a sleepless night, my mind dredged up more and more images, emotions and incidents from those past lifetimes of mine, each memory drenched in a level of anxiety I never encountered in the full-time life review involved in writing this memoir.

You could say that it's normal for the death of a close friend to spark such introspection and retrospection, and I would agree. But J. had not been a close friend for nearly two decades. Our once intertwined lives had already begun their unraveling when I left Toronto for Nova Scotia in 1994.

As I write these words, I see something I hadn't noticed before: that J. was an integral part of my adult life prior to my creative and spiritual awakening. That's not to diminish J.'s spirituality, which was certainly present. But my spirituality moved off in different directions from his, and my life moved off with it.

What I have been reliving in the 18 hours since learning of J.'s death is an early adult life devoid of conscious creativity, conscious spirituality and conscious surrender...a simpler life in many respects, though one infinitely less fulfilled. What I've been mourning through the night, even more than J.'s death, is the death of that earlier life, of those old places within me that J. represented.

A large piece of that Mark David Gerson died with J. It was a piece that I didn't even know still lived inside me; I'm startled to discover just how big that piece was.

What does this have to do with The MoonQuest? There’s a coronation scene in the novel where Crown Prince Kyri is directed to throw all the jeweled accoutrements of the old king’s regalia into the fire as he and his subjects-to-be chant, “The past is passed. We let it go.” Only when Kyri stands naked before the crowd, with all that could encumber him to his father’s reign consumed in the ceremonial flame, can he begin to chart his own course as monarch...can he truly begin his own life.

It has taken me the full 18 hours since learning of J.'s death to realize that I must build a similar pyre for the remnants of my old life. While I celebrate J.'s life and his place in mine, I can neither dwell on it nor worship it.

In that same MoonQuest scene, the newly crowned Kyri refuses to let his father, who has abdicated in his favor, kneel before him. Instead, Kyri drops to his knees, to Fortas's discomfort. Softly, so that the crowd cannot hear him, Fortas urges his son to his feet.

“Do not bow to me, my son. I stand here as the past, and you must never worship the past. Honor me...by living your reign, by learning the lessons I could not. You called me ‘my lord.’ The past is not your lord. Set your sights on the future, my son, my king. Set your sights on the future by seeing to the present. Don’t, I beg, let your vision linger longingly on the past. Let it go, my son. Let it all go.” He embraced Kyri then held him at arm’s length before releasing him. “Let me go.” Then...not looking back, [he] walked through the archway and out of the castle. 

Kyri never forgot his formative experiences with his father, nor will I forget mine with J. I will also not forget J.'s generosity, warm-heartedness and compassion, or the loving friendship we once shared. At the same time, that lifetime in my life is over, as J.'s death eloquently reminds me. The past is passed. It's time to let it go.

P.S. Last night, inspired by a graphic I saw on a Facebook friend's Timeline, I grafted the caption "ready for take-off" onto an image of an airplane soaring into the sky. I already knew about J.'s passing but made no conscious connection between it and the creation of a new wallpaper for my cell phone. Only in writing this piece do I realize that J. and all I allowed him to represent in my life is baggage that exceeds my allotted allowance. I cannot take off until I lighten my load. The past is passed. I let it go.

One final note: After all these years of writing (I began The MoonQuest in 1994), I shouldn't still be surprised by its alchemical power in my life. Only by writing these words this morning have I come to understand why J.'s death so overwhelmed me. As I wrote in the epigraph to The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, another book whose gifts continue to follow me: "Writing is alchemy...truly a tool of wizards, witches and sorcerers. It’s the magic wand, the incantation, the wave of the hand that transforms all..."

The past is passed. I let it go.


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Acts of Surrender 10: The Valley of the Shadow of Death

An excerpt from Acts of Surrender, my memoir-in-progress.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil...
~ 23rd Psalm

"Like Abraham in Genesis, I willingly take the knife to what I hold most dear. God will either pull my hand back at the last minute or not."

