Being Lovable

Memorial Service January 31 2010


Loved ones come together,

Bound by friendship –

Family, whether kin or not,

Remembering the nourishment of love,

Grateful for the gifts once borne into our lives,

Aching for the piece of us now ripped away.

The saddest thought for me:

That the love that overflows on these occasions

Was often hidden from the person’s view

Before she died.

We are beloved, though we often think we’re not --

Thinking that we haven’t mattered, that we’ve failed,

That we haven’t measured up to our or others’ hopes for us.

Yet, the love was there, that manna that we crave and need,

Just waiting for our hearts to open to its warm embrace.

Why is it so hard for us to know the joy of feeling

Beautiful, worthy, lovable – beloved?



Reflection:

I attended a memorial service today with a friend. I didn’t know the person who had passed. Her loved ones -- those with whom she’d shared her God-nature, her loving heart – testified to the love they felt for her, the love she shared with them as friend, parent, sibling.

The service reminded me of the outpouring of love that I was privileged to share when we put together the Memorial for Ellen a year ago December. Ellen had struggled so -- with her lifelong sense that she had failed, that people had expected more than she could give, that she was looked down upon, “less than…” The feeling had started with her mother, who, she thought, could not look at her upper right quadrant that had been paralyzed at birth, who had at one point, probably in frustration, cursed her, saying “Nothing good should ever happen to you!” She had borne the shame of a visible disability, striving always to be good enough by becoming better than everyone else at everything she tried. She had worn out in her demanding medical career, ultimately being accused of not pulling her weight and having to take early retirement on disability. She had found peace only months before her death, finally accepting that everyone, including herself, had done the best they could with what they had, and that she was loveable, as was everyone else in her life. She had forgiven and transcended.

The Memorial for her overflowed with the love of her family and friends, and I thought how sad it was that she had never realized, while alive, the deep and meaningful ways in which she had touched hundreds of lives, transforming them forever with love. She had been a powerful expression of God -nature while in this physical life, and yet had felt unworthy to be loved.

Today, I saw this same phenomenon again – a memorial service filled with glowing testimonials to heroic love displayed by the deceased person, who clearly had not realized the depth of love she had shared and generated while in her body – who had lived in emotional pain and sometimes despair.

This is frequently such a hard realization to acquire – that we are loved. I wonder if one of our missions while on earth is to learn that we are beautiful, infinitely loveable and loving expressions of divine nature, even as we share God’s love with those around us. I think that as humans we need not only love others, but also let ourselves experience the joy of being loved. Our natural spiritual environment is infinite love, and our challenge is to transcend the physical ego that obscures our knowledge of who we are in spirit, allowing ourselves to simply be the loving, beautiful, beloved beings that we truly are.


Walk Nov 25 2008

Walking in morning air -- brisk, sunny, beautiful.

I connect with the world,

Love the light,

Resonate to winter stillness.

I recognize, too, life from other spheres,

Connecting with all that lies outside this present moment.

Remembering that nothing is lost that has been,

That I am wrapped in endless love.


SPIRIT GIFT December 7 2008, after Ellen’s Memorial party

What happens when many people meet

To celebrate the life and love of one

Whose path has led beyond this life?

Jesus told his friends to gather in his name and he would be with them.

When they did, they were transformed.

I always thought that only happened if you were God.

Yet, yesterday, your loved ones came together,

Shared one room, one breath, one feast, one toast --

Blessing. Honoring. Remembering. Learning.

You too were here,

Present in our hearts and minds.

Your spirit lifted ours above our daily fears.

We communed -- a sacred moment,

A hint of bliss to come

When we too will leave this life,

A moment of unity with what Is.

We will always remember that we shared

Your special moment, your party,

Your gift of love.

Ellen's birthday

Special Days January 27 2010


365 every year, cycling dates.

The sun warms our side of earth and then we turn again –

Circadian creatures.

We know to sleep, then waken, over and again.

We track and count the sun’s returns –

Counting on them for our lives.

We asterisk some dates – give them extra meaning

For ourselves and those we love.

Today, my love, I think of you,

So glad that you were born

And that love guided us together.

My heart glows with birthday thoughts of you.



Reflection:

My love, you so faithfully, while here, let people know how special you found them, by making sure to tell them so on their birthdays. You taught me that the number of cycles we’d completed didn’t matter. What mattered was the person’s existence in our lives. Your standard birthday greeting, “I’m so glad you were born,” was beautiful and loving. You made it a point, when you met someone, to find out their birthday, and to record it for yourself.

You were a lover of music – all kinds of music – it didn’t matter what it was. You even enjoyed watching rock performers on MTV. But you were especially fond of classical music, which you had discovered as a child. Your uncle was a violinist, and he and his family gave you, over time, a large collection of 78 RPM record sets containing great performances of classical pieces. You listened to them over and over, etching them permanently into your ear and mind. Whenever we were in the car, listening to your favorite classical music station, and a new piece started, within the first two measures you always knew the name of the piece and the composer – and you were always right. I found your memory for music amazing – I who was 10 before I could barely carry a tune, and who remember all the words to maybe two songs – the first verse of “Silent Night” and the chorus of “Jingle Bells”!

You said you always had music playing in your head – your mind provided you with an ongoing concert of great musical masterpieces. Many mornings, as your eyes opened, you would start singing a tune or song that was passing through your mind at that moment. I love remembering your daily ritual of greeting the new day with song. Your heart was happy, and mine rejoiced in harmony with yours.

To celebrate your birthday this year, I made a contribution to our classical music station which you enjoyed so much. I asked to sponsor part of the programming they played today, the birthday you shared with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Somewhere, I can imagine you smiling as you hum tunes from perhaps “The Magic Flute” or one or another of Mozart’s sonatas.

I’m so glad you – and Mozart – were born!

Having a birthday in January – being an Aquarian – was important in your life. You attracted others with birthdays in January. Your personal and business partners were born between January 2 and January 5. At one point, in Berkeley, we knew close to two dozen friends with birthdays in January – most of them Aquarians. We started annual parties for “januarians” and their significant others. What great fun those gatherings were! Birthdays really were high points in your life on earth.



Capricorn and Aquarius, Jan 2 2009

We were “Januarians.”

Both with January birthdays,

But oh so distinct – Capricorn and Aquarius.

I, solid Capricorn: earthbound, cautious, organized.

