We are creators — Page 10

Why Grieving Often Takes Time

December 6, 2016 by Barbara

The world is our mirror. Our unresolved issues are reflected back to us through our circumstances, our lives, and in others. Lucy the cat…my teacher. She was one of our daughter’s two cats we took in until we could find homes. But two cats were one too many. Lucy was the youngest and most easily placed I thought. But my conflict about letting her go was palpable. I finally realized the reason: she was too much like Kelly. So, letting go–well, it has been messy. One home didn’t work out, another now looks promising.
In the meantime, I’ve allowed myself to see again how things are always interconnected.

Lucy

Thrown outside, found
in a tree – rescued.
Abandoned by death
taken in – rescued.

Still curious, innocent,
Still trying to learn
to be herself,
Explore, taste, hunt

Sleep on bed.
Chase off competitors
Somewhere deep inside
always trying

to convince herself
She’s safe
She’s OK
She’s loved.

Reflecting
“not enough”
I don’t know how to play,
to comfort the deep wounds

not of my making.
Shipped off again
looking for the perfect home
It doesn’t work.

Suddenly knowing
there is no perfect anything.
Just love, just trying,
and the tears fall.

Filed Under: Creating with others, Emotion, Heart's wisdom, Love, We are creators Tagged With: interconnected, Love, sorrow

Peace Descending

November 4, 2016 by Barbara

Again while praying, I asked Mary if I understood. This came:

Mary at the cross
Mary holding the infant
The circle of life
spiraling into the Wisdom
that we’re all a part of,
becoming conscious of,
resisting with all our might.

Less is more.
A nanosecond
holds the Universe.
Knowing the way through
to just be here
in love.
We can relax.

Love, not squishy
nor weak,
the Fierce Love
of everything
playing it’s role
to awaken us.
from the inside out.

[Sculpture: “Peaceful Form” by Thomas A. Yano]

Filed Under: Life, Love, We are creators Tagged With: Mother Mary, Peace, Yano

What do you do with sorrow?

November 3, 2016 by Barbara

After my last post, I realized that I’ve still been waking up with a sadness weighing down on me. Perhaps it’s from bearing witness to the confusion, anger, and fear that fills the news and our consciousness.

Trying to sort it out, I sat down to meditate. I found myself doing something different. I asked Jesus, “Were You ever sad? I know you were angry, I know you were scared..but sad?”

The answer came: “My Mother was sad.” And, I felt her.

She knew sadness.
How pointless it all can seem.
How powerless we can be to stop it.

“They know not what they do”

The nurturing Divine Mother, who understands her children only too well.

Destroyers of life, beauty,
too busy,
Blinded by things,

Grasping for power,
Fearing loss, of
not being enough.

“They know not what they do”

Let our hearts break open! With nothing left to fear and everything to love, may we rest in the mystery and wholeness of life. Until then, we’ll push away, condemn, claim it’s not us, create artificial cracks in the wholeness of life. Until then–

“We know not what we do”

Filed Under: Fear or Courage, Heart's wisdom, Love, We are creators Tagged With: They know not what they do

When the world spins out….

November 2, 2016 by Barbara

Thoughts while obsessing about the the craziness,
violence, and suffering of this world.

Inertia descends.
I fear movement
Will crack

something open and
Things will ooze out,
Or worse, maybe in….

Occupy time
Wait
Become invisible

But it’s not enough.
Searching for answers,
understanding fails.

I know how to set
goals, visualize.
I don’t.

Trapped, not
wanting to admit
the world is shaking.

besliter 11/1/2016

Needless to say, obsessing is not useful, uplifting nor something to cultivate. It does happen. I strive to notice its effect and then, move on.

Filed Under: Choice, Emotion, We are creators Tagged With: obsessing, world

Loving what we are…

October 6, 2016 by Barbara

There a spectacular music piece, released in 1985 as a fundraiser for the the relief of famine and disease in Africa and specifically for the famine in Ethiopia. It’s resurfacing again, the message I think is that we are in this together.

“We are the world
We are the children
We are The Ones who make a brighter day
So let’s start giving”

We are the World (Click to hear the original)

So, why do I feel sad when I listen to it?

Love…i want it
warm fuzzy
make me feel good

Loving…what is it?
seeing your beauty
knowing your goodness

Love…being
accepted just as I am
knowing you care

Loving you
with all your worts
with all your gifts

How far can I love?
How great a difference
can my love hold?

Families don’t always
love each other.
We are the world, but….

Is there time to learn?
God so loved the world,
can we?

Filed Under: Creating with others, Love, We are creators

up. up and away…

August 22, 2016 by Barbara

“Work is love made visible.” Kahlil Gibran

Recently we had the dead wood cut out of our two oak trees. We hired the company my husband liked the best because there were no bucket machines, just a climber. The Stump Guy, Rod, works with a tree climber named Tim. They were pretty casual in their proposal so I wasn’t so sure but it turned out they were good. And, I got to feel the impact of one who loves their work.

It was mesmerizing to watch Tim….not just because he hauled himself up a rope for 25 ft, nor because he could fling a rope from the ground over a high limb in one try, or balance on a tree limb with a chain saw in his hand…no, it was because he loved what he did. The ground guy Dave was impressive, hauling out 90 lb. limbs over his head. But it was Tim I watched.

He moved around the tree talking: to himself, to the tree, to God…you could feel the energy. He loved doing what he did. He loved how he did it. He loved trees.
We felt it.

