Do Not Go Gentle

“Something to remember me by,” was the first thing that popped into my head staring at her gaping jaw, open, lifeless, as remembered umpteen (her favorite word) times on the couch, a drop of drool at the corner that was tilted; it could be either way, left or right, there was always a drop of saliva daring to fall onto her lap, but it never did – why – probably due to the raspy dragging in of breath that sucked it back up each time it threatened to let go of the dried and wrinkled crevice corner of her mouth.  Each time (and there were many) she engaged in a stunt that evoked disdain from her children, it would result in, if only briefly, a moment of elation she could then stow in her “I gotcha again!” stockpile of personal pleasures at pissing off everyone, and she would dismiss our repulse with, “something to remember me by!”

“For God’s sake, this is your final expression?” was all I could think, as the reality of her finally gone kept smacking me on the head, unbelieving, waiting for her to open her eyes – “fooled ya” – and once again the nagging would begin, relentless as it had been up to the moment the nurse injected the lethal dose of morphine and Ativan.  “You know she won’t wake up,” the nurse had quietly warned, accomplice to the final act of snuffing out a life.  A slight nod, unnoticeable to the naked eye, was delivered from us.  She, who had no desire to deliver us into this world, was delivered out with no reprieve.

I tried to locate a tear somewhere, there must be at least one, I thought.  But it never came.  She died alone, as she had lived, driving all life away from her with her narcissist focus, not even allowing us to provide comfort, to mourn her departure, as she took her final breath.  I had laid my head on the shoulder of my beloved that morning after the call.  Was it a whimper?  A soft sigh of relief?  The tears never came – ever.  Unlike the avalanche that came the night after my father had died.  He and I had made amends in the hours before his death, without words or actions, but with an undistinguishable acceptance in our gaze as I squeezed drops of water into his mouth from a damp washcloth.  The tears had come that night as if I had never cried before.  The damn broke, releasing a torrent of rage, hate, love, relief, scorn, and pity; for him for all of the resentment he had for us all in forcing him to live a life he had no hand in designing, for me, an unwilling recipient of his torment, soaked in alcohol and cigarettes. 

But there were none for the creator of the illusion we all lived.  She sat there, propped up, as we had left her the night before, her breath labored from years of disease, an illness she had fought tooth and nail against, rallying time and time again from its eventual fatality.  How she had wanted to live!  An entire existence of wanting to live by her own design, yet succumbing at an age once labeled old maid, fighting against motherhood, suburbia and apple pie.  Even as her lungs hardened and calcified, coming back from a CO2 narcosis to shock us once again into the realization that she was not going quietly, she hung on, to the shreds of her wasted life, hung on, to the pernicious viscera of her indignant existence, determined to ruin anything in her path that reminded her of the dreams she had relinquished long ago. 

To feel sorry would let her scorn go unforgiven – yet – it was that self righteous vanity that molded the mother in me, who loves her children, who applauds the foibles and flaws in others, sees them as intricate networks of genetic data, gifts from ancestors, good and bad, teasing out the desirable from unsavory characteristics, to pass down, in word and progeny.  For that hard won victory over a long, drawn out battle, I had to honor her fight and extol her defeat. 

We sat there at her bedside, conversing for two hours over a corpse, as if it were normal.  And she sat there, vacant, not there.  Life began in her wake, because she was never there, in her life or mine.

Caring for an Angel II

I read Eve Ensler to you as you drift in and out of conscious awareness, your burgeoning mind eager to sleep.  You nodded yes.  Your awareness drifts from present and then moves swiftly to a place of peace, of newness, of rebirth.

I adjust pillows; I rub your hands and feet, still perfectly manicured bright red.  Your skin is clear and bright, almost glowing, lips still pink and full.  You open your eyes as I sing Amazing Grace along to the CD playing in the corner.

I wish you could go outside to your garden.  I know that is where I would want to be.  In the garden that I created from nothing.  As you have.  This creation that will go on and on.  Life is funny like that in the garden.  Plants fruit, set seed, die and surprise us next spring as they grace us with their beauty once again.

My grandmother’s garden flourished years after she had stopped planting and moved on from her frail body.  I saw tomatoes bursting forth through years of weeds, along with petunias and her favorite snapdragons of my childhood, reseeding each year as if she secretly came in the night while I was sleeping and snuck her favorite flowers into the empty spaces of her once prized garden.

