Rabble

                                                                 Rabble

A woman who did something truly terrible (that I heard about in the local news) called me for an appointment today. She was bereft, miserable and lost, crying to me in the way people cry when hope is almost gone.

I knew immediately that I would not be counseling her myself. 

I knew it deep in me. Besides the fact that I can't work with this population, and I knew I could not take a case like this in my current predicament, I knew it was not my purpose to be her therapist. 

My purpose was triage.

A friend of mine had recently told me that she knew this 50 year old woman really well; she told me what had happened........the whole notorious, sorted, aweful story that had lead my friend to sever all ties and turn her back on the mess. 

What she did was a terrible thing. Unforgiveable. Yet as we spoke and she cried, I felt only desperately sad for her. Really sad. Instead of the emotional distance that would have been a normal response to her admission, I felt only a deep desire to help her, to let her know that I care about her pain and want her to feel better.

I related to her feelings of isolation and abandonment. Everyone in her life had turned their backs: her friends, family, even her own child....all she has is her grief and her attorney.

I have not lost anyone, there is no comparison at all, and yet I seemed to identify with her loss; her sense of of the whole world turning upside down in only moments because of a terrible, ridiculously foolish impulse. I know I am not like her, I could and would never do what she did. It was the product of avarice, but as I talked to her and started trying to find ways to get her help, all I felt was empathy and sorrow for her. 

I felt strangely close to her.

Here was one stupid human crying out to another stupid human in a world full of stupid people....blundering through this life like proverbial bulls in a china shop.

Fucking up, hurting themselves....hurting others. Burning down the house.

Yet, I just felt a strong pull to care for her and try to ease her burden.

So I prayed for her and I found her a therapist.

Unlike everyone else in her world right now, oddly I didn't feel the impulse to judge her. Which is totally NOT like me.

I am terribly judgemental

Everyday

Sometimes in direct, snarky ways and sometimes in soft, covert ways.

Subterranian and underground judgements.\

Judgy and on my high horse is my usual stance with people like this.

I make fun of people in my head who do stupid things.

I feel superior, or at least smug.....

But not right now.

It is as if this nasty habit had been pruned off of me, and the new growth underneath; 

The new green leaves

Are more tender, more bright, more soft.

Less stubbly.

As I write this, I am thinking about what Source has in mind with is pruning of me? I have absolutely had the feeling that something has been happening here in my time of solitude and reflection. In my time of longing for God. 

I am thinking about new growth that is coming (I believe it is) and how it might change the trajectory of my life. How when I help people like this who feel sorrow raining down on them (sorrow of their own making, albeit), I can be the one who does not turn away.

The lepers, the untouchables, the foulest ones among us.

The troublemakers.

Those who hurt the innocents.

I feel sure that Source will reveal what this means for me as time goes on, but for now I want to speak to this page this new feeling in me.

I want to say that we are all equally awful and equally whole and good.

What trouble one of us knits....is the thread of us all.

And when one of us feels the soothing touch of Source,

We all feel it.

Here we all sit, in prisons of our own making

And yet we all have the keys to our own dark cells.

And we can share these keys sometimes....

Or at least pass a cup of water back and forth between the bars.

Our Divinity never abandons us

Our compassion is our connector

The thing that awakens us to this fact is making the choice

Every day

And when it is not easy to do it...

To make the choice to Love.

Even when those we encounter are the unloveable

The refuse

The lost causes

That woman today was just like me in the respect that, regardless of how dirty her hands were by her own actions, she still wants to be loved and healed, and she still feels the anguish of the twisted turn of life's knife.

And Source said....."Love her" and I obeyed..... and this makes me grateful.

I am awake enough, thanks to my own pain,

Indeed thanks to my own pruning.....

Awake enough in my own Soul to be brave 

and just Love.

All this life is

All living is about is 

the machinations of us humans mucking around and sometimes stubbing our toes.

Poking each other in the eyes

But Source decrees that all this matters not.

Somewhere,

In all of us,

Forever clean and untarnished

Is our Source-selves.

Our forever pure part, 

Our Holy Spirit-generated, light-filled selves.

Our thimble full of Divinity

Never spoiled by our stupidity, toe stubbing, innane mischief and outright meanness.

Clean and sweet as the first sip from a cool spring.

It can never be ruined by anything we do down here in Earth School.

Nothing touches or ruins the Source in us. Ever.