On Saturday, I toured The Century, a deluxe, 42-story condominium tower just being completed in Century City, the former 20th Century Fox backlot redeveloped in the 1960s. Given what I wrote recently about my near-zero-point back account, you might think it odd that I was seriously checking out five- and six-million dollar luxury suites.

Yes, seriously.

Since my aha! a few weeks back, that urban Beverly Hills was calling me far more insistently than the suburban beach communities of Orange County, I had been on a quest: If L.A. expressed my heart’s desire, what might life there look like? To help answer the question, I made the 50-mile trek from Costa Mesa to the Beverly Hills area every couple of days. I drove around and walked around, trying to connect with what felt right.

There was no point restricting my search to what I could afford. Given the seizing up of my income flow that had occurred since before leaving Albuquerque, there was no place I could afford — in Los Angeles...or anywhere. How liberating! Truly, money was no object. The only criterion could be whether a particular street, house, apartment or condominium made my heart sing. It was an easy exercise in elimination: Most places didn’t feel good enough.

It was also an exercise in worthiness...one that wasn’t always quite so easy. As rents, sales prices, amenities and luxuries ballooned beyond my mind’s ability to grasp, I had to keep raising the barre on how I viewed myself.

Can I see myself living here?
Can I see myself belonging here?
Can I see myself deserving this?

Each experience stretched and pushed me. Each experience forced me to look deep within at who I was in that instant, who I had been in years past and who I thought Iwas choosing to be from that moment forward.

Then, one day last week, while browsing for condos online, I found The Century, a building I noticed when I’d happened through Century City the day before. Elliptical in shape, designed by renowned architect Robert A.M. Stern and soaring up gracefully from four acres of gardens, it was a stunning masterpiece of opulent living and pampered service. Anyone living there would have every need not only taken care of but anticipated, would be steeped in the kind of luxury that crooned, “You are worthy.”

Within 20 minutes of submitting the online form, I had a personal reply from a Beverly Hills realtor. It opened with the usual boilerplate, then concluded with this sentence: “As an aside, if you are the writer of the same name, I have a friend who is a lover of fantasy and adores your books!”

I was stunned. What were the odds of that!?

Three days later, I pulled up to the front door. The valet whisked my car away as the doorman greeted me with a warm smile. “Welcome to The Century, Mr. Gerson.” He opened the door and ushered me in.

Finally, I’d found a place I where I felt I belonged, a place that was good enough for me.

But was I good enough for it?

Both the realtor and the onsite sales rep certainly thought so, as they spent the next two hours touring me through more than a half-dozen three- and four-bedroom dwellings, none smaller than 3,500 square feet. For those two hours, to my surprise, I thought so, too. I was fully aware of what I liked and didn’t like, asked serious questions, and unhesitatingly acted from a place of potential ownership where cost was not an issue.

And it wasn’t...not because I didn’t have access to the necessary cash or credit but because in those hours I knew myself to be an infinite being in a universe of infinite possibility. From that place, why couldn’t I live there...if that was my desire?

My every-other-day drives up to L.A. were not only house-hunting expeditions. They were conscious exercises in planting my energy and creativity in the city I felt called to. Not only did I explore neighborhoods, I explored places to write. In the end, I generally finished my day at the Starbucks on North Beverly Drive, working either on this book or on my third draft of The StarQuest, the sequel to my fantasy novel, The MoonQuest.

When I left The Century on Saturday, I drove a block up to the Century Century mall for lunch. My wallet screamed, “Subway!” My consciousness insisted that such an act of scarcity-thinking would erase much of the activating benefit of my time at The Century. We compromised on Ummba Grill, an inexpensive Brazilian eatery that felt infinitely more abundant than the cheap sandwich chain.

I sat for a long time at my patio table at Ummba — absorbing the brazen ballsiness of my actions and uncertain what to do next. After the oasis of The Century, the Saturday shopping crush at the outdoor mall felt stifling. Nor was I ready to brave the high-octane buzz of Starbucks.

In the end, I wandered Avenue of the Stars, grateful that Century City’s main thoroughfare retreated into dormancy on weekends. There, I found 2000 Avenue of the Stars, a three-building architectural wonder surrounding a fine-art-like green space, again, mercifully deserted on a weekend.

