DURING the timeless time Mom and I spend together in the middle of the night, we hold each other. As is becoming a pattern in these visits, I sob into Mom's chest, and she reassures me with her overwhelming LIGHT. It is, in one way, amazing, because I am TRULY WITH HER, on some level, actually touching her, smelling her, seeing her face and red hair. She is THERE. But on another level, it is surreal and intangible, almost as if I am reaching out toward a mirage. The visits are comforting while I am in them, cruel when I awake to find myself light years and many worlds away from her again.
I am at a major spiritual crossroads: to put it simply, I am on the threshold between DEEPLY GRIEVING and TRULY HEALING. One may as well be the chicken, and the other the egg, because one must be experienced fully in order for the other to exist. I am transitioning. This does not mean I will not ALWAYS, in every moment and with every breath, miss her like the desert misses moisture. But it does mean that I am moving forward on my journey through grief, so that I may also release Mom from the bondage of my pain. In my last visit with her, Mom expressed to me that it was hard for her to know that we are all still in such deep pain, and unable to push through this stage of grief, and into the initial ones of healing.
Another aspect of this CROSSROADS can be seen in the progression of my dreams. While Mom was in the hospital, I would dream that she was all better, healthy, and being released from the bed; set free of her illness, and ushered back into the physical world with a new body. For a long time after she crossed over, I didn't dream of her at all. Later, I began having dreams in which I was with her in some way, but always a mysterious, only partial way. For instance, we would be sitting side by side, but I would be unable to turn my head and look at her. Or she would be at the edge of my bed, but I couldn't touch her, and her face was enshrouded in shadows. Lately, I have had a couple of "dreams" that have made me realize none of these experiences were merely dreams (whatever that means), but were actual visits, spirit to spirit exchanges of loving communication.
In the first two, my Dad held my hand and took me to her, encouraging me to go to her, and not be afraid. In these recent dream-like visits, we have met on a plane far higher and faster than the one I exist on consciously here in the physical world; and much lower and slower than where Mom exists now, in her boundless spirit-form. It is as though she is able to shape-shift somehow in these visits, making herself available to the desperate grabbing of my limited perceptive abilities. Her love - and the love we share - far transcends the perceived barriers of physicality. Our love trumps death. And I - through the gift of dream-flight - am able to escape momentarily from the limitations of my own still-human body, and meet her in the ether between us. This is the realm from which all are born, and into which all are reborn. It is the glowing cradle of PURE LOVE.
* * *
Mom gave me a card on HER birthday, June 19, 2004, just four days before our joint surgery. On the front of the card, there is an image of a Native American woman, walking through water, looking down at her reflection; she is holding a white feather out to her right side. On the inside of the card, mom wrote:
My Darling Liz,
The symbolism of the feather is awesome. As you and I begin this Great Adventure, I know we will be lifted up to the very core and source of the Loving Spirit of which we are a part.
The water is the fluidity of life, the essence of our human bodies. The conduit of our elements which offer the continuity of life...
Thank you, baby, for offering me the gift to continue. As I have said so many times, I am so very blessed to get to be your mom!
I love you!
Mom
I have been focusing on this card a lot lately. The last time I went through my letters and cards from Mom, I chose this one to keep out and put on the shelf in my room. I have read it and re-read it. Trying to put her words into the burgeoning framework of my NEW THINKING. Thinking that says that she was exactly right. That we were in fact lifted up to that core of LIGHT, LOVE, and DIVINE PROTECTION, through the surgery and beyond it. And that even though Mom didn't "continue" physically, the true GIFT is in her being able to move ahead in her spiritual journey, which involved shedding her body precisely when she did.
I was running yesterday, and asked Mom for a message. "Mom", I said, "If you are here, show me a FEATHER...show me feathers". My eyes searched then for any semblance of a feather, birds flying overhead, anything that might communicate an affirmation. I try not to "look" for these clues, as then I worry I might be creating them or fabricating them from the deep pain and need within my unconscious mind. I decided that, even though a few little yellow birds swooped across my visual field, I wouldn't "count" them, because there would be too much room for "coincidence" there.
I didn't see any feathers anywhere. Until...I was finished running. I entered my house, sweaty and jazzed from endorphin rushing. I began to trot down the stairs to my quarters, which I have done hundreds of times by now. But this time, I noticed something I had never noticed before. It was a poster Star has hanging on the overhead wall space above the stairs. The poster was for an Earth Day celebration.... It says the following:
THE GREAT MOTHER, at once Gaia, Sophia, Isis, Rhea, Astarte, Ishtar, Demeter, Ceres, Papa; SHE is the living, pulsing EARTH: Wise beyond human telling, ever-generating, nourishing, and transforming with irrepressible vitality. WE ARE THE EARTH BECOMING CONSCIOUS OF HERSELF...The depth of our wisdom will sustain her, even as SHE, in all her breadth, NURTURES and SHELTER US, one and all.
I asked Mom for feather imagery, so she reminds me very clearly that her flight as a SPIRITUAL GODDESS has only just begun!
Directly in the bottom center of the poster is an image of ISIS, the BIRD-HEADED GODDESS:
Following are among the most common of her titles:
The Great Lady
The God-mother
Giver of Life
"Queen," in every nome
The divine one
The only one
The greatest of the gods and goddesses
The queen of all gods
Opener of the year,
Lady of the New Year
Maker of the sunrise
Lady of Heaven
The light-giver of Heaven
Queen of the earth
Most mighty one
Lady of the solid earth
Lady of warmth and fire
The lady of life
Lady of green crops
Lady of abundance,
Lady of joy and gladness
Lady of Love
The maker of kings
Lady of the Great House
Lady of the House of fire
The beautiful goddess
The lady of words of power
After reading that poster for the first time, I picked up my computer and feverishly began looking up information on ISIS - knowing that what I found would blow my mind. Knowing that the next symbolic "phrase" in the latest of Mom's communications was coming fast, and falling directly into its perfect order, just like words into a sentence.
As I often do, I set the computer on my lap, and had the t.v. on in the background for noise. I flipped to the Discovery Health channel, to watch a show I normally do not watch. I think I had seen it once before. It was Dr. G.: Medical Examiner. I wasn't paying any attention to it for the most part. But at one point, I happened to look up from my internet searching, to see a commerical which showed a man skiing down a snow-covered mountain. I kept my eyes on the commerical, understanding why I did so as the commercial unfolded to reveal what it was for...
The skier was Chris Klug, an Olympic Athlete who had a liver transplant at the University of Colorado Hospital, on none other than my grandmother's birthday, July 28 (2000). Igal Kam was his surgeon. I know because as I heard Chris's voiceover explain who he was, and what he had been through, and how he advocated organ donation, I fixated on the t.v. screen, only to see a moment later, a still photo of Chris Klug SITTING NEXT TO DR. KAM! Dr. Kam is the man who removed one lobe of my liver from my body, carried it to the operating room next door, and helped sew it into my Mom's abdomen.
I was now officially blown away. More appropriately, I was flying...on this grand, life-giving feather...the one Mom had written about in her card to me just days before Dr. Kam performed our joint surgery in the summer of 2004. It is these creative, loving messages from her that keep me breathing. Just as I was born and breathed for the first time of her love and creativity...For SHE continues as, and continues to become, the ever-more beautiful Diva: The ULTIMATE MOTHER.
* * *
The following day, I had friends from work, and neighbors from the block, come over to Star's house for a "gallery opening". I showed my photos for the first time, which was a very special event for me. It really meant the most that my new friends from Lava Java came by; and were very excited for me. I hardly knew any of them, but they all made it a point to come and show their support! The first to show up were my friend, Matt, and his girlfriend, Jessica. As they got out of their car, I was immediately drawn to the faint outline of wings bordering Jessica's necklace pendant. As I got closer to her, I noticed that what she wore...was the figure of ISIS, the bird-headed, Mother-God, GIVER OF LIFE...LADY OF THE NEW YEAR!
* * *
One friend from work, in particular, would prove to be someone extremely special to me. Her name is Jessica, and, (as SHE informed me), she was to become my new 'favorite person' :)
She and I hadn't yet connected before that night at the photo party. But since then, we've been inseparable, and frankly AMAZED by the immediately profound and psychic nature of the connection between us.
Her mother's birthday is the same day as mine, December 23rd. She has seeminly "read my mind" on several occasions. We realize that we have been brought together to teach and learn from one another. Mom is clearly involved. And it is clear to BOTH of us, not only me.
* * *
MAY 1, 2006
May, according to Lifetime Television, is the "MOTHER of all Months".
At work, on May 1, a man named Joe - who I also hardly knew - called me "Little Angel".
Next, a customer came up to the counter, and asked me for a new cup of coffee...because his had a FEATHER in it!
Most brilliantly...Later that afternoon, in walked Martin and Chloe. Who these two are is a long and difficult story to tell. But I must, so I will try.
Martin is a videographer who works on the Fair Wind once or twice a week. He comes on the boat and films the guests' experiences, then sells the DVDs. He also teaches a reef ecology class, and talks about his own experiences...swimming with dolphins, whale sharks, and pilot whales.
For obvious reasons, I was intrigued by him immediately upon meeting him. But it was the less obvious reasons, which really are only beginning to open up to consciousness now, that proved to be the most interesting.
I remember, (and this was five months ago, when I was new to the island, and brand new to the boat), hearing Martin say a couple of things that have stuck with me all this time. They were things that made me feel compelled to learn more about him, who he really is, and what the deeper connection was meant to be between us.
Once, he said something about working hard. Another crewmember retorted with, "Whatever, Martin...You only work a couple of days a week!" And Martin replied, "It's EMOTIONAL work I am referring to." Over the next several days, I heard several little "whispery" tidbits of vague information about this "emotional" work that Martin does. But oddly, I could never quite get a full picture, from anyone. The most anyone would say was something to the effect that Martin was a "spiritual healer" of some sort. Put together with the knowledge that he is a heart soft for the Ocean, and also with my intuitive feeling about his depth of consciousness, I knew he and I were going to unify somehow, at some point in time.
