The Portfolio

I caught my big toe on it, tripping forward before my eyes became accustomed to the darkness of the closet. Flipping on the light, I saw my heavy black art portfolio lying flat on the guest closet floor. It had slid down from its position wedged between suitcase and wall; well out of sight. On a whim, and with a sudden awareness that it had “presented itself” on this day, I greeted this old friend, unknowingly consenting to dance with the spirits contained here.

They did not disappoint.

I hauled it out of the closet, surprised by its weight. It landed on the seldom-used dining table with a thud. I must have had premonitions of what waited inside because I didn’t open it right away. We acclimated to each other for a day or so. I didn’t recall the last zipping up, but I did remember buying this portfolio from the Shangri-La of Art stores in Manhattan many years ago. In its younger days, the portfolio’s professional demeanor had heartfelt significance to me. It held impetus, and confidence, at a time when I sought those attributes from sources outside of myself. Genuine imitation leather, a sturdy zipper, archival black paper sandwiched between sheets of heavy acetate, it had all the earmarks of a deep respect for the products of the mysterious and cooperative craft of making “art.”

When I finally opened it, I felt a rush of pride for the colorful creativity. I had a fun jaunt through some early Graphic Design, careful drawings, and peaceful Long Island beach scenes in pastel and paint. I honored each with a quick phone photo and thinned these by half. I released from my care, a folder of black and white photography of people I no longer know, printed in my own darkroom and the heavy presentation boards of past assignments. Having moved many times in the last ten years, I am mindful of the weightiness of the “frames” of life. “Take the meaning and the love; pass the frame on.”

It felt nostalgic, it felt cathartic.

“Why do we need to drag things around with us, to prove to ourselves that something happened in our life that moved us deeply?” I asked myself. Isn’t this what a life is, a continuous movement? Creativity and curiosity stirred into a simmering pot of experience. That’s the life I imagine myself into daily. I patted the layout for illustrated children’s book fondly, gathering up all the “coulds, shoulds and might haves” and poured them into an invocation for a new wave of creativity for myself, “Let me bring forth what is here NOW.”

Of course, the paradox, the inside-out experience, waited patiently in the back of the portfolio.

“Don’t assume you will remember how it was,” it said. “Let the words, the photos, the scribbled notes and the artwork show you what life brought forth for your evolution. How can we tell how big this tree has grown if you don’t recall the winds, and the ice storms, or remember it as a sapling?”

They were together, at the back of the portfolio, seven collages made in the final months of my Mother’s life. There were more, this had been almost a daily practice. Some of these, I had judged unworthy at an earlier time. I can see the Formica-topped desk, in the rented home with the big windows, bad heat, and blue leather couches.

We had rented a home on the frozen shore of a lake in Saratoga NY to be close, to help, to care and prepare for what she had told me in early Fall was coming soon. We had left home and hearth, children, dogs and a precious practice in Santa Fe to be here. I cannot imagine what I would be writing today if we hadn’t chosen this path. I would not be even a similar person. “Showing up” is really only terribly painful and horribly difficult, if you don’t do it when it is needed most.

My most evocative collage is visually the most soothing. The only title is the date on the back: Feb 3, 2013. Ten years exactly in 1 day. Imagine my surprise! Feb 3 is propped up here in front of me bombarding me with so many screaming emotions it is almost too hot to touch. And yet…it is balanced and visually pleasing, unless you get close in and really look. I wonder if I was able to feel this when I glued these papers in place? I can see it now, and I feel compassion for myself in the maelstrom.

Did I see that the lotus leaf is sliced in half, creating a boundary between worlds that can only be breached by the deep purple of an amethyst crystal?

The world below, with its Cerulean blue fluidity, is beautiful and absolutely unavailable to she who dances above. Did I see that the legs of the young girl in the party dress are unnaturally contorted?

Her face, upon closer inspection, belies terror, not laughter. She balances on one foot on the tip of a pyramid cut from a photo of a giant multifaceted diamond.

The crown of her head is pierced by the sharp spines of the leave above her.

The falcon flying towards us screams his warning, “It’s coming, it’s coming.”

Did I know what I was saying then?

Do I understand what this means to me now?

And who is talking here?

