与许多人一样,
Like many of us, I've had several careers in my life, and although they've been varied, my first job set the foundation for all of them. I was a home-birth midwife throughout my 20s. Delivering babies taught me valuable and sometimes surprising things, like how to start a car at 2am. when it's 10 degrees below zero.
我一生中做过很多工作, 尽管它们各有不同, 但是我的第一份工作却为 所有的工作奠定了基石。 在20多岁时,我是一位家庭助产士。 接生孩子教会了我许多宝贵 乃至不可思议的事情, 比如如何在凌晨两点 当气温是零下十度的时候, 发动汽车。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Or how to revive a father who's fainted at the sight of blood.
如何唤醒一个晕血的父亲。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Or how to cut the umbilical cord just so, to make a beautiful belly button.
如何剪脐带, 才能形成一个漂亮的肚脐眼。
But those aren't the things that stuck with me or guided me when I stopped being a midwife and started other jobs. What stuck with me was this bedrock belief that each one of us comes into this world with a unique worth. When I looked into the face of a newborn, I caught a glimpse of that worthiness, that sense of unapologetic selfhood, that unique spark. I use the word "soul" to describe that spark, because it's the only word in English that comes close to naming what each baby brought into the room.
但是在我不做助产士之后 这些事情就不再是我生活的指引 一直陪伴我的是这个坚如磐石的观念: 我们每一个人出生都是具有独特价值的 当我看着新生儿的脸蛋时, 我看到了价值, 看到了真实不屈的自我, 看到了独特的闪光。 我用“灵魂”去描述那一道闪光, 因为这是英语中唯一意思接近 每一个婴儿所带来事物的单词。
Every newborn was as singular as a snowflake, a matchless mash-up of biology and ancestry and mystery. And then that baby grows up, and in order to fit into the family, to conform to the culture, to the community, to the gender, that little one begins to cover its soul, layer by layer. We're born this way, but --
每一个新生儿都如雪花般独特, 都是自然、世族和神秘 无法媲美的融合。 当他们长大时, 为了融入家庭, 顺应文化, 顺应团体,顺应性别角色, 他们开始一层又一层的 掩盖灵魂。 我们生来如此, 但是
(Laughter)
(笑声)
But as we grow, a lot of things happen to us that make us ... want to hide our soulful eccentricities and authenticity. We've all done this. Everyone in this room is a former baby --
但是随着我们长大, 许多发生在我们身上的事情 使得我们想去掩盖 灵魂上的独特和真实。 我们都这么做了。 这个屋子里的每一个人,
(Laughter)
(笑声)
with a distinctive birthright. But as adults, we spend so much of our time uncomfortable in our own skin, like we have ADD: authenticity deficit disorder. But not those babies -- not yet. Their message to me was: uncover your soul and look for that soul-spark in everyone else. It's still there.
都曾是一个独特的孩子。 但作为成人,我们大多数时间都无法轻松自信的生活 就像得了“真实性缺乏综合症”一样。 但还好孩子们 还没有变成这样。 我从孩子那里学到: 去发现你的灵魂, 并去找寻他人 灵魂中的闪光。 它仍在那里。
And here's what I learned from laboring women. Their message was about staying open, even when things are painful. A woman's cervix normally looks like this. It's a tight little muscle at the base of the uterus. And during labor, it has to stretch from this to this. Ouch! If you fight against that pain, you just create more pain, and you block what wants to be born.
我从产妇那里学到: 保持开放态度, 甚至这是痛苦的。 通常而言,女人的子宫颈看起来像这样。 它是子宫底部 一块紧致的小肌肉。 而当生产时,它必须从这么大 扩张至这么大。 哎哟! 如果你与痛苦做抗争, 你只会变得更痛苦, 并且堵住那跃跃欲出的生命。
I'll never forget the magic that would happen when a woman stopped resisting the pain and opened. It was as if the forces of the universe took notice and sent in a wave of help. I never forgot that message, and now, when difficult or painful things happen to me in my life or my work, of course at first I resist them, but then I remember what I learned from the mothers: stay open. Stay curious. Ask the pain what it's come to deliver. Something new wants to be born.
我永远不会忘记 当女人停止对痛苦的抵抗 并要张开宫口时, 将会发生的奇迹。 那就像全宇宙的力量汇集, 送来一阵帮助。 我永远不会忘记那条讯息, 现在,当我在生活或工作中 遇到困难或痛苦之事时, 起初我会抵抗, 但后来我便会想起我从母亲们那里学到的: 保持开放, 保持好奇。 探寻痛苦将要带来什么。 新的事物想要到来。
And there was one more big soulful lesson, and that one I learned from Albert Einstein. He wasn't at any of the births, but --
还有更大的一课, 那是我从爱因斯坦那里学到的。 这与生产无关,但是
(Laughter)
(笑声)
It was a lesson about time. At the end of his life, Albert Einstein concluded that our normal, hamster-wheel experience of life is an illusion. We run round and round, faster and faster, trying to get somewhere. And all the while, underneath surface time is this whole other dimension where the past and the present and the future merge and become deep time. And there's nowhere to get to.