Grandma, I see you stooped over in your housedress, your largess that I always loved to snuggle up to in the summer cottage’s feather beds of my youth.  They now make cardboard cutouts of that same pose and sell them in garden centers.  Your wide, bent over fanny displaying the garden’s name, Carol’s Garden or the Garden of Eden.

Memories are held tightly in the garden, of grandma teaching me how to plant and water, and the picture of my small son squatting between tomato plants, almost hidden, snacking on a ripe fruit he snatched off the plant, juice dripping down his chin.

I know you have these memories, too, my friend and I wish you could spend your last hours in the sun drenched fall garden.  To breathe in the scent of autumn, the leaves browning, the last tomato being harvested off of yellowing plants.  This is my own selfish wish for you.

I hope you feel my presence as you drift.  I rub your feet, place socks on them as they are now chilled.  It’s all I can do and I hope it is enough.  The gift of presence of spirit communing with another spirit.

I am grateful for these last hours.  The details of the hours jump out, normally hidden from our unnoticing healthy world, which we overlook.  The quiet knowing of the dogs, usually hyped up, barking, jumping on everyone, now laying nearby, protecting you as you make your way through this passageway only you can maneuver.  But they guard that invisible pathway.  They know.

A blue, clay cross lays beneath your right hand.  And you dream, asleep like a newborn.  Growth is happening during this slumber and I must believe that your sleep is the food needed as you travel to your next destination, manifesting out of this world into the next.  This requires great energy and so you need rest, my dear angel.  Even angels need rest.  You have much to do very soon.  Everything not possible in this life is all the more possible in the next.  And so I watch you, taking in the unknown energies and wisdom of these hours, which will guide my next moves.  And I am grateful, feeling a sweet peace washing over me, full of love and full of hope.

Caring for an Angel

"There is emptiness, nothingness, and there is something watching this nothingness.  Now who is it that is watching?  Who is the seer?  Find out who the seer is." ~Papaji

In the smallest hours of this morning, I awake to the anticipation of the caring of an angel in the making.  In just a few hours, I will take my watch and preside over her care.  She is stepping across that liminal border, no longer inhabiting this world as a bright spirit, but as only the worn, well-travelled tiny dancer of your former manifestation.  I cannot see your new light as I wonder the form you are now taking within this liminal stage.  What part of you is still here?  Will you still hear my voice speaking softly at your side?

Who lies before me now?  I will be watching your transformation into an angel, the metamorphose of pupa to butterfly, stretching  new translucent wings, perched and ready to take flight.  I cannot help but think, The Artist Formerly Know As!  This transformation is all happening under my careful watch today.  As I say my final farewells today and tomorrow, I can only imagine the energy expanding around your broken body as it readies itself for its new expression of you.

These are magical moments I am witness to and I am trying to wrap my mind around both the pain of loss and the exhilaration of what lies beyond it.  I want to understand this brief juncture, as I watch you, mindful that utmost care is taken in this space you still reside for this tiny moment in time, your rebirth into something I can only imagine.  I will watch at the threshold, where the boundaries are dissolving, in this betwixt and between space, the realm of pure possibility.

And I will be forever changed, grateful of this blessing bestowed, your gift to me as you spread your new wings and soar.

Planting an Angel in my Garden

I am going into the garden today because it is the only place that seems right.  A dear friend is peacefully making her way out of this world as I write this.  And the garden is where I will be.  She will be there.  I know I will find her out there with me.

She was a gardener herself.  She loved the feel of the soil in her hands and the beauty that resulted from her handiwork.  We understood that together.  We both spent time in each other's gardens, sharing stories, remarking on the beauty, the similarities and the differences.

I was lucky to have seen her just last week.  We cried and held each other as we said our goodbyes.  she said she would miss me and thanked me for our time together.  I told her she had given me a gift that I will treasure forever; that of walking with her through this cancer journey she endured with courage, dignity and grace.  I told her she had left a piece of herself in me and I would always have her there in me.

As the Buddha taught, there is no birth, there is no death; there is no coming, there is no going; there is no same, there is no different; there is no permanent self, there is no annihilation. We only think there is. When we understand that we cannot be destroyed, we are liberated from fear. It is a great relief. We are all part of everything and everyone before us and will be part of all that is after us.  We are not gone, we have transformed and continue elsewhere.

