Morphing Acceptance

Acceptance. I do love the texture of words. Acceptance is a most mindful word. But, like the word "love" used so much I wonder if like "love" it has lost its texture. I recall a friend within a five minute span saying "I love this hot dog" and "I love you." I laughed to think of myself squeezed between two buns swimming in mustard, ketchup, and relish.

Today, I think I shall morph "acceptance" into "respect." I wonder if the world has woven "acceptance" into a burden to be carried and weighting us down under the load. To "respect" is to honor. Honor for what is. Its roots refer to relationship, regard, and literally to "look at." Ahhhh, to truly look at this moment, experience, feelings with relationship, regard, and consideration. Yes, I think today I shall practice respect.

Scissored Wings

With fondness the image returned of my little marionettes I had as a child. I vividly recalled asking them if they would like me to pull their strings so they could dance. Then the mind shifted to Peter Pan and the magic and awe of childlike wonder...learning I too can fly. Perhaps only a sign of my age to recall such stories. But this morning, this day, old or not, may I find the middle path between the two. To honor myself and not allow either myself or others to create strings and make me jump, like a gunfighter shooting at my feet shouting “Dance!” Nor can I avoid the honoring of myself and others by escaping and leaving my heart’s contracts and service undone. To recall how love and truth released Pinocchio from his strings and Peter Pan's eternal flame of dreams. This day, may I touch myself and all others with Love’s scissored wings and fill the sky with hearts of joy, wonder, compassioned truth and Now.

Shadowed Pondering

Today I am on 24 hour call with the volunteer group for domestic violence. Today two feedings for the birds and squirrels the blizzard snow has not completely melted and they had a frigid night and early morning. Today, during meditation, I asked the sweet Hands of Life, that the calls would be silent, not because I do not want to respond, but that the need would not be there. Today I longed to walk but will wait for warmth and better paths and have to remain within a cell phone range.

               Today I wanted to honor last night’s longing to sit and write. So many threads waiting the loom’s weaving. Little sprouts from seeds planted in clay pots, pushing their way through the soil. I have been like a new parent, counting stems and leaves instead of fingers and toes. Some have emerged through the earth’s seams. Another, I call Atlas Shrugged, pushed up only to be weighted by a clod of earth. I watched as the tiny stem lifted the clod on top of its clumped fist of two leaves. The next morning, the clod was tossed to the side creating a lean-too, beneath which was another tiny sprout ready to emerge. Courtesy of Atlas, it would do so free of the clod. Do I write of the metaphors and threads from such tiny growths? Do I write of these little miracles that make me laugh and my heart sigh?

               Do I write of the wonder of how snow and ice melt when the temperature is 27 degrees but the sun is shining? Below freezing… water freezes at 32 degrees… so why is the blizzard’s snow and ice melting? If I fill the ice trays with water and put them in the freezer the ice becomes water. Even colder outside and the ice and snow are melting… beneath the presence of the sun.

               Do I write of the image that remains embedded in my mind, longing to be developed, to push through the earthen mind and sprout? The image of becoming the chalice, no longer the cup bearer. To see the transformation that I AM a chalice. I hold the light of communion with the All That Is…the sweet Hands of Life. My body is the chalice containing the light, love, joy and energy of Life, swirling and spilling, rolling like waves as I move and experience each moment. No longer do I see myself as simply the bearer of the cup, the sacred cup that must be handed to another who is worthy. No longer am I simply the servant who bears the cup. I AM the chalice. In truth, no one can carry the experiences of my life, the lessons, the scars, the joys, the love learned, parted, renounced and yet never absent that make up my chalice. No one can carry the gratitude nor laugh the way I do.  No one will see the world or experience nature the way of this chalice. Only I AM worthy of carrying this chalice. In carrying the chalice I become the chalice. That union, that union alone creates the unique experience of Life expressed through me. Servant and holder. Human and sacred. Bearer and embraced. The liturgy complete only in the union of cupbearer and chalice, as me.

               Or do I write, as I sit and look out at melting snow and ice that should be frozen, and the birds flocking to feed, of the shadowed Canadian Goose feather that fell behind the white Pelican feather both from the lake which I would love to walk this day? A squirrel hops across the snow that is melting, reaches with his tiny little hands to place a peanut in his mouth. Now he scampers, with the peanut dangling like an oversized cigar. Visually, he stops just above the white Pelican feather at a mound of snow with slivers of grass fingers sticking up, and begins to bury the peanut rather than eating.  I do not know about the writing part, but of all the threads, I shall sit with my hands wrapped around a hot cup of coffee and ponder shadow feathers of black and white. I shall ponder a peanut buried into snow that should be frozen but is giving drink to the earth, and see what little sprout will emerge in the earthen chalice of my heart.

Namaste sweet Life…. I bow to you.

The Man

My father today, began his new journey. His work upon this earth was done.  And yet, it is not my father that calls forth this thread, it is the man.  It is the man, imperfect yet undaunted by his imperfections that gave me a strength I might not have known and in a way taught me to be gentle with my own. It is the man he was, though often not eye to eye did we see, but somehow we managed still to see.  A father yes, who will be missed, but it was the man, imperfect, loving, flawed yet true to himself that taught my heart to forgive, love, and the sweet sadness of missing another. One can say we only have one father..... but it was the man he was that taught me to see and seek 'fathers' and 'mothers' and 'brothers' and 'sisters' in all others. And so to the man, Namaste my friend, my Dad.... I bow my body and my neck, with open hands to my heart in gratitude for the man who shaped the woman that I am.  I will miss you.