这是关于时间的一课。 在他生命的晚期,爱因斯坦总结出 我们平凡忙碌的生活体验 不过是幻觉一场。 我们不停的奔走,越来越快, 试图到达一个地方。 而自始至终, 在这些表象下,时间在另一个维度 将过去、现在和将来融合, 成为深度时间。 我们无处可去。
Albert Einstein called this state, this dimension, "only being." And he said when he experienced it, he knew sacred awe. When I was delivering babies, I was forced off the hamster wheel. Sometimes I had to sit for days, hours and hours, just breathing with the parents; just being. And I got a big dose of sacred awe.
爱因斯坦将这种状态,这种维度 称作为“唯一的存在”。 他说当他切身体会时, 他感受到了圣神的敬畏。 当我接生孩子时, 我脱离了忙碌的生活节奏。 有时我要坐几个小时乃至几天, 只是与父母们共呼吸; 只是存在。 而我也感到了那种圣神的敬畏。
So those are the three lessons I took with me from midwifery. One: uncover your soul. Two: when things get difficult or painful, try to stay open. And three: every now and then, step off your hamster wheel into deep time.
所以这是我从助产士生涯中学到的三课: 第一,发现你的灵魂。 第二,当事情变得困难或痛苦时,保持开放心态。 第三,时不时的脱离忙碌的生活, 进入深度时间。
Those lessons have served me throughout my life, but they really served me recently, when I took on the most important job of my life thus far.
这三课伴随我一生, 而最近当我从事生命中 最重要的工作时, 他们变得格外有用。
Two years ago, my younger sister came out of remission from a rare blood cancer, and the only treatment left for her was a bone marrow transplant. And against the odds, we found a match for her, who turned out to be me. I come from a family of four girls, and when my sisters found out that I was my sister's perfect genetic match, their reaction was, "Really? You?"
两年前,我的妹妹被诊断出 患有一种罕见的血癌, 而可行的治疗方案仅剩骨髓移植。 历经千难万苦,我们为她找到了配型, 而那个配型就是我。 我来自一个四姐妹之家, 当我的姐妹们发现 我是妹妹的最佳配型时, 她们的反应是,“真的吗?你?”
(Laughter)
(笑声)
"A perfect match for her?" Which is pretty typical for siblings. In a sibling society, there's lots of things. There's love and there's friendship and there's protection. But there's also jealousy and competition and rejection and attack. In siblinghood, that's where we start assembling many of those first layers that cover our soul.
“你是她的最佳配型?” 这对兄弟姐妹来说太典型了。 身处姐妹团体中, 会发生很多事情。 会有爱、友谊和保护。 但是也会有嫉妒 和竞争, 排斥和攻击。 在兄妹关系中,我们开始对灵魂 进行第一层的隐藏。
When I discovered I was my sister's match, I went into research mode. And I discovered that the premise of transplants is pretty straightforward. You destroy all the bone marrow in the cancer patient with massive doses of chemotherapy, and then you replace that marrow with several million healthy marrow cells from a donor. And then you do everything you can to make sure that those new cells engraft in the patient. I also learned that bone marrow transplants are fraught with danger. If my sister made it through the near-lethal chemotherapy, she still would face other challenges. My cells might attack her body. And her body might reject my cells. They call this rejection or attack, and both could kill her.
当我发现和我妹妹配型成功时, 我开启了搜索模式。 我发现 移植的前期治疗十分直截了当: 利用大量化疗手段 摧毁癌症病人的所有骨髓, 然后再从捐赠者处获得数万个健康的骨髓细胞 进行移植替换。 再次,用尽方法确保 新的细胞在病人体内成长。 同时我了解到骨髓移植充满着风险。 尽管我的妹妹能够熬过近乎置人于死地的化疗, 她仍然面临着许多挑战。 我的细胞 可能会攻击她的身体。 并且,她的身体可能会排斥我的细胞。 他们称之为排斥反应或攻击反应, 这都会杀了她。
Rejection. Attack. Those words had a familiar ring in the context of being siblings. My sister and I had a long history of love, but we also had a long history of rejection and attack, from minor misunderstandings to bigger betrayals. We didn't have the kind of the relationship where we talked about the deeper stuff; but, like many siblings and like people in all kinds of relationships, we were hesitant to tell our truths, to reveal our wounds, to admit our wrongdoings.
