Why are you so angry and afraid?

Accidents can happen...and they can be weird...and beautiful...catastrophic...and mythic. Three fates? Variation of Rublev's Trinity? Magic and mystery, sorcery and holiness, comedy and wisdom are all founded, sourced in the number three (as are past, present, future; beginning, middle, end). Fly Geyser in Nevada is the result of an accident---folks were digging a well in 1916. and this happened.

I had set today aside to go exploring...i simply need to hear myself think and, more importantly, feel. i have some questions (tools needed for digging) that don't have answers, perhaps, but that might provide lamp light to this current emotional path i have wandered onto. i hope to bring myself back into the balance of this listening to myself more intentionally, listening for and to the Voice i love.

so far this morning i chose to catch up on a few insights from Nadia Bolz-Weber. "Unable to pretend we are not in need," from October 1, was a providential place to start. Then "The Little Apocalypse: Superhero Showdown of Crumpled Time" carried even more of the ideas and questions buzzing my core (also a nod of recollection to T.S.Eliot---all time is eternally present; what has been and what will be are both perhaps contained in time present and time present contained in time past. that's from memory, don't hold me to word-for-word quotation, it's from Burnt Norton of the Four Quartets. looks like i'll have to dig that out, too).

took a break to eat some oatmeal and warm my cockles and everything else; i usually watch something specific on tv while i eat. yesterday i embarked on watching all of the eps of Doctor Who from the 12th Doctor (Capaldi)---another significant number in my realm of symbology. SO * MUCH * FUN to live in the open space of synchronicity. Anyway, i just happened to be up to the third, i believe, episode called, "Listen." Their adventure into the heart of listening to fear of the dark...it is a magnificent episode ("free" on Amazon Prime) and has opened a lovely TARDIS door into my own inner-exploration.

the episode is steeped in so many different ideas that resonate for me---particularly the dreaming. and i am reminded that listening to my own dreams will be as much an imperative part of this trek as anything else. i dream wild and crazy and significant stuff with story and images every single night. i have gone through phases of tracking those dreams and images; once again it is time to seriously take it on.

then when i opened the computer to get to the page upon which to begin writing today, the image of this Fly Geyser was the (i don't know the proper word for it) screen with the password window that has random images. this was the first time this image came up. i don't think it was this very image, but the image i did see clearly (and with romance in the composition of the shot) showed the three protrusions and i was immediately delighted by the sense of the Trinity Icon by Rublev as well as the mythology of the fates and so many stories involving three persons. and when i read just a smidgeon, it was too funny---digging a well, accidentally tapping into thermodynamic watchiedoo and creating this phenomenon in 1916 that still blows water today. Strikes me as a fair companion image.

i love synchronicity. magic and mystery of things that come together as you listen to the inside and outside of being. i always like to get started on a journey early so this was quite a prolific morning. it remains to be seen how faithful i will be to return to the well-spring hidden in my soul and imagination in the coming days.

it sounds schmaltzy to pose the question that i've typed and erased three times (yeah, i know--"three" again, but it's true) because asking this question in this platform sounds stupid ... the truth is i would go to each of you, my friends, and ask you face to face and facebook or this blog for all its cool advantages and possibilities doesn't really let that happen unless you "tag" someone so that's why a sincere and personal question on this platform can come off sounding kinda hokey. but i really do wish you'd also write and share what you're looking for in 2018. i'm listening.

may 2018 bring you many blessings and delightful surprises (even those that are cloaked in sorrow, loss or pain i hope will bring those unexpected joys)....

the story will save you

there are still people who believe that the marches are all and only about women...there are definitely people who believe the marches were about "trump haters"...so i know that there are people who still do not get what is actually happening to all of us.

one minute i'm hopeful that in speaking out, we may be heard...

the next minute i wonder if i have enough scotch to last the night...