You airborne Aquarius: spontaneous, gregarious, creative.

You taught me awareness of feelings, enjoyment of friends.

I taught you a more structured, thoughtful way to be.

It took a long time for us to understand each other.

You’d tell of dreadful anguish, and I’d tremble for you,

Until you’d laugh and say it wasn’t THAT bad.

I’d say an idea or gift was “nice,” and you’d feel crushed,

Disappointed, not knowing “nice” was my superlative.

Your questions pierced right to the heart of others’ cares

While I listened and said little, though in tune with you;

People remembered meeting you, not me.

You greeted all with fervent hugs, a gay “Hi, Bubbele!”

I smiled quietly and said “Hello.”

I often wondered how we two could be as one,

Yet diverge so starkly,

Like the different faces of a mountain or a Roman god.



So Glad January 27, 2009

“I’m so glad you were born!”

You greeted all your friends this way

On their birthdays.

It was the right diversion

From thoughts of years encroaching.



Tonight, we ate chili and your favorite lemon cookies,

And lit a birthday candle.

As we celebrated you,

I thought of all the love, all the caring,

All the knowing and the wisdom

We would have missed, without your birth.

The candle proclaimed for us:

“We’re so glad you were born!”

Life Stories

Stories of our Lives January 25 2010


Once upon a time….we were born….

We all have stories of this life –

What happened, how we felt, and what it meant.

We’ve framed our story and retold it.

It has a shape -- a beginning and a middle.

We know it well.

But is it real? What does it mean?

How much of what we tell comes from the working of

Selective memory or from the midair energy of words in flight

From us to the next person to the next?

How much – our own fiction plot -- stems solely from imagination?

Each time that we confront a script for

How our life may reach its end –

The illness, accident, or surgery

That our body may well not survive –

We glimpse the other lives we also live

In spirit and in soul, in love and hope and faith.

Today, I accompany in spirit those around me facing their mortality,

And feel my sadness at their struggle,

And my joy from loving them while in this life.



Reflection

This seems to be a week for distressing news. A death, three new cancer diagnoses, two imminent surgeries --- all among family and close friends -- and the disastrous earthquake in Haiti that has made thousands suffer so deeply. It’s easy to feel beleaguered, buried in dark storms of sorrow. My first reaction is to resonate with the sadness and worry of all these people, to feel weighted down, to feel as though threats lurk everywhere. Indeed, that is one possible way to see the world and experience life. It’s real.

Quantum theory posits that at any given time there are multiple scenarios being lived by the same people – each one different from the other. In essence, we can jump from one to the other, in a flash. Certainly, we can jump from one shade of emotion to another, in a flash, and that changes the whole resonance of what we are thinking and feeling at a single moment – if we don’t get fixated on the idea that has entered our minds.

As I’m writing, I feel worried about a dear one who’s traveling, and from whom I have not gotten word of safe arrival. I can get pretty worked up about it! I’m actually inclined to get worked up about it. I’ve been here before, with others. Almost always, when they finally show up or get in touch, they’ve had an ordinary garden-variety delay – no big deal. Meantime, I’ve created a horrible scenario in my head, fabricated out of nothing. I’ve lived that scenario and suffered it. It’s felt very real. My body has poured forth its stress hormones, and activated its “fight or flight” response --all because of a story I’ve made up – all because of my fear of letting go into the moment and trusting positive outcomes.

So I’m sitting here processing the bad news of this past week, and trying to shift the energy of my chosen worry of the moment. I’m thinking about how much of our day to day life is truly a story – a creation of our imagination. I’m putting myself in a different space, in one of the many other possible concurrent stories I could choose – a more positive, pleasant one. My body experiences it as real, just as it does the horror story scenario. But the amount of stress is oh so much lower. I can even choose a scenario filled with light, love, and joy, and focus on the wonderful role of love in this lifetime. I think I’ll do that!

Used Bookstore

Used Bookstore January 24 2010


Through those doors,

A treasure waits –

Attic chests of time gone by –

Filled with information, fantasy, and feelings.

A hundred chariots and more

Wait to carry me in curiosity through marks on paper

To days of yore, or yesterday, or yet tomorrow or next year.

I push the door.

A small bell tells my entry.

The kindly man and woman, together half a century or more,

Raise their heads and smile “welcome”

To their world of wonder.

I have stepped from modern time and momentary dailiness

Into a magic place of mystery and awe.


Reflection:

I was always accustomed to thinking of time and place and experience as predictable – plannable. This past year has taught me another layer of truth – that in a chance moment, everything can – and often does – change. The solidity of material reality is an illusion. Things are not necessarily what they seem. Life, health, and wealth – and also sadness, anger and despair – change as readily as a spring breeze. The only constant – the power of love -- derives not from physical life but from the world of spirit. From one moment to the next, life-changing news may arrive – from winning the lottery to the illness or death of a dear one. From one moment to the next, we can also step from solid everyday reality, to a place where fantasy or love take over.

Last evening, a friend and I were strolling along a city sidewalk, after a delicious restaurant dinner. We were enjoying the clear, temperate evening air. We passed the used bookstore, and realized that it was still open, despite the fact that the posted closing time had passed several hours before. We opened the door to the brightly lit store, as the bell tinkled, and the proprietors welcomed us and asked if we had any questions. We found ourselves in the midst of an astonishing store of collectibles – posters, post cards, containers that had held products discontinued 50 or more years ago, and a hand selected library of thousands of tomes, each of which was, in its time and on its subject, a classic.

Arcane, antique medical books sat next to historic volumes of contemporaneous biography of great 19th and 20th century figures, next to an amazing selection of local history books – slavery, integration, tobacco, fashion, manners and mores, prominent families – all from much earlier times; these juxtaposed historic cookbooks and world travel tomes from 50 to 100 years ago. Further into the store appeared a library of first editions of many of the great works of fiction from the last two centuries. The collection of contemporaneous picture books of great artists of the 1800s and 1900s was astounding. Each new view brought beautiful surprises, one more fascinating than the next.

On an evening when two dear family members were in deep distress and I had been disturbed for and with them, I found this magical spot that led to an experience of wonder and delight – for which I felt grateful. Life is full of surprises!

Sisterhood

News of Sisters January 23 2010


Across the miles

Fly feelings for and with each other.

Sisters suffer or are glad –

The sine waves of our lives curl around each other,

Bathed in bonding light and coiled in compassionate embrace.

