-- a journey into awareness
Thoughts of you
love, intense fire
missing you
until I remember
the deeper truth.
I carry that love,
your reflection of
the sacred
in that small space
in my heart, my soul.
You now connect me
when I forget who I am
forget who we all are
my connection to Source
our connection forever.
Note: formerly published at Medium in response to a writing prompt:
https://medium.com/intricate-intimacies/needing-you-cda9dc7be4ef
My New Year resolution:
To choose each morning to
listen for Love’s guidance
To choose to remember
the Divine in all of us,
To remember that
God does not mess with us
Rather we just get lost :
Taking in the words of others
Replaying memories that bind
letting looming fears freeze us cold.
Making judgments and comparisons
separating ourselves from ourselves
and from others.
Instead I choose to remember:
God whispers in our hearts giving us the next step
Saying “what’s real is only what is here now”
released from the drama of the past
and the fears of what’s not yet happened
Joy hovers in the quiet space of now
Play your part, let the rest go
Trust Me
Love will find a way.
I feel this is a sacred time for me. As opposed to rushing in and filling my time, I’m allowing myself to go slowly. To listen to what I really want to do and to not do things just because I’m asked or they show up. In a way, the project I’m dedicated to is my own becoming. The major shifts in my life over the past 4 years have shaken things up. And I’m realizing what a gift that can be. To life: its beauty, complexity and possibilities!
I was invited to join them for Christmas
but this family time feels too intimate
to barge in on. Yes, it’s me holding back.
Haven’t gotten my sea legs under me
to enter into new adventures with others.
Instead I’ll allow the quiet to surround me
Reconnect with myself
Find out what I do when I don’t have to do anything
Figure out how I can invite others in…
Yes…it’s time to reconnect with the one.
He had to go
for me to grow.
Sheltered by his love
Buoyed by his support
my own self doubt,
self hatred was repressed,
waiting to emerge
with a roar.
Puzzled by my pulling in,
my numbing out at night.
Feeling as if I didn’t want
to go on alone.
The self rejection had surfaced
muddying everything
I saw.
I didn’t feel worthy to be
held and comforted.
I didn’t feel worthy of God’s
love, of my own love.
I was the
seven year old
shamed
feeling lost and alone
and I got it!
Epilogue: I’d been getting the message from Joseph that I shouldn’t attache the love I felt for him, and from him, to him. That it was a reflection of the Divine Love we embody. My head understood the words, but my heart didn’t believe it. I prayed to understand.
I didn’t understand until I learned that what we repress waits for our attention and for release. The repressed shame was trying to get my attention. I saw where I was stuck (yes, a seven year old) and I could let it go. A feeling of peace I haven’t felt for months descended. I am blessed. I am thankful.
I’ve no sense of time but I count the months
I deny the heaviness, I lie in bed.
What’s the point I ask myself,
my anchor is gone.
You start collecting “firsts”
First time you sign a card with your name only
The first big family celebration without him
The first Uber adventure I can’t share.
How hard the crust must be
for it to take so long,
the realization he’s gone
the space not to be filled.
How often I wanted to tell him
something I knew he’d get.
The endless decisions now
mine to make.
Going forward, being here now
(sorry Ram Dass) is all there is.
It always was but part of me
hadn’t yet been tested.
So will I stay “here” or run away?
tempting to zone out
to stuff the rage that creeps up…
to not have to learn to be
…..me.
Epilogue: to all those who’ve gone from an “us” to a “me,” a virtual hug.
Mammoth Cave, KY
I’m allowing myself to cave
seeking aloneness
avoiding groups.
Am I sinking into my own
personal nationalism? The
same that I critique countries for?
Build a wall keeping out?
or maybe keeping in
the energy that is so low.
Things are shifting: the change may be
minuscule. maybe seismic, but
definitely different.
I allow myself to not show up
promising, to myself, that this will not last.
Praying that the heavens will show the way out.
Epilogue
I know all things cycle: summer into fall into winter.
But I love spring and have to remind myself that pulling, in as in winter, is exactly what I need to be doing right now….and, it’s ok. To honor what I’m feeling, as the edges of a space seem to be opening up. I don’t know what it means but I don’t have to. It will do what it does.
Grieving has taught me, if nothing else, the process has its own rhythm, its own wisdom. My job, so hard and yet so easy, is to listen.
A somber evolutionary thought.
When life becomes an Instagram opportunity,
or a chance to tweet a one liner,
our ability to hold complexity and interrelationship
diminishes in proportion to our need for publicity.
Diminishes with our seeking answers that fit with what
we believe we know to be true and worth defending.
So Creation appears to stall as we battle it out,
when maybe, it’s really weeding out the weak links.
And just maybe, right now, the human race is one.
But this should have a happy ending, an inspirational
cuddle to make us hopeful and feel safe.
But God allows nature to evolve, species that
can’t adapt to living in relationship and
diversity die out.
Plants, animals, amphibians are humble.
They play their role, dying so another can live.
Accepting what is, they find ways to co-exist,
and even to thrive off each other without destroying
the whole…..
We’ve got a lot to learn….Are you willing ?
Can we stay curious, let go of cherished beliefs?
Stand the ground of not knowing: break open?
Connect with those who see the opposite?
Trust a third way will emerge if we can let go of being right?
It’s then that the Joy of Life can move through us.”
The ultimate “happy ending.”
If you have to flee
what do you take?
credit cards, cash?
clean underwear?
What if you can’t get
the cat in his carrier
could you leave him
and ever be at peace?
My things are scattered
tucked into files and drawers
in the basement and closets
sort of like me these days.
What goes in the “To go” bag?
Is it what you cherish,
what you need to survive?
your fears, hopes, dreams?
When things are gone,
when what’s taken
for granted like gas, electricity
food, goes missing
what are you left with?
People encountered
along the way,
shared experiences
and of course, yourself
without the trimmings
without the props you rely on.
What do you carry with you?
“It’s a sunk cost. Falling in love with what you have and reminding yourself of what it cost you is no help at all.” from Seth Godin’s “The market for used eclipse sunglasses”
I know I paid a lot for this
I love it but it’s time to move it on.
I can’t find a buyer for it!
How can that be?
We assume what we value
will always have a place,
our sense of order intertwined
with things staying the same.
But the the world’s fickle, and
even as we cling to the meaning and
worth we’ve assigned to our precious things
we find the world doesn’t share our assessment
leaving us a little bit disconcerted as we
realize our carefully constructed
world of what matters is just that
…ours LOL!
You fear that your mourning will
be less interesting, even annoying
to those around you as time passes.
Even as the explosions in your heart
continue to erupt, the loss hitting harder.
“When someone you love dies, … you don’t lose him all at once; you lose him in pieces over a long time—the way the mail stops coming, and his scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in his closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of him that are gone. Just when the day comes—when there’s a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that he’s gone, forever—there comes another day, and another specifically missing part.” adapted from “A Prayer for Owen Meany,” by John Irving
It feels true that you lose someone in pieces,
You see a river where you might have wandered with him,
just walking, hanging out together. And suddenly, you’re
pulled into a quicksand of sadness, sinking uncontrollably.
You have no idea how to be without him.
The realization surprises you.
How did you get so dependent?
or maybe, How did you get so comfortable?
so comfortable with how things were, until they weren’t, and
you’re roughly tossed into this broiling confusion: who are you now?