The collage process started in a small artist supply and frame shop on the main street of Saratoga. I was buying some drawing pencils and I noticed a handwritten sign. “Mat board cuts, $5 a bag.” A large clear plastic sleeve stood leaning against the counter. It was stuffed full of every color, and size of scrap mat board. These were the inside pieces, that which is cut out to form the frame, the “discards” from the custom framing business. The photos came from donated magazines from the library, in an endless variety. It became my practice to work out complex feelings that could not be voiced via scissors and torn paper sitting at the desk or on the floor before the frozen landscape of northern New York. The rubber cement probably didn’t hurt either.

There was innocence back in January. “It’s Easy I Think” Jan 17 2013 shows us a dark winter sky and flight to golden freedom coexisting. Natural elements, the gilt of gold leaf, a feather, pine needles, and hope for easeful movement. I realize that today I still hold this image of the movement we call death.

Disoriented

Feb 19 2013 “Disoriented” created the day before what was later named, “The very good day.” A last day of grace. She felt good, said goodbye to beloved neighbors in a glow that preceded her gentle, generous goodbyes, amidst the smiles and deep sleep of Hospice support. In “Disoriented,” all my allies are here, water, feathers from those of the air, a single Oak leaf dropping back to the rejoin the elements. There it is: safety, resilience, and reassurance.

“A Hard Day in March 2013” This was not responsively made, it was anticipatory. By March 1 we were headed home, driving back to New Mexico. It is sad, bleak, grey and cold. I don’t remember it that way. I recall a deep disorientation, but I felt taped together, glued and tied with string, fully depleted but resting in “No stone unturned-ness.” We did the best that we knew how to do, and now it is time to rest and recover.

So why am I sharing these and what does it mean to me now? I have no idea.

There is no grand denouement or sparkling epiphany.

There is a continuous unfolding of the mystery of what it means to be alive as a human being. A continuation of my life that I share with others, close ties and tenuous threads that seem to break, but probably don’t.

Why did I write about this today? Because the portfolio slid down the wall and I stubbed my toe on it, and I got curious.

Maybe that’s all we need to have, curiosity and a willingness to look with compassion at what it is to be human.

And Then She Was Gone

Jun6

Reflections on understanding how to embrace the loss of my sister

My sister Susan died on May 12, 2022. These words are true. For me, they hold an impression of unreality. I don’t as yet, recognize my life in this configuration. While I no longer view myself as a shredded sail after gale-force winds, the awareness of her death walks with me, everywhere and every day. It is this spirit, this guidance, that escorts us through this life passage that I call Grief. It has so much to teach, if we can bear to let it touch us.

I have a long affiliation with the study of the end of life. I hold this life passage as pregnant with opportunity for all involved to grasp more of the great Mystery; who are we, what are we, and what are we doing here? This is the stuff of Vision Quests and Vigils,it is rare and precious knowledge. It arrives through our relationships, emotions, mental constructs, other people’s words, even exposure to intense events. These seem all designed to be absorbed by the heart, accepted by the mind, and installed within intentionally as a system upgrade, and to be retold to whoever will listen. The revelations of grief arrive via an impossibly high price tag. Possibly the best we can do is to experience our grief, and let it “have at us” with as much courage as possible. Why then, is this so difficult?

Sue was a heart-centered person, quick to love and easily injured by thoughtless words. Her heart was her Achilles heel. It was literally broken before she was born. A small hole between the atriums rendered her heart fallible, weakened. The pioneering heart surgeons of the 1960’s repaired that hole when she was ten. They were unable, or unaware, that an extra blood vessel continuously overloaded her heart-lung system and this would ultimately create an untenable situation. Hers was a heart that could never catch up physically. Therein was a blueprint for her life. Hers was a body that made living in it, more difficult, from her very beginning. Her real stamina lay in the emotional realm. When she chose to, she loved with infinite strength and unshakeable resilience.

Across the last two years, her life narrowed to an ever diminishing and tenuous path dominated by breath and heartbeat. She walked the edge of a cliff of independent life, or dependency, and never fell off. She could describe her task and practice of compartmentalizing any thought or emotion, event, or interaction, that would cause the mysterious “keeper of the heartbeat” to lose footing. She learned to parse out actions in small doses. She learned to leave other’s emotional baggage untouched. Such was her last year.

From my vantage point, she became intimately familiar with her own body and soul. My heart beats happily and my breath goes unnoticed until challenged with hills, elevation, or too much ballast. Her heart was transparent in its fragility and strength, and her awareness of both possibilities was an integral part of her experience of “life.” Eventually, she embraced the obvious need for these dear companions to part ways. Her body was just too confining and her soul had been patient.