One suffers loss;

Another fears that she may seem out of step;

A third reels from fearsome news of cancer;

A fourth smiles – finally employed;

And I, the fifth, emerging from the black abyss of grief,

Feel my heart lifting in the glow of newly forming love.

Yet we’re all connected –

Strands of family fabric intertwined,

Intricately tatted --

Threads enlaced in lifelong strands of love.



Reflection:


I’m one of the “Hyde Girls.” Five of us were born within ten years, 61 to 71 years ago, in industrial Rhode Island and rural southern coastal Massachusetts. “No brothers??!! Five girls??!!” That’s right. Although we’re distinctly individual – so different one from the other that one might question the possibility of us all belonging to the same family – we’re also part of a unit, a matched set of five. It’s amazing to me that the set remains unbroken, although as we age, it’s obvious that one, then the next, and finally all will transition from this life. Three out of four in-laws have now made that final transition. Four of us were married, and now three are widows.

The most recent loss was that of my brother-in-law Fritz just yesterday, after a long struggle with cancer. I feel deeply sad for Dorothy, his wife, my youngest sister. A little over a year ago Fritz and Dorothy came to my house in North Carolina, from theirs in New Hampshire, to provide their consoling presence and hugs at Ellen’s memorial party. Now I’m buying plane tickets to make the reverse trip for the same purpose – to comfort Dorothy after Fritz’s passing.

I think of Fritz when Ellen first met our family in 2000, ten years ago. We were all together -- the whole family -- at a get-together at Dot and Fritz's farm in New Hampshire. Fritz took Ellen aside, and in a conspiratorial tone asked her, "Did you have any idea what you were getting into with the Hyde Girls?" Of course, this was Ellen's first "Hyde Family Experience." She smiled.

Fritz then hitched up the pony to an antique trap, and, assisted by his youngest son, Kyle, who was then 11 years old, took us for a spin up the dirt trails behind their New Hampshire farm. Fritz and Ellen sat side by side on the front seat of the conveyance, Fritz looking handsome and confident as he held the reins and clicked to the pony to move forward, and Ellen -- New Yorker, city girl -- looking a bit dubious. Fritz and Dot's older son, Nathan, then about 14, a tall, handsome redhead, was in charge of barbecuing hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner during our ride in the pony cart. Ellen, Nathan, and Fritz are no longer with us. That happy day remains frozen happy in my memory, though my heart sheds tears as I reflect on how the scene has changed in the intervening ten years.

One of us Hyde Girls, Phyllis, had a brush with cancer last year, and now Susan has been diagnosed with breast cancer; we’re all in the wondering stage – what will happen? How will it go? As Ellen always said, we all know we’ll be making the final trip from this life, but it becomes much more immediate when the bus with our name on it is parked outside our house!

The strands of sisterhood are deep and complex. The sisters are the only people who have known us and we them, all our respective lives. In each other, we see and hear reflections of our parents, and even of Grandma. We share the same memories, although for each of us these stories are indelibly warped by the prism of our birth order and our innate temperaments. Sharing these recollections amplifies the power of memory for each of us. We survived the torments of sibling rivalry – without damaging each other. We have stayed connected, amicably, all of our adult lives. When we get together, we fall naturally and comfortably into the rhythm and pace of family dialogue -- the same laughter, same inflections, same sense of humor as Mom and Dad’s. It’s a primal experience to revert, suddenly, to those long-ago patterns of speech and energy.

The genetic pool we share is warm and comforting. Whatever disturbs the waters whips up distress in all of our hearts.

Floating Peace

In the Flow January 21 2010


There are no limits, really.

With one step out of time,

The heart and soul together

Float along the gentle current of delight,

Enjoying seamlessly the moment’s

Invitation to exist in joy and love.

Like the land of spirit,

The blissful moment is within,

Hidden only softly from our body selves

Until we waken there and smile.

At that instant, fear dissolves

And peace begins --

The power of the light of love.



Reflection

Once, I was driving along a country road after telling friends that I’d made a difficult decision to leave behind the life I was then living – my job, my marriage, my home. I had realized that much of my life had become toxic because I was not following my inner guidance about what I should be doing with my life, and that I would become ill if I just kept on going as I had been doing. I could not figure out any way to make things better. Leaving seemed the only option. I had made my decision and shared it that day. The universe rewarded me spectacularly for finally, after so many years, attending to my right path

It was a resplendent, early spring day. The bright afternoon sun was playing upon tender spring leaf buds, ever so pale a pastel green against the deep blue, cloudless sky. The unmarked two lane road passed between deep green fields, curving into the horizon. Suddenly, just ahead of me, I perceived the most brilliant, infinitely varied rainbow colored light I had ever seen. The rainbow suffused me and the car. I stopped the car, right there in the middle of the road, and let my whole conscious awareness move deep into the ecstasy of the Light. I was in another dimension, where experience was all. The total experience was blissful love. I was both immersed and one with the love and the light. The colors exceeded in depth, intensity, and rapture anything I had ever imagined possible. I was in Heaven. I wanted to stay forever. Of course, it wasn’t time, and I was gently guided to come back into my body sitting in the driver’s seat. The light was timeless. I have no idea how long my car sat, ignition off, in the middle of the road. No one else had happened along – or perhaps they had, and they’d just gone around me. I turned on the engine, and went on my way, toward the highway that would lead me home to St. Louis. My life had changed forever, though. I’d learned about the Light. I knew it was within me always, and that I could access it at any time. Over the intervening years, I’ve learned to access and appreciate that loving place more and more frequently, transforming my life – and me – gradually.

It took me many years of questioning finally to realize that I experienced that moment of delight because I had listened to my inner self and agreed to do what was right for me, no matter how fearful I may have felt about leaving behind everything I knew and moving into the unknown. More and more often, as I’ve grown older, I’ve re-experienced similar moments of delight – always when I follow the promptings of my heart and do what feels absolutely right, transcending human emotions and letting myself be guided. I’m slowly learning that my higher self is guided and nurtured, and my job is to pay attention, understand, and follow that wisdom from spirit.

Heaven is not some distant place. It is with us, within us, surrounding us where we are – less than a heartbeat away. We need only turn our attention away from our physical being and surroundings to enter it. It is outside of time. Neither time nor place exist – only love.