But we are always here.  And so I go to the garden today.

I showed her last week how to grow new plants from cuttings of the "mother" plant.  It was something she had wanted to learn and it seemed appropriate at this time.  It was my gift to her, to bring new life to her as one was moving on.

I will plant in my garden today, the new perennials I purchased yesterday and as I plant them I will offer a prayer in honor of this small but mighty woman.  I know I will find her out there with me and that gives me comfort.  I will speak to her in that space and tell her again I love her and will see her again one day.

And next spring, when the flowers bloom and life once again shows itself in the beauty of the leaves and petals, the colors and scents in all their glory, I will say, "hello dear friend, welcome back, I remember you, I will always remember you".

You are me.  I am you.  We are one.  That is love, and it is enough.

A Gift from an Angel

This past week was an exhausting one filled with musical performances and the preparations for such. I know - what is so stressful about that?  Well, nothing, considering one was helping prep my son’s CD release party, which was joyous and forward-looking to the future.  The other delved into the past and an unknown future.  It was more of a soulful stress.  Let me explain.

My friend is now walking the path of her final transition from this life and is at peace about beginning the next, wherever that may be.  She has been a dancer and actress all her life and things such as wakes and funerals are not her forte, not her idea of a grand departure.

So we gave her a going away party, a celebration of her life (a living wake is what she called it) that knocked the socks off most celebrations. It was a night of her favorite music performed by her friends at a nightclub, which was the location of what became her last performance, a soulful essay of her living with the cancer that was now taking her life. I was charged with singing Paul McCartney’s,  “Maybe I’m Amazed” as a tribute from her husband to her.  I wanted it to be perfect, a softer and heartfelt rendition unlike the harder original rock ballad.  Luckily my son is a musical genius and understood my “do it a bit jazzier, slower, with more soulful chords and feel, I want it different, special”.

The club was packed with friends and family, all not quite sure how to react to this odd event, but wanting to see her, probably for the last time and send her off in a bubble of love.  You could feel the energy in the room, which was pure love.  All egos, all anger, resentment, sadness were checked at the door.  She was radiant; the pain erased from her face, her energy up as if someone shot her up with adrenaline.  She danced in her chair as the music moved her off this final path for just a few hours and set her on a picnic blanket, basking in the glow of the evening.

I had never been so nervous to sing this one song to her.  A bit odd, considering I have spent a good part of my life on stages.  I find comfort and excitement and bliss when performing on a stage.  But this was different.  I had never sung to an angel.  Being with someone as they begin their transition out of this present time is a gift.  I have watched as she moves out of her broken body into an ethereal being, an angel.

But there was so much love in the room that night, it transported me and held me, and melodic tones emanated from my heart and filled my body with so much love that it felt like warm honey was flowing out of my mouth.  In my dear friend’s own words, “magical.”

What an amazing celebration of life.  She said the next day it was the most incredible night of her entire life.  In her words, “I couldn’t have scripted my leaving better or with more love.  I’ll have a heavy travel bag filled with love I’m bringing to heaven.  I hope they let me carry it on the “light” train.  I don’t want to part with it.”

Which made me take a look at my own life.  Selfishly, would I be able to fill a room with people who love me so much that they want to celebrate my life along side me in this way?  Have I been good, kind, generous, giving, loving and loyal?  I have been asking my friends these same questions.  It really makes you think about what really is important.  What will people remember you for?  What are the gifts you give?  Are they only things bought and paid for, or are they gifts from your heart? Maya Angelou once said,

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

I have decided that I, too, want a celebration of life that I can attend before I transition into my next incarnation.  Of course, I am hoping it is many, many years in the making.  In the meantime, I will look to my friend, my angel, for wisdom, food for my heart, and love as if this was the last day of my life, everyday, every hour.  I hope you do too.

Today is a Good Day

“Today is a good day,” you once said, because the nausea had subsided and the trips to the bathroom had decreased to a single digit.  Today is a good day, for me, as I get to see you, sitting in bed, smaller than the last time but certainly not diminished.

You sit there, head covered by a bright purple cap you chose from the hospital’s cap bin, eating tiny bits of meat loaf and mashed potatoes, careful not to block your compromised airway; and you are glowing.

