Houses

Houses February 24 2010


I look at houses, wondering which one’s right –

Which one can feel like home, like I belong in it?

Which one will feel comfortable,

Satisfying, beautiful --

A place to feel safe and happy?



My house right now is big and beautiful.

I love its elegance, its setting, nestled among trees.

It was absolutely right for both of us.

But it’s too big for me alone.

And new life calls for new surroundings.



What will make me feel at home?

A hearth, a place for music and for books,

Cheery indoor light,

Gracious lines and spaces,

Beautiful materials,

Rich accents and bright color,

Plants , Enough space for clarity and peace.



Once the house is right, then the work begins

To make a home with love and memories and laughter –

To create a place where people love to meet

And friendship thrives, and love increases every day.

Reflection

I can’t fill with my energy the very large house that Ellen and I last lived in together. I think that, to be a wonderful place to live, a house has to match energies with its inhabitants. The house that Ellen and I picked out in North Carolina matched our joined energies beautifully. But, with Ellen’s illness filling most of the time we lived there, the house has also ended up filled with sad memories of our struggle to be together happily, knowing that she would die soon, even though we didn’t know how soon. And of course, since Ellen’s death, the great emptiness left behind when her energy left has never resolved. The house still echoes with loneliness.

Now, anticipating the delight of a new life, I am starting to look for a different house within which to build anew peace, love, friendship, memories, good times, and laughter. I know I will weep when I move out of the house that belonged to Ellen and me. It will require detachment, not only from the remaining memories, but also from a lot of possessions – a huge number of which I don’t need and rarely use: time to let them go on to their best use now.

As I started the task of giving away possessions last week, I found that it helped to put on a different persona – to pretend this was someone else’s house and someone else’s stuff. I could think, “What could she possibly need that for, and that, and that over there?”

Detachment is difficult, but important. I don’t need to remain laden with stuff that makes it hard to move, hard to act; possessions that are hard to store and organize. Stuff  takes up time, energy, and money. Hanging on to stuff will keep me overly attached to the past, and I prefer to live with simplicity and agility in the present.

It’s interesting and challenging to consider what I really need to feel happy, fulfilled, and content in my surroundings. Planning to move puts me right in the middle of that consideration. I look forward to seeing the outcome. I have an appointment to look at the first houses tomorrow. I’m excited!

Languages

Languages February 20 2010


We speak – in so many ways,

With our whole bodies.

We say much more than what we think, than what we know.

We tell our mood, our expectations, our wishes,

Where we desire to belong,

Our vibration and our resonance.

The meanings of our words and gestures

Swim in this sea of messages,

Telling all the world

The things we’re sure we’ve hidden -- even from ourselves.



Reflection

I’ve just spent a weekend in Florida, amid a flood of Yankees who moved here years ago, or who are here visiting for a school vacation week – seeking sun, and warmer weather. These people grumble, “This isn’t why I came to Florida!” when the weather isn’t nice.

The weather is generally typical Florida, but in every other respect, these migrants have brought Long Island, Connecticut or New Jersey along with them. However long they’ve been here, they speak with pure northeastern accents, which have probably strengthened over the years to mark their affiliation with their places of origin. Neighbors moved with neighbors, family with family. They live next door to or around the corner from those with whom they came. Adult children visit from the North, grandchildren in tow, whenever school is out. For many of them, this is the second or third generation of “snowbirds” who have moved to the same area from their mid-Atlantic or New England home turf. Moving to Florida is part of the culture.

People adapt their facial expressions, posture, habits of movement, and ways of speaking to signal their allegiance to different social groups. Thus, when people seem to resemble each other, much of the resemblance is more behavioral than actually physical. I remember once, a long time ago, that the secretary of our department had a daughter who looked like her mother to an extreme degree. We were always amazed when we saw the daughter – we could easily have mistaken her for her mother, except for the difference in age. One day, the daughter had a major falling out with her mother – they didn’t speak or see each other for months afterward. About a year after that incident, I again saw the mother and daughter together, only I couldn’t figure out who the younger person was;. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her before. She looked nothing like the mother. Virtually all of the “resemblance” turned out to have been in the behavior, language, and expressions that they shared, in their close relationship. This is undoubtedly also the mechanism by which spouses or partners who are emotionally very closely linked come, over time, to resemble each other. And apparently, it also explains a significant part of “family resemblance.”

It struck me both how much Ellen’s sister and Ellen seem to resemble each other, although the resemblance is largely behavioral. In a still picture, they don’t seem much alike at all. And being surrounded all weekend with New York and New England transplants also seemed strange with their uncanny retention of northeastern mannerisms and behaviors, even after 30 or more years living in Florida.