I believe I spoke with that part of her today, I could feel that she was still clean and whole in that pool of shit where she is swimming in misery.

I tried to put my hand down into her dark place and send a little love,  from that same clean place in me. 

And I think we both came someway today.

HEART-SHATTERED LIVES, 

READY FOR LOVE,

DON'T FOR A MOMENT,

ESCAPE GOD'S NOTICE.

Psalm 51:17

To One Who Is My Tribe

To One Who is My Tribe

 I am sitting in the back seat of a slime green Corvair, with Sonny in the front passenger seat and you driving. There is a hole in the floor board as big as a grapefruit, and occasionally out of curiosity I lift the mat and  watch the asphalt scrolling by.

 It's morning 

We are going to school and we are singing...

"We all live in a little green turtle, a little green turtle, a little green turtle" to the tune of Yellow Submarine.

There is no heat in the turtle, Sonny has scraped ice off the windshield with a piece of plastic. You have to keep the window down because the fog keeps reforming as you wipe a hole in it so you can see, still singing.

We don't care. Somehow it always just feels like a fun adventure.....we crack jokes and laugh at ourselves and that silly car.

Breakfast was an Instant Breakfast milkshake we made fixed in a dirty kitchen.

I don't care about that either. That is just how it is at home, and if you don't care then I don't care.....

Our driving is the best time of my day...

Your brown hair is thick; falling in soft curls over the headrest. Earlier  in the morning, I sat and watched you at home, methodically taking orange juice can rollers out of your hair and putting on makeup. As each would unroll, a golden brown curl would fall down and you would fluff it, rat it and pin it into a beautiful mane. 

I don't remember what happens next, but most likely you dropped me at Starkey before taking the two of you on to school.  I just remember laughter and singing and jokes and love. 

The three of us start our day, and I carry  a little bit of your confidence and surliness with me into class. I know I belong there with you and Sonny.

I know you are my tribe.

I came on the scene later in our family. I missed your early years but the stories were always being told and I knew from very young that you were the glue, the rock, the one who could both hold things together and also keep the light of hope on for your brother and sisters. 

And so this is who you were to me. Almost 60 years later with grey hair and a few wrinkles added to the mix, essentially the principles remain unchanged. 

And here is what you teach me.....

Poke fun at the bad shit in life

Celebrate the wonder

Take care of each other

Turn the weirdness of life into a badge of honor

Relentlessly learn

Give more than you have to give

Lead with humor

And to the winds of pain......pitch back you head and laugh

Happy Birthday Nita 

Each and All of Us

Each and All of Us 

This is my supposition.........

All things are woven together by a Seamstress somewhere

All the songs 

Here and everywhere

Are composed by a Composer

Who has me in mind. 

Someone is keeping a journal of my times.

I am not alone here.

Furthermore, no one is alone here.

Not me, living with a heart full of holes:

 

Not Henry, who is laying in a pile of covers growing older and older;

Not Coy, pushing his truck and trailer for hours through my living room, lost 

     in the joy of his young mind's story.

Not the pretty snail that Phoebe stepped on and crushed;

Not the crab spider waiting for the wasp who is exploring a thistle;

Not the perfectly formed white mushroom we found beneath a sky of tall grass;

Not the equally perfect white crawfish shell when life has gone; 

Not Chris working to make he and Sarah a perfect home; 

Not Bridget loving her stubborn husband and painting another new room 

    at another new job he took them to;

Not the solitary sun perch who lives alone in my fish tank with three fat, dirigible

    gold fish;

Not Phyllis spending 80+ years in a body that barely works, and a voice that

    strains to speak;

Not Kenzie, with her three blonde pups wrestling in a mountain of blankets 

    and not in one moment does she deny them her love;

And not the silver back gorilla who died by a strike of lightening while sleeping

     in the canopy of the rainforest......

We all live, as best we can; we feel the joy of an unexpected good day and the the sting of suffering that comes just as quickly. And yet, we are not alone. Something, or someone, or SOMEONES, are around each of us.

Aware of us, hovering above......I think even loving us. 

If we share nothing else, us humans, snails, mushrooms and apes.....

We share a common thread or a few common notes in a bigger song.

An Ancient Choir

Or a Son, 

A Brother, Mother, Father, a Friend...around us through each step. 

This idea sustains me.