So one day, through hopped-up nerves, I asked Martin "what is it that you really do?".
He was skiddish about answering. He alluded to the serious nature of his work, versus the whimsical, fast-paced, tourist-attentive nature of the boat environment. He said, essentially, that he didn't want to talk about it in that setting. I asked then if we could get together some time to talk. He said yes, though many months would pass silently between us before our real meeting would occur.
The one other thing he did say that I have never forgotten, and in fact have held close to me, was something that may as well have come out of Mom's mouth. It certainly echoed the beauty and sentiment of her heart. He said that "EVERYTHING IS MADE...(not of "energy"...but) OF LOVE". I was intrigued by him. Even moreso, I was intrigued by the strange friction that developed between us when we were both on the boat.
An odd and somewhat uncomfortable electric fence of silence buzzed invisibly there. But, I ascertained, it wasn't the kind of awkwardness that is born of a lack of subject matter between two people. It wasn't that we didn't have anything to say to one another; rather, what we did have to say, we knew on some level was very important; therefore, small talk never felt easy, necessary, or relevant. The one time on the boat I had found a moment and had broken through that barrier between us, I asked Martin what his spiritual work was about. He was hesitant to talk about it. Again, I knew somehow that the reason he didn't even want to begin the discussion, was because he knew that once he began, something longer and more profound than a simple answer would escape its secret box.
I let my curiosity drift from the forefront, but kept in the back of my mind, the knowing that someday Martin and I would explore what electrified the space between us. I felt intuitively certain that Mom had something to do with it, and that when the time was right, she would reach me... through him...
* * *
26.4.06
AMAZING LETTER FROM DAD
My dear Tina and Liz,
As I said on Sunday Liz, I have been thinking the last several days that I wanted to send you both an e-mail about some recent thoughts or "revelations" I've had about you two. So here it is....... You both are very special. Mommy and I knew this all along, and this is constantly confirmed by the comments of others and by your lives and actions on a daily basis. In thinking a lot about your "specialness" and your uniqueness, I truly believe that there are very clear reasons for it and responsibilities that come along with it. Not to sound vain, but you two are born of two very special families. Mommies family, extremely loving, creative, spititual and talented ..... people who have shared their gifts with so many through these talents, Mommie being so "important" in so many peoples lives in this way.... and always nurturing of you in using your very important gifts and serving as an example for you in manifesting these traits in yourselves. And my family, Also extremely loving, giving, spiritual in different, but very selfless ways, offering "stories" and humor about your family, always there for you, proud of your achievements and so happy for Nan and me to have been blessed with two such amazing daughters and their mother. My family, born of a people who have survived the worst of times and loss, through their courage and also the traits I listed above. These are your very special families who made their way to this point to create you and your beautiful traits. Again, know that you are blessed by this heritage and also know that you both have purposes. Purposes to carry forth these gifts and the love that created you both, and new purposes that are still unfolding. Know that you are loved so greatly and that you are meant to love others in turn. Please...... be strong, be proud, be happy, and carry on this great and loving family history. You owe it to us, to yourselves and to those meant to receive your gifts in the future.
I love you both so much,
Dad
As I said on Sunday Liz, I have been thinking the last several days that I wanted to send you both an e-mail about some recent thoughts or "revelations" I've had about you two. So here it is....... You both are very special. Mommy and I knew this all along, and this is constantly confirmed by the comments of others and by your lives and actions on a daily basis. In thinking a lot about your "specialness" and your uniqueness, I truly believe that there are very clear reasons for it and responsibilities that come along with it. Not to sound vain, but you two are born of two very special families. Mommies family, extremely loving, creative, spititual and talented ..... people who have shared their gifts with so many through these talents, Mommie being so "important" in so many peoples lives in this way.... and always nurturing of you in using your very important gifts and serving as an example for you in manifesting these traits in yourselves. And my family, Also extremely loving, giving, spiritual in different, but very selfless ways, offering "stories" and humor about your family, always there for you, proud of your achievements and so happy for Nan and me to have been blessed with two such amazing daughters and their mother. My family, born of a people who have survived the worst of times and loss, through their courage and also the traits I listed above. These are your very special families who made their way to this point to create you and your beautiful traits. Again, know that you are blessed by this heritage and also know that you both have purposes. Purposes to carry forth these gifts and the love that created you both, and new purposes that are still unfolding. Know that you are loved so greatly and that you are meant to love others in turn. Please...... be strong, be proud, be happy, and carry on this great and loving family history. You owe it to us, to yourselves and to those meant to receive your gifts in the future.
I love you both so much,
Dad
Brain Alive
dad,
it was the night before my first day working at lava java. the date was ("dates were" - as it happened over night between) 4/5/06 and 4/6/06.
did you get the e-mail that was circulating on april 3? people were noting that: at ONE o'clock, TWO minutes, and THREE seconds of that night/the next morning...the precise instant would be: 01:02:03 04/05/06. i got this e-mail twice, and andrea and i had talked about it just before we went to sleep (i slept over at her place that night, and knew i wouldn't be able to sleep well because i had to be at work by 5:15a.m. the next morning). so we hit the hay early - at like 9pm (remember, this was on 4/4).
as i lay in bed, i decided to try and meditate, so that i could relax, and hopefully fall asleep. so i began thinking consciously about two things: (1) a practice i have read about called "clicking the amygdala forward", on a "brain explorers" website. here is an excerpt from this website. the information is really interesting, and VERY significant to the rest of my story...
This is the fourth lesson from Brain Magic by musician and teacher Neil Slade. The book is a one-a-day activity, step by step workbook designed to increase creativity, intelligence, pleasure, and promote access to paranormal abilities.
(from his website):
There are two amygdalae in your brain, one inside the left hemisphere of your brain and one inside the right hemisphere, about one inch inside from the temples midway between your eyes and ears. Point there with your fingers, now. Your brain is in fact divided exactly in half, into two separate although connected right and left halves called hemispheres. Each brain hemisphere gets its own amygdala switch which controls and gives accurate feedback as to how well and how well your brain is working.
These other structures shown here are other internal structures, the brain's "limbic system" (the "mammal brain"), of which the amygdala is part. Additionally, the amygdala is a gateway/switch that turns on the most advanced part of your brain: the frontal lobes.
AMYGDALA CLICKED BACKWARD:
A) Your brain is working poorly and "Life stinks!". Brain energy moves into your brain stem and the small primitive core of your brain- your "reptile brain".
B) Being clicked backward means you are only using a fraction of your potential brain power.
C)When your amygdala is clicked backwards you are primarily computing primitive reptile brain thoughts and behaviors: self-defense and counter attack; fight or flight; basic survival.
D) Being clicked backwards automatically results in negative emotions.
To get things working better (an understatement), and to turn on limitless amounts of creativity, intelligence, and pleasure, you need to click your amygdala forward and turn on "the other 90%" of your brain.
AMYGDALA CLICKED FORWARD:
A) This opens the neuro-pathways in your brain to allow energy to effortlessly flow into the rest of your brain and your magnificent frontal lobes.
B) Your frontal lobes are the entire front 1/3 part of your brain. Hold your forehead. Everything under your entire hand is frontal lobes.
C) Your frontal lobes compute "CICIL": Cooperation-Imagination-Creativity-Intuition-Logic.
D) Clicking forward automatically results in positive "Life is FUN!" emotions. When you control your amygdala and click it forward into your frontal lobes, true Brain Magic happens.
MEMORIZE the paragraphs above. Test yourself by writing down the key ideas on a separate piece of paper- Backward, A, B, C, D; Forward, A, B, C, D.
The brain's advanced electrochemical circuits are controlled with THOUGHT. To click your amygdala forward you don't need any machines, gadgets, pills, nor do you need to sign up for expensive retreats or courses.
Clicking your amygdala forward is like wiggling your finger. Only it happens inside your brain instead of on the end of your arm. Do this: wiggle your right index finger. Easy, isn't it? Okay, wiggle your left big toe. Easy too? Now, locate your amygdala (see chart above). You click it forward using your frontal lobes- IMAGINE that your amygdala is like a click toggle switch- Now "click" the switch forward towards your forehead. There! You did it. It's a thought process that changes how you think, and how your brain works. Click it again. Smile!
okay. so that was the first thing i was thinking of, and trying to do. i kept imagining "clicking my amygdalas forward". ALSO, i was concentrating on a really cool dream i had a few months ago.
in the dream: i was in a swimming pool. the pool was an exact rectangle, divided down the center lengthwise by a perfectly straight line. i was at one end of the pool, my spine perfectly congruous to that center line. and i was head to head - more appropriately, mind to mind, with a DOLPHIN.
his forehead was pressed up against mine, and he began swimming forward, thus pushing me - moving me - backward, down the center of the pool. if the pool had been unzipped, i would have been the zipper, and the dolphin would have been the hand pulling the two halves of the pool together, creating the look of a seamless whole.
in the dream, i explained to a concerned friend who sat on the side of the pool watching, that the dolphin was not acting aggresively. and that what he was actually doing, in essence, was "zipping" together the two seperate hemispheres of my brain, so that i would be able to perceive life and the universe and myself more cohesively; with a unified vision. ironic, because everything about the dream was LOGICAL. all lines were straight, and all movement was along those straight lines. because this is what the human brain strives for - ORDER in his or her world. we want things to make logical sense, so we deal in squares, rectangles, and straight lines. of course, a "line" is only the shortest distance between two points. in this case, the line went from one END of the pool to the OTHER END. of course, we know that in the true physical and metaphysical state of the universe, there are no lines that actually "begin" or "end". they are all actually circles, that connect, and rotate eternally into deeper and deeper cycles. SO - this was the second dream i have had, in which whales and dolphins were present to show me - in a way that would make sense to my still-human mind - that there IS a GREATER ORDER to life, and that mom's ascension was NOT her "end", but rather, her birth into a deeper cycle of existence. and i had both of these dreams after falling asleep to desperate pleas to God for any of this - about mom's illness and passing - to make "SENSE" somehow.