I spent a large part of today, with my host (originally from Brooklyn), at a shopping mall. When it was time for lunch and we went to the food court, I was astonished. There were 8 restaurants in the court: one each of Chinese, Japanese, Pizza, and Greek, each with exactly zero people in front of it. There were also four (!!) New York delis. Each of these had long snaking lines, 40 or more people strong. The menus were straight from New York – blintzes, pastrami, Hebrew National hotdogs, bagels in 24 flavors, lox and cream cheese, brightly colored cans of different cream sodas, barrels of pickles… Many of the people in line for deli food were younger visitors freshly arrived from the Northeast, their accents apparent. It reminded me of seeing the lines of US tourists outside McDonald’s restaurants in charming German, Swiss, or French towns, with restaurants just alongside serving local dishes – not that mall food court pizzas or Gyros are any great draw, foodwise. The deli food was actually very good – an excellent choice.

I’m now ready to return home tomorrow morning, feeling as if I’ve come south for a visit to New York City!

Jigsaw puzzle pieces

Jigsaw Puzzle February 19 2010


The genes are scrambled,

Like a pile of puzzle pieces.

To make a creature takes half from this pile, half from that;

Which half of each is random.



Seeing siblings of a departed one

Brings back memories –

A smile, the shape of ears, the way of walking,

Hands elegant -- long graceful fingers,

The angle of a brow, hook of a nose.

I know those features!

I loved them well – but on another.



Yet despite the strange resemblances in body,

The person’s soul, the essence,

Has no connection, no resonance.

I see how siblings are a discipline –

They share so much, partake so little,

Know the world so differently.



Reflection

Visiting one of Ellen’s siblings is such an interesting experience. They share not only physical features, but also attributes of mind – keen spatial perception, sharp understanding, sheer intelligence, artistic awareness. Above all, they share a towering, forceful presence. They are equally self-assured about the best way to do things. They are also equally charming, beguiling the acceptance and enjoyment of their audiences. Of course, they also shared a large extended family, the day to day logistics of growing up in the same apartments, the cultural ethos of a Brooklyn-based Russian Jewish background.

Seeing so many fleeting reflections so reminiscent of my beloved Ellen, but attached to a different person is probably very helpful to me. It is, of course, nostalgically pleasant to experience once again features that I had thought unique to Ellen. The fact that this person is not very much like Ellen spiritually, though so alike in other ways, also helps me to detach from my nostalgia for those traits, which, after all, typefied the body that Ellen’s spirit inhabited and used during this lifetime, but were irrelevant to who she really was.

This visit also helps me to see my own siblings in a new light – knowing all that we share, and understanding, finally, all that we don’t at all share – the physical distinguished from the spiritual, from the essence of what makes each person unique. As children, we are generally challenged to cope with the family in which we happened to land genetically. As adults we also get to find and choose our own close spiritual relations – those whose paths through life closely parallel and enhance ours. What an elegant system for insuring diversity amid sameness!

Strength and Frailty

Strength and Frailty February 16 2010


With love, I learn a person’s different looks.


At work, the set of face and shoulder muscles –

Resolute, reliable, ready for all challenges --

Inspires, tells us we can follow. 

I admire that, and trust arises.


When I know and love that steady person,

I also see, inside, the frailties, the fears, the hopes, the dreams –

All covered up with posturing and costume.

As the person turns away, intent on what comes next,

My heart trembles, feeling tenderness,

Wanting to protect and love, to nurture and caress.


We all have that inner self, that place that feels hurt.

We’re blessed when someone knows and loves our inner face,

And fortunate to know the inner self of our beloved,

To feel a deep and caring fondness.



Reflection

I met Ellen after she had retired from her life work as a hospital attending physician. We grew very close personally, of course. I found it fascinating when, at times, she went into “doctor mode.”

She looked and acted like a different person from the one with whom I shared round the clock moments. She would get an analytical look in her eye, her jaw would set and jut out a bit, her eyes would scan more quickly, her shoulders would move forward. Every part of her body language bespoke intent focus; her pose could have come straight from a Norman Rockwell painting of a sympathetic, knowledgable old-fashioned country doctor. Ellen, of course, had trained as a doctor in Switzerland, learning from old-time clinicians, and thus knew how to look just like her role models, Swiss country doctors.

Another time, I got to see Ellen in “Emergency Room” mode. We were on a plane, returning to California from New York. It was a six hour, trans- continental flight, and somewhere over Utah, the head stewardess came on the PA system, asking any physician on board the flight to ring his or her call button. Ellen rang hers -- the only doctor. She was immediately put in charge of the situation. On that airplane, I saw a total transformation of the fun-loving wide-open person I knew and loved every day.

 Ellen’s focus sharpened to laser intensity. Her eyes and her nervous system transformed her into a finely tuned medical machine that yet retained the gentleness and compassion of the person. Her motions became rapid and well rehearsed, as she went through the diagnostic procedure for the young man who had fallen, unconscious, while waiting in line for the rest room at the back of the plane.

