Dare We Go Back to Sleep

In times like these...

The human heart can go the lengths of God… [ A Sleep of Prisoners ]

Dark and cold we may be, but this

Is no winter now. The frozen misery

Of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move;

The thunder is the thunder of the floes,

The thaw, the flood, the upstart Spring.

Thank God our time is now when wrong

Comes up to face us everywhere,

Never to leave us till we take

The longest stride of soul men ever took.

Affairs are now soul size.

The enterprise is exploration into God.

Where are you making for? It takes

So many thousand years to wake…

But will you wake, for pity’s sake?

Christopher Fry

As we say good bye to another month, the merry month of May, things seems so far from ever being merry again.  Struggle after struggle has come to greet us.  While we have tried and tried again to keep putting one foot in front of the other, it has not been easy.

In one way or another, perhaps we are being shaken awake, reminded we are not to go back to sleep, that the time has come for big change and not band-aids.  Perhaps this awakening is meant to help us find our way home, back to our true selves, and not these complacent, tepid versions.

Are we On the Brink?

No more excuses.  No more yearning to go back to the "way things were".  No more sidestepping all our brokenness.  We are poised on the brink...and it is only by a fearless examination of all our deeply cherished beliefs might we find the real truth of the house of cards we have been living in for so long.  Why don't we choose to wake up and stop pretending everything is ok.  It's not and it hasn't been for a long time.  The breaking down can be the start of a building up.  What shall we build?

Leaving behind everything gives us such a clean slate.  So, if you had that option and you were designing our next phase, what would you be sure to add to the mix?  Kindness, honesty, compassion, fairness, prosperity for all...

What?  Why don't we, upon waking to a new month, wake up and stay awake.  Let's take the steps we need to take.  Let's define this new slate, our new society, the one we really do long for when we are not experiencing fear, and hate, and envy and all the other emotions that lead us down a dark path.  

When we are awake, we have knowledge of that deepest, truest part of ourselves, our souls.  From there we can hold steady, resist temptations, and take the steps necessary to ensure that our elected officials to do the same.  It's no longer ok for self interests to call the shots.  Not for any of us.  

We are part of a collective that must stand together, even with different ways of seeing the world.  Basic human rights; yes back to the basics may be the first step. We have been feeling the tug of the heart string that binds us together.  That is not a bad thing.  It is waking us up.  

Here's to eyes wide open...from the soul.

The Story of the Snake

This is a story about a snake.  Now, I am very aware that there are many people who do not like snakes and are horrified by all things snake.  I am very aware that many people seem to have an irrational fear of snakes, as made apparent by people shuddering at just hearing the word.  Snake...

I for one, am not afraid of snakes.  Now, I have a healthy respect for snakes, that is for sure.  But it's the same respect I have for dogs...I don't just reach out to touch them before I am sure it is safe to do so.  But I will admire from a distance and appreciate them, dogs and snakes.

I also appreciate when I have the opportunity to see a snake in its natural habitat.  It seems we are usually so disconnected from nature that we never really get an opportunity to experience the real deal.  Here, at our home in Escondido, Ca. we are sometimes fortunate enough to meet the wilderness eye to eye.  And that's what this story is all about.

It began one weekend with my husband coming to find me.  We were both outside in our yard, but given that we have almost an acre of space, it took us a minute to meet up.  He told me he had just been scared almost to death by a snake!  And, good husband that he is, he knew I would love to experience Snake for myself.

I was so excited.  I hurried over to the area where Snake was when my husband found him.  Sure enough, there she was!

Snake

Now Snake really wanted nothing to do with me or my husband.  But she kindly allowed me to photograph her as she slithered away.

The next day my husband had another encounter with Snake, but I wasn't able to participate this time.  But he told me the tale.  As he was walking the yard, he just, once again, noticed Snake.  This time Snake was approaching one of the many gopher holes that populate our rural garden.  As my husband observed, Snake picked a hole and went in head first.  As he watched, the snake disappeared completely into the earth.  Makes you appreciate there is truly an underground world of which we know little about.

