The Universe Closes its Door to 2012 - Sat Chit Ananda

As the universe closes its own chapter on this year, I look at all it has done.  We all have great expectations of this world we live in.  We end up placing huge expectations upon ourselves at the start of each year and if we don't achieve those expectation, we fall back on the universe in blame.

I lost my job because of....  I broke up with so and so because of...  I was passed over for a promotion because of.. and so on and so on.  We blame everything else in this universe but ourselves.  I have done it myself.  It is hard looking within at our own foibles and lack.  But then again, we are looking at ourselves and the world with our egos which aren't really us to begin with.

This grand universe that allows us to live within, giving us air to breathe, land to live on, food to sustain us.  It asks nothing in return except acknowledgement of its existence.  We are all one within it, this massive collective conscious.

Imagine if this entire universal collective looked towards this new chapter in 2013 with only the expectation of love given outwards, beyond ourselves.  Imagine the moment at the stroke of midnight if we were all to hold it in pure love, pure bliss, pure existence.  Sat Chit Ananda.  This warm embrace of love would be glorious if only for that one moment.

Sat Chit Ananda is the Sanskrit phrase for truth or love, consciousness, bliss.  It is always there for us. When the mind unwinds and becomes calmer, Bliss, Love and Happiness naturally arise.  Imagine living this always.

All of the troubles, pains, fears, hatred that enveloped the world this past year;  all those that were let down, broken down, broken apart (me included); let them go this night, for good.  If all of that pain was embraced, loved unconditionally as we let it go and send it on it's way, imagine the peace that would follow.  The empty space left behind would be available for goodness to refill it.  We would allow Sat Chit Ananda to be revealed as it is always here with us.


My wish for myself and the universe is that unconditional love that heals the heart, heals the world. Imagine yourself within it now and always.  May this new chapter open you to infinite possibilities, dipped in love.  Peace.

The Sea Unfolds Her Arms

The sea unfolds her arms, reaching into the sand hills along the shore, offering her strength only for the moment and then retracts if the offer is not accepted.  Only to offer it again and again, a constant tease.  She pulls back; retrieving what she can from shore and greedily drags it out back to her bosom.

I stand at her feet and cry out to God in the clouds as if she really resides there and not beside me in the rocks and the grains of sand at my feet.  I shed years of fear and sadness and ask to be heard. 

I am good, I am loyal, I am faithful with a good heart!  Please hear my appeal for any sign that will help my stuck feet move again.

The sea gathers my shed tears in her long, reaching arms and draws them back to her bosom where they mix and churn within her heart.  She is in conversation with the clouds and sky.  What shall we do?  This soul cries out to us.

She offers her arms back to shore, close to my feet, not quite there, circling around me, not yet touching me and then she pulls me into her arms, picking me off my feet, knocking me to the ground. 

Get up! Move! Walk!  she pleads as she washes me with her foamy tears.  Below my feet she leaves me white shell fingernails, a thumb and index finger and a shard of obsidian, the stone of protection and tool of change, as gifts from her soul.

Up on a hill three brown men craft a sand sarcophagus.  A container for God’s tears perhaps?  Can you build a golden chalice for something that I was just bathed in?  My tears and God’s, mixed by the sea and returned to me as an embrace.  The pharaoh of Egypt could not save his son with all the gold statues and coins.  Only faith and love alone can save and heal.

Faith and love alone.  Write, the sea says.  The sky calls out to me.  Write, write.  So simple.  A word, a touch, tears from heaven.

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.

Declaration

Writing more of my book today and came across this again. Long time ago creation that still rings true.

Declaration

I am defined as daughter, sister, wife, mother.

But I am more

I am spirit, I am flowers, I am the songs in my head, the words on this page.

I am laughter riding wild on the wind of a horse.

I am bare toes in mountain springs and Tahoe sands.

I hang only colors on my walls that speak to me.

I am new beginnings to only myself

I do not repair others’ souls.

I am only ears to hear and loving touches.

I am my path, not yours.

Though I can light a way for you

I am love to me

I am love to my forever babies

I can let you in and you will know how.

A Song for My Dad

As we head full on into the holiday season, I wanted to add this story that came to me yesterday after spending the day with my family on Sunday at a tree farm cutting down our Christmas tree. Thank you for indulging me on this one. Happy holidays to everyone!

A Song for My Dad

I saw my dad today. He was driving a tractor in a large field of Christmas trees dressed in a Santa suit. And he was smiling.

He drove by on the first pick up and said there was no room this go around but he would be back shortly. I could have sworn I caught a glimpse of that sparkle in his eyes, the one long lost to pain, stolen by a thief well known to him for 50 years. His heart was so big and so open. It was an easy target for the cruelty of an unloving partner. 

Always quiet, and contemplative, he was a guy who could draw Donald Duck in 8 seconds flat, who drew 1950’s pin up girls with the same ease and beauty as it was for me to create a fresh floral design from a few cut flowers and greens. He could play Claire de Lune by heart on piano or organ, and apparently act in plays, something that was never known to anyone until he reminisced it to me 3 days before he died.