It is our true home, though while we are living in a body on planet earth, we are on a mission, through the beauties and challenges of physical life, to raise our awareness of love and its power. Our task is to learn to be fully our highest selves, laying ego aside. We are here to explore the attractions and flaws of ego, to transcend our love of power, returning to the light of universal love -- to experience all the physical emotions and finally learn the value of eternity’s peace and bliss. Every moment that we spend in that peaceful love is a beautiful response to our spirit’s constant yearning.

Passion

Sixteen at Any Age January 18 2010


Sweet sixteen – open-hearted, gentle --

Newly minted, freshly grown –

Dewy-eyed, dissolving on discovering love.



As decades pass,

Our heart strings thicken,

Their crystal music dulled and deadened--

Their sublime response encrusted with both scars and cares.

Only happening again upon new love

Can whisk away the weight of time,

And magically restore the blissful tones, the thrill

Of tender, blushing adoration.



Reflection

Our spiritual oxygen is composed of love, in all its guises. We swim, move, exist, in an atmosphere composed of love. Without love, we suffocate; we gasp and choke and suffer. The higher the concentration of love we can generate and experience, the greater our level of blissful awareness.

I was with a group of people yesterday. We were focused on being attuned to loving spiritual energy. But one individual who was present beside us -- not a member of the group -- was frowning upon our presence and our activities, grumbling and complaining that we were there meditating. His energy was dark and discouraging, his presence glaring, frowning, dampening. He was unhappy and was suffering. We prayed together for his discovery of the light of love. He left, and the energy of the room lightened perceptibly. I would not have believed such a difference was possible had I not experienced it.

When we’re in the presence of love, we lighten up perceptibly. We purr with happiness. Whether experiencing moments of tender friendship or joyful celebration, our hearts sing. The hearts of all who are with us sing in harmony while sharing loving energy. We hate to think of leaving.

I have been incredibly blessed to have lived with and learned from a partner, Ellen, who brought light and love consistently to others. Her questions, “Have you thought of…?” or “How is that for you?,” radiated love and acceptance, and people experienced her in gladness. I feel deeply fortunate now to be able still to appreciate her loving presence, though in different form, and also to experience and share love with others whose special beauty I appreciate – to find love spreading around me like a carpet of wildflowers. Falling in love, over and over, with a new person or with loyal friends, with the beauties of nature or of art, with the smiles of children and the frolicking of puppies… Finding love is bliss.

Bliss

Life: The Movie January 16, 2010


Pictures move before our eyes,

Dwarfing us –

Monster magnets drawing us

Into Intensity, adventure,

Thrilling heartsongs of all modes and keys.

We step into the picture,

Two dimensions turning multiple.

We are the actors and the story;

Our hearts and minds enlarge

With passion and with joy

Till we unite with all that is,

Dissolve in bliss --

Become pure ecstasy

And love.

Reflections:

Although we live in our own movie, we do not control how the plot develops. Our story lives us. We move forward in time, like a ribbon of polymer imprinted with pictures. Every moment contains surprises -- pains, fears, and delights. Each moment presents us with gifts of learning and growing to unwrap and savor – new insights, new dimensions, new awareness of what it means to be a “spiritual being having a human experience” -- new ways in which body and soul together teach us about God and love. Each moment brings us closer to the movie’s end – our return to life in spirit – when we leave the earth theatre. May we, at that point, leave our bodies as tools that have served us well in growing as souls – growing in awareness, kindness, and the knowledge of true happiness, as we help each other become the best we are capable of being.

Ellen Big "C" Part II

Ellen: Reflections:


Why does the thought “cancer” squeeze my heart in terror? I know that I have metastatic breast cancer and that if I do not die of something else I'll die of it. I try to keep in my consciousness the burning shimmering truth that we must all die of something.
Ellen Scheiner 2007


"Shortly after I finished chemotherapy, I had a kind of epiphany. I have been studying meditation with a Buddhist trained teacher for some years and have been meditating for 17 years. One day I realized that I would die. Not necessarily of cancer, but of something- since we all will die. My experience as a physician and my meditation training have removed a great deal of fear about dying. When I had this experience, I realized in the most visceral sense, that there was nothing that I could count on and that nothing was permanent. For several weeks I was in a state of free fall. I knew in the deepest sense that all of our plans are tentative. Sometimes we make them to fill the future to assure ourselves that we will still be here then. Gradually I felt more and more freedom. I began to differentiate between made up plans and real goals-those acts which truly are right for me. What a release that was! Many cerebrally concocted schemes fell by the wayside. I began to live more and more in the now and to treat each breath as precious. My meditation training had taught me that each birth ultimately results in a death, and so the end of my life as I know it seems less important. I now strive to live. When I make a toast I now drink to aliveness, not to health, which is quite slippery. Having stared into the abyss I am no longer afraid of looking at anything. I know on the deepest level that I do not know what will happen and that I never did know."
Ellen Scheiner, shared by Musa Mayer, NYC


Rosemary: Reflections:

What you refer to, Ellen -- the confrontation with our inevitable mortality, is certainly one of the elements in the fear that grips the patient and also those who love her or him when a diagnosis of cancer is handed down. But we do finally accept that we will die, sooner or later if not right now, and know that this is the natural order.

Personally, however, I found it very hard to reach that point as we lived with your cancer throughout our relationship. It was only after your death that I realized death is not fearsome – that it is a joyous homecoming for the soul, despite the sadness experienced by those who remain in this life.

I remember your routine physical in July 2002. We received the blood test report online from your new California oncologist, and printed it out. I remember standing in the kitchen at the moveable island, the setting sun painting the room pink, poring over the report. Everything looked great – normal-normal-normal-normal. Then we came to this one value that was slightly elevated – 38, with a normal value up to 32. Generally, a slightly elevated value on a lab test report isn’t a big deal. Everyone occasionally blips outside normal ranges on something, sooner or later. But what WAS this? CA15-3? I’d never heard of it. You shrugged your shoulders. Looking back, I suspect you knew – although it was a different blood marker than the one your old oncologist in New York had used since your cancer diagnosis in 1992, ten years before. It was too late to call the doctor that day to get an explanation. The next morning, we called. It was a marker for metastatic breast cancer, saying that the cancer had returned, and was now metastatic.