okay - so now back to me, lying in bed, thinking about these things, and attempting to meditate on them. attempting to let that dolphin blend the division line in my logical brain, which divides life into beginnings and endings, into one seamless whole. and as i tried to BE in that place, with the dolphin's forehead pressed to mine, and as i was gently moved backward, i tried to consciously CLICK MY AMYGDALAS FORWARD. lastly, i asked mom to come through and let me know she was with me. i specifically "requested" a signal with some electronic connection - like a light turning on by itself, the fan starting up without the switch being flipped...or the phone. something with my phone. that would be good.
keep in mind, it was still very early, because both andrea and i had to be up before the crack of dawn. so i'm lying there, thinking i am awake, when suddenly, i awaken to find that i had actually fallen "asleep". but it wasn't "real" sleep. it was the very relaxed, meditative state of alpha consciousness. this is the state we fall into when we're taking one of those drowsy naps on the couch in the middle of the day, and we don't even realize we've been dozing until we wake up from our daze! it also happens to be the state of consciousness that dolphins EXIST in when they are resting. because they must surface to breathe, they cannot truly sleep. so essentially, they meditate. they SHUT DOWN ONE HALF OF THEIR BRAINS(perhaps, "click one amydala forward, and one backward, into the 'off position'?); and all of their systems slow way down. their metabolism, heartbeat, everything. this way they only have to breathe every once in a while, so as not to be interrupted during rest. kind of like a REAL POWER NAP!
so...i'm lying on the bed, tossing and turning. andrea wakes up and finds me kneeling on the floor, "sleeping" on my knees, and picks me up, and puts me back in the bed; then she wants to trade me places in the bed, because she says i am practically hanging off the edge of the bed, which i am. THEN MY PHONE RINGS.
i say to andrea, "i'd better answer that, because at this time of night, it's gotta be important. i mean, it's ONE a.m. here, which means it is already THREE a.m. in washington, and FOUR a.m. in colorado (figuring one of those would be the only logical place from which i might be getting this middle-of-the-night call.
so i answer. and i hear a conversation on the other end. i don't say anything, but i am LISTENING...to a conversation between YOU AND NAN on the line! i get the message coming through from mom - that she and nan, aunty karen, their mother...they're all still here, and we can talk to them. and we can USE THE PHONE sometimes to do it - just not in the way our logical minds would have us believe. remember, dad, when you had that "dream" that you were talking to nan on the phone (shortly after she died), and she sounded really happy...well, she sounded happy in this "dream" too. SO THEN I WAKE UP; never realizing or knowing that i had even fallen asleep.
i reach down and pick up my phone, and look at its screen for the first of three times i would end up looking at it that night - each time holding major significance. on the phone clock, the time read 12:01 a.m. i spent several minutes wondering why it wasn't 1:00 a.m. that would make much more sense, and be a much more brilliant point, because in the dream - i thought to myself - i noted that it was 3 in washington and 4 in denver. but then it hit me like a ton of bricks: it WASN'T 1 in the dream, it WAS ACTUALLY 12:00 - BECAUSE WE DIDN'T JUST RECENTLY SET OUR CLOCKS FORWARD, like everyone else did!!! we don't do that here!! oh my god...
so, in other words, i woke up from a dream i didn't know i was having, in which i heard you and nan talking on the other end of the line of my phone...at the PRECISE moment (or one moment later) than my phone had rung in that "dream". are you following me? 'cause there's more. a lot more...
it dawned on me. it was 12:01 a.m. - the clock had - one minute earlier - rolled over to bring forth the next new day: 04/05/06.
i fell back asleep, dazzled by what had just happened. the next time i woke up, i immediately picked up my phone again, expecting nothing less than something way too trippy and synchronistic to be either real or unreal. it was 12:46 a.m.
hmmmm, couldn't think of any significance there. but i knew at that point that i HAD to get up and write all of this down. i couldn't risk forgetting it.
trying to be as quiet as possible, so as not to wake andrea, i tip-toed over to the one place i knew - even in the dark - had something i could write on. it was the 8x10 white envelope that my photo prints were in, and i had set it right there on that chair before i went to bed.
i took the envelope, and a pen from the table that i found by feeling around, and crept into andrea's closet, where i turned on the light, and feverishly started scribbling about the midnight "phone call" from the Other Side. the receipt from my picture order was still stuck, with tape, to the envelope. you know, that's how they do it at costco, so that they can see that you've paid for your merchandise before you leave the store. what jumps out at me? the TIME that my order was picked up:
12:46 p.m. !!!
i laid back down, drifted off for a few minutes, then got up and looked at my phone for the third and final time that night/middle-of-night/morning. it was 1:02 a.m.
not only was this the time i thought it would have had to have been (and would have, had we set our clocks forward like everyone else in the country), in my dream. but also, it was the precise moment (well, exactly 12 hours later) that i had both read about and spoken about only hours ago, for its "numerical significance": 01:02:(03) 04/05/06.
when i fell back into bed, under a moon i noticed was EXACTLY HALF of its full size (like each of our brain hemispheres), my mind wouldn't stop racing. i started thinking in numbers, and although it is virtually impossible to explain it here, i will say this: what "everything" came down to - at the conclusion of every "equation" - were the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, (and less often, but still prominently), 4 and 5.
(seperating each number, for instance, the number 12 into 1 and 2, and so on)...
my birthday: 1.2.2.3
tina's birthday: 0.3.2.0
shelly's birthday: 0.2.0.3
aunty karen's REBIRTHday: 1.2.2.0.0.1
mom's REBIRTHday: 1.2.3.1.0.4
amma's REBIRTHDAY: 1.2.3.1
(i might add that in the mayans' calculations, december 21, 2012 - the winter solstice of that year - 1.2.2.1.1.2 - is going to be not the "end" of the world - but the REBIRTH of the world; the kind of POSITIVE TRANSFORMATION that mom believed so deeply and truly was coming).
aidan's birthday: 0.3.2.4
gavin's birthday: 0.5.1.2 (also mother's day the year he was born...and, a side note, recall that last year, father's day and mom's birthday both fell on the same day) ----------
alena's birthday: 0.5.3.1
papa's birthday: 1.2.1.4
and so on...............
stay with me here. i'm going to go backwards for a minute...
two days before this one, i had come home to find a note at the top of the stairs for me in star's handwriting. it said, "liz - dentist appointment tomorrow - 8:00 a.m." HUH? what could that be about? although i had THOUGHT a whole lot about needing to go to the dentist - and every time, thinking about it stemmed from mom's (and yours, dad) continual INSISTENCE on our good dental health, and our needing to have regular dentist visits - but i had NOT made an appointment with anyone! i hadn't called any clinics, i hadn't spoken with any receptionists...i had NOT made that dentist appointment!
star and i puzzled over it. she said she answered the call, and the woman on the other end said she was calling to "remind elizabeth about her dentist appointment tomorrow morning". star said, "my name is elizabeth, but i don't have any appointment scheduled". and the woman said, "no, this is for elizabeth kover, not elizabeth star".
the more i think about this, the weirder it gets. and the more i question...WHO ON EARTH could have made that appointment? maybe it was not someone on earth. maybe it was MOM!!?? what other explanation could there be?!
* * *
earlier in the day (back to the day before i started work at lava java - the day i was supposed to have my mystery dental appointment - which i would have gone to had there been any information given about WHAT "CLINIC" to go to!), i had gone to starbuck's for an afternoon coffee. i usually never went in the afternoon, only in the morning on my way to work at the fair wind. i knew this would likely be my last time coming in there too, as the following day, i would start my job at a different coffee shop. i had been really bummed and blue that whole day. when i went to the counter at starbuck's, this young girl - probably in high school - served me. i always saw this girl in the morning, and always noticed that she looked very unhappy. she had never spoken more words to me than "may i help you", and i really thought she might not like me for some reason. but here we were, in the afternoon (closer to her getting off work time, i presumed). she actually smiled, which i swear, i had never seen her do. and she started talking to me, bubbly and bright as could be. she said, "i love your hair! i always say to myself, 'i want to do my hair just like hers!'...and i always wonder what you're doing, where you're on your way to...always alone...and i think of you as the 'workout queen'..........
compliment after compliment, and she was really sweet, and i was glad to see her happier than usual. she explained (without my asking) that she was always grumpy in the morning, and never felt like talking then. i told her it was nice to meet her. and on my way out the door, turned and asked, "what's your name"?...........JENNY (with a "y", i asked). still, the girl's name was JENNy.
also interesting to note: in the past two days, i had had two women introduce themselves to me from behind coffee counters. the first was KAREN (she works at lava java, i met her a few days before starting there myself); the second was JENNy.
anyway...when i left starbucks, i got in my car and pulled up at a stoplight behind a car whose licence plate said "GJV-123". i always look for letter combinations like that - with G's and J's, GV's, etc., and accept them as signs from mom.
* * *
coming back to the "future", it was finally time to get up and start my new job, after a restless and bizarre night of only half-sleep. i arrived at 5:15 a.m., and met the girl who would show me the ropes. her name was paige. after conversing for maybe two or three minutes, sharing the basic "how long have you been in hawaii", and "where did you work before this", questions and answers, i said to her, "this may be a strange question, but just out of "curiosity", when is your birthday?
"december 14th", she said...papa's birthday. i had written it down on the envelope in the middle of the night.