A part of Ellen’s Swiss medical training had taught her the fine art of physical diagnosis – discerning through the doctor’s senses what was going on inside, without needing scans, images, or machines – not even a stethoscope.

She knelt beside the young man, who slowly regained consciousness as he lay in the aisle. She examined him quickly, then reassured him that he was all right – he had not suffered any major illness or injury. She performed a differential diagnosis (is it this or that?), by asking him a couple of quick questions about his day so far, and determined that, although it was mid-afternoon, the young man had been travelling since early morning with no opportunity to eat anything. She diagnosed hypoglycemia, telling the stewards to give her patient a couple of glasses of juice to drink, then some peanuts – using what was available on board to rectify the hunger that had caused the young man’s fainting spell.

As Ellen walked back up the aisle to her seat next to me, I could see in her walk and her eyes her feeling of satisfaction for challenging work well done, and also the extent to which her whole body had leaped into action to meet the situation – adrenaline, epinephrine, norepinephrine. Fifty years after medical school, the grueling 36 hour shifts on duty as a young intern and resident still produced their ineluctable response – wake up and be totally alert immediately – on duty; work with every fiber, sinew, and synapse to correct the emergency situation and preserve life. Behind the disabled older person, in her 70s, slowed down by chronic pain, still lay a superbly trained mind and body capable of responding fully to the requirements of an emergency. And underneath the brilliant physician lay a woman vulnerable to shame, doubt, and fatigue -- a person who was also gentle, funny, and affectionate. I experienced a surge of love for her -- feeling privileged at that moment to know both sides of my beloved partner and spouse.

I find that most of the time, we trust the competent persona that consummate professionals present to their clients and colleagues. Yet, I also know, from having loved several intensely competent people, that everyone also has his or her vulnerable, tender core, known only to those who are truly close. It’s a great privilege to know both sides of a fellow human.


Couples February 21 2009

At the airport, I watch

Two women traveling together,

One in a wheelchair.

They chatter freely, share tickets, bags.

I feel a pang of memory of our trips together.



At the gate, new love,

A young couple traveling to a great event,

Special clothes in garment bags with hangers.

His camera captures her from different angles.

She glows with joy within his loving gaze,

And smiles coyly up at him.

Their bond is clear.



I sit here, bonded too -- with you—

Though it’s my first trip in ages without you sitting near.

I look within and smile,

Knowing you are with me, in my heart.

Life-Giving Goodness

Life-giving Goodness February 15 2010


Love is like a cup of goodness –

A beverage brimming with life-enhancing power.

It nurtures, nourishes, relaxes.

We hold it in its cup between both hands,

Inhaling its warm caress, its delicious savor --

Feeling strong, beautiful, enriched.

When we taste its nectar,

Everything within us opens, grateful.

We become the best that we can be.



Reflection

We are designed to follow love, to do all we need to do to be right there and feel its warmth, its radiance. When Ellen and I had met and realized that we could love each other generously and happily, we wilted when we had to go back, each to her own place on opposite coasts. We quickly started moving back and forth together. This was anything but convenient. Each of us put our whole life on hold for the time spent in the other’s environment. I was at that time a student in homeopathy school and had a part-time college teaching job, having retired from 33 years as a professor. Every moment I was not teaching during those first months, I was in New York with Ellen, having shlepped a suitcase full of homeopathic reference books across the country; she was with me in California between school holidays.

Of course, at every moment we were not together we were glued to our then-new cell phones. We learned all the dead spaces where calls would suddenly drop. There was a spot at the end of the Caldecott Tunnel between Berkeley and the town of Orinda, near the college. There was another spot during the last mile before I reached the college – a rural road leading through beautiful countryside. We contoured our conversations to reach lulls when approaching these known holes in the cell system. “Oops, I’m passing the Claremont Hotel…” – a spectacular resort hotel in the Berkeley hills. Within two minutes I’d be at the other end of the Caldecott Tunnel, and the phone would suddenly go silent for several miles. Or Ellen would be walking along East 12th street in Manhattan and reach University Place, another sudden “phone hole.” It was a strange map with which to get acquainted.

I’d forgotten till recently the enormous logistical challenge of merging two households when we were both older, each with a complete set of furnishings, utensils, art work, and other belongings – each having enough to fill a good sized house and more. Each of us also liked the things we had. These objects had stories and memories attached to them. Neither one of us was especially keen to let loose of those things we treasured. Over months and years, we managed to negotiate household furnishings so that most of what was in our house consisted of pieces we’d bought together. But we never succeeded in paring down either kitchen utensils or office supplies – obviously types of objects for which we both felt a strong attachment. To this day, two houses later, our home still holds two lifetimes’ worth of office supplies, as well as enough dishes, party items, and cooking and serving utensils to furnish a hotel kitchen.