排斥。攻击。 这些字眼在亲人之间 相当常见。 我妹妹和我有过长时间的友爱, 但我们也有过长时间的排斥和攻击, 从很小的误解到很大的背叛。 我们之间并没有可以 可以交心的那种关系。 但是,像许多兄弟姐妹和各种关系中的人们一样, 我们对说出真相感到犹豫, 对揭示伤痕感到犹豫, 对承认错误感到犹豫。
But when I learned about the dangers of rejection or attack, I thought, it's time to change this. What if we left the bone marrow transplant up to the doctors, but did something that we later came to call our "soul marrow transplant?" What if we faced any pain we had caused each other, and instead of rejection or attack, could we listen? Could we forgive? Could we merge? Would that teach our cells to do the same?
但是当我了解到排斥和攻击的危险时, 我觉得是时候做出改变了。 要是我们把骨髓移植交给医生, 但进行后来我们称之为的 “灵魂骨髓移植”会怎样? 要是我们坦然面对 给彼此造成的伤痛, 而不是排斥和攻击, 我们会倾听吗? 我们会原谅吗? 我们会和好如初吗? 这会让我们的细胞呈现出同样的效果吗?
To woo my skeptical sister, I turned to my parents' holy text: the New Yorker Magazine.
为了博取我多疑的妹妹的欢心, 我像我父母的圣经寻求帮助: 纽约客杂志。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
I sent her a cartoon from its pages as a way of explaining why we should visit a therapist before having my bone marrow harvested and transplanted into her body. Here it is.
我发给她杂志中的一幅漫画, 解释为什么我们要在将我的 骨髓取出并植入她身体之前 拜访医师。 就是这一张。
"I have never forgiven him for that thing I made up in my head."
“我永远不会原谅由我 臆想出他做过的那件事。”
(Laughter)
(笑声)
I told my sister we had probably been doing the same thing, carting around made-up stories in our heads that kept us separate. And I told her that after the transplant, all of the blood flowing in her veins would be my blood, made from my marrow cells, and that inside the nucleus of each of those cells is a complete set of my DNA. "I will be swimming around in you for the rest of your life," I told my slightly horrified sister.
我告诉我的妹妹, 我们可能也做过同样的事情, 沉溺于脑海中臆想的故事, 彼此分离。 我告诉她在移植之后, 在她血管中流动的所有血液, 都将是由我骨髓细胞生产的, 属于我的血液。 并且在每一个细胞的细胞核中, 都会包含我的一整套DNA。 “我将在你的余生游荡,” 我告诉我有些受到惊吓的妹妹。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
"I think we better clean up our relationship."
“我觉得我们最好重整我们的关系。”
A health crisis makes people do all sorts of risky things, like quitting a job or jumping out of an airplane and, in the case of my sister, saying "yes" to several therapy sessions, during which we got down to the marrow. We looked at and released years of stories and assumptions about each other and blame and shame until all that was left was love.
健康危机会使得人们做 各种各样危险的事情, 比如辞职或跳下飞机, 在我妹妹这个例子中, 就是在骨髓移植期间, 对若干疗程说“是”。 我们回顾并且倾诉这些年发生的故事, 对彼此的猜忌、 责备和羞辱, 但到最后剩下的只有爱。
People have said I was brave to undergo the bone marrow harvest, but I don't think so. What felt brave to me was that other kind of harvest and transplant, the soul marrow transplant, getting emotionally naked with another human being, putting aside pride and defensiveness, lifting the layers and sharing with each other our vulnerable souls. I called on those midwife lessons: uncover your soul. Open to what's scary and painful. Look for the sacred awe.
人们说我很勇敢, 能够进行骨髓移植手术, 但我并不这么认为。 让我觉得勇敢的, 是另一种移植, 灵魂的骨髓移植, 和另一个人在情感上坦诚相待, 摒弃傲慢和防御, 拨开层层防备, 彼此之间共享脆弱的灵魂。 我回顾了从助产士经历中学到的一课: 敞开你的灵魂。 对恐惧和痛苦敞开。 搜寻神圣的敬畏。
Here I am with my marrow cells after the harvest. That's they call it -- "harvest," like it's some kind of bucolic farm-to-table event --
这是我在移植之后, 我和我的骨髓细胞拍的照片。 他们称之为“收获”, 像是某种乡村的从农田到餐桌的仪式——
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Which I can assure you it is not. And here is my brave, brave sister receiving my cells. After the transplant, we began to spend more and more time together. It was as if we were little girls again. The past and the present merged. We entered deep time. I left the hamster wheel of work and life to join my sister on that lonely island of illness and healing. We spent months together -- in the isolation unit, in the hospital and in her home.