Love,
your proud daughter
Monday November 12, 2012
p.s. you are free

Remembered Peace

It is odd the things you think about on an anniversary such as this. I was working with an international accounting firm in their small corporateTennessee office.  The home office was in the Twin Towers in New York. Most of our day was spent on the phone with our colleagues in New York. This day, eleven years ago, was no different.  Talking with a young man, Chris, I did so enjoy, I heard the screams, including his before the call went silent. Looking around I could see the other women staring at their phones that also went silent.  The managing partner came to our area to tell us the news and that we could all go home. 

No one moved. I gathered the twelve women who worked for me, and we sat in silence. What can you say? Twelve women, so many miles away, yet stunned in disbelief.  Quietly, I told them to remember the promise of the rainbow. That no matter how devastating the storm, we are promised the rainbow. Clasping my hands to my heart, I bowed to them, and whispered, Shalom.  In unison, twelve women, who probably never had placed their hands to their hearts and bowed, did so, an in unison, whispered, Shalom and returned to their homes.  Days later one of the ladies came to me and asked the meaning of the bow. Smiling I explained, it was a way of honoring them, their hearts, their hope, and their fears. Her eyes filled with tears as she said she could not remember ever being honored.

My cell phone rang, it was Chris, frantic in tears. He knew no one else to call. His boss had just called from California and had literally bought a car so he could drive back to New York, rentals were not available. In shock, he asked me what he should be doing to protect the company’s assets and records. I could hear the sirens and noise from where he stood outside. Quietly I whispered, for him to just hold the phone so I could hear him breathe and for him to concentrate and listen to my breath.  Together we stood, he in the mass confusion and shock in downtown New York and I in a small Tennessee town,  doing nothing but listening to the other breathe.  I interrupted the silence with an occasional whisper of “I am here.”  His breathing would calm, then begin to race, I would whisper, his breath would calm. Finally, when his breath seemed calm, I whispered for him to get somewhere safe, and to know I would not leave him.  Several times during the day and days that followed, he would call, say hello, I need to breathe.  Together, for a few minutes, we would breathe.

Odd, the things you remember. So so many memories on this day.  The world changed. Our lives changed. But even after all these years, two constants remain unforgotten. The power of honoring another and the quiet stillness of listening to another breathe, drawing in their breath of pain and fear.   On that day, and the days that followed, the shocked world seemed a bit more kind. Some devastations are global. Others are microaggressions daily endured.  Just a little over a year later, standing near the site where the towers stood, bowing I laid the flower the woman handed me, and with a bow, asked me to leave.  Standing upright, Chris and I started to leave.  He stopped, went back, picked up the flower and offered it, and a twenty dollar bill around its stem, to an old man who appeared obviously homeless.   He smiled at me and with a tearful wink, whispered, “Still breathing.” 

With body bent and bowed, like the promised rainbow, hands to my heart, to all on this day, Shalom, peace, salaam, and the prayer that every day, we sit and hear the world breathing.

So you can see

The base of my honor stone, Namaste, could not keep it upright.  Straightening it became a ritual, a chance to remember, and whisper yet again, ‘Namaste.”  Today, the earth gifted another as I walked pondering the seasons and time.  This one shaped like a heart.  As soon as I saw it, I knew where it belonged.  The soft gentle whisper of ‘Namaste’ written on the second stone, to honor the first that grew wings and then became a fish in the waters of life, needed a heart. 

Two stones, heavy and hard against the wall of adobe.  One offers honor.  The other gifts the hearth’s strength.  The earthen wall supports them both.  And feathered reminders of softness and flight.  Earth, stone  and sky.  Honor without heart cannot stand. Together, surrendered to the earth, they have wings.  Stones of life, so you can see the whispered painting of Life,  when I say,

"In Lak' ech".... you are my other me

Namaste….  

Windbow eulogy

Sometimes the morning awakens such thoughts. Why I looked up the word "eulogy" I do not know. It is a speech or writing honoring or praising something or someone.


What if each footprint I leave upon the earth was read as my eulogy to the earth? What if each word I spoke to others was my eulogy to them? What if each action and choice I made, witnessed by others, was the eulogy they heard me give to life, peace, meaning, and sacred? What if I saw my life as a eulogy to all I hold dear? What would others hear? How would the sweet Hands of Life be praised?


And so, today, may every breath, like windbows in the sky, carry forth my eulogy.

What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life. - Walt Whitman

Sat nam
I bow to the essence of being 

Intention

I confess I am a person of symbols.  Symbols are both the spokes in the wheel of life and the stick that slows the turning so we can see.  The ‘why’ is not important, just something I needed to do.

 So what do you write on a stone, to state your intention to life, before you return it to the water of life dancing in the lake?  

I could think of only one word and wrote it on the stone.  My eyes would not focus quickly enough to watch the stone fly but I did find the ripples.  

Gathering another, I wrote my intention and gathered small stones – one for each letter. 

In the fight, the surrender, and every breath in between, to be a stone that learned to fly and swim, carrying but one message to life….  I honor you.