We were devastated. We stood there, in shock, looking at each other. My mind was in a flurry. In three weeks, we were about to celebrate our commitment ceremony. Everything was arranged – over 100 people were coming from all over the country, the caterer and minister were finalized; your nephew and niece from Albuquerque were set to photograph the event, and we’d chosen the beverages, the cost of which your former practice partner at Sloan- Kettering had bequeathed to us as a parting gift. She had just died from the side-effects of treatment for her own metastatic breast cancer. We were all set for a glorious celebration, complete with everyone dancing Hava Nagila at the end, accompanied by the Irish musicians from the corner pub and by my daughter, who was playing her fiddle for the great occasion.

We decided to go forth with the celebration. We told no one what we had just learned. We felt fogged in by uncertainty. What was going to happen? In 2002, the hormonal drugs for metastatic cancer were still in clinical trials, and the only treatment available was harsh chemotherapy, which promised no assurance of cure or even remission. You had already come close to death on several occasions during your original chemotherapy – a severe protocol designed to test how close patients could be brought to dying from treatment, and whether that would offer any better success rate in killing the cancer cells. You had already decided you were not going to go through chemotherapy again, after that experience. You had no reserves left. You felt drained and aged by that first round of treatment.

We did institute treatment with classical homeopathic remedies. I was still an advanced homeopathy student, just starting out in practice, and since helping cancer patients had been my motivation for becoming a trained homeopath, my graduate instructor was the acknowledged world expert in treating cancer homeopathically. He mentored me as, together, we treated you homeopathically. Your cancer grew and spread slowly, but since we weren’t aware of the ways lobular breast cancer (the kind you had) spread differently than ductal breast cancer, we didn’t recognize the symptoms – nor did anyone else. You basically did well, and were able to continue living normally and to remain engaged in life till late 2005 and early 2006 – already longer than the mean survival time in 2002 of 2.5 years from diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer.

Dancing “La Guillonnee,” Ellen, Officiant Harriett, Rosemary, Commitment Ceremony, August 31, 2002, Berkeley CA

The Other Shoe January 12 2010

It felt like waiting for the “other shoe” to drop

Upon our heads.

We lived in darkness, not knowing what you’d feel

Or how the cancer would become apparent.

We watched the cancer marker numbers climb, inexorable,

Month by month – from 32 when we began

To 800 and still rising, when we stopped that vigil.

It was just too agonizing –

It felt like counting up for some unknown, explosive “Blast-off.”

Though absolutely no one knew the meaning of those numbers,

They didn’t feel good.

We tried imagining what might be going to happen.

We learned futility in looking to the future

When trying to find answers.

All we can know is here -- now – present:

The aching of uncertainty in sorrow’s waiting room.

Big "C"

It Takes a Village January 11 2010


Today, I’ve spent time twice with people meeting to support community.

We know we need each other –

That, alone, we stumble weakly, wander wearily,

Starved of love and touch and caring.



We need a village –

Minds that work together,

Hearts that synchronize,

Hands reached out in loving help.

We belong together.

We like to think we’re independent, proudly standing up alone.

In fact, we’re each a part of all, deeply linked.

The human unit is a group – not a frail, lonely person.



Reflections:

Rosemary: I just got off the phone with my sister, who told me she’s been diagnosed this past week with breast cancer. The “Big C.” It really does have a weight – an urgency and power -- far beyond any other diagnosis. She’s terrified, understandably. She’s an experienced, well educated nurse. She knows the vital questions, the assorted risks. She’s well aware that for as long as she lives, this will hang over her head with every blip in her health – is it the cancer?

Ellen: When I was initially diagnosed with my cancer, it was as if I had been sitting with others at a table, and then, instantaneously, I was on the other side, at the other end, alone. I was no longer a part of the community of others, no longer with them. I was in a bubble -- marked, singled out, condemned.

Rosemary: It’s hard for me to believe this is real – and I’m not even the one who received the diagnosis. Already, though, it is as if “the other shoe” has dropped. I’ve been very mindful that Grandma was diagnosed with breast cancer in her late 60s. I’ve wondered if any of us – our generation – would also suffer this illness. They always say the risk rises if other “first degree” relatives have had the disease. Grandma was not a first degree relative, genetically – just in our minds and hearts. But my sister is a first degree relative to me. One of us being diagnosed with breast cancer means that the risk for all of us is higher than we had thought – especially since one of our first cousins, also in the same family line, has already been diagnosed and died from the disease. We were 10 grandchildren, and now two have turned out to have that form of cancer.

Ellen: Today, though, breast cancer caught fairly early can be put into long-term remission, and can also be managed as a chronic disease if it returns.

Rosemary: I know that’s true. I tried to reassure her with those facts. But I know that she’s still in that place of terror, where she feels like a deer caught in headlights, where her whole life prospect has changed in a millisecond. As she goes through treatment, she’ll begin to realize that she’s strong, and that she’s dealing with the stress, and isn’t threatened with immediate death. For her, the present moment will return, and will again be able to exert its considerable power. Thank God that we have that resilience in ourselves, that ability to adapt and to find our inner strength. I think that a big part of the terror we feel with a cancer diagnosis is that we temporarily lose our ability to stay in the present. We move totally to the future, to “what will happen to me?”

Ellen: A diagnosis of cancer often brings an immediately helpless feeling. That feeling leads to the term “cancer victim.” “Victim” implies that one indeed has no power to change one’s destiny. It always made me furious when I heard that phrase, “cancer victim.” Although I had cancer, I was not its victim. It was not an outside attacker. It was my own body expressing its physical vulnerability, becoming overwhelmed. It was a part of myself, and I felt it crucial to make peace with that aspect of me, to bring myself into one harmonious expression. Susan will regain her balance. She is a strong woman.

Rosemary: Cancer seems everywhere. So many people in my life have sickened with it, and it has brought death to quite a few. I often feel it surrounds me. It affects everyone’s life multiple times. Susan and two of my friends have recently been diagnosed and my brother-in-law is in the final stages of dying from it. Grandma, Dad, my cousin Laura, my cousin Tom, and Fred – not to mention animal friends I’ve had, have all died of cancer. Many other friends, of course, have had cancer and survived. It's a change in life's course, but of itself, it predicts nothing.

 Of course, in my work as a homeopath, I also spend a lot of time and energy helping people with cancer and people whose relatives and dear friends have cancer.

