My Heart

My original plans for NY eve were changed, and so I decided to spend some time looking through a journal I have kept this year of some of my favorite books and the things that I have learned from them. I used a highlighter on key words in the quotes to easier locate favorites in the future. I was actually looking for a quote that most represented 2008 for me...I think this may be it:

"A heart made crooked through loss and change is a heart that can love the world and its less than perfect people." Elizabeth Lesser

I looked back on what I wrote last New Year's Eve, just to see where I had come from. I share a portion:


2008 is descending gently upon us. I feel her hovering sweetly on the outskirts, patiently waiting her turn. As nature is....magical, rhythmic, patient, gentle...transformative, changing always and not fighting or resisting the cyclical births and deaths it brings.

I feel her magic. I feel the changes (or should I say the evolution) coming within me, ready to emerge. I have surely been in labor the last few months and at times the contractions have been so acutely painful I have shrunk back from this new life trying to be born. I'll still be 'me', but more fully alive....more in the moment. More gentle with myself. More in integrity with my truth. More still and quiet yet allowing the dancing and movement stirring inside me to have it's way...and I will let it.

2007 was a fire year...and in the end, it will burn up all that isn't necessary and for the best in our lives, but what an ashen, charred landscape it sometimes leaves in it's path.

Just as in nature; if a baby stays inside it's mother too long, not only will it die, but it eventually kills the mother. This child inside me is ready to come out and play and I can't hold her back any longer....the consequences are now too great and my body is showing signs of a prolonged gestation. It's now more painful to hold it in than to let it emerge. No more resistance; just surrender and with that surrender has come joy and peace. The fear is gone....

So often in life, endings can bring melancholy and sadness. Our minds think that all "good" things must/should last "forever", or at least until we don't hold value in them anymore and then carelessly toss them "away". But remember...there really is no 'away'. Our culture views specific endings as failures. For example, an illness, a lay off, a divorce...a physical death. We fear them, we fight them, we hold them at bay and often judge ourselves and others as we watch ending happening. It reminds us that really, we have no ultimate control, and that makes us uncomfortable....to say the least, excurutiating at best.

If I have learned one thing in the last 15 years, it is that change is never REALLY bad; even though it is painful and dark and scarey at the beginning and in the middle. Each change has brought me, in the end, more of all the things that make life rich and delicious. I (l)earned this year, a joyful relationship with death. I have no fear of death, and we (me and death) have this sort of unspoken secret that we can laugh about together, cause now I get "the joke". I understand that won't make sense to many, but oh, well. If it makes sense to you...congratulations.

Both birth and death are painful...and unavoidable.

Ask a woman who has gone through childbirth. It's an intense mix of physical and emotional sensations. It's all of it, wrapped up in one package and once it starts you're along for the ride....But, also ask that woman if all the pain of childbirth was worth it and she will wisely smile, even if she can't put it in words, because words fail in comparison to what she gained from it, and continues to gain from that one experience that keeps on giving.

So as 2007 comes to a close I will thank him. For it All. The pain, the joy, the synchronicities, the downright miracles, the teachings, the ending of this section of time, but never will I forget what amazing, often buried, treasures were brought in each day. I learned to ride the waves of uncertainty with new curiosity. I learned to endure the absence of much loved children, whether that absence was physical or emotional, and rejoice more fully in their return or anticipate a future return; and trust in the necessity of both. I learned how to let emotion flow through me; I learned that I can survive without food, or artificial light much longer than I thought possible; that nature trully supports ALL of life and ALL of my needs, whether I recognize her as the giver or not, that all quests are easier and more powerful when supported by community. I learned how to take care of myself to a new level and to surrender to the wisdom of my body and heart; to let go of the expectations put on me by anyone or anything, including myself. I learned how to "Do Nothing" in total stillness and peace and embrace all the gifts of fallow time...to name just a few.

So I vow to myself to show up fully in this magical Nature ride of 2008. Bring it on!

I embrace it and ALL it will bring as it emerges, in the cold and darkness of night, so will I more fully be born unto myself. I will gently cradle and wrap us up, vowing to raise it up as itself; not trying to fix it or mold it into what my mind tells me it should look like, act like or feel like......as it should be in all of my life.

Now. Today, the end of 2008, I can say that I did show up fully. I learned to really be present. I allowed myself permission to access and grieve many old events that I somehow had never found the space and time to feel and process. It was amazing that my body could so access those times and places and fully embrace the difficulties and disappointments. The gift of the trek being a newfound lightness and increased capacity to love and have compassion, hense my chosen quote.

2007 was a year of gestation, 2008 was a birthing and nurturing year. I spent more time alone last year than in my entire life combined, and in that time was able to rest and play and learn to love myself and accept myself, warts and all. The 'new' me faced some monsters in the closet, but with my new strength I was able to act in faith. I let go of a lot, the largest being my involvement in trying to save my equity and sanity at the same time in my condemned townhome. In the end, I chose sanity. I was able to have complete peace (after a few days of absolute terror) in letting the bank and my lawyer know I was done. I truly believe that I will be fine without that money. THe mantra that emerged for me was, "I will no longer spend my time, energy, money or resources on things, people or ideas that do not hold inherent value to me." It was one of the most freeing experiences of my life to let go of something that at one time meant so much to me, and put myself completely in God's hands to show me the way forward. I get the impression the lessons here are all designed around teaching me to distinguish priorities and values and see more clearly how unattached my heart and soul really are to material things.

I had been shown almost 2 years ago, in a journey, a far off island and told "That is where you are going." I inquired as to how I would get there and the message was an obvious, but enigmatic, "Well, the first thing you need to know is that you'll never get there unless you leave here." That was disconcerting considering that I was happy 'where I was'. So, I'd largely ignored the message and went on. It was not until this fall that finally had the guts to volunteer to 'go there', ho matter what it took. The first piece to fall into place was a move to a more suitable housing situation. Then an awareness to move forward with some areas of service that had been patiently waiting my attention. The last big letting go has been necessitated by trying to fit the contents of a 4 bedroom house, a cabin and an office into a 2 bedroom townhome. I have a garage full of things that still need to be tossed, but we will make it by Spring. It was fun to give so much of it away rather than sell it. It blessed our lives and I got all my value from all of it, so it was time to let it go.

So, 2009 I think will be a year of stepping forward. Being of service as a CASA, exploring adoption, becoming a grandma, the return of my only son for a few months before he leaves for school, and a training that in the end will solidify my service path in the world and produce some sort of ministerial license to boot. Life is blessed for sure.