Prayer For Father

Dear ancestors, please help…
My father is near his wit’s end
His body is a ticking bomb
Counting down to a nasty end.
He would not forgive his father
For my grandma’s death
More than twenty years ago.
His childhood neglect, poverty
and hardship, raised a man who
takes duty to its most extreme.
The words of his mother on her
deathbed bound him to the promise
of the caretaking of his father
just as she had done. So he

has carried her torch since,
and grown more bitter day by day
swallowing tears and bile and
blood from old wounds
for this man he loves to hate
hates to love, a thorn in his
side, the pillar in his eye. In
this place where he can’t forget
every wrong done to him
he holds on tight to his grief and pain
not having ever learned
how to let anything go, how
to let anything in.

Tonight I pray to you, my ancestors
and source, for these men dear to me
who are without god and solace. I know
I cannot stop their fall, so I wish for them
a softer place to fall. Help us
your children to finally fall on our knees
the burden of generations
surrendered at your feet. Blind us
with your light, dismember us
with kindness, pierce us with love’s call,
that gentle, patient voice in the night,
beneath the shrieking of demons.
Strike us down, with the tenderest of mercy,
until we are powerless to resist
the tidal wave of grace, pounding
to be let in.

I am shattered
by gratitude.

Leave The Door Open

Woke up in the night and there was the memory of my cats Chloé and Raphael, who accompanied me on my separation and divorce into my new life in 2001, then had to be given up for adoption when I moved in with my parents a year later. To me, their adoption was the single most miraculous event of my life, with my return from death’s door and meeting Michael as close seconds. Yet, I bear still the guilt of their abandonment by me in their old age. My grief has not allowed me to see the bigger picture of what might have served the greater good. I lay there remembering Ms. Ptolemy, the gentle and beautiful angel advocate and rescuer of abandoned animals, her ethereal presence and quiet strength, and the wound I could still see in her. I remember the young studen couple from BC, Jody, who was studying at CCNM, her beautifull spirit and love for my cats who she had never met but took into her life on faith. I feel freshly still the guilt of not telling them about Raph’s marking problem, when they had been so trusting and kind. Please forgive me, Chloé and Raphael and Candace and Jody and Jody’s boyfriend, I was so afraid and so vulnerable, yet so struck open by the synchronous way Life takes care of us, when we allow her to. It is nearly 10 years later now, but I want to give thanks for this wondrous thing that happened to me, to all of us, and remember always, to allow.

Truly, it has always been these times when I’ve thrown up my hands and/or fallen down on my knees literally in utter desperation, crying tears of helplessness and exhaustion, that I’ve finally let go of my grip on my doorknob to control, and when hope is but a sputtering flicker, Life walked in and made beautiful stories of my life. I struggle still with keeping my hands off the doorknob, sometimes I have to pry it off with my other hand, but I like to think I am more conscious of it now at least.

Leave the door open, so angels can come in.

Life As A Circle

Life is endless because it is beginningless.
There is only continuation. So why
worry about extinction, or annihilation?
Something is gone, ten other things take its place.
For every species we believe to disappear
every year, how many are found? Life
always replenishes and recycles itself.

There is no less beauty in the world
than 100 or 1000 years ago, if only
we open ourselves to it. But life
and beauty constantly change, and it is
change that we have problems with.
It is this fear of change that have us
clinging to what was, to what
we’ve always expected.
We can’t let go of the old,
we can’t bring in the new,
we literally can’t see it
because our mind is closed
to it, screwed shut with fear.

Go home, stay inside,
do your own work,
and be that light
unto yourself.
____________

Happiness

Be the doorway, not the door
Be the opening that only receives,
Be nothing
but the passageway,
the vehicle, the
vessel for the All.
____________

I remember when my parents first found out about my decision to divorce. They came storming into my house, and my father asked me why I have to do this? I said I wanted happiness. What happiness? Life is not about happiness! My mother screamed into my face.

So it’s been 10 years now since my declaration, and a 10 year journey of my pursuit of happiness. In that time I have become happier overall, at least by my own estimation, but it is only just now that I understood why happiness has always seems so elusive.

Because of 3 things:

There is no cause for happiness.
There is no practice for happiness.
Happiness can only be allowed, it is already there in us.

In this light, I see happiness is the same as creativity. It is already there in each of us, no need to pursue it or make it happen, nor can we get it through work or practice.

Lately, every road I go down seems to come eventually to the same place, of stillness, of surrender.

Selling Out, 3 Times

Friday, November 19, 2010

In the night I woke half way and thoughts came wafting by, perhaps in answer to my request to understand how I am not being true to my Self, how I am in the way of my own creative expression, how I am still selling out.