But that is my imagining. Completely tidy head talk that serves nothing, not my life or hers. I really can’t know what her process is, or was. On this day I can see that what I am really doing is mourning the loss of her in my life. A physical structure of my life is gone. As one of four sisters we were a scaffold, we now are a tripod. I am an unreliable witness, shaken to my core.

I am grateful for the end of suffering and fear that she managed with such dignity and grace. And it was suffering. In the last hours of her life, she graciously received the anticipatory grief of dear friends and family. I saw a different version of Sue emerge. Shyly at first, and then with increasing conviction, I saw something being revealed. Compassionate yes, but her view felt more expansive, inclusive of her life and ours, not seperate but as part of a continuum. As I watched her silently, I named this to be her SOUL. It appeared to me to be shining out through her eyes. It was a part of her that I have never seen.

“You will be broken for a while, and then you will be better.” She said. These words spoken quietly rang out like a clear bell.

I knew there was something different happening when she assumed absolutely no responsibility for another person’s emotional state, or their task of mourning. Possibly she could see the denouement and the purpose of the pain and suffering? Or was she was already headed home, and this was a courtesy call to those who couldn’t yet understand. And that would be all of us who watched her transfigure, we just didn’t have the same view.

“And that’s OK,” I hear myself think. “There is nothing so terrible here, life and death are the same movement. Out of one world and into the next. She is graduating, we will be fine. She will be free, all is well.”

And then she left and the world turned over.

All of us, her children and siblings and friends were cracked wide open when the portal opened and she slipped into what my Grandmother called, “The next room.” My mind’s platitudes were a thin trickle compared to the roaring flow of life that swept into the room and floated her willingly into the next life. It is so much more powerful than we expect. I can feel now that she held parts of me and I of her, and it’s time to give them all back.

On this day, I believe this is one of the tasks of grieving. And I have just scratched the surface. There is so much more here to understand.

Thank you Sue for all you are.

Peeking Behind the Gossamer Curtain

Feb23

Three years ago on this day, on a silent clear night in northern New York, we stood quietly around the suddenly still body of our amazing Mother. She died there in the wee hours, in a gentle handoff from the physical folk to the ethereal extended family. It seemed to me then that she somehow exhaled herself into the next realm. Her arrival was planned, practiced and practical; her fragile body was beginning to deteriorate. Once she could no longer walk in the woods or kayak the edges of water, it was time to move out.

Her Spirit died into the next world while the moon was overhead. Her earthly remains left her 14^th story “tree house” for the last time in the mid-afternoon of that same day. Lovingly tended by her daughters, just as our Grandmothers would have done, she appeared little changed. It seemed she was just finding her new abilities, illuminated, but just so much happier. Dressed in her favorite gown, itself a shiny beige veteran of two grandchildren’s weddings, with warm socks, she held tightly curled fern fronds and flowers from a Spring that hadn’t yet arrived. She had gone on: “To my next adventure.”

It was our job as children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, neighbors and friends to wave good-bye, preferably smiling. If you couldn’t muster that, no worries, she was going anyway. In her last gaze I think she saw all, understood all, felt all, everything that everyone did was all- O.K. in her book. Had she been alive, she would have taken just the tiniest nibble from those ferns, …just because they were so beautiful.

Fern Carol Martell 2010

“I am ready for my next adventure”

These were the words she used to explain why she was ready to die, and why she would go willingly. I believe she was still smiling when her “earth skin” was slipped into the plain pine box of her own choosing. It was Amish plain pine, freshly sanded and unfinished. By necessity it stood overnight in a funeral home surrounded by gilded guilt and the heavy décor of regretful sadness.

Her casket; if you would call it that, stood proud and simple. Had she still been there she would have remarked about the grain of the wood, caressed it with her hand, her long arthritic fingers seeking the lifeforce, reminiscent of ET’s heart touching scene. Wood grains were a passion with her! She would have found the rough place I remember seeing. That sticky knot that made me wonder if this pine box was still planks when she died?

I remember we opened the dark shades in the “room of sadness.” We opened the top of her box to tuck in bits of memory; tiny flowers and the secret missives from her favorite fans. I recall a flash of future déjà Vu that I would recall that exact moment in the future, which is today.