I wanted to tell you that purple is the color of royalty, expanded awareness and high spiritual attainment.  It is the color of the highest chakra, which connects us to the universe, to enlightenment.  It is said if you surround yourself with purple you will have peace of mind. This is how you looked today.  But I didn’t tell you.

Only a few days earlier you struggled for the precious air that escapes you now.  But today you are glowing.  I sit next to you as you listen to the plans being made to take you home for the last time.

I am honored to have been at your side for very difficult news from your team, and I am again honored to sit with you and add my meager voice to your most precious hospice plans.  I find myself annoyed by what feels like tiny flies nipping at my arms as I try to listen, and I swat at them, trying to brush them away only to find that there are no flies or any insects for that matter in this intensive care room.  Of course there aren’t!  And no one else seems bothered by these pests either.

And then it becomes apparent to me.  Angels.  They are announcing themselves.  Of course.  They are gathering.  A few of them colored you in peace today and cleared your throat so you could feed your failing body and speak the many words you still have to say.

Today is a good day.  I am meeting your angels.  They have let me know that they know that I know.

Do you hear them too, my brave friend?  You must.  Your fear is gone, you tell me; and the pain has left your face.  You want to play cards, not talk of death.  You want to cram in as many stories from friends as your ears will allow.  You told me once that you knew that God is taking care of you.  Can you hear him now between the angels’ banter and laughing?

I want to hear you.  I want to hear the truths that are coming to you now.   I know you are tired but this student is eager to hear the wisdom that this journey has taught you.

I’ve been seeing dragonflies everywhere lately: symbols of transformation and life's ever-constant process of change, of leaving the old body to become a new, lighter creature inhabiting a different realm.  To some they are fairies. To others, they are the souls of those who have gone before us. Angels!

The lessons you’ve learned, the gifts of yourself you so wanted to share with those you love have come in the form of angelic beings. No gift has ever been lovelier.

Today is a good day filled with dragonflies, fairies and other celestial wonders.   As you have said, we will play again in the world beyond.  I believe that.  Until that time, I will revel in the beauty and magic of butterflies and dragonflies and think of you, sweet angel.

Love, Loss and Fibber McGee's Closet

My dear friend lost her father suddenly this past weekend.  He and his wife took their regularly schedule nap, sitting side by side in matching barcaloungers.  She awoke, he didn’t.  A horrible thing for those he left behind but sweetness for he who left, peacefully in his sleep.  Did he give a peck to his wife of 65 years before sinking down into that cushion perfectly configured to his shape after years of sharing that space with her?  Did he whisper “sweet dreams, my love”, as they both drifted into the sweet slumber so deserved after so many years of family, work, good and bad times, illness and health?

Those he left behind gather together at a family reunion just days after he left peacefully.  Did he know how perfect the timing was of his departure?  Golf, picnics, music and laughter were scheduled and family came from across the country.  Did this cost conscious Depression Era man wish not to burden his family with the cost of an additional trip just for his behalf?  Did he wish to leave with the sounds of laughter, loving children and grandchildren reminiscing as he watched from above, laughing along?

This love will not be contained this weekend.  It is foreign to me as I recall the departures of both of my parents.  I don’t understand the pain that my dear friend feels today.  She lives in the pockets of her parents, dependent on their continued love and affection; not a bad place to be, warm and snuggly knowing that you are loved totally and unconditionally. 

I can’t say there is envy in that, as I don’t understand that kind of love at all.  I have no memories of unconditional parental love; warm cookies when coming home from school, the shoulder to cry on when I lost my job, broke up with a boyfriend, or the pain of not being able to conceive a child.  The tears from their departures from this earth were from the numbness that took over my body knowing that now I was an orphan. 

Who was I now?  No longer daughter, no longer frustrated caretaker during the years of illnesses.  As I try to free associate words and emotions that go with loss and parent, I am coming up short of anything that wouldn’t put the most hardened listener into a state of depression.  The closest I come to happy memories are those related to loss and grandparent.