We also both liked to dress attractively, with good variety. We liked the same styles and manufacturers, and wore the same size. Together, with clothes for different seasons, we filled three closets – an excess. It’s been very hard to pare down the clothing inventory since Ellen died. I really liked a lot of her clothes as well as my own, and they look good on me. There are too many of them, and I sort through them item by item, deciding with difficulty which I must keep and which I may persuade myself to pass along to someone else who will enjoy and appreciate them. It’s a long, tedious process.

Now, I am reaching a time to change my life once more, a time to change the space in which I live so that it’s once again appropriate for one person. My biggest job will be figuring out how to sort out what to keep and what to give back to the universe for someone else’s use. I’m eager to start – again. Ellen left this house sixteen months ago. I’m preparing now to define my life for the next stretch. Even though I’ve given away a lot of items in the last year, I still need to pare down possessions by about 50%. This will be a very interesting – and challenging -- process. Perhaps I should start with the office supplies and the kitchen utensils!

As I rediscover love, I also look forward to reconfiguring the logistics of my life so that it will be possible to move into its next phase unencumbered, ready to welcome new and enjoyable experiences.



How It Was a Year Ago – January 2009:



Whom Do I Love? January 5 2009

What was the spark that lit

Undying love,

Blended our two souls as one,

Revealing soulmates?

We expanded limits,

Sacrificing all

To reach uncommon joy.



As I shed tears for you,

Am I longing for the

Flash of God I saw?.

Is that what linked us, lured us?

Were we drawn to timeless light, unearthly glow?

Is it you I love, or the Divine?


PARADIGM SHIFTING January 9, 2009

In your first e-mail to me,

You stated you had

“No fixed ideas how things should be”—

Creative spirit, you spoke truth.

Together, we thought easily, solved problems quickly.

We shifted paradigms with glee.

It was exhilarating, sometimes frightening.

Arm in arm, matching strides,

We changed our lives, moved, married, bought, sold, remodeled,

Learned, shared, taught, traveled, healed –

Forward steps with few skipped beats.

Decisive. Sure. Eager.

Like children still, despite our years.

You even died decisively, with grace.

As I live my grief, I can change focus,

Move on with energy,

Rejoicing deeply --

Or remain cheerless.

Or both.

Joy can survive with sadness.

We can proceed together,

Still celebrating love.



Objects January 20 2009

I’m still cleaning cupboards,

Finding objects that were hidden in the back.

I stumbled on the “one-handed cutting board,”

Bristling with spikes and clips so food would not elude your knife.

I’ve unearthed dressing sticks and reachers everywhere,

And clamps and clasps and strings and gadgets

To pin things down, fix them in place.



These tools that helped replace one lifeless hand

Evoke for me your hidden rage at life’s unfairness--

Feeling small when needing help.

Yet others never saw your pain

Because, head high, you used one hand as two so no one saw.

I only really understood your lifelong struggle

When, finally, with age, your “good” hand failed too.


Props and Costumes January 11, 2009

I step into your closet,

Full of unused stuff,

And realize these are all costumes,

Props for “Earthly Life -- The Play.”

What will you wear for the day’s role –

Overalls, sweats, a blazer, a sheer jeweled jacket?

Will you choose a necklace or a scarf? Earrings?



Acquiring and tending to these objects

Was serious work, consuming life and energy.

As I contemplate this wardrobe full of choices,

I wonder why they seemed so vital,

When now -- suddenly -- so useless.

Valentines

Valentine’s Day February 14 2010


Lightheartedly, we celebrate the feast

Of passion, of romance --

Take the chance to say and act our love of others,

To feel the joy that loving brings.

All love is God’s, yet all the love that people feel expressed

Comes through human hearts and minds.

We are God’s Valentines!



Reflection:

Valentine’s Day – maybe because for us in the northern hemisphere it represents a day of happiness amid dark winter’s gloom – always lights my heart with joy. Just the fact that we seek to express love and look to receive it means that we experience more expressions of it on this day than on ordinary days – but we could choose to express love to our dear ones much more often on a daily basis. Why don’t we do that?

Love is as essential to well-being as food, heat, water, and rest. May all God’s children learn the joy of expressing it frequently and creatively. Love is like a mirror – universally, its expression gets reflected back to us.

Today, I look at plants on my kitchen windowsill – expressions of love, all of them: the heart-shaped bamboo that I bought for Ellen on Valentine’s Day three years ago; the Thanksgiving cactus that never bloomed until Valentine’s Day last year, after Ellen’s death, and whose red flowers started to open again today, Valentine’s Day 2010, for the second time ever; the peace lily that a friend gave me in December 2008 in memory of Ellen, the spider plants that are growing from a sprout given to me by a friend last year; the thriving jade plant that my daughter Liessa gave us to replace the large plant that Ellen and I had had to leave behind when we moved from California in 2006; the succulent that we cut, with permission, from a large plant in the home of the first friends we made here in North Carolina. These plants share the one sunny window location in my well-shaded house, and whenever I water them or appreciate them, I appreciate the love and friendship of which they remind me. I love flowers, and I also look at the bookshelf in the family room, appreciating the lovely roses that I received as an expression of love to celebrate this year’s Valentine’s Day, as I am blessed with a new person in my life with whom to share love.

