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Power Tool For Change #4 – “PRAYER”

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I have a friend who is in the hospital having surgery today.

I am praying for him, his physicians and his family.

When I chose this photograph to complement my writing today, I did it because of the sense of REACH in the sculpture.

Her neck is yearning toward distant pastures..

But is that really prayer?

Is it the action of going outside ourselves for something?

I’m just asking, here, because it’s interesting territory and I watch myself continually going elsewhere for the blessings of GRACE.

I do know from my own experience, that we, humans, are not the be-all-end-all.

We think we are and that is dangerous at best.

For my friend, I want legions of angels and archangels whispering in the ears of his weary doctors and all the detritus of the mundane world OUT of that room as he rests in a state of uncomplicated willingness to allow the invasion happening to him.

I pray for his ease of recovery and for the results he desires to be forthcoming.

Is this life-experience all our own illusion?

I don’t really know.

What I do know is that I need help along this path.

And when I am pure of heart (meaning asking from a non-ego position), assistance is there for me.

It often comes in a decidedly different costume than I had imagined.

But with time on it, I see that my own intelligence could carry me only so far and the gift of it was a few steps further.

Like the health challenges I swim in these days..

Who would’ve thought up this screwy plan to make me stop and undertake this graduate course in refining my life into a package authentically reflective of me?

And yet.. my prayers have always centered around the desire to BECOME REAL.

So, who’s to know?

Today, I pray for peace and healing for my friend.

Whatever that looks like.

Power Tool For Change #3 – “TRIBE”

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My friends are my gold.

The fact that these particular humans are in my sphere is my greatest achievement.

I invite people into my life for a variety of reasons but the foundation is respect.

Oh yeah.. and the fact I don’t have to (or want to) edit myself with them.

Over this past week as I moved, they have shown up for me in ways that have opened my heart multi-fold.

Cleaning, restaurant-going, listening, driving, dog walking, cleaning some more, packing, laughing, crying..the whole shebang.

I ask myself: “What did I do to deserve this wealth?”

The answer seems to be that I BECAME REAL.

Only then could they find me.

Only then could I recognize them.

When you choose change or it just happens willy-nilly without invitation, make darn sure you don’t do it alone.

My tribe is patient with me.

They know that asking for help is tough for me.

But they keep telling me that f I don’t get the hang of it soon, we ALL lose.

Funny, the adage that it is really the GIVER of service who receives the most in return seems to be spot on..

I don’t know.. the coffers of my heart are darn nigh spilling over..

Chaos

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If you came to my door this morning and entered my home for the first time, if you were a truly intelligent sort you’d leave immediately..

CHAOS!!!!!! EVERYWHERE!!!!!

Boxes and stuff and melted snow (storm last night) and a freaked out chihuahua and a limping woman and a half eaten avocado and a broken vase and a list of storage space prices and a huge pile of treasures that will blessedly belong to someone else tomorrow after they get to Goodwill…

MY LIFE!!!

MY PRECIOUS LIFE!

It is oozing into other environs..

I know it knows the way.

But I lost the map somewhere in this catastrophe..

Bear with me this next week as I find home..

xxx…

Finding Home

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COMING HOME

by Mary Oliver

When we’re driving, in the dark,
on the long road
to Provincetown, which lies empty
for miles, when we’re weary,
when the buildings
and the scrub pines lose
their familiar look,
I imagine us rising
from the speeding car,
I imagine us seeing
everything from another place — the top
of one of the pale dunes
or the deep and nameless
fields of the sea —
and what we see is the world
that cannot cherish us
but which we cherish,
and what we see is our life
moving like that,
along the dark edges
of everything — the headlights
like lanterns
sweeping the blackness —
believing in a thousand
fragile and unprovable things,
looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping
barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me.

*****

I found my new home yesterday..

It is small.

And so bright with SUN!!

And quiet.

My small loveseat covered in white linen will sit in the bay window.

There is a big brick porch.

With chairs and an umbrella.

The walls are smooth plaster.

And the floor is sealed earth.

My dog has grasses and stones and trees to explore.

Without me. On her own.

The kitchen holds only one.

Or two, if you really like each other.

I feel safe there.

It has a presence I recognize and trust.

I can heal there.

I will heal there.

Ordinary

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My life is moving very fast.

The public speaking seminar I just completed was wonderfully inspiring and intense.

My home has sold and I need to find a place to live within two weeks.

I know what to do when the anxiety of ‘too much’ rings my doorbell…

I return to the earth.

Start at square one..

Get dirt under my fingernails.

Sit on it. Smell it. Notice it. Let it take me.

I created the piece shown above from earth I gathered on a trip to Utah.

I travelled solo and was happy just spending a few days lookin’ around and driving..