For the next hour or so, I explored the building and grounds in an exhausting blend of overwhelm and integration.

Had I found the seat of my desire, residentially speaking? And if so, what was I do to next?

No idea.

At the same time, I was viscerally aware of the throbbing bustle beyond Avenue of the Stars’ unnatural stillness. The busyness felt claustrophobic and draining, even from a distance. Up close, when I finally made it to the North Beverly Starbucks, it felt suffocating. Instead of relaxing in one of my usual leather armchairs near the front door, I retreated to the very back of the café. Instead of hanging around for three or more hours, I was gone before a single hour had elapsed.

Monday morning would normally have been an L.A. day. But when I woke, it didn’t feel right to go. Exhaustion, I figured, and thought nothing more of it. I spent the day at the Newport Starbucks, writing about my upcoming birthday.

By Monday evening, however, something else seemed to be going on. It was as though all the energy that had built up over the years around me living in L.A. had evaporated. The idea of driving up to spend the day — any day — felt more than unpleasant. It felt wrong. The idea of living there felt more than wrong. It felt repellent.

“I think I’m done with L.A.,” I told Adam. “It’s as though all the reasons I thought I was being called to the city are either complete or they’re still playing out here, in the house with you. It’s as though once I toured The Century, with all it represented, L.A. was over.”

In that moment, I had no idea where I wanted to live or what I wanted to do with my life once I was there...or even until I got there.

“I guess I keep writing,” I said to Adam. “That’s the only thing that continues to make sense.”

At other times in my life, I’ve felt called to rigorously reevaluate every aspect of my life in order to determine whether it could continue with me on my journey. That evening, as Adam and I continued to talk, reevaluation no longer seemed appropriate. Instead, it was as though nothing could continue with me. This re-birthday I had just written about was showing up as an even more radical shedding than I could have imagined.

“It’s as though I’m grieving a life I’m leaving behind,” I wrote a few hours later in a moment of overpowering sadness. “It’s though I’m mourning the death of everything I’ve ever known and been. It’s though I’m stepping through a portal that leads beyond the end of the known world.”

Suddenly, I heard the 23rd Psalm playing in my head. “It’s as though I’m walking into the valley of the shadow of death,” I added.

It felt like a death — not of my ego, which can’t die if I’m still to function in the world, but of all the ways of doing and being that had preceded that moment. Some version of total detachment.

I barely slept that night. I wasn’t anxious or stressed. Sleep simply eluded me for much of the night.

On my way to Starbucks the next morning, I stopped at Los Trancos Canyon View Park on Newport Coast Drive. It sits high on a ridge, overlooking both the desert-y San Joaquin Hills and an endless Pacific vista. It’s a favorite quiet place and I rarely see anyone else there, despite the apparent hopefulness of its two dozen parking spaces.

As I stepped from the asphalt onto the park’s walking path, I saw four tomb-like steel panels set into the ground. I’d never noticed them before, especially the one that jumped out at me: It bore the letters RIP etched prominently into the metal. I didn’t at first notice the D that preceded them.

It was as though I was seeing my own grave, as though some higher power with a wicked sense of humor was confirming the death that had to occur before this weekend’s 56th birthday could trigger a rebirth I couldn’t yet imagine.

A few months back, I likened the stripping-away process one of my coaching clients was experiencing to a demolition that removes everything of a building but its skeletal structure. She was finding the process unnerving, and I reassured her that new walls, floors, ceilings, fittings and furnishings could only be installed once all the old ones had been shed. This is where I find myself today, in the most radical living death I’ve ever experienced — and I’ve experienced a fair number over the years.

Not surprisingly, this one has also been the least comfortable.

In Genesis, 10 chapters past the lech l’cha story I wrote about the other day, God tells Abraham he must offer up his only son, Isaac, as a live sacrifice. Abraham unquestioningly travels three days to Moriah, builds an altar there and binds Isaac to it. Only in the moment when Abraham is holding the knife to his son’s throat does God, through an angel, stay the execution, commend Abraham’s obedience and promise abundant blessings.