I am grateful for abundant love, this day and every day.



Know Thyself February 13 2009

Who am I?

The meditators say to look within.

But am I all within?

I see and feel my body: skin, shadow, bones and motion,

And think I am a solid, separate being.



But I’m not separate.



My breath links me with universal life;

I share my genes with many creatures;

My mind spins countless thoughts and tales

Spawned by sense and feelings --

All converging from around me,

Not from within.



And I’m not solid.



This body is a cloak,

Transport for this time and place --

My real self’s endless, spirit, one with all.



My life is perfect, infinite.

I am love, and nothing else.





Valentine Memories, from a year ago, 2009.

A year ago, the day before Valentine’s Day, I awoke with a Valentine Haiku fully written in my mind. I had obviously dreamed it, but I hadn’t written it. Every year, on February 14, Ellen used to write a Haiku to celebrate our love on this special day. I think Ellen wrote this one, although she had died the previous November. When I typed it and saved it, it looked like all the other poems I had typed. But when I printed out that month’s poems, it, alone, printed in blue ink, as if to demonstrate that I had not written it, as I had the other poems in that collection.



Happy Valentine’s, February 13 2009

Valentine’s Day.

We honored our love yearly on this day.

In Berkeley we had dinner at Quinn’s Lighthouse

Because they gave a rose to every lady,

And we -- giggling, feeling special -- received two.

Each year, you wrote a haiku,

Just to say “I love you.”

Happy, I awaited your inspired verse

Made specially for us.



This year, I’m glad we can still mark undying love.

You sent a haiku in my sleep.

Your surprising verse delighted me.

And I thank you for the cactus flower --

Out of season, it will bloom tomorrow.

Happy Love Day to you, too.



Valentine Haiku from a Dream, February 14 2009

We are not one not two --

Hearts joined in deathless love --

Spirits still entwined.

Sweet Love

Fabric of Love February 10 2010


Love is found – a gift that just appears one day,

Glitters, invites us to pick it up;

Relationship, though, is art.

It’s woven of moments shared,

Of kindly thoughts and gentle deeds –

Helping, consoling, supporting, surprising --

Sharing meals, spinning memories,

Inventing celebrations, improvising answers,

Relaxing into giggles and blending tears.

Its fabric requires solid truth, precise attention,

Spools of tender care and gentle touch.

Together, two weavers transform the treasure found

Into rich, brocaded bliss.



Reflection:

Relationships go a long way toward assuaging the loneliness that we experience in our earthly life. Like any skill or craft, they are as demanding as they are rewarding. Finding a person with whom we can build a solid relationship is a pure gift from the divine. Relationships themselves, however, develop moment by moment, a fabric woven of the thoughts, acts, and agreements that the two people invest in them. Through these investments, the individuals create both themselves and each other – learning, risking, revisiting, communicating – growing in understanding, in strength, and in the power to love.

Ellen wisely taught me that things that didn’t seem to work very well in a relationship could be considered “speed bumps” – jarring us out of complacency, slowing us down, forcing us to pay attention and to communicate. Even the most formidable-seeming speed bumps seemed always to crumble into manageable adjustments once we had discussed them and considered likely alternatives. That was such a refreshing experience after a lifetime of seemingly unbridgeable gulfs between partners – leading to inaccurate assumptions, resentments based on untruth, misinterpretations by each partner of the other person’s intentions and thoughts.

Ellen and I argued often in the early days of our relationship. Each time we did, we both felt absolutely miserable – it felt as though together we had fallen through a crack into Hell.

After a while, we began to realize that we had catapulted each other back into a childhood space, where we felt unloved and unloveable as a result of what seemed like our mother’s disapproval of us – an experience we had both shared. Our respective mothers were not ogres, although our interpretations of their moments of disapproval had led us to assume we would never earn their approval, and therefore were abandoned. We were making the same assumptions with each other, as older adults.

I could only conclude that if I had felt like that as a small child, I had indeed experienced emotional Hell. I suppose all children do, since children seem able to melt into a state of momentarily hopeless despair after many small disappointments.

Once we realized what was happening, it became easier and easier to remember that we were no longer small, powerless children at the mercy of the adults around us. We could talk about what we thought was going on, find out how erroneous our assumptions were – I think 100% of the time – and find reasonable and relatively painless ways in which we could jointly change the situation so that it worked for us.