Summer cottage and the endless days at Island Lake beach and the ongoing stories about Princesses Opal and Black Pearl, The White and Black Knights and Prince Dally Rimple Pimple every night before bed in the feather quilted beds of the attic bedroom, gramps slathering whole milk butter onto every corner of our morning toast so that the task of biting into it was to see if you could keep the butter from dripping down your fingers, or the Jell-O that was carefully mixed with just the perfect amount of cream so that each spoonful contained equal amounts of each.

Or new Barbie dolls delivered every birthday, regardless if it was mine or sis’s and the stacks of the flat costume boxes and accessories that came with.  Grams noodle making afternoons where every noodle draped chair in the house looked like longhaired Rastafarians as we danced between them while the “hair” dried.

It was the hide and seek in the closet she named Fibber McGee’s because Grams had no idea what really was in there and if something were missing, it must be in Fibber McGee’s closet.

These must be the memories that come to mind at times of loss.  I have to believe this is true and so I hold dear to them. These are the stories that my children have heard and their children will hear. 

My grams and gramps, too, passed on in their dreams.  And while this sudden departure brought with it intense pain of loss, it also brought back the tucked away memories that bring tears of joy and laughter with every retelling.

And so I cry with my dear friend’s loss, but I also rejoice in the beauty of the love she will hold and share till she quietly sneaks away in her dreams many years from now, once again to climb back into their soft pockets of their never ending unconditional love.

Liminality All Over Again and Again...

I wanted to post this again for a couple of reasons.  First, the word liminality, came up in a conversation today and a light bulb went off.  I went to a meeting about reinvention, where I find myself yet again.  And in explaining the place I am in, how I feel, after closing my business last fall, and wondering what I was going to do when I grow up....again....  I called it the space of nothingness between the old and the new that has not showed itself yet but is busy crafting itself within me.  

My friend was told that this place is called liminality.  Of course!  The space in-between!  I have been here before.  I said that to her.  It was a Duh! moment.  This is the place where your old life has crashed and burned and your new life isn't apparent yet.  It is in this place that we must keep walking.  You may not recognize yourself at this point. It is a volatile feeling, this unknowing.


I have come to the conclusion that in this lifetime of mine, this is where my soul is growing and changing at the speed of light.  I don't know how many liminal periods we are allowed in one lifetime.  I can't count them anymore.  It actually feels like I am dying all of my past lives all in one lifetime!  It is exciting, scary, exhausting, emotional.  You cry.  You laugh.  You're loud.  You're quiet.  You're up.  You're down.  You want this.  No, you want that instead.  I say, just hang on.  That's really all one can do in these turbulent times.  Of course, this is all inner work.  I can only imagine what I look like on the outside with all this chaos happening within!


These aha moments have a calming effect, though.  At least I can name the demon in my head that is running amok!  Okay, not a demon.  Growth, change, rebirth.  I just wish with each rebirth I could delete a few years off my age.  Become a younger version of myself at this ripe old age!

There is gold within these Shadows.  Embrace the gold and release what is not.
Just keep walking...

posted 10/20/2010

Reality is the place between the sea and the foam. Irish Proverb

Dictionary.com defines it as:

the transitional period or phase of a rite of passage, during which the participant lacks social status or rank, remains anonymous,shows obedience and humility, and follows prescribed forms of conduct, dress, etc.

It is defined as the space in-between. It is emptiness and nowhere. It is a place of dying and rebirth, the space between death and rebirth, something that cannot be seen. Liminality is where transformation occurs. It is when we are betwixt and between, and by definition, not in control. An uncomfortable place to be if you ask me, but a place of impending change, which to me is exciting.

In the book, Crossing to Avalon - it is described as passing through a gateway, a threshold - an in between zone where we are neither who we used to be nor who we are becoming. We are standing in a doorway between two phases of our own life.

In this liminal phase we are vulnerable, thin skinned, which means we are open to new growth. T.S. Eliot wrote about a point of intersection of the timeless with time. It is a place where eternal and ordinary perception overlap the spiritual world and visible reality come together. Only in periods of availability will a person respond to a call to adventure or love and the lessons they bring.

Okay, so what does this mean and why even talk about it? I came upon notes I had taken from books and other readings, which are shared above, at the right time in my life.

As I came back from a spectacular trip to the Omega Institute for a Women's Leadership conference, thoughts were screaming in my head, copious notes had been taken the whole weekend, I rewrote my ideas for a retreat center, cleared out some old personal "garbage", and was ready to take on the work of my next incarnation.