Ellen, all during your and my life together, cancer hung over our head, menacing us with your imminent death. We talked about this often, trying ineffectually to prepare ourselves for what we knew would be a deeply sad and disturbing moment. Of course, I ultimately learned that trying to prepare is futile. There’s no way we can predict what will happen. Imagining many different scenarios and rehearsing them - as I did --  only keeps attention on a negative future that probably will never happen as we imagine and fear.

The important thing is to live each present moment fully, as a gift that life has handed to us. Each blessed present moment lights itself and us. It is glorious. It is enough. Susan is a strong woman in excellent health. She is whole and her life is in perfect order. That’s the truth as it is right now, and as we can affirm in each moment as it arrives. There is a healthy Susan present in the universe right now. We need to switch to seeing the truth of her.


WHITE STONES, JANUARY 3 2009

Three years ago, first of the year,

At a church in Berkeley,

Everyone chose a white stone

And inscribed on it one word,

Our hope for 2006.

I wrote “Joy.” I wanted to be more open, to feel blessed,

To stop fearing your cancer’s growth,

To staunch my anger at confines of disability --

To answer grace with thanks.

You wrote “Is.” You resolved to be present in the Now and

Accept its gifts -- to find its bliss.

We were already pilgrims seeking peace together, come what may,

Sharing the rough road of illness, walking wearily, leaning on each other.


Housebound with your pain and suffering, we never got to church again.


Tomorrow, alone, I will write another word on another stone,

Expressing my dream for the year to come,

Holding your memory gently in my heart.



CAREGIVING WITH CANCER January 18, 2009

My friend wrote about caregiving

Before her husband’s father died of cancer.

How she’d seen the cancer as the enemy, the captor.

How she’d felt imprisoned by its whims,

Its power to destroy.

How she’d felt helpless.



Her words brought back to me those years

In which we sought aliveness

Even when your cancer ruled.

Dictator, Cancer bowed us down in weariness and fear,

Caged us in the house, inflicted pain capriciously.

We fled before its wrath like refugees, afraid.

I remember weeping with a counselor, and she,

Unaware of how we shared this road, scolding me

For “acting as if I was the one with cancer.”

I’m glad the cancer is now gone,

But even in its frightful, icy grasp,

I treasured every moment spent with you.

Playing

Playtime January 9 2010


Fun. Doing something just because we want to.

Laughing. Acting silly. Enjoying.

Being and becoming, fully present in the moment.

Time’s curtain parts and lets us float along

As in eternity – our spirit’s native land.

To play, we must let go –

Open to what is,

Soar untethered into joy.


Reflection

A day of play brings such joy to my heart. I've been getting clear messages in the last few months that it's my time to learn playfulness, fun.  How strange to experience this, after a lifetime of responsibility, of serious earnestness, of struggling to be on time and do things right in the eyes of others.  What a gift! Didn't I play as a child? Of course I did, to some extent.  But I was responsible, the oldest of five, and a girl. It was my job to help make sure that the house got cleaned, meals cooked, clothes laundered, faces and hands washed, teeth brushed, bedtimes observed, children dressed, washed, fed, and out the door on time for school, even as I went to school myself.  School was a relief.  I only had to be a student.

Today, I played, with my best friend.  I had fun, laughed, giggled, didn't worry about the time or what chores I was supposed to do.  I was in the beautiful present moment -- delighted. I loved and felt loved, cared and felt cared for. We could have been smiling cherubs, flitting through blue skies fluttering our adorable wings

Is this not a little taste of Heaven, a promise of how joy and light are possible?        

Wedding cake

Winter Scene January 6 2010


A surprise – a fountain that’s been left to run

Despite the winter cold.

Its graceful, slender plume of water

Flows exuberantly up and cascades down –

As icicles preserve the water’s dance;

The ice has mounded up;

The tiered fountain now reminds me of

A tall and sparkling wedding cake –

The tiny accumulated crystals like

The layer upon layer of caring

That build a couple’s love

Moment by glistening moment --

Molecular uniting.



Reflection:

What builds love and makes relationship possible? It’s definitely an accumulation of layers that, like this iced over fountain, create something beautiful from the repeated opportunities to express love, kindness, understanding, and concern for the partner while also taking care of oneself. . I’d never thought before of wedding cakes as a symbol for relationship, but their complexity, each tier supporting the one above, does provide a metaphor for a relationship solidly built over time. Coming upon this surprising winter artifact made me think about the extravagant cake constructions that it resembled – glittering, white, complex, and many-layered.

Body and Soul

Body and Soul January 5 2009


A birthday makes me wonder

How we manage to evolve

Within a body.

Our spirit self feels ageless,

Follows its own fiddler,

Thrums to its connections, its intuition,

Its understanding of what’s going on;

Our body marches to the ticking clock

Of hours and of years,

Wrinkling, stiffening, twinging here and there ,

Reshaping itself constantly – cytoplasmic riddle

With its own reasons, its own rhythms, its order and its disarray.

How do such disparate parts

Remain merged as one person for a life?



Reflection:

I remember Grandma. She was my mother’s mother, the only one of my grandparents whose life overlapped with mine. I remember her as a sturdy, ageless woman, although she aged very quickly in her late 60s and died before reaching 70. She seemed ancient, as I suppose grandparents are obliged to appear to their grandchildren. But I’ve seen pictures of her when she must have been in her 50s, and I was a very tiny child. To me now, she actually looks old in those photos. As one of my sisters said to me a couple of days ago when wishing me a “Happy 71st birthday,” “Grandma died when she was 69, but she was OLD!”

Grandma lived in a third floor flat – which we called a “tenement” when I was little. The house was frame, with a three story bay window, a flat roof, and a pleasant double wide lot with grass and trees surrounded by a chain link fence. It was in Pawtucket, RI, the city where we had also lived during my early childhood. The house was on a corner. Across the street in one direction lay a city playground with a shallow wading pool, swings, and a dirt play area. The playground pulsed with raucous children during summer days when I was often at Grandma’s house. We were not allowed to use the pool, because of the polio scares in the middle and late 40s. It was a terrible disease, often causing paralysis and dramatic disability, and no one really understood how it was transmitted. One important theory was that children caught it from each other at swimming pools.

I spent hours sitting in the third floor bay window of Grandma’s house, next to the open, screenless windows, looking down wistfully at those happy children screaming and splashing in the pool. It was fascinating to watch them, to see who were siblings and who playmates, and how the boys and the girls behaved differently toward each other. When they left to go home, I pictured where they might be going, what their houses might look like, and how they were greeted when they arrived home, still wearing their woolen bathing suits or trunks -- the girls with rubber bathing caps -- all of them refreshed from hours playing in the water. There was no air conditioning at that time. I was sweating and limply hot as I looked at the splashing kids across the street. I envied them.