then...somewhere in a quiet moment i'll remember this is nothing new throughout history...people speak and no one is listening. the people speaking are trying to include everyone but the people they're speaking for and to are not listening. couple thousand years ago there was this guy who didn't even have a residential address---all he did was walk from city to city and tell stories and talk to people and lead them to healing (the ones who would let him), who were listening. hey, it's like this people, you have the power to love each other and be there for one another no matter what. life is hard---help each other out. follow me... there is poverty and sickness and evil in the world but you have a better way...me...just be there, speak up, love each other. that's all he really said. and they crucified him.

i'm not saying any of us is the messiah or the sum of all who are speaking out are the messiah, i'm just saying a precedent was set long ago so that we can see that we're not the first to be mocked and misunderstood and marginalized. or worse.

just don't give up. one step at a time. be here. stand up. stand together. all of us now have a common threat, a common concern... keep telling the story...the story will save you. it will.

and here's the thing...they crucified him. but that is not the end of the story. there is life after death. there is. we are more than the suffering and affliction we endure. there is hope that following Life, there will be life...following Love there will be love... sometimes it's very hard to believe when you're suffering or losing or hated or misunderstood or bullied or abused or attacked or raped or ignored. believing is a better choice, though. choose life. choose love. the story will save you---this is not the end of the story.

Tuesday's prayer (1221716)

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gratitude.  Yes.  Close my eyes and conjure.  Gratitude.  See the clearing beyond the row of palms along the freeway.  Yellows gold tans a drop of orange brown near white like corn husks and greens all shades... Gratitude.  Rain on the front windshield. Wipers suck.  Smear even in the hardest rain.  Doesn’t last long.  Windows back down.  Gratitude.

Be...
With...
Good good trip, all slights and almost misses notwithstanding
good
gratitude
almost right—close enough for Gratitude...
Now...then...Now...

Ambivalence.
Desire like craving.
Fear like deep sleep escape familiar stories comfort deadens desire.
Avoid it with certainty that nothing matters. Vanity...accusations of self pity.
Whatever.
Desire scares me.  Fear scares me. Deadening desire, escape, scares me.
Disappear into the characters I love with all my heart (and desire) ... scares me.
I live in the same decade of those who die young...just these last few weeks...
Bobby.  George Michaels.  Carrie Fisher.
If you’re gonna do it, do it now.  But it doesn’t matter. Nobody reads it.  Can’t finish it because nobody reads it.  So why is (she) afraid of it.  Nobody reads it.  Can’t sell hot chocolate to Eskimos.  Rather watch Bogey, Myrna Loy, Ray Burr, Barbie Hale, Bill Powell.... What difference does it make?

All I have are words.
Fear that I will spend my life into the words and it won’t matter.  The story won’t save me.  I will disappear.  Death comes ...

Too soon?  Too late?  Why am I caught in this quick sand of ... I’ve no word for it.

I’ve no word for it... it...  No word.

Reflection.
Recognition.
Resurrection?

Forgive me?
It’s not that I don’t believe...but that I fear.

Fear not...you say over and over and over.  How?

How do I fear not?
How do I do?
How do I believe it matters?
How do I move forward?

...I will lose again...

PROMISE ME
promise me...
Promise me you’ll come back.
Promise me all I have to do is look for you
promise me I’ll be there one day too
promise me
PROMISE ME
then keep your promise
keep your word
enable me to believe in the word again

I need the word.

080316 Awareness

This will come as a shock
so sit down.

You do not really matter
beyond the boundary of who you really are.

Not even the woman who gave birth to you
can love you
the way you need to be
consumed.

Consumed like a phoenix
to rise above the ashes of the futility
of everyone else’s dreams for you

and

where
where are you
clicking the heels that bring you
home
they’re your own
and those who love you
love you
but they cannot be the you
you need to be
to be better than
who you fear you are

this is not the time to be born
and not the time to be born again
when you feel
the need
to be in control of things you
can’t control

let go the fear

that’s all the control you really have

what you choose
to take hold of...
what you choose
to let go of...

palms up!
With gratitude
receive as gifts
all things that come
(even the scary, sticky, sad...)—
Only then will you recognize
what you need
who you are