An additional crucial piece of information came when a friend loaned us a copy of a book called “Ethnicity and Family Therapy.” The book contained chapters on most of the common ethnic cultures from which American families derived in the mid to late twentieth century. We eagerly looked up the chapters on our own families of origin, so we could see how accurate we thought the essays were. Ellen read the presentation on Eastern European Jews and was as impressed as I was after reading the chapters on Irish and English American families. We then read each others’ chapters. What an eye-opener!

We learned that approximately 98% of our squabbles and misunderstandings arose from not understanding each others’ ethnic cultures and their expression, and had little or nothing to do with us as individuals. This was a major relief. Once we knew these ethnic variables existed, we learned to set them aside so we could focus on the real differences between us, discover what they were, and talk over what would be the best way to minimize them so we were both happy.

It took us about three years to navigate the above relationship shoals, and then we were truly able to enjoy an exceptionally close and harmonious relationship for the rest of our time together. It was as if our joined ship had passed through the hazards of rocks and reefs close to the coast from which we had departed. Most of the rest of our cruise together (aside from the storms of illness) was beautiful, with gentle winds, brilliant sun, blue sky, and fluffy clouds. What a blessing this was! If we had been a lot younger and less experienced with difficult relationships and how they hadn’t worked, we probably would have needed much longer to reach the beautiful, refreshing days together at sea.

As Valentine’s Day approaches, I think of the sweetness of loving someone special, as Ellen and I did, and am thankful to have had that wonderful experience with her. We truly enjoyed sharing our lives with each other, and found great joy in greeting the world as a couple rather than as two individuals.

Sweet Love February 12 2010

Love is sweet as mother’s milk,

As rich as fine chocolate,

As tender as a rose petal.

In love, we sprout wings of joy,

Soaring beyond ashen pain and rocky reefs,

Feeling cherished, beloved, embraced – by both God and fellow souls.

The moments spent together melt our edges,

Part the wall between our soul and heaven,

Give us foretastes of eternal bliss.

Our Tribe

Our Tribe February 7 2010


We wander through our lives,

Nomads on the path of love.

We start with a small family,

Then one by one, we meet those

Who share our destiny,

Our spirits, our vibrations –

The ones who teach us how we’re one with all.

Like a gathering convoy, we

Fall in step and walk together –

A few, then dozens, then hundreds strong or more,

Sharing glowing cords of love to light the way.

Our hearts swelling into glorious harmony,

We sing together –ineffable canticles –

And rise to grander vistas of delight.



Reflection

Attending my brother-in-law’s memorial service and seeing the hundreds who joined together to celebrate his life and accompany him and his loved ones to the edge of eternity made me reflect on all the people we influence on our life path – often without realizing.

I’ve also been reading this week about the experiences of medical personnel who responded to the earthquake emergency in Haiti. They described a people – tens of thousands of them – who had suffered through enormous pain, loss, and suffering. Yet these same people were reaching out to each other in love. They were standing on a hillside beneath a full moon, sheltered only by God’s dome of star-covered sky, singing hymns together – a powerful and inspiring example of trust and acceptance and love, an unforgettable scene for those who had gone there in a spirit of loving service. We are accustomed to thinking about Haiti, a country noted for material deprivation, as “poor.” Yet, in their shared spirit of love, they are awesomely “rich.”

I have been reflecting on the people I’ve known – those who have been dear and special to me – throughout my life. Everyone I’ve loved has enriched me with wonderful examples of goodness and inspiring experiences of love and support. Everyone I’ve loved has brought me into the circle of his or her many friends, who have also become my friends – my “tribe” – those in whose company I follow my journey toward release into the life of loving spirit, those with whom my heart sings and weeps, and my soul grows ever more enlightened – radiating and experiencing stronger light.

I’m reminded of a pilgrimage in which I and a group of my friends participated many years ago, when I was in my early 20s. We walked together for two and a half days, sleeping together on the ground for two nights, starting in Nancy, France and processing toward the shrine of Notre-Dame de Sion, in Vaudemont, eastern France. We were several hundred students strong. The distance was only about 35 hilly kilometers – about 24 miles -- but we were not trained hikers – so we were not very speedy. It was late spring – very hot in the brilliant sun. Evening and night provided enormous relief from thirst and heat fatigue. There were no modern conveniences such as water wagons or refreshments – we had as provisions only what we could carry, so we ended up weakened by dehydration and hunger. Our best physical relief came from a slice of lemon held in the mouth as we forged ahead. As we walked, we learned and sang dozens of hymns. There was something hypnotic and inspiring in sharing a challenging journey so intensely with a large group of fellow humans. We changed, we transcended, we were as one – no longer hundreds of isolated individuals with our petty pains, complaints, and egos. Like geese who are helped in their migrations by the energy generated by the group, we were empowered by our shared motion and vision to overcome blisters, sore feet, sunburn, gasping thirst, and cramping muscles. We were walking to Zion together, bonded by our intent to celebrate faith and our shared vision of the Gothic spire of the ancient shrine rising against the horizon in the early morning haze as together we rounded the last bend in the road and knew together the sweet feeling of arriving at our beautiful destination.