Across the side street from Grandma’s house, what sounded like hundreds of looms in a brick textile factory clicked and clacked in synch, 60 times a minute, 24 hours a day. The noise was loud – a “racket,” a din. We learned to sleep to its cadence, windows open in summer to let in any breath of cool air that might arise during the night. That brisk rhythm paced our breaths and heartbeats during every second we spent at Grandma’s.

A pulley clothesline stretched across the large back yard from Grandma’s third floor kitchen window to an enormous tree. Every morning, Grandma put out peanuts in their shells, caching them neatly in the metal pulley cover. At the same time every day, her “pet” squirrel would scamper across the yard, a clothesline tightrope runner; it would gratefully seek out its daily ration of peanuts, sitting on its haunches on the windowsill, devouring the nuts, as Grandma sat less than two feet away, watching it with a smile. Later in the morning, her “pet” blue jay would also come by for its own stash of peanuts, which it would take, one by one, through the open window, from her hand.

Grandma grew the peanuts in one section of the grassy yard. We were fascinated to watch the peanut life cycle, helping her scratch the seed nuts into the thin, sandy soil, and happily helping to reap the harvest several weeks later, when the legumes had ripened attached to the roots of the plants.

When we stayed over at Grandma’s, we slept on a “Morris chair.” This was a classic piece of turn of the 20th century furniture, a mission style wooden invention with a shiny, hard, slippery leather seat and back cover. A metal bar across the back could be removed from metal brackets, to allow the seat back to lie flat so someone could recline on it as if on a bed. It was hard, with a gap between the seat and the back when it was reclined – a dramatically uncomfortable place to sleep, even for a child.

On summer evenings, Grandma would sit at one open window, rocking in her rocking chair. I would stand and look out the window with her, or sit cross legged on the floor while she told from memory (or made up) Victorian stories of young girls struggling through blizzards and cold winds, responding to some duty, and being lured off the path to their deaths by eerie, disembodied, evil ghosts. There were always morals to these gruesome tales, but I’m afraid I was too terrorized by the brutal ways in which the stories ended to pay attention or remember the cautionary admonitions they were supposed to illustrate.



Although the original gas jets for lights still protruded from the walls in all the rooms, and gas radiators stood before the windows, the apartment had not been modernized. There was no heat, aside from the coal stove that was also the cooking stove in the kitchen. The gas jets had been replaced by a single 20 watt bulb hanging down on a long wire from the middie of the ceilings in the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, dining room and living room. There was no other electricity. Grandma had an ice box on the landing outside the kitchen, and it was always fascinating to watch the debilitated state in which the ice man arrived, red faced and puffing, after hauling a 30 or 40 pound block of ice on his back up the three flights of stairs. Grandma herself slid the large melt tray out from under the ice box daily, and teetered across the kitchen with it sloshing, to dump it into the tub in her bathroom. That was the only use that the tub received, as there was no hot water in the flat. There was a flush toilet, however, a true “throne.” The porcelain base sat on a platform. The seat was made of oak. The porcelain tank was suspended over the toilet, just under the ceiling, with a long pull chain serving as the “flush” mechanism. Grandma had been extremely frugal, and there was no reason to covet “modern” conveniences. She seemed unreflectingly content with things as they had always been, and as they remained until her death in 1957.

Grandma had raised her daughters in this house, a single mother whose husband, an alcoholic, had been banned from the family forever after just a few years of marriage. She remained staunchly single till her death. Her friends were all women – coupled with other women, spinsters, or widows. She visited often with these friends, and often went off on bus tours to various places with one of another of them. If she had a sex life, it was successfully hidden from us children.

Grandma worked in stores as a bookkeeper or accounting clerk. For a while, she was employed at a jewelry store. What I heard was that she turned 60 and was supposed to retire. So she retired, turned back the odometer, as it were – telling the next prospective employer that she was 55. Her last job was working at a department store in the “cage,” the locked wire enclosure in the basement where all payments were shuttled via pneumatic tubes, and change returned pneumatically to the station from which the payments had originated.

As a child, I found it fascinating to arrive early to meet Grandma after work, and then sit outside the cage, gaping up at the clanking network of tubes transporting, disgorging, and resorbing the shuttle containers. Grandma and her colleagues in the cage functioned as a single human cash register for the whole three story department store. These women flew around the cage, retrieving canisters, making instant change, and sending the shuttles back to their place of origin. I wondered how they could keep track of the multiple tubes and where they went, never mind how they could make change so quickly that it seemed like only a second or two. They prided themselves on their unerring arithmetic accuracy, and Grandma was reputed to be the fastest and best of them all.

Grandma walked both ways to and from work, a distance of about two miles. It was hard for me to keep up with her when accompanying her. I had to run to stay abreast of her rapid pace.

I admired Grandma for her willingness to be bold and to do the unexpected. In her closet was a large framed picture of about 100 women at an organization’s meeting around 1900. The women were dressed in long dark dresses, and were wearing dark stockings with high-topped leather shoes, broad brimmed, elaborately trimmed hats and white gloves. Except for Charlie Chaplin, that is. There “he” was, in his bowler hat, his little mustache, his turned out toes, his ill-fitting swallow-tail coat. That was Grandma. At the other end of her life, the last photo we have of her is a lovely studio portrait of Grandma, in her 60s, with her dyed black hair rolled into a bun, wearing a big smile – as she sits on Santa’s lap in the department store where she worked.

I remember lying in bed, watching Grandma get ready for bed, dressed in her modest ankle length nightgown, letting her long hair down and brushing it out precisely 100 times, folding her rimless glasses to put them on the dresser; I wondered how anyone could be so old – what that could possibly feel like. Yet I’m two years older now than she lived to be. That makes me ancient, I guess. But although the birthday number awes me, I – like everyone else – am not conscious of age in my inner life. I just am, timeless. Only my body suffers the effect of accumulating years. My spirit feels young and adventurous, ready for new opportunities to grow and learn.

New Beginnings

A New Beginning January 2010


A new year begins –

My curiosity brims over,

Excitement bubbles up into delight.

I ponder the year’s blank white slate

And wait to learn its invitations

And answer “yes,”

As it beckons to me about becoming.