4th Day Poem challenge

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March caves in
caves into my annual calendar
like a florida sinkhole
having given one precious life
takes another
or year
or more
so much promise
pollinating all that is natural
with promise of Easter’s supernatural
hope in life hereafter
beyond the sinkhole
beyond the depth of fear
and the warmth
left on the sofa cushion
a minute only after rising

gratitude grows, cracks the seed of grief
Resurrection morning following on the cusp
of dead and buried

framing Light

sharp, bright, fierce moon
glorious replacement for the sun
i prefer your hopeful, quiet, tranquil light
playful clouds in your glow tease by

stay

or better...return

remind us all
there is life and balance
Easter comes rising from the hope of reflected light
Be Light
I will wait for you
like the evening star, the morning star, a planet...
darkness is but a frame for the Light

unending tribute to Dad through cycles of grief, joy, gratitude...and hope

I remember the feel of the bark on the tree against my palms and against my cheek, the tricky slickness of the bottoms of my mary janes against the skirting of the trunk and roots.  I was five.  I could feel wisps of hair from the loose bun falling around my face and lilting across  my eyes as I blew kisses toward the camera at Dad’s beckoning. It was a pretty day and I felt pretty in my dress with the white top and dark blue skirt (were there polka dots?) And lacy socks and mary jane’s.  I felt pretty being photographed like a model and hanging out with my dad.  He was thin and his hair was still black, waved back with a beautiful hairline I see now when I look at photos.  He was cool.  He could sing beautifully.  He could take beautiful photographs.  He could tell wonderful stories.  He could write words to move you to tears or laughter.  He could take the big rabbit out of its cage behind Granny’s house and let me pet it.  He could drive fast through the mountains.  He could make up really good stories about people in restaurants eating at nearby tables. He could work all night. He could win writing, advertising and marketing awards. He could sell anything. He could only write when he had a deadline and a paycheck.  He could be gone for long stretches of time.  He could hurt my feelings faster than anyone.  He could make things that didn’t make sense make sense.  He could explain why people were the way they were.  He could pray with his eyes open. He could help millions of people get through national disasters or a political crisis.  He could negotiate the release of prisoners or a change in policy.  He could get splinters out of my finger.  He could pick out the best puppies.  He could bake a chicken that had cinnamon as a main seasoning ingredient.  He could order the best steaks.  He could help me map out a better plot sequence.  He could decorate a house—perfect compositions of wall hangings and furniture.  He could make things sound better.  Or worse.  He could move and uproot his family every two to three years.  He could make up the best words like disgustipating. He could make me feel like the most special and important person in the universe.  He could make me feel suffocated.  He could make me angry.  He could make me laugh.  He could make me cry.  He could NOT beat me at racquet ball once I turned 12.  Otherwise, he could do anything.  Except prevent vascular disease from taking over his life. He can still make me miss him and love him and forgive him for being human like the rest of us.  He can still be the best dad ever.  He can still speak to me.  He can still make me laugh and cry.  He can still make me feel special and loved.  He can still make me wish he were here to eat Calabash shrimp at the beach, or drink cherry ibc colas, or watch tennis.  He can still be here with me, for me, in my memory and in my ways.  I hope he can forgive me for not knowing a lot of things I wish I’d known...about how and how much he loved me...about misunderstandings that seem to linger...about how really really far death can separate you...about how impossible it is to know the story when it wasn’t told...  I put all of this into a pretty box of joy without sides, wrapped in paper of unlimited gratitude, and ribboned in swirls of grieving that will hopefully one day be untied...to find us all there—all the family for generations—together inside (and out) once again...

how weird was that? just streamed it all of a sudden...  and i might post it but I’d have to name it something like unending tribute to dad through cycles of grief and joy and gratitude...and hope...

i hope you have a great father's day and will celebrate your dad in a special way.  i'm grabbing moon pies and cherry ibc colas and going to the beach...

 

I don't know what to do

I don’t know what to do.

The line rings in my ears—sometimes it’s louder in my own voice, sometimes in my dad’s. The confusion in his searching gaze haunts me, jabs and tears at the flesh of my heart and the sting sears through my veins and aches in my throat.

I don’t know what to do.