One was that I ought to, and can, become more vegetarian. I must say this is a surprise to me now, in the light of day, though I felt no reservation nor judgment about it when it came unbidden in the night. I have never felt the need to be vegetarian, neither for health reasons nor ethics. Yet I have always felt a deep and immediate connection and love for animals, except for human beings. I’ve always insisted that I would save an animal before saving a human, even a baby. So how could I condone the things being done to animals just so I could buy meat packaged in neat little units in brightly lit stores, where I am at least 6 times removed from the reality of how that meat comes to be on my table? I’ve simply pushed that knowledge aside for the convenience of my conscience.

Following that thought was another one along the same line, I realize now again, in awake mode. This one, though, I have been aware for some time. The thought came with much more conviction than ever before, that I do not support the survival of the human race over the survival of the entire planet. That means I will put my effort into healing the planet and its other inhabitants, even if it means wiping out the human race. I feel very clear about this now, the difference being that there was always an emotional surge attached to this issue, now there is only a calm clarity. The storming rage has passed, now I can see my way to align with the greater good and settle down to the work still ahead. I know where my healing work is to go now.

The last item I remember was something more personal. It was my nephew’s birthday yesterday and I’ve always bought him and his brother presents that they’ve asked for, the usual toys and games and such. But if I am to walk my talk, I would not be promoting consumerism in the mindless capitalist fashion that all of us practice most religiously in the West, would I? Yet I’ve been perfectly willing to set that principle aside too, for the sake of making my nephew happy.

In these 3 ways I have most definitely been a hypocrite, even if subconsciously so. These are 3 lies I have been living, and though they might seem ordinary and trivial even in their ambiguity, I know the message is really about showing me how easily (nearly flawlessly so) I can accommodate these subtle shifts in my integrity, without batting an eye, even at myself. I am a master at fooling myself.

The greatest part though, is that once I saw through these tricks I’ve pulled on myself, I felt immediately a firm resolve in these ‘convictions’, as if they’ve grown a spine. And in this new resolve, I saw also the ‘solutions’, what I must do to uphold the truth of what I stand for. They no longer seem impossible to me.

I thank my ancestors and Source for this nocturnal lesson in knowing and healing myself.

P.S. Had Jesus' disciple Peter come to a similar realization when the cock crowed 3 times, I wonder??

Chasing Stillness

In the night I woke with the anguish of feeling creatively stifled, despairing that I will never be able to write with the kind of flow and artistry my most admired writers do. I loved Louise Dupré’s prose in her short story collection High-wire Summer, and I think, why can’t I write from that low in the belly? Somehow, in my own estimation, I always fall short of that. And even though I felt the truth of what so many people have said, that art is given to us from out there, that we do not ever create alone, but are at best co-creators, I have not really felt anything come through me, try as I may, to be a clear channel for divine inspiration. Lying in the dark, in that half-way place, I was able to poke a little deeper, brush aside some of the stuff that obscured, and saw that there is only one thing I need. Stillness.

Stillness. That which cannot be grasped, because as soon as I reached for it, it is gone. It cannot be had or gotten, it can only be. This much I know, from all the trying and chasing I’ve done. My heart cried out then, why can’t I be still? Surprisingly, an answer came. I saw the black void inside my belly, pulsing and expanding. My bottomless pit of greed, lust, and gluttony, an insatiable hunger that drives me to throw one thing after another into it, all day long. And still, it’s not enough, and will never be enough. This I know too. I dared myself to look into the pit but could not ‘see’ anything in it. It was just one vast black emptiness. Then it hit me. That’s exactly what it is, an empty illusion. It is not real! It only came into ‘existence’ in my mind because I was told and taught I needed all these things to be somebody, to feel worthy, to earn points in life. The biggest lie is that if I don’t keep feeding it with those things, it will devour me instead. This alone has kept all of us shoveling, all the days of our lives.

I want the veil to be torn off this vicious hell of an existence now. I want to wake up to real living and real being.

Last night before bed I lit the red candle on my altar to greet my ancestors, to say I remember you. My eyes landed on the little feather Michael gave me, so I picked it up and brushed myself down, asking my ancestors to lift all that was not good for me. This morning I woke up thinking of returning some of the staggering amount of library books I’ve amassed, and there wasn’t much of the usual achy reluctance I would get when I’ve had to force this task on myself. So I thank you, my ancestors and helping spirits, for this gift of deep insight and healing, with all of my heart.

I feel a big, across the board, top to bottom, inside out cleanse coming on… starting with the library books…