“My Angels Were Here”

My Mom was unusual in that she welcomed death into her life with curiosity, anticipation and a smile. While others may choose to clutch and cling to their life with the last drug and surgery, she opened the door to the next life with intention. She made her path clear of medical interventions, she asked for comfort and respect, and not much else.

She entertained the angels of transit into the next life quite regularly. She left notes to this effect, found later tucked into “must read” books and under cushions that we would move, “after.” I imagine she offered her visitors a keen interest in the subject of afterlife, and a cup of herbal tea. They seemed to stop in frequently, in her dreams, and at the edge of sleep; appearing from behind what she described as “gossamer curtains.” Those words always accompanied by a graceful arm movement that denoted her feeling the fabric and a subtle sense of the sound of bells.

They came to gently welcome her to her new existence, we mused. It was not unusual in the months before she passed to see her eyes shine in anticipation for her path, and in compassion for ours, as it was revealed. She kept it mostly to herself except when my path crossed theirs at her front door and the mystical mist still lingered about her.

Three years later I have grown skin back over the wound of loss. This is not a victim place, it is the work of grieving. Grief is love that echoes back at us when its target can’t be found. It takes a bit of time before we can scratch out the old address for our loved ones and forward our thoughts to:

Mom, Your Next Adventure, Somewhere in the Ethers, 87503

Now I can look at her transformation with appropriate joy. I can appreciate what a renegade she was; a consummate explorer in the unknown realms. Or did she know exactly where she was going because she had already been there?

Whatever the case, from my current position of safety and observation I can ask:

Where is it written that death must be faced with fear and pain, angst and anguish? At the end of a life, one could choose acceptance. I believe there is another paradigm that exists in parallel to the no hope “Grim Reaper” cheat death scenario. I want to take the Angel option; beautiful beings providing whatever you need for a sweet transition “Into your next adventure.”

Loving conductors, great music and sweet peace? Interested? Ask them.

I think my Mother works there, her name is Gloria.

http://bertc.com/subfour/truth/hubble.htm

Death is Generous

Jan9

Life has Always Been Temporary

Chagall, Marc La Danse 1967

We weren’t surprised by the early morning email announcing her passing on a cold gray day in northern New Jersey. She was the last survivor of six Elders from the port side of our ship of life.

Although I shared no DNA with this woman, she was woven into my life tapestry through marriage and the golden threads of shared family. The depth of our response, was at first as imperceptible as a minor tremor in an area not prone to earthquakes; it was unexpectedly shaking. We knew how deeply the actions of others and the echoes of choices had impacted these lives. We heard the small whisper in each of our ears, “Family,” it said to me. My partner heard something private, and imperative. We pulled the winter wear out of Florida storage, to bring the only thing we had to give; ourselves.

I had met her only several times. A tiny woman with brilliant smile, her personality radiated literally without boundaries. She was legendary in her ability to bestow friendship on anyone and everyone within reach of her voice, her arms, her heart. With my limited personal experience I am unclear if she was the honeybee, or the flower. I would guess probably both. She lived some hard, soul breaking times. These may have been written on her heart but not on her face. Those that earned the WWII survivorship have a different understanding of fear, heartbreak, courage.

Death is generous

Life has always been temporary

She died smiling in her 97^th winter. Her soul mate had gone on ahead. Her mind, compromised by the faulty pathways of Alzheimers had been a mystery to her family for many months. She had floated on the wings of “nearly here,” held and protected by loving hands. There were no “if only” or “what ifs” left in her life. Even those left to cry knew there was no more to be squeezed out of her lifetime.

Chagall, Marc Blue Violinist 1947

When a well-loved woman passes smiling in her 97th year, there is reason to celebrate. Her family knew who she was and what she wanted, they requested joy to attend her ceremony and joy appeared. It was my rare experience that day to witness a family in evolution. Three generations attended their personal emanations, all holographs of a single life: mother, grandmother, great grandmother, stepmother, aunt, friend.

They attended her physical passing of soul to spirit by sharing her story and wearing her smile. Around the table, old friends and youthful faces talked story. Her story, as they knew it to be. They reached back into baskets of memory to bring forth a perfect rose of a tale, gifting everyone with their treasure.

