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