Revelation

Swoop October 7 2009

Graceful wings widespread,

The easy glider rides on thermals.

As the current turns, so does the bird,

Leaning in and out,

A surfer on the perfect wave.

As I watch it swoop and turn,

I know that life is supposed to work like this –

No striving, no resisting, no uphill struggle –

Just gliding on love’s unseen currents –

Being in the present moment

Fully who I am.


Reflection

Swooping? No! I’ve been crawling, breathing dust rather than pure air. People say that grief takes time. They tell me “You’re not even through the first year yet.” Or “You have to honor the grieving process – for some people it can take decades.” There are expected markers and behaviors, time frames and mileposts.

But -- I can’t believe, in this loving universe, that someone’s life is destined to be filled to the brim with nothing but loss and sadness for a significant part of its length, because that person had loved someone. Love doesn’t lead to banishment, is not cause for punishment. That’s not its natural outcome. Something’s wrong with this view of grieving.

I’ve been in a state of grief before, strongly, when my close friend Rand died. I didn’t feel I could or should share my grieving with anyone. I suppressed it. Not only did I then go through a period of feeling suicidal, I also became ill with pneumonia three times in the same year, and then fell and broke my ankle! As a result of my serial illnesses, I lost my job. So I know from experience that grief has incredible emotional energy – tsunami energy. It makes no sense to try to thwart it.

But my present grief feels as if I'm going to the other extreme. There must be a middle ground, where it’s possible to honor and experience the sense of loss and still be able to live a life, to experience joy and playfulness, to become more fully oneself.

How can I find my way to swooping along the paths of loving energy, as those hawks were doing?

What is grief, anyway? It’s an emotion, like anger, fear, or joy – a perceived feeling accompanied by biochemical changes in the body. Other feelings come and go easily – one moment one feels them, and the next, they’ve been replaced by a different feeling. Grief is just sadness, the fourth emotion. It should work the same way. Single emotions are distinct notes in resonant chords, the complex tones that express our life.

Yes, I’ve experienced a dramatic life change that I didn’t choose or want.Part of me is sad and angry that I’ve lost what I wanted and loved. I’ve also lived long enough to have learned that behind what I think I want and love lies something I will learn to want and love more. To move forward, I have to let go what feels lost.
What am I actually grieving? Yes, my Bubbele, you have moved on from this plane to the next, and I’m still here. But have I actually lost you? No. You became a large part of who I am now. We’re still together – it just feels different. You're also helping me, in many ways, to move into a deeper ownership of my real self, which you taught me while you were here. I’m not actually alone at all. It just feels that way when I clutch desperately at how things were before, rather than how they are now.

Then there’s the question of anniversaries and what they really mean. If I stay totally within an earthly perspective,  time – days, months, years – seems to have enormous significance. Earth is measured in time and space. But our non-physical existence actually has no time. In spirit, time is unknown. It doesn’t compute.  A birthday or an anniversary has only earthly, physical reality.

In spirit, we are together in a different way now than we were before you passed to the next plane. There’s no fixed interval. There’s only eternity. In eternity, we’re together. Now, we only seem to be apart, momentarily. Feeling apart may be how I am experiencing our state right now. But how I experience a truth is up to me. I can see it from a different angle, and give it a different meaning. Right now, I can choose to experience love and unity – not bereavement.

Since your transition, I’ve gained a stronger sense of who I am, of the work I’m destined to complete, of how it’s now my turn to fulfill the role you and I had designed together before beginning this life. You would experience the “marginalized” role dramatically. Your gifts included the ability to experience deeply and to inspire others. We needed to know each other on earth for long enough so I could learn and understand what you gained from this experience. Then it would be my job to document and interpret our experiences for others to learn from.

There’s a real joy and fulfillment in doing what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s my place in the world, my individual mission, my role. I need to inhabit it and live it as effortlessly and superbly as the hawks swoop on the ever circulating currents of air.

I’ve been buried in believing that loss, loneliness, and grief have tangible reality. My beliefs have led to painful feelings. But I have not suffered a real loss. I do not have to try to replace Ellen in my life (I’d never succeed anyway!). I don’t have to rebuild a “normal” life, or make my life resemble what it was before.

 I choose to accept my life now and to swoop with its patterns, in joy and fulfillment. Ellen participates, assists, and at the same time learns and advances for her own soul’s benefit. Our love is our connection to each other. The statement I’ve often heard, that death ends a life but not a relationship seems absolutely true.