The way I see it, it’s not so much Abraham’s obedience that’s being praised. It’s his unconditional authenticity. By acting in a way that’s true to his deepest heart, regardless of what he thinks or of what the consequences might be, he’s expressing God’s will, which, ultimately, is the only will there is.

That hasn’t stopped me, in the past, from trying to throw my won’ts at God’s will. Fear of consequences has played a big role in my life. And if I’ve always surrendered in the end, I’ve often moved through much molasses-like resistance to get there. As well, my surrender hasn’t always been unconditional. It’s nearly always been predicated on the expectation of reward: If I do such-and-such, I’ll manifest money, love or success. Or I’ll be safe. Or I’ll “ascend,” whatever that means.

Or, like with Abraham and Isaac, the knife will be pulled away at the last minute and I’ll be spared the dreaded sacrifice.

Thing is, when that higher power we sometimes call God demands what feels like a “supreme sacrifice,” we never know whether his divine roulette wheel will stop at gotta do it or ha-ha just kidding. Moving toward obedience while hoping for a reprieve is neither authentic nor unconditional.

Nor do we know whether that “abundant blessing” will look blessed to our human mind. In God’s mind, all outcomes are blessed.

I haven’t been offered a shopping list of what goes and what stays. Rather, like Abraham, I’ve been told to stand by in readiness to sacrifice everything, including what I think I hold most dear. If that includes my perceived passions, so be it. If that includes friends and family, so be it. If that includes my own child, so be it.

I’ve already shed most of my material possessions. I’ve already let go my known means of financial support. Many of the ways I’ve viewed my world have hit the chopping block, with more falling away every day. Through today's writing, I’ve turned my back on my old definitions of reward.

There isn’t much left, other than what I believe to be at my core, which, in truth, is itself nothing but a facade covering my deepest essence, that place where I do more than know God and I to be one. I experience God and I as one.

And so I must allow the death process to continue, whatever the cost or consequences. My knife will either be pulled back at the last minute or not.

Is my L.A. story really done? Will I stay in the area but find a calmer landing strip outside Los Angeles County? Will I leave the crowded madness of Southern California for some version of the wide open spaces I recently left behind? Or will L.A. call me back once I have moved through this death and have found my way through the birth canal and back into life?

Suddenly, none of that matters anymore. Where I live...how I live...with whom I live... These are meaningless mental calisthenics. All that matters is the journey of the moment...the journey of the heart...the journey that carries me through this death to the next rebirth, whatever that look likes, whatever the consequences.

There is no other choice. In fact, how can there be any choice at all when the only will is God’s?

Like Abraham, I willingly take the knife.

One postscript: As I wandered through the Newport park Tuesday morning, my eyes kept being drawn to the weather vane perched atop its tile-roofed gazebo. A cooling breeze was blowing in from the north on that unusually hot day. The arrow pointed south.

In the Taoist tradition, the southerly direction moves us from chaos to clarity. In Native American traditions, the south often represents fire, passion and heart. Wherever I’m going next — geographically, personally, professionally and spiritually...be it into a big-city condo, a rural cabin or some other destination I can’t yet imagine — south is clearly the way to go.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
~ 23rd Psalm


Adapted from Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Journey Beyond Faith, my memoir-in-progress. Please share as you feel called to. But please, also, include a link back to this post.

Previous excerpts:
• April 28
• July 30
• August 25
• September 1
• September 9
• September 10
• September 12
• September 24
• September 27


• If you're in the San Diego area, please join me at the Mind Body Spirit Expo at the Doubletree Mission Valley this Saturday, October 2. I'll be speaking at 2pm on Answering the Call to Write and will spend most of the rest of the day at the Lighted Bridge booth.

Photos by Mark David Gerson: #1 Oasis at 2000 Avenue of the Stars, Century City; #2 The Century, Century City; #3 2000 Avenue of the Stars, Century City; #4 Los Trancos Canyon View Park, Newport Beach, CA. Image of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac: Marc Chagall - Musée national Marc Chagall, Nice, France