And I got home and none of this happened. I couldn't write, my thoughts were unclear, my head foggy. I got sick recently, which put my head in an ever worse fog and I wondered what happened to that energy and spark that was on fire in New York. Even my meetings with people I met on that trip didn't spark anything new or exciting. What was wrong with me?

Then tonight, as I tried to free write in my journal (with no luck), I came across old notes and writings, which included liminality. And I realized where I was at this moment in my life. Funny, once again, if you look for the signs, they are here in front of you.

I guess I, too, am in another state of transition, that place in between. I am letting go of the old and worn out but the new has not presented itself yet. Jung calls the psychological journey to wholeness as individuation, a task of the 2nd half of life.

So, again, I wait, quietly, because I know in the quiet and nothingness, things are happening that are out of my control, out of my realm of thought. It tires me, this non-work. But it also excites me, as I know out of it comes newness, new thought, new direction, new beginnings, new you.

A Walk in the Woods and... Murder?

A leisurely stroll in the woods of Ellison Bay Bluffs County Park led to a distressing encounter yesterday.  It all began with a lovely bluff view of Green Bay on Lake Michigan and leaving my husband alone to smoke his pipe, I set off on a meditative walk.  After all, I am beginning a new life chapter and coming out of the seeming coma (okay, it was just a huge fog...) that fell upon my brain after the closing of my business, I was eager to meditate on what’s next for me while taking a quiet stroll.

Praying to my angels and goddesses and whomever else happened to be listening, who might want to chime in with their words of wisdom on this walk, thoughts filled my mind and I drifted into a wonderfully peaceful place.

About 15 minutes into my ethereal walk of late autumn dried leaves, bare branches and brownness, I happened upon the color red.  Hmmm.  Upon closer inspection, it looked as if an animal had been attacked; maybe a coyote or a fox kill.

Upon a much closer inspection, there was a bright red blood spill in the middle of my path and a dribble of blood as if something was dragged over to this pile of red within the dried leaves in the brown woods. 

Okay, I am a city girl but I am not naïve in any way.  Something had been killed in the path before me.  Upon an even closer inspection, there were some internal organs carefully laid out around what appeared to be a very large rock, very little blood, and NO BODY.  That’s right, NO CARCASS.  What had been killed?  Where was the body?

Small circular blood spill in my path, something dragged into the woods along the path, fresh organs, and no body.  Nope, I am definitely NOT a naïve city girl at all.  I was standing in front of a morbid murder scene!  Upon closer inspection of the rock “altar” that the heart, kidneys, liver, etc. were placed upon (of course it was an altar – isn't that what sick, deranged killers do with their victims?), it started not to look like a rock at all.  So I took a stick and poked at the “rock”……it was soft…….IT WAS A SET OF LUNGS!

Did I mention that my peaceful, tranquil, meditative state was completely severed? (Had to use that word – I had just entered a scene out of Dexter!)  My bucolic, pristine nature walk had become a crime scene!

Where was the body?  The kill spot was rather small and round, perfect size for a person of my build.  And who carefully lays out innards the same way they are placed internally?   And where did the blood go?  And much more importantly, where was the BODY??  So I did what anyone would do in my situation.  In Chicago, coming across guts in an alley would have someone speed dialing 911 as they high tailed it out of there!

Not me……I went to the extreme.  This wasn’t some random, ordinary kill.  This could only be the work of a witch.  I had entered a scene from Blair Witch Project!  Of course!  That’s why there was no body or blood.  That’s why the guts were carefully laid out.  This was not the work of an animal.  What animal would take the body and leave the innards?  So I did what any city girl would do.  I panicked.  Blair herself HAD to be nearby.  Or a crazed maniac.  I looked into the trees (because of course that is where either of these folks would be – right?)  I slowly started backing away up the path.  I looked for the river I could follow to take me safely out of the woods. (I always wondered why those kids in Blair Witch Project kept going around in circles in the woods.  All they had to do was follow the river bed and they would still be alive today!!!!) No, I wasn’t lost.  And the river was actually Lake Michigan.  I pulled out my phone to call my husband (Hey, it is 2011.  No one will ever get lost in the woods again as long as the Verizon satellites are up and running.) to tell him of the ghastly scene I was now running from, eyes darting left, right, above to make sure no one was following me.