Wind- in- my- hair kind of thing.

The kind of days when you just look up to where you think God might be and say out loud: “LIFE IS GOOD.”

The day I gathered the materials for this piece, I was driving down the long empty road and had to pee.

I stopped and walked a bit to a somewhat sheltered spot.

There was NO ONE around for miles but I am shy that way..

Walking back to the car I looked down and saw the most gorgeous combination of color: warm rust and seafoam green and a hint of mustard.

There was clay in the soil and it had formed in appealing shapes.

I went to the car and got a pail (ever ready in Cathy’s car) and collected my treasure.

When I return my attention to the earth, the world with it’s trials and confusion and velocity fades to grey as the ordinary and sensual pleasure of dirt opens me to possibility.

My priorities instantly shift into a more sensible order.

And my whole being softens to hear it’s whispered wisdom.

You can’t be loud when dealing with the earth because you’ll likely miss the best parts held between the lines.

Eyes closed, breath soft, senses heightened..

The gifts of the low-down and ordinary…

Transparency

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This, I think is interesting..

A new site developed to graph comparisons between patients challenged by various diseases/symptoms.

I saw an 18 minute video presented to TEDMED which is a relatively new spinoff of TED.com (Technology,Entertainment,Design).

The man who designed this software had a brother with ALS and felt compelled to use his skill set to do what he could to help get information and get it quickly.

It’s heartening to see this type of comparative results graphing from various treatment modes etc. in a user-friendly and graphically interesting way.

Check it out, if you’ve a mind to..

Frequency

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The physicist I worked with in Colorado is trained in brain mapping and uses a machine developed by NASA during president Gerald Ford’s watch to ease the effects of the havoc extensive travel did to his circadian rythms.

The machine carries a library of thousands of frequencies known to have an effect on the human body and it’s function and well being.

There are only three such machines in existence.

The other two people trained in this work practice solely on celebrities and athletes.

A treatment with my Doc consists of an initial report of current symptoms and her decision as to where to concentrate. There seems to be quite a bit of backround homework she does before and between each appointment.

During an hour long session she attaches electrode bands to my feet, hands, back of neck and forehead respectively for 15 minutes each.

The machine then makes frequencies available for my body to take up as it feels the need.

Nothing is done TO me. My body decides what and if it needs anything.

I feel nothing except a refined ‘buzz’ during the treatment.

The first trip I made to Colorado 8 weeks ago was primarily dedicated to working on my sluggish digestive system.

She said I could not move toward health until my body was adept in taking in the nutrients I gave it in the form of food and supplements.

I was down to eating around 10 foods that I knew would not irritate my stomach and cause a distended belly.

After our initial time together, I can now eat more normally and feel a boost to my constitutional strength which has stayed with me.

During this visit we worked with my ability to get a full 8 hours of restful sleep.

I seem to carry a hefty amount of low grade anxiety along with having to pee 4-5 times per night.

This disallows deep and restorative sleep.

We also worked on detoxing me.

I met with her twice per day for 4 days.  It was intense but doable and after each treatment I returned to the hotel to sleep.

I pretty much slept most of the time I was not in a cab or on her table.

After the first day, I itched and scratched my way through the night, breaking the skin at times from the release of unwanted toxins my body had been harboring.

This lasted the night but was gone in the morning.

She worked quite a bit on my sacrum area and the results have been that yesterday, as I practiced re-entry into my familiar world in Santa Fe, I was irritable and tired only to wake today clear and bright with strength and balance not present before.

I  feel a smooth quality and relaxation which has markedly changed my well being.

I now dream and remember them which was not the case previously.

She asked that I call her weekly with a report on changes which may occur.

I am fully aware this method of healing is no quick fix yet the fact is that I am getting results which are real and lasting.

I believe in this work.

I will return in 6-8 weeks.

In the course of my health challenge I have experimented with many, many modes of healing.

Understandably, treatment does not work for me unless I am 200% behind it.

Unless I believe.

Some may beg to differ.

This is one woman’s experience.

Today, I still walk with a walker and struggled to put my socks on but I have a much stronger foundation I move from and, to me, this is invaluable.

All joint pain is gone.  I can eat normally.  I sleep deeply and wake rested.  I have more of myself available to meet the world.

And onward I go…..

Winter

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Everything about Winter asks me to go inside.

Deep inside.

The cold, snow, irritable people (self included).

As I was brought up in Michigan, I NEED the seasons.

Such a direct reminder of cycles we are a part of.

Bloom, fade, back-to-the-earth, gestate, gather, reach for the light, bloom.

In Winter I gather.

Early in my art career I self-flagellated a lot in judgement of my meanderings in magazine racks and coffee shops and the wilds of New Mexico in my big red truck.