I’m glad I experienced that bonding of pilgrimage, that time of unity and transcendence. As I get older, I see how beautifully it exemplified the pilgrimage of life, and the joy of sharing the way with so many wonderful, creative, intriguing, loving companions – and how wonderfully the act of moving and singing together bonded us into one glorious expression of love.

Pain

Rosemary: Pain February 6 2010


It tightens, snares me in its net,

Pulls and wraps around me;

I smother in its choking hold,

Enwebbed in thorny vines,

Trussed and strangled.

I don’t know why its clutching tentacles

Dig into my flesh –

What starts a muscle knot and makes it grow and grow.



It worsened when I lost my Love,

And refuses to release me to my life again.

I move to shrug it off, then tell it

To let me go along my way

Tuned in to joy and loving --

Leaving Pain behind.


Reflection

I read today that several types of pain respond just as well to placebo as to medication. That indicates that emotions are a root cause of many distressful conditions that we consider physical because we feel them with the body rather than with our hearts. (Not to mention that medications don't do a whole lot for chronic pain unless they dull the mind along with the body). 

For me, muscular pain has become much stronger and more disabling since Ellen died than ever before. Yes, I’m older. Yes, I already had some back pain.

Interestingly, the kind of pain that has become almost a daily companion for me is similar in location and type to that which Ellen suffered for the last 20 years of her life. It would not be surprising if I have responded to grief by breathing less deeply (people often have to remind me to “breathe!” in moments of duress). I have also probably tightened many muscles as a result of stress. That would allow less oxygen, less circulation – leading in turn to a greater sensation of pain. It troubles me to think that there’s some twisted subconscious link to missing Ellen and adopting one of her characteristics – her pain.

I’ve adopted many positive skills that I learned from or with her – appreciation of visual peace and beauty, and caring for the essence of objects, for instance; likewise a sincere interest in other people and the ability (sometimes) to draw them out. I've also gained immensely in my ability to experience compassion, for myself and others. Pain patterns could possibly have been an additional learned “skill.”  I wonder. 

If so, how does one unlearn pain?


Ellen: Eye of the Needle April 10, 1991


The next eye

Of the next needle

Of my life



Is to stay

In my ineluctably pained body

With nowhere to go



Except through the tiny eye.of agony

To find spiritual bliss

On the other side.

Dying Time

Dying Time February 3, 2010


Where does a lifetime go?

It seems that just a bit ago

Our lives were very different.

I scan group pictures from cookouts, reunions, anniversaries.

Mom and Dad, my sisters and I, and our young spouses,

The kids and grandkids not yet arrived – our image of “us” unchanged from early years –

Clothes and dogs and haircuts well-remembered – the way things used to be.

Now, another funeral -- another face erased from daily life,

Our family picture of this moment’s a group of newer people –

It seems we’ve passed through several lives behind our backs –

Unawares – while we were looking elsewhere.

In children’s faces and our own, we see brief hints of those who used to be,

And wonder at the forward march of our own lives,

Accelerating toward a fading future.



Reflection:

After a day spent visiting very small children who are just starting to emerge as individuals, I feel as though life has come full circle. I can remember when I was one of the little kids, contemplating those terribly old aunts and uncles – wondering how anyone could be SO old, and still able to move about.

Today, when my niece helped me compensate for my painful back by bringing a chair (everyone else was sitting on the floor in the elegantly equipped playroom, watching the 16 month old twins), I felt antique, reminded of ancient relatives from my own childhood. They would sit primly on chairs, wearing large , hats, white cotton or grey leather gloves, and musty smelling coats with fur, smiling down on us – distanced from me by decades. Their gray hair was permed, and their eyes gleamed from behind rimless glasses. Aunt Jennie could hear nothing, despite the enormous, palm-sized hearing aid amplifier she wore in a pocket under her dress. They pinched my cheek and leaned over and asked me irrelevant and boring questions, the sounds whistling through ill-fitting teeth. Old people were kind of strange.

Now it’s my turn. I remember my serious misgivings about the alien-seeming older relatives, and try to imagine what my great nephews and great nieces must be thinking as I sit enthroned on my chair, lean over, and ask them questions to which they have no answers, or which they do not hear amid their playful seriousness, as the electronic voices of their toys chime and sing.

Getting Older August 29 2009

Yes, I guess I’m getting older, as days and months pass by.

I’ve heard it said that no one feels their age,

And I can say that’s true.

Inside, I just am, and do; I feel, think, sing, cut flowers, shed tears --

Go about each day’s life just being me.

When I perceive a new behavior of my body

And people say “Oh, yes, that happens when you’re growing older,”

I’m surprised.

Who, me?? Am I getting older? When did that happen?