Okay, it is true, I am a horror freak.  Have loved horror flicks all my life.  Wrote some vivid tales in Mr. DeLuca’s creative writing class in 6^th grade that concerned him enough to make a call home to Ma.  I guess slayings with ice picks are not common themes in 6^th grade essays. 

I was the mother that scared the other mothers in my book club when they found out I let my young children watch scary movies.  And yes, a relative of some sort pulled his daughters out of the TV room where they were sitting with my youngest son when he started talking about zombies and dead people.

Maybe a part of me wanted to have walked upon a scene from the TV serial killer Dexter.  That would be way more exciting of a story to tell later.  Or maybe I have been a victim of personal crime way too many times and my brain is geared for this type of reaction.    Or at least some sort of maiming!

So as the fear increased, the more my brain conjured up ideas for this scene, my husband walked over to a sign in the woods that read, “Hunting Begins November 15” and called me back.  Damn!  It was a friggin’ deer!  But I still fought it.  After all, I wanted the drama of a murder scene.  What a story I could tell!  I said what kind of hunter neatly lays out the innards the way they are laid out in the body from top of torso to bottom?  It looked like an anatomy class.  Of course, he told me with such determination and authority that hunters must gut the animal, tip it over and everything spills out perfectly in place.  Right…..  A deer of say 200 pounds can easily be tipped upside down and emptied.  I had problems trying to tip over a 70 pound calf on a cattle ranch in New Mexico. 

After consulting with a local and then later with an avid hunter, I had stumbled upon what is commonly known as a “gut pile”.  Normally, hunters who are deep in the woods will gut and “dress” the deer there, where city folk like me will not stumble upon their leavings.  My citified hunters dressed the deer on a paved path in a county park.  Lazy wimps.  Amateurs.  What kind of hunters were they?? City folk with shiny shotguns.  Geesh…

For me, there will be no Bambi or Mama Bambi killings.  The closest I ever got to both deer and death at the same time was when I was working at the Chicago Botanic Garden and almost got run over by a huge buck with a massive rack of antlers.  Then I could have added impaling to my list of personal assaults.  I also came across a few deer on another wooded walk.  No paved path to walk upon and there she was, right in front of me, staring at me.  We stood for a moment, both of us, contemplating the oddness of both of us happening upon one another, and I walked away.  After all, this was her woods and I was trespassing upon her territory.  Imagine that.  After that confrontation, I could never consider shooting one or bowing one, “tipping it over” and spilling out its guts to feed the rest of the woodland animals.  Eeewww.  Yuck.

So here is my boring story of hunters and deer.  When I tell my grandchildren, of course, it will become the Dexter and Blair Witch story which will scare the pants off of them.  Their parents will roll their eyes.  Hey, I might even add an ice pick or impaling…

Life is a Series of Deaths

Life is a series of deaths with a little laughter thrown in along the way.   We die a little at each crossroad, learn to walk again, live to laugh about that last intersection and then there you are at that damn stop sign again.  Wondering – I turned left last time – which way looks good this go round?

You hear I didn’t say safe.  I said interesting.  Death of the old is never safe.  Interesting?  Yes.  Damn interesting and damn funny in retrospect.   We shift a little to the left, then we shift a little to the right.  And with each shift, each change, each death, we gain in knowledge of our own divine.  We get closer to the true purpose of our lives.

Is it the life we decide for ourselves?  Maybe so.  Maybe not.  But if we listen, if we can quiet ourselves during the troubled times, during each one of these “deaths”, we will just “know” what is right for us; which is the right path.  If it is not the right path, it will never feel right.  Or we will wake up at a crossroads again with that feeling of AGAIN?!?!?!?  I have done this before, an unraveling of the status quo in order to see the light within.

Resisting the exhaustion of the death results in more exhaustion.  Can I give myself more than 5 days to rejuvenate, replenish, rebirth?  I think so.  No matter what I try, how much I push myself, my body has shut down in order to rest during the re birthing process.  No matter how much I beat myself up about getting a move on to the next greatest thing (as asked by my son…); no matter how much I try to get my brain wrapped around the great ideas that came up prior to my “death”, my brain (which is as stubborn as the rest of me) has shut down.  Nothing seems important. 