 

Chicken bath

Chicken Bath

Dear Ian,

This morning I was reading about the Zen of chickens taking a dust bath; how they growl with pleasure quite uncharacteristic of them in daily life. They find some soft, dry dirt and root around until there is a nice hole, where they commence to rolling like fools. For a while, they dig down and rub their entire selves in the dust...head, beak, neck and body....they flop and wiggle to get complete coverage and seem to enjoy themselves mightily. My day starts out nice as I read by the fire I lit this morning. I built it last night knowing how good it would feel to just get up and set it to blaze.

Mariana, Hudson and Kam brought up a load of firewood Saturday for me, and I bask in that memory for  a moment; little feet and boy-arms helping me, and my surrogate daughter sharing a few hours of mayhem and rowdiness all over the house. Acting crazy, then helping me, then acting like raging Indians again....and Mariana on watch to keep them from breaking anything. 

Grace is always sufficient, some say. I think this sentiment is better expressed by my sage son Chris, who noted recently, "She is just figuring it out, like all of us."  He was talking about his sweet sister, Kenzie, but it could be said of Mariana, or Hud, or Kam, or me. I think it does apply to us all. 

I am most definitely still just figuring it out, like everyone else...Sorting through the daily experiences and feelings of being a human being, now in older skin, watching the years tick by and learning to thrive despite the marks left on me. I have buried my parents, several friends and compatriots,  Bailey and Ollie, my marriage......

And I buried you.

I have to pause for a second when I write those two words. 

Breath....... keep writing, Faith.

In spite of these misfortunes, Ian,  despite the ravages of losing you to me here on Earth...I am happy to report to you that I have started to recover. It is as awkward as a chicken rolling in dirt....and by no means finished, but I have even resurrected a desire to have fun. 

I want life again.

I have stirred up some dust and in the process have found gratitude and grace again.

Gratitude, for example, that you stuck so close to me during the early years after transitioning. Nothing ever prepared me-not my studies, not my faith, not my weird curiosity and openness to strange ideas-nothing prepared me for how steadfast and purely miraculous it was to be that you showed yourself, over and over. You found people to use as portals; you found ways to transcend physical law and take care of me. 

No other person in my life has ever loved me in this way. Source had a hand in it, but your fierce love and loyalty was written all over those years, Biggun. I feel oddly smug and proud that I was able to rise up, straighten my back enough to receive the signals..... even through my curtain of pain.

And I am learning to really enjoy my adult Chris and Kenzie. It is a revelation! Yesterday I watched Kenzie as we ate lunch in Menard. 

She had no makeup on and was so beautiful. 

Clearly tired from another all-nighter with Trapper, she never complains. In fact she is the least whiny young Mom I have ever met, and she still seems to really enjoy herself and the boys. I think it is marvelous how she is so determined and yet loving. From her I am learning new ways to be strong.

She connects, allows herself to be emersed, and basks in those boys, even when she is exhausted.

I wish I could gather her up in my arms and make life easier; but that is not my business. My business, I am finally discovering, is to accept her fiercely, love and lift her in prayer privately, and step in when I can, as her sometimes back stage helper. That is all she needs. I see the radiant girl in her more than ever, doing what she has always excelled at......loving her tribe. 

And Chris, oh my Chris. So deep-like a sweet well that no one has reached to the bottom of, and never will. Like a secret garden that I just see in glimpses over a tall fence. Occasionally i get to visit him there, but he does not like Momma-probing; in fact it sends him running away quicker than anything, even when it is just innocent love on my part. When there is a little moment when he lets me in, all the pain of this life dissolves and I see the workings of his good heart and miraculous mind. There is only goodness in him, and I bask in how he is "figuring it all out" himself and I see through his artistic mind and whimsical humor, how he keeps the boy inside him thriving. 

They are different, they are wildly individualistic, adventurous, and unique. Watching them seize life and bask in it is the best gift I have ever been given. I am fed by it.

I am also fed and affirmed in little moments, like when Hudson came back for a fourth goodbye hug and Coy scooted closer to me in his chair,  and with Trapper's slobbery kisses. I feel the truth of it pierce my pain like a happy arrow.

Naturally all along this new way  I feel you, my blue-eyed love ambassador. I felt you this weekend birding and talking to Hudson, and I felt you making a homemade bow and arrow set with him. You were there.