I thought were anyone to know how I spent my days oftentimes, I would be judged irresponsible and lazy.

Quite to the contrary, I now know…

I am a gatherer.

I spend time witnessing, looking, sensing, appreciating, being appalled and back to gratitude again.

After I do this for varying amounts of time, some THING in form appears.

When it was art I was primarily creating, all the gathering would distill into something like the piece above.

These days, healing my body is my chief concern so this Winter’s gathering is taking shape in the form of inspired guidance concerning my quest for wholeness (whatever that looks like).

I am now, after all these years, familiar with and not self critical about this process of mine; gathering then taking extreme pleasure in watching for the form to appear.

This is surely NOT a heady endeavor.

More a softening into the cycle of the seasons in me.

Today is very white and still with a constant light snow.

I have paperwhite bulbs growing an inch per day in a glass vase on my counter.

The only thing we can count on is change.

May as well enjoy the ride.

Permeability

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This piece is made out of lava rock.

They came from a favorite place in New Mexico called the BISTI BADLANDS.

It looks like a god-forsaken moonscape.

I love it for it’s otherworldliness.

So, these rocks caught my eye.

I just notice stuff as I’m going along and ask if it’s ok to take it home.

In this case the answer was yes and here I am, 6 years later writing about them.

They went through the fire.

A very big one.

And today they are my teacher.

The rocks are HARD.

And COMPLICATED.

They know the shadow and are still here.

Transformed, perhaps. But still here.

Lava formations in New Mexico are mysterious places.

They can surprise you if they are hidden.

Or take your breath away with their monumental size.

I liked these particular rocks because they aren’t really a solid mass but a maze separated by air passageways.

I suspect from the bubbles as the firey mass cooled.

They remind me of me.

I am fairly complicated, I think.

Not hard, though. Anymore.

I have been through the fire as we all have at one point or another.

MS is my fire at the moment.

The thing is, I notice this fire I am in is leaving me more porous than before.

My guard goes down somewhat because I haven’t the energy for it anymore, really.

But the gift in that is I now feel and think about myself, the world, the whole game board differently.

I used to be much more serious than I am now.

It took a lot to make me laugh but not these days.

The witness in me takes a gander at Cathy trying to get to the bathroom in time and how her body looks making that desperate journey and who wouldn’t laugh?

This whole MS thing can be funny.

Unless it’s not.

And that, there, is the shadow side.

The thing is, there they both are.

Am I any different than anyone else in that respect?

Point-of-view…

That’s the key, right there.

Dirty old black rock?

Or teacher in disguise?

Thicket

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Two beloved male friends/collectors have taken their own lives in the last few months.

Seemingly highly functioning and fairly contented people have demons we could never even dream of.

My heart hurts.

And yet, I have an odd peace.

It almost feels embarrassing to say it as the expectation is for weeping and horror and countless other displays.

I’m certainly not saying I am immune because I am not.

I loved these two friends deeply.

I also respect them both with all I’ve got.

They were both extremely private men. Highly accomplished in work and play. Neither had children but left magnificent women behind.

Living with the challenges of MS gives rise to having death on your shoulder.

Not in a bad way.

But a way that changes me.

It is a good practice to make friends with death.

Life becomes very real and VERY precious.

One starts to have the feeling that you are LIVING in church, not just attending once in awhile.

Love is not just a yearned-for, imagined fantasy of picket fences and the like.

It is there in the eyes of the forgotten and ordinary if we choose to look.

I have more love in my life at the moment that I could ever have imagined.

I know, without a doubt that my two friends knew I loved them.

Never spoken, perhaps, but a knowing just the same.

If I love them them, I must allow for their choices in life and death.

The peace I experience when in the midst of bereavement exists because I treat death as an inextricable part of life.

I don’t want to go there yet though I have thought of it as an end to the constant and, at times , seemingly unbearable thoughts of THE FUTURE.

But I ain’t there yet.

And so, with death as my teacher, I live.

Until I don’t.

Death really seems to me like a total experience of the loss of the thread to love; for ourselves, each other, the planet and when Spirit is no where to be found.

My tears for my friends are my imagining that they lost that thread or forgot.

But, if I say I love and respect them, I must settle with that knowledge and practice the ‘let-go’ that is so hard in love.

It is pure ego.

I want what I want. Them back here with me to enrich my life like before.

Hmmm… that sounds like it’s all about me…

Dearest Frederick and Doug: I love you and wish you peace. You left your mark on me. I am different and better because of you. You will be missed but I can feel you in my heart whenever I want.  I will try to spread around to others some of the compassion, intelligence, love of beauty and service to many that you both practiced masterfully. It will be so different around here without you. Thank you for the gift of your friendship. I am more and better because of you.

Love, Cathy

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