* * *
i took all of this to be a grand message from mom about the ORDER that is inherent in life, even though we are usually pretty much blind to it. just as they say now that physics and metaphysics are one in the same study; i think the nitty gritty numerical formulas that essentially bring us "pi", "negative numbers", "imaginary numbers", lines and rays. meaning, these are "technical" mathematical terms, used to build the complex equations that are inherent in every aspect of the physical world. but think about what these things mean. for example, a "LINE": in math, we think of a line as having two end points; but beyond those "end" points, the line EXTENDS FOREVER IN BOTH DIRECTIONS (until it bends and eventually becomes spherical - since we are in a closed physical system in our universe). and a ray: we may think of a ray as a "straight" line that begins at a certain point and extends forever in one direction. look how paradoxical, though, and analogous to physical DEATH actually being the ultimate (metaphysical) BIRTH: the point where the ray BEGINS is known as its ENDPOINT.
i believe that when our human minds become more like dolphins', and we are thus better able to comprehend the complete, perfect, and absolute UNITY of the PHYSICAL and NON-PHYSICAL elements of the universe, we will be better able to communicate with our beloved ones who have transformed and risen to the higher planes of existence.
another analogy: when we "feel" communication with our hearts, rather than trying so hard to legitimize it in our minds, then we will be able to "get" it.
peter gabriel (birthday 2.1.3) sums up what i am trying to say beautifully in his song, "more than this", which came into my head that strange night of the numbers and brain fusing:
i woke up and the world outside was dark
all so quiet before the dawn
opened up the door and walked outside
the ground was cold
i walked until i couldn't walk anymore
to a place i'd never been
there was something stirring in the air
in front of me, i could see
more than this
more than this
so much more than this
there is something else there
when all that you had has all gone
and more than this
i stand feeling so connected
and i'm all there right next to you
it started when i saw the ship go down
i saw them struggle in the sea
and suddenly the picture disappears
in front of me
now we're busy making all our busy plans
on foundations built to last
but nothing fades as fast as the future
and nothing clings like the past,
until we can see
more than this
more than this
so much more than this
there is something out there
more than this it's coming through
and more than this
i stand alone and so connected
and I'm all there right next to you
oh then it's alright
when with every day
another bit falls away
oh but it's still alright, alright, alright
and like words together
we can make some sense
much more than this
way beyond imagination
much more than this
beyond the stars
with my head so full
so full of fractured pictures
and i'm all there right next to you
so much more than this
there is something else there
when all that you had has all gone
and more than this
i'm alone feeling so connected
and i'm all there right next to you
more than this
more than this
more than this
* * *
a few nights later, i had another "dream". it took place in the garage of our house on foothill drive. dad, you and mom were getting ready to "leave". i don't know where you were going, but you were off to someplace else. you both started out the open garage door; and i called you back. i wanted to give you both a huge, long hug. because - i remember thinking - you never know when it might be your last one in this world. that dream reminded me to cherish every minute i have with my dear family and friends, and to tell them/you how much i love you every time i am blessed with the chance. so...I LOVE YOU!
* * *
last night...i was in the house, downstairs, in front of the t.v. i had all of my photo "stuff" - poster board, glue, tape, photos, mattes, pens, scissors, paper cutter, exact-o knife, etc., spread out all over the floor. i had to work on the floor, there was no room elsewhere for such a spread. but i was nervous - kind of paranoid, actually - because i had seen (either) two CENTIPEDES, (or one centipede, two different times), on that floor recently. both times, i had been (thank god, not on the floor) sitting in a chair facing the t.v. and from out of the corner of my left eye, had seen the poisonous creepy crawly beast, creeping and crawling across the carpet. needless to say, i was HORRIFIED. it didn't help matters that star then encouraged me to check inside all of my shoes - and my bed covers (!) - before getting in them!
but sitting there among all of my art supplies, looking anxiously over my shoulder every two minutes for some monstrous creature, i decided that i couldn't live like that. i figured i had better somehow make "peace" with the centipede civilization, if we were going to be sharing a living space. so i looked up some of the spiritual and mythological symbolism of the centipede in various cultures and/or religions. what i found was interesting, and i of course related it to mom, life and death, logic vs. abstract thought, and FEAR. here are a couple of the excerpts i found:
Most of us have heard the story of the centipede who, when asked how he managed to walk with so many legs, could no longer do so, but tangled his legs hopelessly in the attempt to intellectually figure it out and ended up on his back, helpless. This is not unlike the person who attempts to plumb the depths of oriental scriptures. Right away it becomes evident that they consist of incalculable layers, nearly all symbolic in nature. Furthermore, the meanings of the symbols are not consistent, changing according to the levels on which they occur. For example, on one level water symbolizes the mind, on another level the constant flux of samsara, and on another the subtle life-currents known as prana. This being the case, our Western linear mode of thought becomes as entangled and disabled as the fabled centipede. (from the Bhavagad Gita)
Snakes are respected and were regarded as transitory figures. The snake was a powerful force of transitional spiritual energy. Like centipedes, snakes could encourage the growth or transition of individuals from one stage of being to another. As lightning symbols, the sky serpent brought change in weather. Snakes were present near springs and rivers and used in rituals that maintained the vitality of water sources. (from information derived from 4,000 year old petroglyphs in the southwestern united states).
yesterday at work, the SECOND following one of my "little requests upward" to hear from mom, i went into the office to find my paycheck. it wasn't there, but the first envelope i did see was one addressed to:
JENNIE ROSE (yes, jennie with an "ie" - this is rare). and my middle name, rose!
john edward says, "what would you do if someone you loved all of a sudden didn't speak or understand english anymore, but only could speak some bizarre foreign language?...of course, you would learn that language." he also talks about how spirits use symbols, references, and vehicles that we, still here in human form and working within the great limitations of human perception, can comprehend, and which we will recognize, and with which we can connect...so often, i will hear a song on the radio JUST as i am asking for this connective validation from mom. and usually, they are either songs that were very important to mom, favorites of hers, songs and/or artists we shared a love for...or songs whose lyrics, not only describe what her words to me might be, but simultaneously, what my words to her are. it's hard to explain; though john edward confirms this as something he knows to be true also.
...this evening, as i was driving home from starbucks, thinking about mom, john edward, and the complete mystery and wonder of it all, the following song came on the radio. i will leave you with its lyrics - and the message that - i believe - came so clearly from mom, to all of us, through its words.
STAY WITH YOU
by the Goo Goo Dolls
These streets
Turn me inside out
Everything shines
But leaves me empty still
And I'll burn this lonely house down
If you run with me
If you run with me
I'll stay with you
The walls will fall before we do
Take my hand now
We'll run forever
I can feel the storm inside you
I'll stay with you
Fooled by my own desires
I twist my fate
Just to feel you
But you turn me toward the light
And you're one with me
Will you run with me?
I'll stay with you
The walls will fall before we do
Take my hand now
We'll run forever
I can feel the storm inside you
I'll stay with you
Now come in from this storm
I feel you sweet and warm
Take what you need
Take what you need
From me
Wake up this world
Wake up tonight
And run with me
Run to me now
I'll stay with you
The walls will fall before we do
Take my hand now
We'll run forever
I can feel the storm inside you
I'll stay with you
I'll stay with you
it was the night before my first day working at lava java. the date was ("dates were" - as it happened over night between) 4/5/06 and 4/6/06.
did you get the e-mail that was circulating on april 3? people were noting that: at ONE o'clock, TWO minutes, and THREE seconds of that night/the next morning...the precise instant would be: 01:02:03 04/05/06. i got this e-mail twice, and andrea and i had talked about it just before we went to sleep (i slept over at her place that night, and knew i wouldn't be able to sleep well because i had to be at work by 5:15a.m. the next morning). so we hit the hay early - at like 9pm (remember, this was on 4/4).
as i lay in bed, i decided to try and meditate, so that i could relax, and hopefully fall asleep. so i began thinking consciously about two things: (1) a practice i have read about called "clicking the amygdala forward", on a "brain explorers" website. here is an excerpt from this website. the information is really interesting, and VERY significant to the rest of my story...
This is the fourth lesson from Brain Magic by musician and teacher Neil Slade. The book is a one-a-day activity, step by step workbook designed to increase creativity, intelligence, pleasure, and promote access to paranormal abilities.
(from his website):
There are two amygdalae in your brain, one inside the left hemisphere of your brain and one inside the right hemisphere, about one inch inside from the temples midway between your eyes and ears. Point there with your fingers, now. Your brain is in fact divided exactly in half, into two separate although connected right and left halves called hemispheres. Each brain hemisphere gets its own amygdala switch which controls and gives accurate feedback as to how well and how well your brain is working.
These other structures shown here are other internal structures, the brain's "limbic system" (the "mammal brain"), of which the amygdala is part. Additionally, the amygdala is a gateway/switch that turns on the most advanced part of your brain: the frontal lobes.
AMYGDALA CLICKED BACKWARD:
A) Your brain is working poorly and "Life stinks!". Brain energy moves into your brain stem and the small primitive core of your brain- your "reptile brain".
B) Being clicked backward means you are only using a fraction of your potential brain power.
C)When your amygdala is clicked backwards you are primarily computing primitive reptile brain thoughts and behaviors: self-defense and counter attack; fight or flight; basic survival.
D) Being clicked backwards automatically results in negative emotions.
To get things working better (an understatement), and to turn on limitless amounts of creativity, intelligence, and pleasure, you need to click your amygdala forward and turn on "the other 90%" of your brain.
AMYGDALA CLICKED FORWARD:
A) This opens the neuro-pathways in your brain to allow energy to effortlessly flow into the rest of your brain and your magnificent frontal lobes.
B) Your frontal lobes are the entire front 1/3 part of your brain. Hold your forehead. Everything under your entire hand is frontal lobes.
C) Your frontal lobes compute "CICIL": Cooperation-Imagination-Creativity-Intuition-Logic.
D) Clicking forward automatically results in positive "Life is FUN!" emotions. When you control your amygdala and click it forward into your frontal lobes, true Brain Magic happens.
MEMORIZE the paragraphs above. Test yourself by writing down the key ideas on a separate piece of paper- Backward, A, B, C, D; Forward, A, B, C, D.
The brain's advanced electrochemical circuits are controlled with THOUGHT. To click your amygdala forward you don't need any machines, gadgets, pills, nor do you need to sign up for expensive retreats or courses.