Neighbors, friends, family human and canine sat in this spell, cast by those we couldn’t see. For those of us with less “skin in the game” it was clear; the living folk were only the first tier, layers of generations, ancestors, friends, even beloved pets came to dance her home. Their names studded the conversations like a 4^th grade roll call. Speak their name in story, and you will be shortly sharing a chair.

Death is Generous

Life has always been temporary

What is it about that space? What is the pristine clarity of the territory surrounding graduation from soul to spirit? When we of different realms can still touch each other, unsolvable problems melt like a March snowman. Insurmountable issues fall away, the unforgivable is swept out like so many dead leaves cleared off the unused patio. When the door into the next world opens, we all get to breathe deeper and sing louder. For a time.

In the dissolution of houses and estates, lies the absolute liquidation of worry and expectations. Common elements are rejoined in a new way; wiping away hurts, demanding that walls come down-forever. As lava slides down the mountain in Hawaii consuming all in her path, so it is with death. It’s hard to connect with pain that no longer exists, nearly impossible to link with that which has been healed.

As long as the food trays and the friends hold out, we all get to stand outside the material world. Yes we stand, plate in hand, fielding raw emotions that run free on wild horses. Emotions too long harnessed by distance, therapies, drugs and leaking body fluids, emotions that surface in a moment. Emotions that will continue to show themselves unexpectedly across another lifetime; our own.

Right now we can enjoy the euphoria. It precedes the dark windy place that is profound sadness. The lonely thin trail on the high windy ridge that is grieving. No need to look for this, it will find you.

Death is generous

Life has always been temporary

Chagall, Marc Heavenly Dream 1967

What is the “grace” of death? What is the music playing just down the hall and just beyond our ability to hear? When we silence our lives and turn our faces to a soul in transition do we too move closer to transcendence? In the presence of death we are kinder, wiser, more forgiving. We speak more carefully, as if suddenly aware of our words and their impact. Habitual motives of self-protection and separateness stand out in the sharp delineation like a cardinal on the snow. Suddenly it seems, there is another choice.

I wonder if the great angelic beings that come to lead us home sprinkle some “Dust of the Divine” about? Or is our loved one is standing right there and we are, as children are being “the best we can be?” Whatever the mechanics of the situation, I believe this is a huge opportunity to dip your toe into bliss.

If it’s possible to put all aside, to listen more deeply, feel more open, show more love, because someone is gone from this life?

“Why would we do anything less, anytime?”

To Molly- Thank you for letting me share your family, may your smile warm them always, may your dance give them joy

CHAGALL Marc,

LA DANSE, Sotheby’s, London

http://www.artvalue.com

Blue Violinist 1947 ackermansfineart.com

Heavenly Dream 1967 Found on indulgy.com

In Search of…..What? In Search of Who..? Revisited

Nov24

The Devas hold the schedule, I hold the hose.

I am accustomed to tending my own garden of Psyche daily. I work each morning as a medieval monk tending the medicinal herb garden. It’s solitary work. Strong medicines need quiet voices and patient hands. In this garden of “Know thyself,” and it’s corollary “Know Everyone Else”, the Devas hold the schedule, I hold the hose.

I seek the smallest of keys, the softest of voices whose demands create heaven or hell here on earth. I am a devotee of the siren called Relationship. Without relationship, love is lost, if love is lost; all is lost. The answers to the “good life” quest are all right there, floating in the rich soup of interrelatedness. It is appropriate then, to find myself here. Queries of life should be answered in the field, library research is far too easy, far too clean. It is a shock to witness the deep clouds of aged aloneness that are all around me. Their solitary presence as palpable as the gnat that floats in my coffee, right under my nose.

Why do so many fragile elders live out such lonely endings to their “Well-lived” Lives?

These are the superfluous thoughts that I ponder in my garden. In Florida, the hearing is hard and time runs short-endlessly. Thoughts are cheap; connection requires deep attention and careful listening. If I wish to hear them, I will. Once heard, I will have to listen, and I already know the sound is deafening.

Deva

Indo-European, Sanskrit word for God, originally thought of as feminine. The modern word Goddess has changed connotations to represent a lesser form of divinity. Deva had the meaning we typically think of as the word God today, however God was thought to be the Great Mother.

In Buddhism Devas are highly evolved beings who inhabit different levels of existence. Devas are commonly associated with great beauty and bliss.

Modern New Age versions of Deva’s are thought of similarly to angels, nature spirits, or fairies.
Pronounced Day-va.