This in itself drives me crazy.  How can I NOT be excited about all the great ideas that showed up last month?  I was SO excited, so looking forward to jumping into my next incarnation.  BUT…..right at this very moment, nothing is all that exciting to me.  Everything can wait.  I need to just sit, relax, rest.  This break has been a long time coming.  The next greatest thing can wait a bit more.  Actually, it HAS.  It won’t let me jump in.  I am numb to pretty much everything.  So, I need to be okay with that.  I know, I know, I know, it will all come to me when the time is ripe.  It always does!  And no matter how much I push it, it will not move until I am ready to move with it.  I know this.  Yet, I come to this place time and time again. 

I go back to an old post about the liminal stage last spring.  A time of transition when we stand “betwixt and between” one state and another. Kind of like on a fence, although you aren't trying to make the decision as to which way to step. It kind of does it for you. Awkward, yes. The state of neutrality/ ambiguity until we reach full consciousness of the next place, the next stage, whatever you wish to call it. But I am okay with it. Probably because I am so exhausted, I can't fight it or push it where I'd like anyway.  

Only this time, I understand this.  So when those anxious thoughts pop in, I know to let them pass.  I just thought this morning, for the umpteenth time I woke up at 4 or 5am and could not go back to sleep, that, Wow, look how much I could get done before the rest of the house wakes up.  Here I go again, pushing.  And here I am again, at only 6:30pm, exhausted.

So, please, my dearest soul, take a chill pill, enjoy this rest.  You are revving up for some unbelievable events.  Let the flower bud grow, and then petal by petal, unfold into the new blossom of you!

Death Becomes Him

The proud mama presents the younger son's video debut, a music video to a Herbie Hancock tune.  Like mother, like son - we both LOVE zombies and horror films!

This is definitely both nature and nurture in action. Thanks for watching!
Max DeGenova presents Death Becomes Him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6lnEWmYv3o

Liminality - the Space In Between

Reality is the place between the sea and the foam. Irish Proverb

Dictionary.com defines it as:

the transitional period or phase of a rite of passage, during which the participant lacks social status or rank, remains anonymous,shows obedience and humility, and follows prescribed forms of conduct, dress, etc.

It is defined as the space in-between. It is emptiness and nowhere. It is a place of dying and rebirth, the space between death and rebirth, something that cannot be seen. Liminality is where transformation occurs. It is when we are betwixt and between, and by definition, not in control. An uncomfortable place to be if you ask me, but a place of impending change, which to me is exciting.

In the book, Crossing to Avalon - it is described as passing through a gateway, a threshold - an in between zone where we are neither who we used to be nor who we are becoming. We are standing in a doorway between two phases of our own life.

In this liminal phase we are vulnerable, thin skinned, which means we are open to new growth. T.S. Eliot wrote about a point of intersection of the timeless with time. It is a place where eternal and ordinary perception overlap the spiritual world and visible reality come together. Only in periods of availability will a person respond to a call to adventure or love and the lessons they bring.

Okay, so what does this mean and why even talk about it? I came upon notes I had taken from books and other readings, which are shared above, at the right time in my life.

As I came back from a spectacular trip to the Omega Institute for a Women's Leadership conference, thoughts were screaming in my head, copious notes had been taken the whole weekend, I rewrote my ideas for a retreat center, cleared out some old personal "garbage", and was ready to take on the work of my next incarnation.

And I got home and none of this happened. I couldn't write, my thoughts were unclear, my head foggy. I got sick recently, which put my head in an ever worse fog and I wondered what happened to that energy and spark that was on fire in New York. Even my meetings with people I met on that trip didn't spark anything new or exciting. What was wrong with me?

Then tonight, as I tried to free write in my journal (with no luck), I came across old notes and writings, which included liminality. And I realized where I was at this moment in my life. Funny, once again, if you look for the signs, they are here in front of you.

I guess I, too, am in another state of transition, that place in between. I am letting go of the old and worn out but the new has not presented itself yet. Jung calls the psychological journey to wholeness as individuation, a task of the 2nd half of life.

So, again, I wait, quietly, because I know in the quiet and nothingness, things are happening that are out of my control, out of my realm of thought. It tires me, this non-work. But it also excites me, as I know out of it comes newness, new thought, new direction, new beginnings, new you.