Clicking your amygdala forward is like wiggling your finger. Only it happens inside your brain instead of on the end of your arm. Do this: wiggle your right index finger. Easy, isn't it? Okay, wiggle your left big toe. Easy too? Now, locate your amygdala (see chart above). You click it forward using your frontal lobes- IMAGINE that your amygdala is like a click toggle switch- Now "click" the switch forward towards your forehead. There! You did it. It's a thought process that changes how you think, and how your brain works. Click it again. Smile!
okay. so that was the first thing i was thinking of, and trying to do. i kept imagining "clicking my amygdalas forward". ALSO, i was concentrating on a really cool dream i had a few months ago.
in the dream: i was in a swimming pool. the pool was an exact rectangle, divided down the center lengthwise by a perfectly straight line. i was at one end of the pool, my spine perfectly congruous to that center line. and i was head to head - more appropriately, mind to mind, with a DOLPHIN.
his forehead was pressed up against mine, and he began swimming forward, thus pushing me - moving me - backward, down the center of the pool. if the pool had been unzipped, i would have been the zipper, and the dolphin would have been the hand pulling the two halves of the pool together, creating the look of a seamless whole.
in the dream, i explained to a concerned friend who sat on the side of the pool watching, that the dolphin was not acting aggresively. and that what he was actually doing, in essence, was "zipping" together the two seperate hemispheres of my brain, so that i would be able to perceive life and the universe and myself more cohesively; with a unified vision. ironic, because everything about the dream was LOGICAL. all lines were straight, and all movement was along those straight lines. because this is what the human brain strives for - ORDER in his or her world. we want things to make logical sense, so we deal in squares, rectangles, and straight lines. of course, a "line" is only the shortest distance between two points. in this case, the line went from one END of the pool to the OTHER END. of course, we know that in the true physical and metaphysical state of the universe, there are no lines that actually "begin" or "end". they are all actually circles, that connect, and rotate eternally into deeper and deeper cycles. SO - this was the second dream i have had, in which whales and dolphins were present to show me - in a way that would make sense to my still-human mind - that there IS a GREATER ORDER to life, and that mom's ascension was NOT her "end", but rather, her birth into a deeper cycle of existence. and i had both of these dreams after falling asleep to desperate pleas to God for any of this - about mom's illness and passing - to make "SENSE" somehow.
okay - so now back to me, lying in bed, thinking about these things, and attempting to meditate on them. attempting to let that dolphin blend the division line in my logical brain, which divides life into beginnings and endings, into one seamless whole. and as i tried to BE in that place, with the dolphin's forehead pressed to mine, and as i was gently moved backward, i tried to consciously CLICK MY AMYGDALAS FORWARD. lastly, i asked mom to come through and let me know she was with me. i specifically "requested" a signal with some electronic connection - like a light turning on by itself, the fan starting up without the switch being flipped...or the phone. something with my phone. that would be good.
keep in mind, it was still very early, because both andrea and i had to be up before the crack of dawn. so i'm lying there, thinking i am awake, when suddenly, i awaken to find that i had actually fallen "asleep". but it wasn't "real" sleep. it was the very relaxed, meditative state of alpha consciousness. this is the state we fall into when we're taking one of those drowsy naps on the couch in the middle of the day, and we don't even realize we've been dozing until we wake up from our daze! it also happens to be the state of consciousness that dolphins EXIST in when they are resting. because they must surface to breathe, they cannot truly sleep. so essentially, they meditate. they SHUT DOWN ONE HALF OF THEIR BRAINS(perhaps, "click one amydala forward, and one backward, into the 'off position'?); and all of their systems slow way down. their metabolism, heartbeat, everything. this way they only have to breathe every once in a while, so as not to be interrupted during rest. kind of like a REAL POWER NAP!
so...i'm lying on the bed, tossing and turning. andrea wakes up and finds me kneeling on the floor, "sleeping" on my knees, and picks me up, and puts me back in the bed; then she wants to trade me places in the bed, because she says i am practically hanging off the edge of the bed, which i am. THEN MY PHONE RINGS.
i say to andrea, "i'd better answer that, because at this time of night, it's gotta be important. i mean, it's ONE a.m. here, which means it is already THREE a.m. in washington, and FOUR a.m. in colorado (figuring one of those would be the only logical place from which i might be getting this middle-of-the-night call.
so i answer. and i hear a conversation on the other end. i don't say anything, but i am LISTENING...to a conversation between YOU AND NAN on the line! i get the message coming through from mom - that she and nan, aunty karen, their mother...they're all still here, and we can talk to them. and we can USE THE PHONE sometimes to do it - just not in the way our logical minds would have us believe. remember, dad, when you had that "dream" that you were talking to nan on the phone (shortly after she died), and she sounded really happy...well, she sounded happy in this "dream" too. SO THEN I WAKE UP; never realizing or knowing that i had even fallen asleep.
i reach down and pick up my phone, and look at its screen for the first of three times i would end up looking at it that night - each time holding major significance. on the phone clock, the time read 12:01 a.m. i spent several minutes wondering why it wasn't 1:00 a.m. that would make much more sense, and be a much more brilliant point, because in the dream - i thought to myself - i noted that it was 3 in washington and 4 in denver. but then it hit me like a ton of bricks: it WASN'T 1 in the dream, it WAS ACTUALLY 12:00 - BECAUSE WE DIDN'T JUST RECENTLY SET OUR CLOCKS FORWARD, like everyone else did!!! we don't do that here!! oh my god...
so, in other words, i woke up from a dream i didn't know i was having, in which i heard you and nan talking on the other end of the line of my phone...at the PRECISE moment (or one moment later) than my phone had rung in that "dream". are you following me? 'cause there's more. a lot more...
it dawned on me. it was 12:01 a.m. - the clock had - one minute earlier - rolled over to bring forth the next new day: 04/05/06.
i fell back asleep, dazzled by what had just happened. the next time i woke up, i immediately picked up my phone again, expecting nothing less than something way too trippy and synchronistic to be either real or unreal. it was 12:46 a.m.
hmmmm, couldn't think of any significance there. but i knew at that point that i HAD to get up and write all of this down. i couldn't risk forgetting it.
trying to be as quiet as possible, so as not to wake andrea, i tip-toed over to the one place i knew - even in the dark - had something i could write on. it was the 8x10 white envelope that my photo prints were in, and i had set it right there on that chair before i went to bed.
i took the envelope, and a pen from the table that i found by feeling around, and crept into andrea's closet, where i turned on the light, and feverishly started scribbling about the midnight "phone call" from the Other Side. the receipt from my picture order was still stuck, with tape, to the envelope. you know, that's how they do it at costco, so that they can see that you've paid for your merchandise before you leave the store. what jumps out at me? the TIME that my order was picked up:
12:46 p.m. !!!
i laid back down, drifted off for a few minutes, then got up and looked at my phone for the third and final time that night/middle-of-night/morning. it was 1:02 a.m.
not only was this the time i thought it would have had to have been (and would have, had we set our clocks forward like everyone else in the country), in my dream. but also, it was the precise moment (well, exactly 12 hours later) that i had both read about and spoken about only hours ago, for its "numerical significance": 01:02:(03) 04/05/06.
when i fell back into bed, under a moon i noticed was EXACTLY HALF of its full size (like each of our brain hemispheres), my mind wouldn't stop racing. i started thinking in numbers, and although it is virtually impossible to explain it here, i will say this: what "everything" came down to - at the conclusion of every "equation" - were the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, (and less often, but still prominently), 4 and 5.
(seperating each number, for instance, the number 12 into 1 and 2, and so on)...
my birthday: 1.2.2.3
tina's birthday: 0.3.2.0
shelly's birthday: 0.2.0.3
aunty karen's REBIRTHday: 1.2.2.0.0.1
mom's REBIRTHday: 1.2.3.1.0.4
amma's REBIRTHDAY: 1.2.3.1
(i might add that in the mayans' calculations, december 21, 2012 - the winter solstice of that year - 1.2.2.1.1.2 - is going to be not the "end" of the world - but the REBIRTH of the world; the kind of POSITIVE TRANSFORMATION that mom believed so deeply and truly was coming).
aidan's birthday: 0.3.2.4
gavin's birthday: 0.5.1.2 (also mother's day the year he was born...and, a side note, recall that last year, father's day and mom's birthday both fell on the same day) ----------
alena's birthday: 0.5.3.1
papa's birthday: 1.2.1.4
and so on...............
stay with me here. i'm going to go backwards for a minute...
two days before this one, i had come home to find a note at the top of the stairs for me in star's handwriting. it said, "liz - dentist appointment tomorrow - 8:00 a.m." HUH? what could that be about? although i had THOUGHT a whole lot about needing to go to the dentist - and every time, thinking about it stemmed from mom's (and yours, dad) continual INSISTENCE on our good dental health, and our needing to have regular dentist visits - but i had NOT made an appointment with anyone! i hadn't called any clinics, i hadn't spoken with any receptionists...i had NOT made that dentist appointment!
star and i puzzled over it. she said she answered the call, and the woman on the other end said she was calling to "remind elizabeth about her dentist appointment tomorrow morning". star said, "my name is elizabeth, but i don't have any appointment scheduled". and the woman said, "no, this is for elizabeth kover, not elizabeth star".
the more i think about this, the weirder it gets. and the more i question...WHO ON EARTH could have made that appointment? maybe it was not someone on earth. maybe it was MOM!!?? what other explanation could there be?!