Reflections:

Ellen’s and my friend, Kara, sent me today a link to her thoughts about the New Year, as she also reflected on the devastating loss of Ellen’s friendship a little over a year ago: “I thought of loss and of gratitude, and of how the light from all the fireworks pushed back all the darkness. I thought of beginnings, and how beginnings are a state of mind, an Innocence that we bring every day to the way we live and what we experience. It was one of my wishes always to look at life with fresh eyes, and always to be humble and grateful when doing so.”

I love the thought of beginnings as a state of mind, as innocence.

Endings inevitably entrain beginnings. Endings create vacuums, dark holes, negative spaces, absence. Light eventually comes to fill in the holes – if and when we can accept it.

A conversation today led me to reconsider one dramatic ending and beginning – with amazing light – that I experienced some time ago. I was 57. I had been teaching at the same college for 32 years, dodging the restraints of bureaucracy as best I could, inventing different ways to fulfill my contract while also remaining alive, vibrant, involved, and creative. My job, as defined, was during each semester teaching 150 students, from the bottom 10% of their high school classes – the least motivated -- how to write a sentence, then a paragraph, in a way that made sense and was grammatically correct. The goal was gradually to raise their literacy to a point where they would be able to take college level classes.

This task involved thirty classroom and mandated office hours a week, and another 20 or so hours a week slogging through dull, repetitive, often plagiarized, pompous, opinionated, ungrammatical, poorly spelled, and illegible student papers. The “Catch 22” was that if I marked the papers with lots of red ink, a job that required hours of tedious repetition, the students paid no attention to what I had written. What I said made no different in any way. On the other hand, if I summarized my critique in a sentence, they protested loudly that I’d given them a lower grade on a paper that I hadn’t marked up. If I hadn’t marked it up, it must have been perfect, so why didn’t they get an “A”? (I roll my eyes….).

I was worn out both from doing as much of this impossible job as I did and from creating other ways to use my time, from involving each class in a group project that involved community service, to supporting public secondary school teachers in providing experiential learning opportunities for their “less academic” students, to serving as the college’s grants coordinator for 10 years. I was exhausted. I felt unable to invent any other ways to let myself out of the impossibility of teaching so many of those students. I felt overwhelmed, beaten down. Also, my daughter had graduated from college and was on her own, and my husband and I had grown in very different directions during our 33 years together. We were unhappy and stressed.

One day, I knew that I had to retire and also to get away from St. Louis and from the marriage, at least for a while, to regain my bearings. If I didn’t, I felt overwhelmingly that I would become seriously ill from the accumulated stress.

I had spent a day with friends who lived in a rural Ozark community, and had told them my decision. As I was driving back to the city from their house, I experienced a “new beginning,” a transcendent experience of awesome, rainbow-hued light into which I entered. I was overwhelmed. The beauty, peace, and love within that light went beyond anything I could have imagined. It was heavenly bliss. I was no longer in the car. I perceived from the midst of the light that my car was stopped, engine turned off, in the middle of the rural road. The experience seemed to last for a long time, but it could also have been a second. Time did not exist in the light. I knew that I had to come back and go on with life on earth. But I also learned at that moment that there was indeed life after life, and that I could stop at any time, and go into that light of love, in meditation.

For years, I wondered why that life-transforming experience had happened at that moment; I finally figured out that it was the experience of a new beginning. I had accepted that my life as it had gone so far had to end, had to change, and I had – finally -- said “yes” to that change.

After taking early retirement and telling my husband I needed to get away, I drove to California, to Berkeley. After being there and seeing and getting to know numerous lesbian couples openly together, I had an epiphany. I realized that although I didn’t want to live alone, I also really didn’t want to remain married, or to try to meet other guys or to marry another one. All my life, I had had crushes and “particular friendships” with women. I’d never been romantically interested in boys – had never understood why the other girls were all so obsessed about boys. As a married woman, I'd always felt that I just didn’t get what all the other wives were interested in. I didn’t feel like one of them, but didn’t understand why not. I tried my best. I desperately wanted to look feminine, to act feminine. But I never felt feminine. I just didn’t seem able to fit in.

In California, I realized that in fact I had been gay all my life, that I was wired differently than most of the women I’d known, that I finally fit in somewhere -- with lesbians. For the first time ever, at age 58, I felt “normal.” I felt as though my being had a reason, that I could be myself and be accepted. It was such an enormous relief! I look back now on photographs of myself as a younger woman, with my family, and recognizing now the look of gay women, I see that woman in the photos – me -- and think, “Oh! She’s definitely gay.”

In California, also, as I served as a caregiver for my friend Fred during his last months of dying from cancer, I also finally found my true professional calling, as a healer and counselor. I had never wanted to be a teacher, never felt that was my true calling.  It was what years in graduate school had prepared me to do. It was also what I was trying to avoid by staying in graduate school as long as possible! Now, I decided to become a homeopath.  In Berkeley, I went through the full seven years of training, apprenticeship, student clinics, writing an original research thesis, taking a two day long written national examination, passing an oral exam, being interviewed about my practice principles and grasp of the profession’s ethics, and finally, at age 65,  becoming internationally certified as a professional classical homeopath.

At last, I was living authentically, being who I was meant to be and following my calling, and it felt wonderful. The experience in the light had predicted the “rightness” that would ensue after I had finally accepted how my life wasn’t working, and had opened to perceiving and following what seemed right.

Losing Ellen meant, of course, another dramatic ending to a period of my life, and the next vacuum that would lead to a new beginning. 2009 was the vacuum. I feel now, as 2010 begins, that I am open to the next new period in my life.


Saying “NO” December 27 2009

As children, we first learn “I”,

Closely followed by “No!”

“No” becomes our favorite word.

We love the role of despot, the sense of power.

We feel important making life step back from us.

We’ll say “no” to anything! --

“Do you want a cookie?” -- “No!!”

“I think you’ll like this.” – No!!

“Maybe if you started over here.” -- No!!!

“Can I help you?” – No!!

We say “no” most of our lives.

We refuse to surrender, we don’t want to appear weak,

We know we’re right, we’re meant to do everything ourselves,

We fear we’ll have to give back or do more:

We resist. We suffer.



But when we finally say “Yes” to life, things change.

A door opens and emits the rainbow light of a new world.

Our life begins anew.

We know our name, our nature, and our worth.