With New Wings

Where am I on this journey?

I have just made my way out of a long period of cocooning. I experienced the process of disintegration, and have fully emerged with a new pair of wings. A new dawn, a new perspective—the next leg of the journey.

The garden of life's delights looking delicious as I'm flitting about.

The winds and the rain sometimes chasing me into safe harbor. I find within me, the nearest nest of respite.

My wings are beautiful, strong, complete and complex. In their polarity they are delicate and vulnerable.

When the rain clouds lift and the winds die down to a lofty breeze, I return to my freedom of flight.

I am the butterfly—with new wings.

In the Hush of a Sunrise

What I love more than the colors themselves, is the quiet and assuming way they present themselves. Without chatter or clamor, not an echo is spoken to draw the slightest bit of attention. You either are awake for the experience or you are not.

The presence and gifts are available everyday—without condition.

I thought of Vincent Van Gogh this morning. I didn't know him, yet I have a sense that when he painted, his brushstrokes were also an outward quiet expression of creation. His paintings not presented with the condition that someone must love them. They were created with the same universal beauty of a colorful sunrise. They had to come out. Channeled as a hushed expression of all that is right and true.

I have the same experience many times with my writing. The words spilling out, doing their best through me, to paint in phrases of sunrise. Quietly resting on a page to be read and taken in fully—or not.

Once in a while I will go back and read something I have written. More times than not I think, "Who wrote that?"

Just like in the hush of a sunrise, God did.

What Isn't Said...

It's six o'clock in the morning. Gently being nudged to open my eyes by the hand-rung bells echoing from the Carmelite Monastery tower. At last count, twelve cloistered nuns live in a beautiful peaceful setting complete with ocean views—behind the white walls of their sanctuary. Sounds nice.

I've made friends with one, Sister Roberta. She walks Maggie, the black Labrador Retriever, twice a day. Maggie is the service dog to another sister who is wheelchair bound. Sister Roberta is our resident 'town crier.' She loves to schmooze with the neighbors, mostly those who have children. It's very sweet, the relationships she has created with them. I'm not sure how I was brought into her circle of grace, but I like it.

One day a few years ago another sister I had never met was out walking Maggie. Sister Roberta had flown north for her annual trek to visit her family. Maggie, who knows me by now, is pulling the sister over my way to receive her ritual pat on the head. The sister and I began a neighborly chat. The ease of that conversation turning quickly into (this happens to me all the time) full disclosure. Not me, her! She was relatively new to the Carmelite order, and in particular our neighborhood Carmelite Monastery. She was a divorced woman, and after her daughter turned twenty—at fifty years old, she turned to her calling, God.

A bit in shock by this news, I put on my best poker face and continued the conversation/inquiry. I had no idea you could do that as a Catholic. She spoke about how, in a go-ahead-and-read-between-the-lines manner, that she was the only one of her 'kind' at this particular order. I was getting the feeling that she wanted someone to talk to, and there I was. Outside the walls, outside—where no one was listening?

Her subtle hint of not belonging didn't deter me from wanting to know more about the peaceful life inside those walls. Eyes wide, I was yearning for stories of peace, joy, tranquility, inner freedom, a life free for love. Yes, I went to their website. And it's all there spelled-out in the things that matter to the Carmelites, but I wanted to hear it chanted in the sister's words. With starry eyes I ask her about life inside the Carmelite Monastery. "Don't you just love it in there?" Except for their outfits (better known as 'habits'), I dream it's this joyful endless sleepover with your sisters. Praying, eating, gardening, more praying, singing at mass, watching a sunset and maybe a little dog walking.

Her response, "I love God." With a musical-note upward-emphasis on the word God.

She didn't have to say another word. I totally understood what wasn't being said. At that moment, and rewind a bit to her previous statement of being the only one of her 'kind', my idyllic fantasy of running off to the sacred spaces of nuns and monks were squashed. No matter where you go, there you are. And so are other people!

Honestly—it's probably more magnified inside those walls. As for the Sister, I saw her once or twice more walking Maggie in Sister Roberta's absence, but she avoided me and my corner-of-confession like the plague. I wasn't going to tell anyone. Besides, God was already listening.

As the universe would have it, I 'coincidentally' just ran into Sister Roberta, who, by-the-way, I haven't bumped into in months. Making her neighborhood rounds, walking the evening walk with Maggie by her side. As if 'someone' heard what was being written, but not being said.

Back Side of the Heart

During a recent Yin Yoga class, our instructor lead us through a series of cat and cow postures. In her very best yogi-voice she whispered, "Relax your belly, let it drop down towards the earth. Lift your head and chest upward toward the sky, opening your heart." Me, breathing-in, breathing-out, breathing-in, breathing-out. She begins again with, "Now, slowly drop your head and arch your back toward the ceiling like a cat. Bring your chin to your chest. Feel the stretch of your spine, opening fully—opening the back side of your heart."

My ears perked up immediately. The flow between postures momentarily disrupted. What? How have I never heard that before? In all the years I have practiced yoga, I had only been taught postures that were about opening the heart from the front. But of course, without speaking those words, postures like the 'cat' were doing exactly that. Opening the back side of the heart. An aha moment. And why wouldn't we address all sides of the heart, whether speaking about it physically or symbolically?