Is there anybody there?

In the heat of August, our 1960’s era Florida ‘hood seemed nearly abandoned. Air conditioning and cicadas hummed in unison, shades pulled against the relentless sun; we are all hunkered down in our separate oasis. In gentler October, I came to discern the fainter life force: there are many more people here than meet the eye. Empty carport and weekly mowing does not necessarily denote a Michigan snowbird’s empty winter escape. Is it a clever vacation timer changing channels in the late night TV glow across the street? Or is there a gnarled hand on a sticky remo becomingRedon te picking endlessly at the arm of a single recliner in that darkened room? When I look at the blank face of that picture window, I wonder what looks back at me.

By November, my own lack of critical agenda mixed with the timeless energies and endless ebbing of those in 30-year retirements. Only then did I begin to hear them. I accepted the possibility that hearts too fragile to be “out and about” lived amongst us; close by and yet unseen. Yes, some of our neighbors have been here a very, very long time. Current wisdom calls this “Aging in place.” With enough resources one can stay home until you die, sometimes alone, sometimes leaving another alone for the first time in many years. Sadness and fear are the concrete reinforcement of loneliness, once hardened, it must be hard to get free.

How can I help and why don’t I want to?

An opportunity to interact with a silent neighbor arrived via Postal indiscretion. West became East and switched mail brought an impromptu visit from a frail neighbor. I didn’t recognize the Deva in the background right away. She stood no taller than my chin. Her razor sharp blue eyes shimmered above the optimistic swash of pink cheeks. Our visitor knocked on the door with authority belying her tiny stature. I was surprised by the friendly face; she took that in stride; she needed to sit down. Lowering herself into the nearest chair, she announced herself and her mission. Panting a bit, she noted my painting of wings on the wall nearby and identified herself as a fellow painter and designer.

Had I not been wearing my Florida Fairy foiling earmuffs, I would have identified her immediately as one of the “nature folk” or “faerie people.” Diminutive in size but powerful in Spirit, these beings are part of mythology worldwide. Mythology means “replaced by a different idea,” it doesn’t mean “extinct.” It has been my experience that occasionally one of these Folk will drop into our amplitude to whisper in our ear

oldangelRedon or whack us up the back of the knees while screeching “WAKE UP!” directly into our hearts. She had appeared at our doorstep having trekked down a half block on slippered feet to deliver a bulk rate package gone amiss.

“He” was just out of the hospital that very afternoon from a hernia operation. The timing of this sortie was just so untimely. I was so taken by this elf in my living room and the stream of wordless language flowing out of her that I forgot myself and offered her whatever help I could.

“Oh no, we’re fine. He just isn’t feeling very well.” She said. Another sign of the Wee Folk; reverse hyperbole.

Then I heard the Deva, “She wants you to come with her…”

I walked her home, offering first to drive the span of four driveways and a street. She reminded too much of the gentle gray doves we see splayed out on the road because they just won’t hurry. She told me of his stomach pains and his surgery, her cancer and her painting, “He” was installed on the couch when we got back. There would have been surprise on his face as we walked in together, but it would have taken too much strength. He was saving what he had to speak gently to his partner.

He told me he came here for the small airport; he was a pilot then. She said they bought the house for the pool; so much fun for his grandchildren. He said, “They are grown now, haven’t been here in such a long time, but they used to like to come.”

There were ghosts of good times watching them; the reapers of regret piling their sheaves high. I sat and listened. I learned about life and longing and love. I called on every angel I knew to help them, and to help me know how to leave this house without bundles of baggage that I didn’t pack.

She showed me the pool; vacuum bubbling away on its appointed rounds. When had someone had last jumped into that clear water? Was there ever sand on the floor and food in the fridge? When was there last a child sleeping in the three empty guest rooms with sheets on the beds? My silent questions were sucked into flocked walls and thick carpet and left unanswered. The density in the room dared me to stay longer.

“No food, no wine, no fun!”

She waved at the artwork layered on bookshelves and the cases of small cans of liquid diet stacked in the Formica kitchen. Paints were laid out on a card table in the sun. “Do you paint now?” I asked. She said smiling, “Not in DeathRedon a long time, my back hurts too much.”

I asked if it was hard to not eat food anymore, cancer had taken that too. “No food, no wine, no fun!” she said.

