What If ...

What if Heaven is

Exactly the same

As the life I’ve known,

Only in that state

I can fully appreciate

And see the beauty in Everything -

Each moment,

Each person,

Each flower.

And what if Hell is

Watching myself live

My one precious life

In some trancelike state,

Distracted from the blessing of

All the beauty in Everything -

Each moment,

Each person,

Each flower.

On CBS Sunday Morning this week, there was a review of play Our Town. When Emily dies and is granted the wish to see one day of her life, her 12th birthday, she is amazed that her family is there together once more and can't really see how precious those moments are. The reviewer said something like, "We can't really be that conscious every moment, because then we wouldn't be living the moment, we'd be ..." and the person he was speaking to said, "tweeting about it."

It is a beautiful day. May I be aware of the blessing of each moment.   

Fortieth Anniversary

Your presence was like yesterday’s bread,
Gone stale and unappreciated.
I needed to fast, to cleanse my senses of habitual indulgence.
I took pleasure in the severity of my fast,
My solitude, the space around my body.
The snugness of seclusion comforted me.
I learned, perhaps for the first time, of my Self,
And began to feel at home in my solitary form.

Now once more I savor your nearness, your warmth and wit.
Separation brought again the desire to draw close to you,
To treasure the freshness of each day’s bread with you.
There is newness in this hunger, this desire to be close,
Yet the Self I discovered still needs a solitary sphere.
As we journey into the forty-first year of our covenant, let us add a vow:
To love, honor and cherish the boundaries that separate us
As well as the ties that bind.


I promise to succor and surrender you,
To reinforce and relinquish you,
To enable and emancipate you,
To nurture and release you,
As long as we both shall live.
February, 1996

 In Chapter 8 of Passage, I wrote of a healing session with Sharry Lachman regarding my relationship with my husband, Fred. Going through chemotherapy treatment intensified and brought out many old issues and patterns. It became clear to me that these had health consequences and needed to be dealt with. I was so fortunate to have Sharry to help me do that. The above poem was written 3 years before my diagnosis. The promise it speaks of, the surrender and release, is still a struggle some days.

A funny thing happened on Friday after I posted my blog. I opened my new Time magazine to a Verizon ad with the caption, "Suddenly the only thing holding you back is nothing." Think I should sue?

What is Holding Me Back?

Nothing.
No thing.
Nothing is holding me back!
Not back. Nothing is holding me.
Holding me, as a mother holds her child.

This poem begins Chapter 7 in Passage: Illness as Initiation. A psychotherapy session with Sharry Lachman brings forward and heals childhood hurts. The second chemo session brings issues with the doctor and staff. An energy healing session with Bob Goings soothes. I sleep and dream of how my tumors are  dissolving.

Friend's Transition

This morning I got word that Fred Lanphear, (http://elderfred.wordpress.com/) breathed his last difficult breath last night after 3 years of having A.L.S. Saying goodbye to friends has been a major feature of being in my 70's. Fred was husband of my dear friend Nancy. My love and thoughts are with her today

I used to make fun of 20th century Christians who still believed in the 3-story heaven-earth-hell universe. Now I find great comfort in the thought of Suzanne and her dad, "my" Fred, waiting for me "on the far-side banks of Jordan." when I get there. I now believe in infinite universes, coming into being as we imagine them.

About 15 years ago,  my Fred (d.2008) and I visited Joyce (d.1998) and David (d.2009) Reese in Chickasha, OK.They showed us the beautiful garden Fred L.(d.last night) had designed and helped them build. Fred L. had a Ph.D. in agronomy and did wonderful things with plants on many continents.

My fantasy this morning was of Joyce and David, Fred McGuire and daughter Suzanne greeting Fred Lanphear with great joy. A gospel song came to mind. "Won't it be wonderful there?"

FUNNY ABOUT FEAR

I find fascination at the center of fear,
A thrill in the knotted stomach, the sweaty palms.
I think, “Aha! I knew this was going to happen to me someday.”
And that strikes me as funny.


Laughter pulls my mind back from irrationality.
Blood pumps into my paralyzed limbs.
I draw upon what I know, what I can do to respond to the crisis,
And that strikes me as wonderful.

Thus begins Chapter 6 of Passage: Illness as Initiation. It's ready. I'm ready.
 
The quote in the poem is from a Gilda Radner movie, when she and Gene Wilder's character were flying over the Grand Canyon in a small plane and the pilot dies of a heart attack. First came adamant denial, "He's not dead." When G.W. said, "I knew this was going to happen to me someday," I laughed till I hurt. And the thing about humor: it is, like God, at the heart of everything.

The Call, the Battle, the Retreat

Nestled near the Sierra's upward thrust,
Safe in our dream home,
Our four young ones were secure,
Our childhood fantasies fulfilled.

Each image on the news made a crack in our fortress:
Young ones bombed in Sunday school, fire hoses turned on innocents,
Our leader's riderless horse and fatherless children,
A little girl burned by our bombs, running naked, trying to escape her pain.
After the mule cart pulled a peaceful warrior to his resting place
And we saw Bobby dying on the kitchen floor,
Our dream ended.

When one dream ends, Life affords another to take its place
Called to action, we left without a backward glance.
Finding comrades-in-arms, we waged war on old images.
We labored for a future when all children, not just ours, would be safe and secure,
But an enemy lurked within.
Grandiosity feeds addiction; addictions defeated this dream.
We retreated to await another,
Once again near the Sierra's upward thrust.
Do you remember the 60's? This poem, with which Chapter 5 in my book begins, is an attempt to explain why my husband Fred and I pulled up stakes, moved to Brazil in 1968, then joined the staff of the Ecumenical Institute in 1970. We ran from the devastating tv images, hoping our response would make a difference in history. The addictions were both personal and in the culture of our community, as addictions always are. But that's another story. The community we found in the Ecumenical Institute, later also incorporated as the Institute of Cultural Affairs, has educated, nurtured and sustained me for 40 years in sickness and in health. What a gift. I also want to express gratitude for A.A. and AlAnon. The 12 Steps saved our family life.

MAIDEN FLIGHT

The Night-Sky-Horse comes for me
In broad daylight, barely visible.
I spread my arms, now wings,
And fly with him.

Alone, I could not do it,
But transported by this Vision,
Lifted in a spiral,
I circle high.

Exquisitely sensitive
To the sweet currents that carry me;
Sustained still by the One
Who upholds all.


Time is gone, past and future,
There is only now, this moment of
Release, of freedom from
Hours and history.


Each detail below is mine,
Broad valley and life-giving river,
Borne, not by my power,
But by my powerlessness.

Following an account of a hypnotherapy session that involved a past life healing in Chapter 3, I began Chapter 4 with this poem, based on a shamanic journey to the "upper world." aboard my white Pegasus.The poem can still put me in an altered state. What a lucky girl I am!