My back hurts more, my vision’s worse at night,

I have to run a little faster to the Ladies’ room;

Lately I’ve been waking after only 6 hours of sleep…

It never dawns on me to think “Oh, yes – because I’m old.”

Maybe these things happen just because they do,

And age is only one more number on a calendar or form.

I know that I don’t have to count to be myself within each moment,

You can think about my getting older if you wish.

I choose to keep on loving windsong, blossoms, making order -- life itself.

These things have no calendar attached.



Blended Families August 20 2009

I’m anticipating a reunion--

Everyone in one spot at one time—

I see the ways that families blend,

Mix together, adopt new members --

Being born, getting married, moving in.

Then I think even further out, and picture the

Assemblage that will greet our souls

On crossing over – Not unlike memorials on earth --

People from many sources, who would not know each other

Except through us.

Families from different places, different backgrounds,

Who would never otherwise have met,

Will stand side by side to share the moment

We arrive to be with them.

Each of us connects so many other souls

It makes it clearer how we all are one creation,

One community, one reservoir of love.

Family Clusters

Family Clusters Feb 1 2010


I’m on a plane –

The engine hums in my left ear,

Voices babble indistinctly.

Below, black nothing’s punctuated now and then

By spider webs of lights

Where people cluster tightly, feeling safe together.



My trip’s another form of clustering –

Family hastening from far flung homes

To reassert belonging,

Starting to repair the gaping blank

Left in our midst

By one who’s stepped over into Spirit Light.

Briefly we become as one to celebrate the one we loved,

To witness to his legacy of good.

Why, I wonder, do we wait for weeping as our call to Unity?



Reflection

Life – the Play. We play roles in the stories of many lives, although, of course, we get to star in our own. Coming to a Memorial service means a number of things. We applaud the departing one for how he played his leading role – it’s his solo curtain call. My brother-in-law was a loving family member, leaving a legacy of gentle humor and tolerance, courageous responsibility to his family, deep love for his children and those of other family members as well, a love for travel and adventure, a joy in helping others to have fun, and the towering courage to withstand illness with grace and panache. As he aged, he became an avuncular, Santa-like, magnetic giant. He gently supported his wife, my sister Dot, in her own adventures with a petting zoo – Dolly Lama, Sir Francis Drake, Lucy Goosey. Uncatina the horse, Eeyore the donkey and assorted other equines, as well as other ducks, chickens, sheep, and goats. It was a true “peaceable kingdom,” with hilarious and real relationships among individuals of different species – like the goat who fell in love with Uncatina and was never anywhere but by her side, and poor Sir Francis Drake, who stood faithfully by the side of his mate, Lucy Goosey, as she laid piles upon piles of infertile eggs and tried futilely to brood them. Fritz, my brother in law, enjoyed thoroughly playing “Farmer Fritz” on weekends, dressed in his bib overalls, hitching up his pony to a lovely trap and taking visitors on pony rides around the scenic New Hampshire farm .

When the petting zoo became too onerous, once the kids were grown, Fritz graciously acceded to a new family business of golden retriever kennels, with sometimes as many as 20 galumphing puppies at a time occupying every square inch of the farmhouse kitchen, confined to that one drip-dry room by perennial gates across every door. He got a kick out of playing “farmer” to his wife’s lifelong calling to become a “farmer’s wife.” Of course, his day job involved high tech engineering, introducing environmentally friendly advanced chimney scrubbing equipment to paper mills all over the world, leading to prolonged stays in many countries, far from his growing family.

When we come together to celebrate the blessing of Fritz’s life among us, we acknowledge, for posterity and family history, as well as for his heavenly friends, how well he loved; how kindly he cared for those around him, family, friends, and neighbors alike. He was an award winning star in the story of his own life, and a brilliant supporting actor in the plays that represent the lives of us, his family members. He had a long and radiant acting career as a fine human being before transitioning back to his “street role” as a radiant spirit who blessed us by living among us.

All of us, whether we realize it or not while we’re here, are stars in many lives. We bring unique and radiant joy to those with whom we share our love. We love and are beloved.



Tragedy and Life, January 6, 2009

Tragedy is universal, with its grief.

Life here is drama,

Grabbing, squeezing, wrecking hearts today,

From birth to death, Acts I to V.

Then we bow and exit to the Light

Amid applause and tears.

Others rate our life, our role.

Offstage, we rest and wait, living Truth once more.


Props and Costumes January 11, 2009

I step into your closet,

Full of stuff that's now unused,

And realize these are all costumes,

Props for “Earthly Life -- The Play.”

What will you wear for the day’s role –

Overalls, sweats, a blazer, a sheer jeweled jacket?

Will you choose a necklace or a scarf? Earrings?



Acquiring and tending to these objects

Was serious work, consuming life and energy.

As I contemplate this wardrobe full of choices,

I wonder why they seemed so vital,

When now -- suddenly -- so useless.