I sat for a while in their living room taking in the dire straits in this home. Health completely gone, mobility quickly disappearing, they were collectively a ship with ravaged sails facing an oncoming storm. I looked for despair but couldn’t find it, neither could I feel anger. It did seem that sadness took up the best part of the couch. The professional part of me asked, “How long could these two support each other and their own disabilities?”

The partner part of me knew the real answer: until “Death do they part”, and probably beyond.

I walked home with my bundle of information in a language I didn’t understand. It was heavy and bulky, it smelled a bit rancid. I resented carrying it home, but I did. I put it in my studio room under an unfinished painting. I hoped they would talk between themselves and get back to me on its meaning.

Well they did. It came to me in the form of a recommended article from a dear old friend from my ancient past. A fellow sojourner in the early days of our “We can do more.” The basic theme was: ideas in the Ether, stay in the ether, unless they are processed via focus and form into concretized products. She wrapped love around that article and sent it out. This my friend, is the product of that bundle. Thank you

To our silent neighbors all around

I know you are there, I hear you and I send you love

Addendum

January 20,2016

I revisited this story written when we lived in Venice Florida

Our tiny sweet lady’s husband died shortly after this was written, she followed, just a bit later. One of the children moved into all those empty bedrooms with a shiny clean pool.

Our “across the street” invisible TV watching gentleman also died that winter while we were away for a weekend. Turns out he did have family. Shortly after, I was holding the hose on some parched Gardenias when I saw a young man move away from the foul voices of the “house emptying crew. ” He moved behind the dumpster to sit on the back bumper of an old van. Out of sight of the the others, he bent over and sobbed a river of tears into his hands, shoulders heaving; it was a heartbreaking scene.

All that sadness, anger, depression, whatever the emotions that existed in that living room must have been still there. There’s always someone in each family who chooses, or is chosen to hold that basket. The house had been foreclosed upon, those that went in didn’t stay long inside. The living conditions inside were just that bad.

I said a prayer for this sad boy and I thought our tiny neighbor from the wee folk was right there next to me. When we were done, she looked up at me with a look that told me, “You don’t understand now…but you will.” She patted my arm, gave a little wink and walked back up the street to her old house. I was happy to see a bit of Spring in her step now.

The younger 60’s hippie neighbors to the left of him also left quickly, they did it with a rented truck and a friend’s pickup. We followed a bit later, selling most everything we had gathered there to a “picker” with a turkey vulture mentality. On Ground Hog day we will set off to revisit old territory. Thank you Florida for the good lessons well learned.

All paintings by Odilon Redon

http://www.odilon-redon.org

http://terrainwalker.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/native-american-little-people/

Vision Quest

Jan14

http://bertc.com/subfour/truth/hubble.htm

It’s been a week to value life. Death walks along our path closer than we think. Early in the week I heard a local man of my age speak to a crowded room about his life rocking experience of life during death. In our limited understanding of the borderlands of being alive, he died and “came back.” His heart, challenged by an evolving heart attack, ceased to beat and was restarted four times over several days. In our limited definition of physical death, he died four times.

He did not come to speak about fear or sadness. There was no hooded terror with bony hand extended. There was only peace, warm comfort, a sense of oneness, and a compelling choice given- to go back or to remain. In current vernacular this is a NDE, a near death experience as defined by Elisabeth Kubler Ross, http://www.neardeath.com/experiences/experts02.html

or Raymond Moody, http://www.lifeafterlife.cHieom/

He stood slowly, and sought the leading thread of his story through half closed eyes. He found his place in the faces around his, speaking seriously, humbly, of his unexpected journey into frontiers of consciousness. He led us carefully, with well-chosen words, through uncharted waters, and on into the space between life and death. He took this choir of willing participants to the edges of self, the land of less Me, and more Us.

It was apparent that we were witnesses at the denouement of an ancient ritual. The Vision Quester returns to tell his dream at the fire circle of his community. Countless eons of humans have increased their collective wisdom hearing the big Dreams of those that venture beyond the edges of collective experience.

And this is the community that will live this knowledge. This was a room full of death midwives; psychopomps in the old words. These were Hospice folks, PhD’s, MSWs, Therapists for the grieving, bereaved family members and even some other members of this elite NDE club. These are people who have sat at the bed, witnessed the passage, and continue to seek the beauty of the whole of human experience. Some are willing participants, others drawn by life experiences so painful; they seek and search relentlessly for relief from the pain of separation from their beloved.