And I want you to know especially, that I feel the gift of perseverance you have taught me these last six years;  aware constantly of the mystery of how you share your energy with me, (from where ever the hell your current incarnation has taken you), and you keep showing up. (I hope someday I get to know how you can do that!)

Until then Ian, 

Carpe Diem. 

Another morning comes 

And I am that chicken taking my own dust bath.

 Someone watching might think it all a weird pursuit from which I take irrational joy. A messy, rowdy, imperfect rolling in the particles of living and learning on this Earth. 

It is not. 

I say to the other chickens, 

                                                                         It is a baptism.

I love you Ian. 

                                                                                                              Mom

Alchemy

Alchemy

Christmas Eve.

It's very early.

Old Henry woke me up at 4:30 to pee, and I'm glad he did.

It's raining and mild, and the open back door is a speaker, inviting in a lovely sound. 

Also, the smell jolts me. It is cleansing and viseral. 

I have built a fire for company, and meanwhile inside the fireplace on some piece of metal,  rain thumps like a tiny drum. Louder toming is coming from the eaves outside.

Ian's chimes join in. To all the world, it is as if  music is playing as I sit with old Henry and read.

Finished the book The Alchemist, one of many that Bridget and Jamie left me when they moved back to England. It's a preachy little book, but I like the message. It is about our connection, through heart and intuition, with the Soul of the Universe. It is about our life contracts. It is about remembering to listen to the beating of the one grand heart that  is within; the one we all share.

Alchemy is finding out what we all forget.....that we are not alone.

Alchemy is transmuting the basic corporeal nature of something by summoning the truth of the greater nature of EVERYTHING.  Changing the basic elements of anything by tuning into the inner Soul of Universe. If literal alchemy is a myth; a holy grail sought for ions, then spiritual alchemy is transforming the deadness and  pain of current circumstance into blissful peace, by discovering the truth of who we are. Turning lead to gold is not nearly as miraculous as turning anguish into joy by the shear mining of this precious metal.

Following the thread of that is the thing..... 

As best as I can figure, we make lovely plans on the other side, sometimes with the help other souls, and then land here on Earth with a SPLAT, (which must be confusing);  fragmenting and jumbling things up on purpose, so as to have a new go at life......

The trick is to put the puzzle back together in new ways. Maybe to find again, our "True, original course" (thanks you WH Auden). 

We beat our heads against the obstacles of humanness....sometimes we don't get through this exercise.....but then sometimes we do.

Here is the fun part.

All this is about  an invitation to expand Love (with a big L, not a little one), because Love is it....the Alpha and the Omega. Life, the Universe and Everything. The jet fuel and the airplane, and all the passengers.....

Love is the whole enchilada. By giving into it; by finding it.....we keep creating it. 

It is Alchemy, because we must cook it up over and over again, with the ingredients  that life offers.....sweet,  savory.......or bitter as gall. If God is a great big gorilla, we souls are the beating heart of her.

I might have engaged in some alchemy myself this Christmas. Since nothing has been as I would wish these last six years, and since my efforts to turn my life around through my own muscle have largely been an abysmal failure, I seem to have resorted to holding my breath, jumping overboard and abandoning ship. 

 I follow the most basic instinct I have. Love.

Let's just say this...only love can come in and wipe clean the chalkboard of my worried mind.

Remind me to forget expectation.

Be humble.

Let it  all go.

Surrender, for I am out of bullets.

Love the rain, and the fire, and old Henry instead.

Love my  three precious children as they are.....out there living their best lives.

Bask in that thought. Release them from the prison of my expectations and see the beauty of their independence and choice. Just love them. 

Get quiet, peaceful and still, open up and find the thread again. As I do this, I notice that the strain of it all eases up for a bit, desperation sighs, yawns and goes to sleep. From within, some other kind of love just comes back. It is a bigger, broader feeling....a different animal, one so expansive it must come from somewhere else entirely. 

I have come to think of it as a spring or a well, where the water is sweeter, more pure. Infinite. In my solitude I plumb the depths of it. Perhaps turn things upside down for a fresh look.

Maybe  untethering myself from the prison of desire,  the wild bird of abundance can take flight? 

She is a beauty, she is..... Perhaps my love is her liberation?

Maybe then at her whimsy, she will alight on my worthy heart and build a nest there.

And even lay a few tiny eggs. 

Meanwhile the rain agrees.....

And  takes it's leave.....

As comes the alchemy of dawn