All from a man who was 5’11”, weighed 250 lbs at his skinniest, barely finished high school, was a paper hanger, painter, and designed and built both of our houses. This was a man with hands the size of frying pans who didn’t need gloves to clean the ice and snow off of car windows, whose pranks included using manure to make a small explosive that blew the mailbox off of a neighbor’s house because Dad was miffed about something he couldn’t quite remember, a very broad shouldered brute of a guy who could lift a full grown man over his head during a party and “accidentally” drop him and break the man’s back. Which subsequently ended the party. Dad felt awful about the accident, but remained friends with the guy.

This gentle giant donned a Santa suit every Christmas for my sis and I during our toddler years. His own mother would plop into his lap each season and they both would hoot and holler with laughter for the 8MM camera, whose tiny grainy reels me and sis would watch in the darker years to come. When Grams died, Christmas ended at her house and we never saw his side of the family again. That loss took the last hope for any glimmer from his eyes and his goodness was subsequently drowned in alcohol.

This was a man who never cried, who only winced and yelled obscenities into the air after driving a 3” nail into his knee while breaking boards in half for firewood, who in his frustration with his wife and family, chose my cousin over me for his new daughter, who didn’t speak to me for 4 years for a myriad of reasons, who was cold as ice on the outside, but cried soft tears and hugged me tightly after I told him I was finally pregnant after years of infertility treatments.

Oh, he wore that red suit a few more years for my one brother, but it never made it to my youngest brother’s Christmases. Some years down the road, we got him to put it on for my young nephew. Sis and I got the job of dressing him and we laughed until we cried as we attempted to stuff him into a too small well worn suit. I saw that glimmer find its way out of the darkness that night for that short moment.

The last time I saw that glimmer, a faint sparkle, the one that I now see in my younger son’s eyes, was after I had the hospital dose him up on morphine.

 “If we give him any more, his heart might stop.”

“He’s dying, for Christ’s sake! And he’s in pain! Give it to him now!"

Me, the so called “black sheep”, the one who was with him at his diagnosis, who drove him home that day and begged him to take one more trip to Greece, the place his heart belonged to and missed, the one who researched stage 4 pancreatic cancer and was told by a trusted friend and surgeon to tell Dad to get a great bottle of bourbon and a good cigar and head to the beach to enjoy the very short time he had left.

“If you want to go, Dad, we’ll make it happen. Someone will travel with you. But you

have to go now. There isn’t time…..”;

the one who said no to the treatments, “What for? He only has a few months to live, let him be happy in his final days”;

the one who was dismissed as wanting him dead for saying no to experimental treatments that are only a playground for unrelenting oncologists.

He was silent during that initial conversation with the doctor who delivered the news. He was silent on the way home that day. He was silent during our conversation, my questions of what he was thinking, what did he want to do, did he want to go to Greece.

He did hear me that day, though, and asked the oncologist a few days later if it would be possible to travel. My heart beamed but was quickly silenced when the rest of the family said no, he was to stay and allow the doctors to concoct their chemo cocktails for him.

“We can beat this thing, Dad.” was the fear coming out of the rest of the family.

And my heart broke as I watched him relent.

So he never went to his beloved Greece again and the only beach he saw was in a painting on the wall of his hospital room those last two days. He seemed lost in that painting his last morning, as if he was already there.

We had finally gotten his pain under control the night before and as I sat with him after the others had gone for coffee, he told my husband I was crazy after I asked him how he was feeling. And the sparkle was there. I smiled and knew at that moment that we had made peace with each other, after years of struggles and heartbreaks.

So it warmed my heart when I saw him today. The gentle giant that was silenced during his lifetime, was driving an old farm tractor, smiling, eyes sparkling, dressed in a Santa suit.

Season of Change

Today I found out my beloved smoke tree has verticillium wilt and it is dying. It started this decline two years ago and I was able to give it a dose of "help" that got it through another couple of years. This summer it bloomed so profusely and it was breathtaking. Unfortunately, I know from years as a horticulturist, that this type of bloom is a plant's last ditch effort to "seed" before it dies. And I believe this is what is happening.

Why am I bothering to tell you this? Well, several things. Attachment is one. I coveted this tree. It is a rare variety that I searched for and finally found at Rich's Fox Willow Pines. Instead of the normal burgundy bloom from the common variety, these blooms started pink and turned rose and then a dark rose and they are so large and last from June through August. I loved that tree and cared for it as I would a child and reveled at the spectacular show every year. And it grew twice the size it's supposed to grow which made me even more proud. I became very attached to that tree.

As many religions will tell you, attachment is not good. And now it is dying. Oh, I will try my best to do whatever I can to save it another year knowing it made its final show for me and now needs to go. And I will cry. And then I will release the pain, rework the yard and find another plant to take its place. Unfortunately, I cannot plant another one like this in the same place as the disease is in the soil would kill the next one as well. So I must say goodbye to my dear friend.