How many times did he ask me what was wrong?  Why was he here?  And I would tell him a variation of how the doctors found cancer in his stomach and in his liver and filling his veins soon to take over his heart.  I told him how it was all preventing him from being able to sleep, from being able to get to the bathroom by himself and how Mama could no longer safely help him. So he was here where he could get help.

He would then say, “I don’t know what to do.”  Those sad, hazel colored eyes have haunted me for years, though.  I would hold his hand, palm-thumb curled—his right hand to my right hand, like arm wrestling with inevitable truth—and I would say, “Me neither.  I don’t know what to do either, Dad. I wish I did.”  Then we would sit together like that for eternity.

Later we were told that we (the so-called living) think in bigger pictures, more extended meaning, larger contexts.  One who is as ill as Dad, one who is dying, has a very simple and immediate world.  Answers should be simple and immediate.  (Like he would ask if everyone was out of the house—we were in the hospice wing of the hospital—is everyone out of the house? Are we alone now? ...  Yes! We’re alone...what word do you have for us, what insight, what treasure, what wisdom? ... No, he only wanted the opportunity to launch from the bed and outrun the orderlies to the bathroom for a little privacy to do his business.)

So how much worse did I make his confusion?  How much harder did I make his transition?  I apparently was as confused by his question as he must have been by my answer.  He would look at me with such concentration and determination to understand.  I languished in my determination to be honest and truthful.  Then he would nod and put his head back upon the pillow.

Sometimes I think no matter how much time passes, I will weep tears of grief.  Sometimes I think no matter how much time passes, I will feel pain in the memory of those last hours, days, weeks, months, years... a mere instant.  Sometimes I think no matter how much time passes, I will long with every fiber of my essence to have him back, everyone back, everyone right, everyone here, everyone whole, everyone now.

What is it about that statement that twists the knife in my soul?  I don’t know what to do.

This primordial drive to do something.  Even so long since the dying.  Even now.  It is all one moment.  I don’t know what to do.  We long to act.  Long to fix it.  Make it right.  Do something.  Engage.

The only thing I know to do is write.  Tell the story.  Express.  This helps me regain my sense of balance and being after the hopelessness of unknowing.

Is it really part of our nature, part of our original created essence, to need to do something?  Or is it indicative of how far we have strayed from our true nature?  Be still.  Know I am God.  These are two things we are told to do.  Be still.  Know I am God.  Psalm 46.  The whole psalm is about radical and violent change, and about a new heaven and new earth.  End to war.  God’s presence until then, God’s help in time of trouble.  Be still.  Know I am God.

It is only comforting, hopeful, when by some miracle you...I...do it.

Before I Knew It

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Long journeys into night
as a child I hunkered down in the floor board
curled into the bucket where feet should go
a box of kleenex, tote umbrella, empty paper cup
pushed further under the seat like secrets
my cheek on the scratchy carpet
same color as my hamster
but if you wiggled just right it was comfortable
and warm.  The hum pulled me to sleep.

Later, half awake, cooler air revived me just enough
to feel
softer embrace in the bucket of Dad’s arms
he carried me through the dim light of home again home again
jiggity jog
he laid me to rest like a most precious treasure
in my own bed
I briefly expanded between the cooler brighter sheets
and softest feather pillow that held the shape of my head
from the night before
and off to sleep before I knew it

before I knew it
now I awake from the dream of his presence
gone before I knew it