* * *
earlier in the day (back to the day before i started work at lava java - the day i was supposed to have my mystery dental appointment - which i would have gone to had there been any information given about WHAT "CLINIC" to go to!), i had gone to starbuck's for an afternoon coffee. i usually never went in the afternoon, only in the morning on my way to work at the fair wind. i knew this would likely be my last time coming in there too, as the following day, i would start my job at a different coffee shop. i had been really bummed and blue that whole day. when i went to the counter at starbuck's, this young girl - probably in high school - served me. i always saw this girl in the morning, and always noticed that she looked very unhappy. she had never spoken more words to me than "may i help you", and i really thought she might not like me for some reason. but here we were, in the afternoon (closer to her getting off work time, i presumed). she actually smiled, which i swear, i had never seen her do. and she started talking to me, bubbly and bright as could be. she said, "i love your hair! i always say to myself, 'i want to do my hair just like hers!'...and i always wonder what you're doing, where you're on your way to...always alone...and i think of you as the 'workout queen'..........
compliment after compliment, and she was really sweet, and i was glad to see her happier than usual. she explained (without my asking) that she was always grumpy in the morning, and never felt like talking then. i told her it was nice to meet her. and on my way out the door, turned and asked, "what's your name"?...........JENNY (with a "y", i asked). still, the girl's name was JENNy.
also interesting to note: in the past two days, i had had two women introduce themselves to me from behind coffee counters. the first was KAREN (she works at lava java, i met her a few days before starting there myself); the second was JENNy.
anyway...when i left starbucks, i got in my car and pulled up at a stoplight behind a car whose licence plate said "GJV-123". i always look for letter combinations like that - with G's and J's, GV's, etc., and accept them as signs from mom.
* * *
coming back to the "future", it was finally time to get up and start my new job, after a restless and bizarre night of only half-sleep. i arrived at 5:15 a.m., and met the girl who would show me the ropes. her name was paige. after conversing for maybe two or three minutes, sharing the basic "how long have you been in hawaii", and "where did you work before this", questions and answers, i said to her, "this may be a strange question, but just out of "curiosity", when is your birthday?
"december 14th", she said...papa's birthday. i had written it down on the envelope in the middle of the night.
* * *
i took all of this to be a grand message from mom about the ORDER that is inherent in life, even though we are usually pretty much blind to it. just as they say now that physics and metaphysics are one in the same study; i think the nitty gritty numerical formulas that essentially bring us "pi", "negative numbers", "imaginary numbers", lines and rays. meaning, these are "technical" mathematical terms, used to build the complex equations that are inherent in every aspect of the physical world. but think about what these things mean. for example, a "LINE": in math, we think of a line as having two end points; but beyond those "end" points, the line EXTENDS FOREVER IN BOTH DIRECTIONS (until it bends and eventually becomes spherical - since we are in a closed physical system in our universe). and a ray: we may think of a ray as a "straight" line that begins at a certain point and extends forever in one direction. look how paradoxical, though, and analogous to physical DEATH actually being the ultimate (metaphysical) BIRTH: the point where the ray BEGINS is known as its ENDPOINT.
i believe that when our human minds become more like dolphins', and we are thus better able to comprehend the complete, perfect, and absolute UNITY of the PHYSICAL and NON-PHYSICAL elements of the universe, we will be better able to communicate with our beloved ones who have transformed and risen to the higher planes of existence.
another analogy: when we "feel" communication with our hearts, rather than trying so hard to legitimize it in our minds, then we will be able to "get" it.
peter gabriel (birthday 2.1.3) sums up what i am trying to say beautifully in his song, "more than this", which came into my head that strange night of the numbers and brain fusing:
i woke up and the world outside was dark
all so quiet before the dawn
opened up the door and walked outside
the ground was cold
i walked until i couldn't walk anymore
to a place i'd never been
there was something stirring in the air
in front of me, i could see
more than this
more than this
so much more than this
there is something else there
when all that you had has all gone
and more than this
i stand feeling so connected
and i'm all there right next to you
it started when i saw the ship go down
i saw them struggle in the sea
and suddenly the picture disappears
in front of me
now we're busy making all our busy plans
on foundations built to last
but nothing fades as fast as the future
and nothing clings like the past,
until we can see
more than this
more than this
so much more than this
there is something out there
more than this it's coming through
and more than this
i stand alone and so connected
and I'm all there right next to you
oh then it's alright
when with every day
another bit falls away
oh but it's still alright, alright, alright
and like words together
we can make some sense
much more than this
way beyond imagination
much more than this
beyond the stars
with my head so full
so full of fractured pictures
and i'm all there right next to you
so much more than this
there is something else there
when all that you had has all gone
and more than this
i'm alone feeling so connected
and i'm all there right next to you
more than this
more than this
more than this
* * *
a few nights later, i had another "dream". it took place in the garage of our house on foothill drive. dad, you and mom were getting ready to "leave". i don't know where you were going, but you were off to someplace else. you both started out the open garage door; and i called you back. i wanted to give you both a huge, long hug. because - i remember thinking - you never know when it might be your last one in this world. that dream reminded me to cherish every minute i have with my dear family and friends, and to tell them/you how much i love you every time i am blessed with the chance. so...I LOVE YOU!
* * *
last night...i was in the house, downstairs, in front of the t.v. i had all of my photo "stuff" - poster board, glue, tape, photos, mattes, pens, scissors, paper cutter, exact-o knife, etc., spread out all over the floor. i had to work on the floor, there was no room elsewhere for such a spread. but i was nervous - kind of paranoid, actually - because i had seen (either) two CENTIPEDES, (or one centipede, two different times), on that floor recently. both times, i had been (thank god, not on the floor) sitting in a chair facing the t.v. and from out of the corner of my left eye, had seen the poisonous creepy crawly beast, creeping and crawling across the carpet. needless to say, i was HORRIFIED. it didn't help matters that star then encouraged me to check inside all of my shoes - and my bed covers (!) - before getting in them!
but sitting there among all of my art supplies, looking anxiously over my shoulder every two minutes for some monstrous creature, i decided that i couldn't live like that. i figured i had better somehow make "peace" with the centipede civilization, if we were going to be sharing a living space. so i looked up some of the spiritual and mythological symbolism of the centipede in various cultures and/or religions. what i found was interesting, and i of course related it to mom, life and death, logic vs. abstract thought, and FEAR. here are a couple of the excerpts i found:
Most of us have heard the story of the centipede who, when asked how he managed to walk with so many legs, could no longer do so, but tangled his legs hopelessly in the attempt to intellectually figure it out and ended up on his back, helpless. This is not unlike the person who attempts to plumb the depths of oriental scriptures. Right away it becomes evident that they consist of incalculable layers, nearly all symbolic in nature. Furthermore, the meanings of the symbols are not consistent, changing according to the levels on which they occur. For example, on one level water symbolizes the mind, on another level the constant flux of samsara, and on another the subtle life-currents known as prana. This being the case, our Western linear mode of thought becomes as entangled and disabled as the fabled centipede. (from the Bhavagad Gita)
Snakes are respected and were regarded as transitory figures. The snake was a powerful force of transitional spiritual energy. Like centipedes, snakes could encourage the growth or transition of individuals from one stage of being to another. As lightning symbols, the sky serpent brought change in weather. Snakes were present near springs and rivers and used in rituals that maintained the vitality of water sources. (from information derived from 4,000 year old petroglyphs in the southwestern united states).
tonight...i stopped at starbucks again for an evening coffee, a sunset, and to read from the latest john edward book i've started reading, called "AFTER LIFE". as often happens when i am reading his books or watching his show, i feel affirmed and validated in my own connective, communicative exchanges with mom. there is always a part of me - the "logical" part - that brushes these experiences off as works of my imagination, or creations of my unconscious or subconscious mind - so desperately searching for signs of her continued existence and presence. but because i am a logical and intelligent person, i am objective and skeptical enough to be very careful about what i believe is "real". and sometimes...many times...the messages i receive from mom - at the precise moments i receive them - are too "synchronistic" and meaningful to deny.
yesterday at work, the SECOND following one of my "little requests upward" to hear from mom, i went into the office to find my paycheck. it wasn't there, but the first envelope i did see was one addressed to:
JENNIE ROSE (yes, jennie with an "ie" - this is rare). and my middle name, rose!
john edward says, "what would you do if someone you loved all of a sudden didn't speak or understand english anymore, but only could speak some bizarre foreign language?...of course, you would learn that language." he also talks about how spirits use symbols, references, and vehicles that we, still here in human form and working within the great limitations of human perception, can comprehend, and which we will recognize, and with which we can connect...so often, i will hear a song on the radio JUST as i am asking for this connective validation from mom. and usually, they are either songs that were very important to mom, favorites of hers, songs and/or artists we shared a love for...or songs whose lyrics, not only describe what her words to me might be, but simultaneously, what my words to her are. it's hard to explain; though john edward confirms this as something he knows to be true also.
...this evening, as i was driving home from starbucks, thinking about mom, john edward, and the complete mystery and wonder of it all, the following song came on the radio. i will leave you with its lyrics - and the message that - i believe - came so clearly from mom, to all of us, through its words.
STAY WITH YOU
by the Goo Goo Dolls
These streets
Turn me inside out
Everything shines
But leaves me empty still
And I'll burn this lonely house down
If you run with me
If you run with me
I'll stay with you
The walls will fall before we do
Take my hand now
We'll run forever
I can feel the storm inside you
I'll stay with you
Fooled by my own desires
I twist my fate
Just to feel you
But you turn me toward the light
And you're one with me
Will you run with me?
I'll stay with you
The walls will fall before we do
Take my hand now
We'll run forever
I can feel the storm inside you
I'll stay with you
Now come in from this storm
I feel you sweet and warm
Take what you need
Take what you need
From me
Wake up this world
Wake up tonight
And run with me
Run to me now
I'll stay with you
The walls will fall before we do
Take my hand now
We'll run forever
I can feel the storm inside you
I'll stay with you
I'll stay with you
11.4.06
MY DARLING GIRL
Where are you, Mom?
My heart is fractured.
I am here, my darling
Our love spills from between all cracks, and fills all holes
I need you, Mom.
My tears won't stop flowing.
You have me, my darling
I live in the Endless Reservoir
I cannot go on, Mom.
I am Nothing without you.
Your feet carry precious cargo, my darling
For you are All the Love in my Soul
I am tired of walking, Mom.