“Do what you love
It radiates
Touching hearts
Reminding us
why we are here.

besliter 8/2016

Filed Under: Choice, Love, We are creators Tagged With: Love, loving what you do, tree climbers, trees

I’m Tired

July 25, 2016 by Barbara

I’m Tired

A thousand sorrows
Arrows piercing
No one thing to pull out

In these days of instant gratification
Grieving makes no sense
Malingering, grayness,
Being tired of it all

Just take a pill
Proclaim your faith
Move on
Except

It doesn’t work
And the sadness becomes an
Irritating backdrop
To life

I no longer really know why I’m tired,
Easily Irritated,
wanting “it” to all to go away
Politics, killings, crummy drivers…

Don’t make more work for me
Don’t ask anything more of me
Don’t get sick or die on me

–I’m tired
besliter 7/2016

Life doesn’t wait for us to be ready. It keeps moving and we sometimes have to run to keep up. When I’m off center lately it feels like I’m on the edge, ready to fly off….crash and burn. I can’t slow down and do the things I believe would make a difference: meditate, exercise, trust that there is more going on then I can possibly know and that love does triumph.

I don’t think I’m manic depressive, more manically depressed. I judge all this as abnormal. I want to go back to what felt like a normal state before loss, but I’m deeply suspicious that can ‘t happen. I have to let go of what was familiar and safe. And I don’t want to.

Filed Under: Emotion, Life, We are creators

Grieving

June 26, 2016 by Barbara

I feel discombobulated. Grieving, yes. Fatigued after tracking bills, going to Doctors, organizing volumes of paper into files, yes. Helping my stepdaughter sell her house and move, yes. Looking over my husband’s shoulder to see how he was doing, yes. But it’s more, more than the long list of what happened.

It’s too many endings, no obvious beginnings, feeling lost in space. The unrest raising questions about life: why are we here, what’s the bigger picture? What does it mean to be alone and to see that possibility on the horizon. Are we here to surrender or to choose what we want? If you give up getting into heaven, what’s left? I don’t mean the polar opposite, but rather can you get excited about coming back to do all this again?

We are getting ready to scatter Kelly’s ashes next week. The spot is a park near Bowling Green, Ky called Phil Moore Park. Joseph’s cousin has been involved with the park since her son ran track around the perimeter. (he’s now taking his medical boards so it has been a while.) There is a tree we “donated” with Kelly’s name on it. Our tree died, Kelly’s is flourishing. The park has family connections and is the only place Joseph thought was a fit.

Both of us are coming to grip with all that transpired over the past four months, over the past year and a half, and even over her life. She passed May 12th. She would have been 55 on May 16th.

What keeps coming home to me is how complex a person’s life is. How many different lens you can see it through, and while looking through one, how you miss “the rest of the story.”

My lens are many. Much was triggered. I’ll be writing about my questions, my learning, at least I think I will. It’s a way to process, to come to peace with paradox and complexity.
Everything written will be just a point in time seen through a lens. Not the truth, not a lie…..just a story to make sense of experiences; writing to sort through the intertwining of lives.

Filed Under: Heart's wisdom, Life, We are creators

Do you want extraordinary?

January 11, 2016 by Barbara

A recent post on Improvised Life highlighted the work of Kate Conklin, a performance coach. She asks the question: What are the qualities that make a performance extraordinary? What are the things that happen that make both the performer and the audience feel like they’re flying? …like these aeralists from Cirque-du-Soleil.

Well the answer, she found out was not just in the desire but in the work that follows. Deep down, what do we care enough about, desire enough to, as Kate says, “Respond to that desire and do the work to support that response.”

It led me to wonder, how many of us really want extraordinary? extraordinary lives, work, relationships….

Hard and persistent work in service of what we want is not what most of us want to hear. We want easy answers, magic pills, miracles. It’s OK but chances are it won’t be enough for the Universe to deliver the result we want….and without a shift, we’ll settle for mediocrity, for less.

So, I sit pondering, “What do I want?” Want enough to do whatever it takes?

And if nothing comes, I wonder, what is that all about?

Filed Under: Heart's wisdom, Intention, Steps, We are creators Tagged With: Cirque-du-Soleil, desire, extraordinary, wha do I want

How’s it going?

January 2, 2016 by Barbara

Recently Sally Schneider posted at Improvised Life about not knowing. She asks the question, “Can you hang with not knowing.”

I understand not knowing. Not knowing the MRI results, the outcome of an operation, whether an organization will turn around in time, whether our favorite oak tree will succumb to the Bacterial Leaf Drop… the list goes on.

I wrote this poem a year ago. It is as true today as it was then. However, there is a difference. I’m listening a little harder, trusting a little more, and importantly, more at peace with just “the next step.”

How’s It Going?

“I don’t know”
Not a satisfying response
Most prefer a polite lie,
Definitely more certainty.

But the small voice
of wisdom won’t
be ordered about,
has its own timing.

So when the veils
haven’t yet parted,
how do you
walk through life?

The sun rises and sets
Baby birds hatch
Trees lose their leaves.
Life in its rhythm.

Surely you too are part
of life’s flow, as important
as the field mouse,
the fallen bird.

What’s left but
noticing what calls you.
Trusting you’re guided
Always the next step.

besliter

Filed Under: Heart's wisdom, Life, We are creators Tagged With: faith, Heart, Life, not knowing