但我可以向你保证绝不是那样。 这是我勇敢的妹妹, 正在接受我的细胞。 在移植之后,我们在一起的时间越来越多。 好像我们又变成曾经的小女孩。 过去和现在合为一体。 我们进入了深度时间。 我离开了慌忙的工作和生活, 到疾病和愈合的 孤岛之上, 陪伴我的妹妹。 我们在一起数月的时间—— 在隔离病房, 在医院和在她的家中。
Our fast-paced society does not support or even value this kind of work. We see it as a disruption of real life and important work. We worry about the emotional drain and the financial cost -- and, yes, there is a financial cost. But I was paid in the kind of currency our culture seems to have forgotten all about. I was paid in love. I was paid in soul. I was paid in my sister.
我们快节奏的社会 并不支持或是认可这样的事情。 我们将之视为对真实生活 和重要工作的破坏。 我们对情感上的匮乏和 金钱上的花销感到担忧—— 对,确实存在金钱上的花销。 但是我获得了一种我们的文化 似乎已经遗忘的报酬。 我以爱为酬劳。 我以灵魂为酬劳。 我以我的妹妹的情感为酬劳。
My sister said the year after transplant was the best year of her life, which was surprising. She suffered so much. But she said life never tasted as sweet, and that because of the soul-baring and the truth-telling we had done with each other, she became more unapologetically herself with everyone. She said things she'd always needed to say. She did things she always wanted to do. The same happened for me. I became braver about being authentic with the people in my life. I said my truths, but more important than that, I sought the truth of others.
我妹妹说移植过后的一年是 她人生中最好的一年, 这令我很惊讶。 她经受了那么多痛苦。 但是她说人生从未如此甜蜜, 因为我们彼此之间的 灵魂交流和坦诚相待, 她对每个人 都变得更加真诚无悔。 她说她一直应当说的事情。 她做她一直想要做的事情。 我也同样如此。 我对我生命中的人变得更加真诚勇敢。 我说出我的真相, 但更重要的是, 我搜寻他人的真相。
It wasn't until the final chapter of this story that I realized just how well midwifery had trained me. After that best year of my sister's life, the cancer came roaring back, and this time there was nothing more the doctors could do. They gave her just a couple of months to live.
直到这个故事的最终篇章, 我才意识到助产士是如何训练我的。 在我妹妹人生中最棒的那年之后, 癌症卷土重来, 而这次医生也不能做什么了。 他们告诉她只剩下几个月的时间。
The night before my sister died, I sat by her bedside. She was so small and thin. I could see the blood pulsing in her neck. It was my blood, her blood, our blood. When she died, part of me would die, too.
我妹妹去世的前夜, 我坐在她的床旁。 她是如此的虚弱和瘦削。 我可以看到她颈部的血液脉动。 这是我的血液,她的血液,我们的血液。 当她去世时,我的一部分也会死去。
I tried to make sense of it all, how becoming one with each other had made us more ourselves, our soul selves, and how by facing and opening to the pain of our past, we'd finally been delivered to each other, and how by stepping out of time, we would now be connected forever.
我尝试着搞懂这一切: 如何在成为一体后, 我们变得更加真实自我, 灵魂上的自我; 如何在面对并对过去的伤痛敞开心扉时, 我们最终释然; 如何在脱离时间限制时, 我们将永久的相连。
My sister left me with so many things, and I'm going to leave you now with just one of them. You don't have to wait for a life-or-death situation to clean up the relationships that matter to you, to offer the marrow of your soul and to seek it in another. We can all do this. We can be like a new kind of first responder, like the one to take the first courageous step toward the other, and to do something or try to do something other than rejection or attack. We can do this with our siblings and our mates and our friends and our colleagues. We can do this with the disconnection and the discord all around us. We can do this for the soul of the world.
我妹妹留下许多给我, 而我将留给你们其中之一。 你们不需要等到一个生死时刻 去重整对你们很重要的关系, 去奉献你灵魂的骨髓, 去在他人身上找寻另一个灵魂。 我们都可以做到。 我们可以变得像第一个回应的人, 就像向他人跨出 勇敢的第一步的人, 做一些或者尝试着做一些 除排斥和攻击之外的事情。 我们可以与我们的亲人一起做, 我们的同伴一起做, 我们的朋友、我们的同事一起做。 我们可以与已经不曾联系或 与有过冲突的人一起做。 我们可以为了世间灵魂而做。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(掌声)