between death and resurrection

050514 early this morning I was overwhelmed again with that fierce burning desire to know that God really Is and that there is a heaven and that one day we who are beloved will be reunited and that desire extended to being one of the beloved and rather humbled at knowing it all so profoundly depended on trust and faith and I fear perpetually whether I have it in me to be so loved among the beloved if there is a beloved...and that circle just kept spinning and I think I was trying to articulate that in an email to Miriam and I basically only got so far as clumsily and without much ability to communicate it set down the words “God to Be” but looking at the email now, that’s as much as I actually penned but what happened in my head was this spinning desire and pursuit of being and knowing and feeling and understanding and having this conflicting painful sense that I couldn’t know and nothing would ever be right again and all I wanted was for God to be and for me to be able to SEE God and KNOW God and have no doubt about it and swarming in the back of all that was that same sense of brief connection with the disciples in the room between death and resurrection and how frustrating it is to see such a horrific death and those images keep tormenting me out of the blue sometimes and this is what I see and this is what is blocking me from the internal seeing that there is Heaven and so none of that stuff matters any more if there is God and is Heaven then it’s forgiven and understood within a different context and it’s all okay but my soul was crying out that this is crazy—I can’t SEE God!  I can’t SEE heaven or SEE Dad and I can’t SEE what isn’t right here before my eyes!  This feeling tormented me beyond words which were not there to be articulated this morning, only the feelings and the longings and tears rained down my face and my nose started running—I was sitting right there on the sofa where I always sit and writing on the computer or so I thought and I looked to my right where my box of kleenex sits right beside me on the cushion and it wasn’t there, but it’s always there but it wasn’t so I looked behind the throw pillows because sometimes I throw it back there when it gets in my feet’s way when watching tv and it wasn’t there so I looked on the floor because sometimes I kick it off by accident and it wasn’t there, not on the end table either and my nose was now running down my upper lip and I mumbled some incoherent expletive about the kleenex box that had to be there because it was there last night, as I walk indignantly into the kitchen to the box that always sits on the counter by the sink and I blew my nose and went back to the sofa and sat down and right there beside my leg on the sofa right there where it always is was that box of kleenex.  Right there where I had looked for it and around it and everywhere and it was NOT there before.  It was NOT.  I looked for it right there and didn’t see it.    I was right there that whole time and looked everywhere around it. How could it possibly have been there all along when I did NOT see it???

the ring...memory sentences 030813

In 1926 (I think) Eugene asked Ruth to marry him, presenting her with a ring.  At least I think that’s what happened.  Should really revisit the story with Mama.  The first time I saw the ring I honestly thought: yay Pa!  What style and class!  The ring is gorgeous, I think.  I wish I had known him as a young man...what he saw in Ma...what she saw in him.  The ring now lives on my finger and often I rub it like I expect some Genie to appear.  My three wishes would likely include something like the ability to access anyone anytime.  By that I mean to be able to set some kind of cosmic date to meet someone in another time frame.  To be able to show up in my great grandmother’s childhood and get to know her and she would have no difficulty grasping that I would one day be her great granddaughter.  Or to visit Ma when she was pregnant with my mother.  I know Oscar Wilde played with the idea of going back and reliving former days but that’s not exactly what I’m talking about.  Perhaps even “The Time Traveler’s Wife” is a cautionary tale about such things.  But that desire to be with someone you have lost is a universal thing.  This ring which Pa gave to Ma is now on my finger and connects me to them tangibly, memorably, sadly reminding me of such a distance between us. 

I love this ring.  It will likely never leave my finger—yet I have promised my mother that I will leave it to my niece who was born the week after Ma died.  I can’t remember the last time I took it off.  Now it is...stuck...initially 15 years ago my finger was perfect, maybe the ring was a tad snug.  But now the ring is far too small and the knuckle has swollen slightly, but I can still twist it.  At this point, I can’t conceive of not having it on. 

Far, far too often I miss my grands...and ancestors I don’t know.  Sometimes I can almost feel their presence.  I wonder what they would think of the world today.  Wonder what is perpetually cyclical.  What they would advise about different questions, thoughts, doubts, hopes I have.  Are they essentially the same as what they experienced?  Did they wonder about their choices and whether things would have been different if?  Did they have to work at not being afraid of losing her home?  Their savings?  Did they fear losing their ability to endure?  Did they ever get discouraged by a profound sense that everything they’d worked so hard to accomplish was ultimately futile?  Did they feel obsolete? 

Just look at those questions...negative, fearful, doubtful, dark.  I twist the ring and it is a reminder of endurance, value, hope, joy, connection.  But I have to admit, right now, I feel sad.  Proud.  Blessed.  Fortunate.  Connected.  Grateful for this gift.  Hopeful that this isn’t where the story ends.  Hopeful there is more to this mortal life than a fragile chain of progeny, like some delicate, brief flower chain we used to make as kids...