Will you come and get me?
I've never left you, my darling girl
And you are halfway to Heaven already
My heart is fractured.
I am here, my darling
Our love spills from between all cracks, and fills all holes
I need you, Mom.
My tears won't stop flowing.
You have me, my darling
I live in the Endless Reservoir
I cannot go on, Mom.
I am Nothing without you.
Your feet carry precious cargo, my darling
For you are All the Love in my Soul
I am tired of walking, Mom.
Will you come and get me?
I've never left you, my darling girl
And you are halfway to Heaven already
5.4.06
APRIL, Come She Will
(That is a Simon and Garfunkel lyric/song)...
Mom comes through every day of every month...but this month would be of special importance to her.
April is NATIONAL DONATE LIFE MONTH...and Mom wanted to "spend the rest of her life" spreading the word about the importance of organ and tissue donation...so through us, let her work continue...
Following is the link to an article about this month's important message of awareness (which directly quotes Dr. Igal Kam - my surgeon and Mom's doctor - and includes the U. of CO hospital). Pass it along, if you will.
I thank you...and my MOM thanks you!!
nationaldonatelifemonth
Love and Blessings of Health to All,
Liz
Mom comes through every day of every month...but this month would be of special importance to her.
April is NATIONAL DONATE LIFE MONTH...and Mom wanted to "spend the rest of her life" spreading the word about the importance of organ and tissue donation...so through us, let her work continue...
Following is the link to an article about this month's important message of awareness (which directly quotes Dr. Igal Kam - my surgeon and Mom's doctor - and includes the U. of CO hospital). Pass it along, if you will.
I thank you...and my MOM thanks you!!
nationaldonatelifemonth
Love and Blessings of Health to All,
Liz
4.4.06
THICKENING THE AIR I AM BREATHING
When my Mom died, her spirit vacated her damaged body, and she ASCENDED. She had earned her wings. Her passing also took me out of my small world - my old frame of reference -and far beyond the limitations of a world in which death is perceived as the end of a finite sentence.But I didn't leave gently. I didn't fly. I was forcefully driven to vacate my old sense of being, whose inside walls were no longer recognizeable, and were in fact eroding faster than I could run.
Where I have been shuttled to at the speed of LOVE since her disappearance, walls do not exist. If they did, that would mean a wall of death between her and me. And separation is unacceptable. So I live with her now, in a world beyond the illusionary puzzles of physical realism.
In other words, I must live now in a place of complete contradiction. Where I should curl up and disintegrate for her absence in body, I will instead bloom beyond my human potential, and reach toward her greater presence in all things. I must not believe that she is lost, but rather, find her in the spaces between. She is no longer matter, but is the ether that binds all strings, waves, and particles; she is not what the eyes see, but what the heart knows. She thickens the air I breathe. She is not gone, but is RIGHT HERE WITH ME through this elemental breakdown; else I should never dream of surviving it. She has not left an empty space; rather, her LOVE fills in all holes. Among the most sacred of all Mothers, she would NEVER leave her childrens' hearts unprotected.
So even underneath the rubble and ash of these walls fallen down, I have no fear. For she holds us still, only now in arms more capable than hers were here; strong enough to elude the barriers of perception that tell us we are mere mortals in a simply finite world.
FIRE DANCER
I dreamt last night of a grand stage, and in its brilliant spotlight, my mother danced.She was ALIVE. She was alive like a flame is alive: No bones or biology; but pure energy, wild movement, stunning beauty, and HEAT!
She wore the colors of a rich, oil-painted autumn. Her spirit's every pirouhette set my heart on fire. She was so inside the Eyes of God; so outside the bounds of Earth. She burns so deeply inside of me; yet so far out of reach.
14.3.06
MESSAGES FROM the LIGHT
As I was going through my photo box earlier, I found a picture of my family's trip to Yellowstone National Park. I was seventeen. This photo was of Mom and Dad on a bridge, above a rushing river. Dad had his arm up on the rail behind him, and Mom had her arm over his, her hand on top of his hand. Alluding - I am sure - to both the river's endless flow, and their co-creation in the divine rite of parenthood, Mom had written the caption"THE RENEWAL OF LIFE IS CONSTANT".
An hour or so ago, I was playing with my camera, taking photos of candle flames, and manipulating the images in photo shop. By the time I was finished, I had come up with some pretty bizarre images. White birds and faces seem ingrained in my surroundings - in clouds and flying through valleys, as well as in candle light flickers.
At any rate, LIGHT tends to be an overwhelming theme these days. And of course, it makes sense, because MOM'S mantra involved the LIGHTNESS of BEINGS, and the ETERNAL LIGHT of DIVINE LOVE. One of her favorite movies was "Return to the Light", with Shirley Maclaine. She used the word LIGHT in many of her writings and songs. She EXUDED light. She WAS light. And she IS the brightest light of all now...
* * *
I had a dream a week ago, in which I could actually SEE my MOM. In any dreams I have had of her, she has always been cloaked in some kind of mystery, enshrouded in shadows; obscured by the darkness of our physical disconnection. But in this dream, we met "in form", on some common plane between those where she and I exist separately: between the physical world and the metaphysical one.
I was holding my Dad's hand, walking slowly toward her. I was afraid she was an apparition, a mirage, and would disappear or morph into something else as soon as I got near enough to touch her. She was wearing white, her red hair shiny and bright. Her eyes and skin were radiantly glowing, and she was smiling, beckoning me toward her. I cried, and was almost afraid to let go of Dad's hand. He encouraged me to go to her.
I approached, and she wrapped her arms around me. She embraced me. She held me and rocked me. My tears vaporized as they poured out, rising. I communicated to her that there is just so much pain in my longing for her; so much life to tell her about; so much time we were robbed of spending together. So much...too much...It hurt so much...so very much.
She held me and held me, and I knew we had very limited time. And she whispered in my ear, with her gentle and loving voice,
"BRING IT HOME WITH YOU WHEN YOU COME"...
I believe that a Loving God allowed our meeting. It was as if she was able to "slow down" enough, while I was able to "speed up" enough, so that we vibrated at the same rate, on the same frequency or wavelength, for just long enough to exchange our love in what seemed and felt like a "physical" way. It was as if her uncontained, naked spirit was "redressed" in the clothing of her body form, just briefly, so that I could SEE her with my limited brand of perception. She wanted me to know that when I COME HOME, she will be there. Just as she was there when I CAME HOME, into this world, as a child from her womb.
* * *
A couple of nights ago, I told Star about this dream. In response, she brought up the movie CONTACT - one of Mom's all-time favorites - with Jodie Foster. Specifically, she brought up a scene in which Jodie's character "meets up" with her deceased father's spirit on a beach, and they have a conversation...
Later on, I was restless in bed, unable to fall asleep. I couldn't be calm, couldn't stop biting my nails and cuticles. Couldn't relax. So I turned on my lamp and pulled out the book I just started reading, called THE AFTERLIFE EXPERIMENTS (Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life After Death). I opened to the page and section where I had left off:
SOME THINGS ARE FOREVER.
In this section the author, a renown scientist and prior professor at both Harvard and Yale, talks about the fact that STARLIGHT travels into space eternally. His "Living Soul Hypothesis" posits that it makes logical sense to assume then, that the LIGHT ENERGY of our souls - of our lives lived, of WHO we ARE - should behave the same way, follow the same physical laws. The author, Gary Shwartz, holds stars' light as evidence of IMMORTALITY.
The following section of the book was titled: BUT SOME THINGS ARE HARD TO PROVE".
He is referring to the survival of consciousness after death of the physical body; but references the movie CONTACT (!!!!)...specifically that Jodie Foster's character, a scientist, needs hard and fast EVIDENCE of something's validity and truth in order to BELIEVE its reality.
Another character asks her the question, "Do you LOVE your father"? She says "Of course I do". And he says, "PROVE IT". In other words, we don't need scientific evidence to prove to ourselves that LOVE is real. It is something we KNOW in our SOULS, and experience the reality of in the depths of ourselves. The author alludes to LOVE, and the survival of life after physical death, as being analogous. BOTH of these things are FOREVER. In other words, the LIGHT OF LOVE is ETERNAL...Mom's message for certain.
* * *
After reading those two sections of the book, I pulled out a collection of Moms writings, which she gave me for Christmas a few years ago. I "randomly" opened up to a poem she write called "WATER SPEAKS"...and we return to the photo of her and Dad holding hands with the wild river behind their union...
WATER SPEAKS, by Geneva Canady
In sensous giggles and gurgles lapping over smoothly worn stones
Water speaks of the ancient Earth and the ones born of the "fluid-space"
Where neither Man nor time can make a difference For water moves at its own pace...
It speaks to us from amniotic echoes ringing and tingling into the core of us The body within the Soul suspended in a silent and magical place Where only BEING is the work at hand And each moment brings its own embrace...
Water holds the heart...surrendering the beat with a great, vibrant voice The pulsing swishing sound is gone without a trace Until the next cascading wave is whispered From deep within the contstant race...
Water holds the planet in quiet,, raging hands with fingers gnarled and bent Reaching out in liquid form to caress the universal face While, all the while, she seeks her path, the avenues, Finding no boundaries to erase
Water offers us an ear and will take all that which is offered From birth into infinity she holds the ace Eyes offer droplets, seas offer ETERNITY, rivers offer freely, bodies offer life When we become the waterfall, we offer God's own GRACE...
* * *
I then opened to a "story" Mom wrote called THE SECRET LIFE of a FEELING. As I read it, I wept - as if touched inside some deep, raw, hidden, pure place, where I KNOW that she is, in fact, HERE. That place inside is where some part of me KNOWS much more than I am consciously READY to know now. That place can almost FATHOM the GRANDIOSITY of LIFE. I - as a small human being - nearly crumble under the power created by the wake of the mere thought...In this piece, Mom talks about her own journey in the dreamstate, in which she faced herself, in the mirrors of many past lifetimes. Thinking of my own dream, and the reference to LOVE (especially that between parents and children - between her and me) being CONSTANT and ETERNAL from the movie CONTACT, I read on and was chilled at how strongly I felt Mom's voice interjecting and intertwining with all of these intricately-interwoven messages. What I took away, and fell asleep holding tightly...that the bond between Mom and me IS ALIVE and continuously growing and reforming. It will ALWAYS BE, regardless of our physical bodies' demise, and in fact, will only expand as it travels on FOREVER.