Universalis Cosmographia 1507 http://www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/6969

Despite the imagined scenario for his family, he described no hair-raising escape from the jaws of death on his side of the experience. He remembered only absolute peace, serenity, limitless concepts of soul, and life on a continuum. I am reminded of the explorers that first crossed the abyss now known as the Atlantic Ocean. Some came back, some didn’t, but the “New World” existed anyways, beyond the horizon and beyond the fears of the perilous journey. Maybe it is finally time to throw out Hieronymus Bosch’s creepy mental constructs of afterlife, and reach for the unknown with joy and expectation beyond our wildest dreams.

Musings from New Mexico

Oct22

Minerva is my antenna to the ethers of creative flow and collective connection. She or her owl are a flagellum of sorts; flowing forward and aft of our physical travels, looking for the common link between actions, circumstances, people and locations. Jungians might call this synchronicity. I think the pond we all swim in, is smaller than we think.

Recently I have become disconnected from my muse; my own right brain connection to the creative collective. I have been stationary and focused on deconstruction in it’s most constructive form; making space for something new.

“You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.” Joseph Campbell

Minerva is presently operating incognito in Thonotosassa Florida in a place of waiting and indecision we call Storage. This place of many doors is named Zephyr; as in wind from the west, representing an intercessor, or a place of passage between this life and the next. Funny how these ancients keep showing up in my modern story. I think there is some kind of Mythological gang that lingers just above our radar and they like to see their names in print.

For the last weeks and for a few to come, Minerva has been quietly lurking, modestly languishing in the shade of her two behemoth Class A neighbors. Class A being the Motor home designation for-

“I have a lot of stuff,

I need a lot of stuff

And I’m not leaving home without my stuff!”

We have been smugly operating under the delusion that we are not those folks. We come from a different tribe; the too late to be Hippies and too early for Yuppies, let’s try out this lifestyle via “RV lite.” The mythic names of these city buses in drag are unknown, but their sad stories were relied by the manager of the storage facility.

“This one (pointing to the 15 Foot square face with the high forehead on Minerva’s left), it goes out once in a while, they go on short trips. But the other one…….Never goes……it hasn’t been out in years.”

Wow, how does one forget something this large? And the monthly storage bill? This forgetting must take great effort and great toll on the psyches of those who can remember its journeys. It would not be sitting here moldering under the Live Oaks if it didn’t hold significant emotional charge for those on the title. Or is it their survivors or their heirs that hold this door closed with both hands, a shoulder, and a lock. If it didn’t hold meaning, or memories, or unprocessed grief, it would have gone the way of last year’s pants when they no longer fit or flatter.

This process of removing the “me, her, them, us,” from the physical stuff of life has been my quest since we asked Minerva to wait here. What is the human compulsion to imbue our belongings with pieces of our soul? Or worse yet, our loved one’s soul? Or even,… hang on and breathe for this one,… echoes of the souls of our precious ones who are gone and are not ever coming back in our lifetime.
It may not be Class A in size but I am not without “stuff.”
“You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.” Joseph Campbell

We returned to New Mexico via Rapido air transportation to diminish a house full of belongings down to a container the size of a 10’x15″ cube. It looks really big when it’s empty. My attention these past weeks has been firmly rooted on my own oft ignored lily pad here in the gentle pond known as Santa Fe. It has been my focus to separate the meaningful from the meaningless, to weigh and examine our non-essential possessions. I set forth on this solitary journey to extract the soul parts wrapped around bits of glass and wood taped together with sticky human grief.

This has been my process these weeks. This passage has been stormy, there has been weather; heavy weather. Typhoons of emotions spinning in the physical while in the ethers, my Spirit demands my soul pieces back from parts unknown. I imagined bits of my identity being held hostage by those who will wait entire lifetimes for one small girl, one woman, to demand wholeness and forgive mortality. The work of active grief is returning and releasing and allowing them to be free; keep the love, give the soul back. And it goes both ways. Grieving is too passive a word for this process.
The synchronicity of this tale is that on the dawn between Halloween and All Saint’s Day, a time celebrated for the thinness of the veil between the living and the dead we will end this chapter, close the door on this home for the last time and head into…the East!
“You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.” –Joseph Campbell

Minerva On The Road

Living inside out

Tag Archives: death

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And Then She Was Gone