Not having ever breathed in that intentional opening through the back, I imagined my own heart looking a bit lopsided, dim and neglected. Very excited by this revelation, I began the breath-work of resuscitating inhales and noticing how happy my heart was starting to feel. To finally be receiving some long overdue love and attention—from both sides.

You know how once you hear something you can't un-hear it? In this case, I was grateful for her words. Locked forever inside my senses and intentions toward my heart. Another moment of grace—received.

I am curious now. What does the back side of the heart actually look like? Combing through the images I found during my research, the posterior view (back side) of the heart organ, anatomically carried the familiar lines and contours of the heart symbol in illustration. You know—the shapes we girls romantically draw in the sand, on paper and sometimes as the dot over the letter "i".

Who knew?

Now what—you might be asking? Nothing more really, other than to acknowledge the heart holistically. With equal breaths in-and-out, attention, healing and opening—front to back and back to front. The image of the heart etched in my brain. I will never be able to look at someone's back without also seeing—the back side of their heart.

Meet Yourself

If you ever have cause to wonder where you are on your journey, go outside into the world of people and—meet yourself there. In the safety and sanctuary of our private spaces, we can only come to know some parts of ourselves—usually the parts we like. The other parts become 'revealable' bumping up against others.

Yesterday I met myself at the corner gas station in an encounter/altercation with an angry man that quite frankly, rattled my sensibilities. The gas station, partly torn down, was creating a challenge for those of us wishing to use the three remaining pumps with two possible points of entry. All the pumps were full. I wasn't in any hurry, so I waited patiently for my turn. I move toward the first open pump and a woman swooped it and took it. Maybe she was there before me. I didn't see her and maybe she didn't see me. Practicing my best Mother Theresa impersonation, I let it go.

I evaluate the other two cars parked at the pumps, one man was just beginning to fill his car and the other was underway. A man pulls up behind me and I logically decide to pull forward and circle around to get in line behind that one further along in the process. This also allowed the guy behind me to keep the backend of his car from spilling out into the busy street.

Finally, the woman in front of me finishes and leaves. But before I can put my car in motion, the man who was behind me in the street, swoops in and blocks me from the pump. I can't believe this is happening. I calmly got out of my car to walk over and have what I thought was going to be a rational, polite conversation—which quickly turned to him spewing out his anger. He firmly stated that he was not going to move. It was a stand-off at the pumps.

From his perspective (and my 'I can't-get-a-word-in' attempt to explain), I was indecisive in choosing a pump. He's shouting and waving his hands in the air "Which one is it going to be lady?" I, on the other hand, didn't see it that way. I was by all accounts first in line for the three precious pumps. I soon realized that he was not open to listening—at all. My heart was pounding fueled by the rage coming out of his mouth. All I could think to say was (with no explanation mark), "You are an a--------." He of course, responded in kind.

The man next to us, still filling his tank, yelled out of his window to the pump-jumper, something along the lines of "Dude, that is so wrong." Other cars started to pour in from both directions. With my car facing in the wrong direction for my tank, I decide to walk over to the next two cars in line to let them know I needed to turn around, pointing over at the pump I was going take.

Ordinarily a situation like this wouldn't really affect me. For some inexplicable dip on the biorhythms chart, it cut through me like a knife. I felt completely helpless.

After my car was full with fuel and I was heading toward home, I began to cry.

There is a phrase "If it's hysterical it's historical." I knew what I was meeting at the pumps were a host of people in my history, where I felt physically and verbally defenseless. And lord knows what kind of day or life the angry man in the white truck was bringing to the moment.

With triggers like these, my mind races to the sanctuary of home with thoughts of never coming out again. More importantly, in times like this, there exists an opportunity to meet ourselves. A real-time look at what remains to be revealed and healed—if I am willing to meet myself there. And for you, if you are willing to meet yourself there, too.

Note: I went back this morning to photograph the gas station, finding all of the lanes open and the construction crew pulling up the last of the caution and closed signs.

The irony in timing—don't you just love it?

Quiet Mind

As my mind

 becomes a quieter,

gentler place, 

the noise

 from the outside world,

 seems to be getting 

louder.

Sometimes too loud.

The aWAKEning

Grief, like a boat motoring at sea, leaves behind in its path a wake. Similarly, in the wake of loss, grief doesn't travel a straight line to recovery. It carves through the range of emotions—from the deep waters at our bow, bruising past our once-even keel, and churning out the turmoil of rocky waters aft. And in those early moments of disbelief and despair, everything you thought you knew—has been lost at sea.

As the wake fans out behind the boat, with time and distance, so follow our emotions. Softening the turbulent churn, smoothing out the sharp ripples and waves of feelings. Not that we ever forget. However, as the saying goes "time heals all wounds."

How long and how far must we go to restore equilibrium? That's anyone's guess, as we are all individual in our processes of recovery and our life journey.

As the wake lessens—the life lessons begin to appear, like a clear horizon after the storm. In my own navigation with loss, I have found this to be profoundly true. This is the year of my—aWAKEning.