I will provide exerpts here from her writing...
THE SECRET LIFE OF A FEELING, by Geneva Canady
...Born of a culmination of all time and a DREAM that has not yet been created. Within the realm of SPACE IN BETWEEN, this feeling has taken on a life of its own...
...How a feeling comes to the "END OF ITS LIFE" and transcends into the next dimension of itself...
...There is no mystery as to why it happens, or any doubt that it will continue to happen into infinity. Indeed, feelings have been born and lived and died (transformed) since the first spark of LIGHT ignited the first thought in the first mind of the first being ever created...
...It is my desire to offer an opportunity to expand awareness as to the depth of being human and to encourage us all to seek the oneness with the Spirit we truly are...
...last night as I was preparing to put my body to bed...I held on to a desire to dream...
...this particular feeling, however, did not seem to originate from me. It is as though the ANGELS themselves had WHISPERED INTO MY INNER EAR...offering me a gift...
...what transpired within that DREAMSTATE has served to become a BEACON OF LIGHT...a friend and teacher (what Mom is to me, and to so many) to my desire to know my place in the universal SPACE BETWEEN TIME and FANTASY...
...I remember the sensation of floating into this dream...I distinctly heard the sound of strong WINGS in between my own shallow breaths...I knew I WAS IN THE ARMS OF PEACE, somewhere that I had not been in a very long time...
...I soon realized that it was not just a dream, but a journey in which I was fully awake, more like a GUIDED VISION...
...This night, my fear was brushed away by the hand of God. This night, I was safe...
...I crossed over the threshold and found myself in a great hall of mirrors...the images suddenly became the faces of those I had passed earlier in the dream...
...I approached to stand before the image of an old woman. She was weathered by the sun but her eyes said that she had not ever been beaten down by anything. The strength that shone from deep within her was matched only by the courage she wore on her again face. She was beautiful!...As our eyes met, an inner knowing enveloped me and we blended into one...
...Peonies must be the flowers that grow in Heaven!...
...I gently picked up the mirror and held it up to my face. I saw my face...my own face this time. I looked different though. My skin was bright and pink like the flowers, my hair was strong and full and flowing out behind me, tickling the air around me, and I WAS HAPPY! I could have stayed there in that spot FOREVER...And maybe I did?...
...I was drawn to the Angel mirror by a loving, sweet presence. When I stood before it, I saw all of my angels next to me. I SAW MY MOTHER AND SISTER ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE VEIL. I HEARD FAMILIAR VOICES TELLING ME TO BE STRONG. ASSURING ME THAT I AM NOT NOR HAVE I EVER BEEN ALONE ON MY JOURNEY...
...I ENTERED INTO THIS MIRROR LIKE I WAS GOING HOME...
...I DESIRE TO REACH THE PINNACLE OF MY LIFE TO STAND IN THAT LIGHT FOREVER...
...As I stood before the mirror in my sunny room, I saw THE WOMAN WHO IS NOW.
8.3.06
CO-INCIDENCE: Think About What It Means
i was shopping at a clothing store the other week, and began chatting with the clerk at the register while making my purchase. she had a name tag on that said Di. i said, "i have an aunt di." she looked at me with a sympathetic head-tilt and said, "oh, i'm sorry to hear that". she thought i was telling her that i had had an aunt...DIE. i corrected the misinterpretation, and then said, "i did have an aunt die - my aunty karen, my mom's sister - but i also have an aunt named di, short for diana." she said her name was diana also.
then i looked down at the register, and noticed it had a little piece of paper taped to it with a list of names written on it; presumably a roster of the store's employees. the first name on the list was GEN; the second one was JENNIE. a few names later, there were both harmony and megan (two of my best friends since early childhood).
i told the clerk, diana, what i had noticed, and explained to her that my mom had also passed away, along with her sister, karen. di told me that her mother died a few years ago. cause of death: liver disease, caused by a 35-year bout with hepatitis C...
"coincidence"? or a greater connection, between us and the other side; between all of us and everything...
then i looked down at the register, and noticed it had a little piece of paper taped to it with a list of names written on it; presumably a roster of the store's employees. the first name on the list was GEN; the second one was JENNIE. a few names later, there were both harmony and megan (two of my best friends since early childhood).
i told the clerk, diana, what i had noticed, and explained to her that my mom had also passed away, along with her sister, karen. di told me that her mother died a few years ago. cause of death: liver disease, caused by a 35-year bout with hepatitis C...
"coincidence"? or a greater connection, between us and the other side; between all of us and everything...
10.2.06
WAITING BETWEEN THE LINES
between legend
and who bred it
between the word
and who said it
between perfectionists
and to what they aspire
between the sky
and what is higher
i am waiting
between the moth
and lamplight
between vision
and hindsight
between the plus
and the minus
between all that moves
to join us
i am waiting
between edits
beyond credit
between the wires
through fire
between flights
inside the light
between our houses
i am waiting
and who bred it
between the word
and who said it
between perfectionists
and to what they aspire
between the sky
and what is higher
i am waiting
between the moth
and lamplight
between vision
and hindsight
between the plus
and the minus
between all that moves
to join us
i am waiting
between edits
beyond credit
between the wires
through fire
between flights
inside the light
between our houses
i am waiting
8.2.06
A letter to my Mom
* This piece was adapted from an earlier entry I called "What else can I do but dance?" I have submitted this version to be included in a collection, called "Letters to Mama".
* * * * * *
Dear Mom,
What else can I do but dance under the heavy pitch of this darkness?
Crying isn’t enough sometimes. Grief of this depth requires creative outlets – and movement. Movement of the physical body in and around and through physical space. Pain like this begs to be recognized and released. In this case, it bends everything into a beckoning musical wind, and blows holes through those dark truths that are bottomless.
You didn’t merely enjoy dancing, Mom. It was a portal for you. A channel through which to breathe in and out of sacred atmospheres; to unleash the beautiful beast of your love and rage; and to be, meaningfully.
When I dance, I feel your heartbeat in my feet. I feel you pushing my arms out and waving them wildly about. I feel my face contorting and my eyes closing, as if trying desperately to shut out too bright a light. And when my eyes are closed, I can see my own face against the backdrop of the heavens; and it is your face inside all of the deeper reflections.
The unbearable weight of the empty space where your body once twirled, so alive, is a straight jacket of the cruelest material. But struggling in it, kicking and screaming and biting, won’t remove or even loosen the bondage of its shackles. Nothing will ever defy that metal. But dancing is somehow a better tool than anger in battles of the heart. The joy about it is simply a stronger force.
When I curse God through vengeful tears, running at the truth with a battering ram only to be knocked back, I am a tired child fighting bed time. The straps only grasp more tightly. I hug myself violently with those arm restraints. But no matter how hard I try, with the blade of anger, I cannot cut my way out.
So instead, I do what you would do, Mom. I dance. And when I dance, God knows and acknowledges my suffering. He lifts me up and lets me mourn in his arms. For the end of your life; for the sadness that so richly infiltrates the entire flow of mine. He rocks me gently and strokes my hair like you would have done. And tells me that it is okay to cry; for the end of the world, and for the beauty so endlessly vast in the unbroken circle of eternity.
And my body moves about like a furious gale. Fertile drum rhythms produce violent tear storms with jagged lightning.
I feel in that rain the fact that your love made me. My spirit screams and spins and soars.
In these moments, it is dance or die.
So I dance.
I love you beyond the horizon of time. You keep me safe.
Liz
* * * * * *
Dear Mom,
What else can I do but dance under the heavy pitch of this darkness?
Crying isn’t enough sometimes. Grief of this depth requires creative outlets – and movement. Movement of the physical body in and around and through physical space. Pain like this begs to be recognized and released. In this case, it bends everything into a beckoning musical wind, and blows holes through those dark truths that are bottomless.
You didn’t merely enjoy dancing, Mom. It was a portal for you. A channel through which to breathe in and out of sacred atmospheres; to unleash the beautiful beast of your love and rage; and to be, meaningfully.
When I dance, I feel your heartbeat in my feet. I feel you pushing my arms out and waving them wildly about. I feel my face contorting and my eyes closing, as if trying desperately to shut out too bright a light. And when my eyes are closed, I can see my own face against the backdrop of the heavens; and it is your face inside all of the deeper reflections.
The unbearable weight of the empty space where your body once twirled, so alive, is a straight jacket of the cruelest material. But struggling in it, kicking and screaming and biting, won’t remove or even loosen the bondage of its shackles. Nothing will ever defy that metal. But dancing is somehow a better tool than anger in battles of the heart. The joy about it is simply a stronger force.
When I curse God through vengeful tears, running at the truth with a battering ram only to be knocked back, I am a tired child fighting bed time. The straps only grasp more tightly. I hug myself violently with those arm restraints. But no matter how hard I try, with the blade of anger, I cannot cut my way out.
So instead, I do what you would do, Mom. I dance. And when I dance, God knows and acknowledges my suffering. He lifts me up and lets me mourn in his arms. For the end of your life; for the sadness that so richly infiltrates the entire flow of mine. He rocks me gently and strokes my hair like you would have done. And tells me that it is okay to cry; for the end of the world, and for the beauty so endlessly vast in the unbroken circle of eternity.
And my body moves about like a furious gale. Fertile drum rhythms produce violent tear storms with jagged lightning.
I feel in that rain the fact that your love made me. My spirit screams and spins and soars.
In these moments, it is dance or die.
So I dance.
I love you beyond the horizon of time. You keep me safe.
Liz
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)