Given that we are not fond of the damage gophers can do to a yard, we were somewhat pleased that this snake was most likely a gopher snake.  Perhaps he might do what we could not, kill a gopher.  It is a fact that we can't make ourselves kill gophers.  We just can't, even when the opportunity presents itself.  We have sat and observed the little buggers come up out of their underground caves, snatch a flower and pull it back down into the tunnel.  Notice I said "observe".  Bye flower.

Anyway, I didn't get to see Snake go undercover.  But my husband still shivers when he recalls the snake disappearing before his eyes.  Did I mention he is not fond of snakes?   He's not.

At any rate, we were both pleased that maybe the natural cycle of life might assist us with our gopher population.  You know, a natural way to keep the numbers down since we weren't going to be doing it.  However, the story of Snake took another turn a few days later.  One that makes me sad still.  

A few days after Snake made her appearance into our lives, as I walked to the street to get the mail, I found Snake lying by the side of the road.  She didn't show any obvious signs of trauma as far as I could tell.  Over five feet of gopher snake lying there.  Just like that, she would no longer be able to assist us with the gophers.  Just like that she had completed her work in the world.

I couldn't bear just leaving her there even though I knew the turkey vultures would likely find her before too long.  I decided to get a stick, gather her up and bring her back onto our property.  I laid her down under one of our trees and vowed to get back to the body as soon as possible and bury her in our garden somewhere.  

However, before I was able to do so, my husband informed me Snake was gone.  The cycle continued with another wild species finding her and doing what comes naturally.  It ate her.  A day later I found what was left: a one foot long piece of Snake left on the ground in the same area where she had gone underground to find her prey.

Now, you may wonder why I felt it important enough to write about this sad tale.  Sad to me anyway.  First, I guess I wanted to memorialize Snake a little bit.  She really allowed us to see the cycle of life and vicariously participate in it.  I also think I wanted to see if those people who had seen my FB post about Snake and had responded negatively, I wondered if they would be sad to hear of her demise.  But, there's one more thing my mind ponders.  And it's this:

What if we equate her journey with ours?  We are here for a short time.  We do our thing.  Then, just like that, we are gone.  The cycle of birth, life, death.  Of course, I really don't imagine that Snake was conscious of her place in the universe.  I don't imagine she wondered if she had made a difference in her short time on earth.  I would be surprised to find out she suffered at all.  And yet...

What do I know?  After starting to write this story I decided to research a bit.  And imagine my surprise to find that more is known about snakes' inner lives than I was aware of.  Here's an amazing story to read:

Snakes Have Friends Too

Drats.  Well, I am glad that we didn't do anything to harm Snake.  I have to come to terms with the fact that in this case the cycle of life played out.  While I am sad, I am glad to have been able to see the cycle and been a small part of it.  I guess I also hope that, after reading this story, you might think differently about snakes and about the treatment of them.  Of course, that could lead to treating other animals better and maybe even other humans.

I hope so.

Here's to Snake, and to snakes everywhere.  And, here's to your life's journey.  Be sure you are doing your thing, living your life, and appreciating your place in the universe.  Wake up each day and vow to marvel at the world and your place in it.  Trust in the goodness of life.  Don't despair, and never give up.We don't know when the end of our cycle here on earth will come.  It will come.  Until it does, here's to you and to me.  

Hugs and love,

Verna, your soul catalyst

Grief Demands A Voice

Today I noticed my nephew posted on social media about the memories of his life prior to the death of his wife popping up on his news feed and how these memories  were “kicking his butt”, or something to that effect.  And as I looked at the photo he shared, I was brought back to that time, before his wife died, and how things were.  Looking at the photo, recalling the first time I saw it, I was transported back into the happiness of the moment.  Yes, that feeling was followed by the sadness of knowing she is no longer alive.  But, I was so grateful for the opportunity to remember her and the joy and the laughter and the love.  And in some strange way, even grateful for the sadness of missing her.