A few weeks back, I said goodbye to another very good friend (human.....) and it hurts badly to do this. But the time had come and change is due. Out with the old.....

It makes me look back to a jade plant I propagated back in school about 22 years ago. One tiny little jade leaf was planted in my basic horticulture class when I was just learning the basics of horticulture. This was when I had made another huge transition in my life and was changing careers and went back to school. I cared for this plant and it grew into a huge jade tree from that one leaf. It would have gone for over $300 in a retail plant shop. I was proud of the work I had done for those 15 or so years.

Five years ago the pot broke and the plant fell out and broke in a million pieces. My huge jade tree was now scattered all over the floor. I was crushed! I took care of that plant for 15 years, grew it into the huge beautiful specimen that it once was!

I then realized that it had served its purpose in my life. I was changing careers again and was saying goodbye to my horticulture career. So I replanted the few pieces into a new pot and started fresh. My life was once again transitioning and with that, death of some sort is inevitable. You cannot start new without the old dying. I let go of that plant, that life period, and faced a whole new season of my life.

So, as much as it pains me to lose my beloved tree, I believe once again it is the season of change. Losing things dear to you makes way for newness, new people, new events, and yes, new trees. Once again, I must let go of the old to make way for the new. And it isn't easy. If it was, we would never change.

Hopefully we learn from those things we must now let go of. My new "old" jade plant is growing nicely. It came back. It is different, but I still have it. And if the people I have had to let go come back, they too will be different. We will be different. And that will be good. And they will be welcomed. As will my beautiful smoke tree, someday....

Funny Times Ahead!

So four of us have decided to create a performance group, kind of a spoken word type of group. And word has it we will take it to the streets, so to speak, and do live performances. I really don't have an issue with this as I have performed most of my life, some in ways I would like NOT to remember!

What is interesting is there are four views on each topic. We all put ideas in a hat and have chosen (from that hat), which topics we will address. One word - four voices. And in a way, we have begun learning about one another. It seems that my life is a tragic one, full of bad mothers and abusive fathers. While I can laugh at all the "tragedies" now, it wasn't always that way. I survived, have lived to tell the next tale, and have made lemonade out of the lemons that were tossed into my cook pot.

It has also made me think about how those stories created themselves and more so, about those that affected them. Yes, we can all say we had terrible upbringings, full of dysfunction and drama. But if you look deeply at the people whom you'd like to blame for that dysfunction, you will also see the sadness and tragedy that formed their lives and souls.

Of course, there are some people who are just evil and brought to this earth to mess up those closest and dearest to them. I lived with one. But can I be so cliche to say that she helped make me the person I am now, more soulful, more compassionate of those closest to me? I think I can. So I can say a thank you now. The difficulties have passed. I can laugh at them. I can also cry at them still. And they continue to shape my ever changing being.

And another I'd like to bring on this year - love, love, love. Oh, not just this year but always. But if I state it, from now on, say it, say the words, it shall be! Last November, we had a poetry reading at Baubo's Garden (www.baubosgarden.com). It was a sexy reading of love, lust and lingerie! Below is a poem written by one of the poets that nite. I love it and thought it is a "bring it on" poem. Enjoy! And Bring on that Love This Year!!!!! Love, Like Heavy Equipment Speak the language of love using the terms your love understands. You light up my life Not neon bright Fluorescent white No halogen or LEDs tonight More like a Vector™ twin–beam spotlight with the 3-million candlepower of 12V, H3 series halogens powered by two 12V, 6 Amp per hour rechargeable batteries armed with a 3–position power selection switch hands-on or hands–free cord or cordless choose the illumination. You’re hot Not tropical spot sun hot or Thai spicy hot or flaming campfire hot More like a 750,000 BTU Portable Propane Torch whose power jet burners melt ice, incinerate tree stumps with a 100-lb. propane cylinder flame-control trigger valve UL listed gas hose aluminum extender tube and instructions. I feel your power Not triple-A battery power Or solar panel power More like the Dyna™ 20,000 Watt, 35 HP Generator with a 3600 RPM engine producing 83 Amps 120/240 volts at home, on the job and two-year limited warranty. You push my buttons Not dainty satin buttons Or hotline phone buttons More like buttons on a 2.4 Volt, 2–speed cordless screwdriver, Model# 6547–1, 6–position adjustable clutch; 3.5 to 26 in. per pound of torque adjustable for tight spots forward/reverse forward/reverse with battery, charger, bit set and impact–resistant carrying case. We fit together Not just brush-up-against together Not simply puzzle-piece together More like Lovejoy™ Standard Half Couplings that mount your engine to pump with 11.16 horsepower synthetic rubber inserts between the coupling halves one fits the motor one fits the pump shaft 194 inches per pound: the torque’s max. And Baby, you’re always “on.” Emily Thornton Calvo