Awakening

Rosemary: Heartsong October 21, 2009

I woke up this morning grateful –

Thankful for the breathing canine body next to mine;

We need so much to share this basic sign of life,

To know another respires with us --

Aware that we are not all by ourselves.

I felt glad for waking up pain free,

For the opportunity to move my muscles,

Walk about, pull aside the curtains,

Feel the sun's warmth and see its light,

Hear the morning FM music,

Rejoice in life around us in the woods outside. 

I knew myself a blessed child of the universe,

As I was meant to be.

My heart sang.



Rosemary: Reflection: Learning to Move Beyond Daily Grief

I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a state of sorrow, feeling depressed. Each year -- each day – has become such a precious resource as years dwindle. Days are valuable. I feel stingy with them. I can’t afford to let them pass without bringing any growth, any learning – can’t afford to stay mired in the “same old same old.”

My first potential insight for moving beyond this sticking point was to realize that although I may still miss my Beloved dearly, I don’t have to focus on sorrow all the time. I can put that aside – choose a “grieving time.” That helped me to shift my energy.

A second insight came from a book that described grieving as the ongoing need to finish what had been left unfinished. This makes a lot of sense. I learned a long time ago that we remember unfinished business, and blithely forget that which we’ve dispatched and completed. So grieving is a selective form of remembering – remembering what we didn’t do and didn’t get a chance to say. I can share these feelings with someone else, and, having spoken them aloud and seen that they were received, I can finally see that they have reached a destination and that I no longer have to clutch them constantly, ever awaiting the moment when they can be taken up again and moved toward resolution. I can also list all the things that we did and enjoyed together -- the completed business.  There's no inherent reason to focus on the unfinished stuff and forget the great memories. 

A third insight came from a class last night on the nature of friendship. We inventoried the needs that friendship fills for us – things like belonging, acceptance, freedom, trust, hanging out, sharing laughs and good times, feeling that someone cares about us and we about them. This inventory made me realize that we need all these things, but we don’t need them in any particular configuration. No one ever provides all the friendship needs of another – we always need a number of friends so that we can experience all of these important sensations. When we grieve, we are missing some of them – perhaps many of them. I will again find people who satisfy these needs for me, but the distribution of characteristics will be different – a different set of people, different contexts and activities, a different number of individuals with whom I share the varied aspects of myself. If I try to duplicate the exact configuration that no longer exists, now that my Beloved is no longer with me, I’m programming myself for failure.

A fourth insight came from a “Daily Om” meditation inviting reflection on how gratitude for what is good in life changes over time the lineup of our feelings, shifting attention away from the negatives.

I’m sure that I’ll encounter further insights on the nature and purpose of grieving and the ways to reduce its effect on my life – without actually suppressing it. These, however, form a great starting lineup for revitalizing my experience of daily living. The first step, shifting my attention, opened the door for the rest.

It fascinates me how a small change in behavior always induces deeper shifts in myself and in others around me!

Ellen: Loving- Kindness.
These are words that Ellen wrote, with which she felt comfortable, and which she and I often said together at scary moments.  Loving-kindness meditation is a Buddhist practice that invokes loving and caring for oneself, for the people one loves and admires, for neutral people, and finally for people we dislike.  These are words for people struggling to gain equanimity in facing metastatic cancer:

May I be free from fear.

May my body be my friend.

May I be happy.

May I care for myself with compassion.



May we be free from fear.

May our bodies be our friends.

May we be happy.

May we care for ourselves with compassion.



May you be free from fear.

May your body be your friend.

May you be happy.

May you care for yourself with compassion.