Here in our mainstream culture, it is not seemly to allow the death of someone close to us to take up too much of our most valuable time.  Hence the admonitions to “get on with your life”, to “get over it”, to “buck up”, and the like are often bandied about to those who are grieving.  Most of the time, it’s because they don’t like to feel those difficult emotions.  And we who have experienced loss would agree.  We don’t want to remember what we no longer have.  We want to pretend as if we can get on with life just fine.  Our loved one is lost to us.  And since we can’t find them again, we should move on.  We want this for those we love too.  Let’s face it, we don’t want to see them cry, much less bawl their eyes out expressing raw emotion.

Today’s post reflects on a few things that have come together for me this week.  First, I am two-thirds of the way through Stephen Jenkinson’s book, Die Wise.  https://orphanwisdom.com/

This book is not for the casual reader. Stephen writes deep and he takes you along for that dive.  Second, to give my brain a break, I started reading a book about Margaret Fuller.  Well, as synchronicity would have it, the book begins with her death.  And not just her death, but her death by drowning at sea with no body to be found, no body to grieve over.  Holy Moly.

And third, I am working on my next Integrative Wisdom gathering, “Grief Demands a Voice”.  As I place myself in the dream time and imagine what shape this gathering will take, my heart and my soul are plunged into our society’s struggle with these deep feelings we hold and hide.  We shove them deep into our own sea of forgetting, hesitant to hold them up into the light, fearful we won’t survive the depths of sorrow we find there.

I wonder if you might be surprised to learn that the sorrow, just because it is buried, has not died.  It is still very much alive and still demands attention and respect and VOICE.  Hence, the title of the gathering.  If you were to allow yourself to think about the last person close to you who died, what would those thoughts entail?  Would it be a laundry list of facts about the person, mundane details of how they lived and died, or would your thoughts turn to your relationship with them? 

 

My Dad Harvey

In my many years of hospice work as a medical social worker, it always surprised me that in general, we seem to think people will get nicer, kinder, smarter, wiser, more loving, etc. as they get closer to death.  Family members would ask me if this was true.  I would have to be honest with them and say that in general, people die the way they lived.  This can lead to lots of unresolved pain too.  Holding on to that kind of memory can increase the suffering felt by the one left behind.  Yet, what options do we have since our loved one is “lost” to us in death. 

Stephen says that our society has been working to get to “less dying”, as if that is somehow possible.  We put off having discussions about our dying, we pretend that those with a terminal diagnosis are doing “fine", we don’t talk about dying to those dying because we are afraid we will cause them to give up trying not to die while all the time they are still dying.  And in doing this dance of deception, important moments are stolen from us he says.  Stephen says we have sorrow and grieving and knowing about our dying stolen from us by our refusal to give any of this a voice.

In hospice, once a year we would hold a celebration of remembrance and invite the families of our deceased patients to attend.  As a speaker, I would acknowledge the importance of coming to such an event to honor their loved one, but I would then remind them that their grieving was not over.  As much as they would like to turn away from this pain, the sorrow and grieving are part of the mystery and gift of loving.  And I would encourage them to continue this path of mourning.

I guess that is what I am doing by offering this gathering.  I am encouraging you to step once again into the boat and sail once again into the sea of grief.  Give voice to your deceased beloved and allow them to communicate with you once more.  Honor your grieving.  Honor your sorrow.  Trust your wisdom that you have feelings or memories or thoughts that beg for expression in a safe place.  Let your memories of happiness and joy and love find expression here, even in death.

Grief Demands A Voice is offered November 3rd, 2018 from 10 am to 3 pm here at The Center of Creative Transformation in Escondido, Ca. $50 for the day.  Lunch included.  Details of how to prepare for the day will be sent upon registration.

And if you can’t join us here at The Center of Creative Transformation, please do find a safe place and continue to honor your expression of grief and loss for those who have died.