hallelujah (inspired by mr. cohen and a beloved)

in the dark last night i felt so alone
the sadness of a dream sinking to the bone
and then i felt your eyes look upon me
from miles away and time apart you leaped in
and crossed my heart with the simple song of hallelujah...

hallelujah, hallelujah...hallelujah...hallelujah

i never knew a soul could ache
i never knew a mind could break
and shatter into so many jagged pieces
but then you came along and offered up a song
that swept away the rising tides of sorrow...

hallelujah, hallelujah...hallelujah...hallelujah

its all a journey without an end
a love i never need to defend
hope in a world of so much suffering
i have taken your name into my soul
written it on the sacred scroll
and with tender thoughts signed a hallelujah

hallelujah, hallelujah...hallelujah...hallelujah

as time on earth moves along i hear the notes of this song
played out in nature across all the seasons
a leap of verse...a soft caress of lines that i still undress
in a whispered response of hallelujah

hallelujah, hallelujah...hallelujah...hallelujah

just more words...

the pen is my mighty sword...as shallow words march across the page i strike them down...

cold hard words come forward...i build a fire for them and let them warm up...they burn across the sky of my heart like a raging sunset fighting the goodbye of a perfect day...

i write to save my life...

i sometimes cry out my words so loudly the pen breaks under the weight of the burden...ink bleeding into my skin as i try to stop the hemorrhaging...

sometimes the words are so delicate...held out to you shyly...eager for you to read and also fearful you will ignore them again...so i put your name in the gentle curve of my most vulnerable words...i know you have picked through my journal before and stop to read a passage if you see your name...so i write about the first time i kissed you and tenderly surrender your name again and again in these lines of missing your lips...

your name drifts across my mind and onto the page...like jasmine blossoms pulsing their sweet perfume across the room...

your name is like a kiss left in the palm of my hand...

your name sits within a poem just so you will read those promises of forever and always...

but here it is...another journal full...too heavy to lift these dense words of loss...

words covered in dark clouds of tearful pain...words flowing slowly like a dying summer brook over mossy stones...words brittle and easily snapped in two...words falling off the page like a broken down actor...drunk and forgotten...words begging for attention...sitting alone...sobbing...gasping for air...

i pour out my words to you but you are lost to me now...my words do not attract you...i flip through this journal and let it slip into the bonfire...ending all these words with ho'oponopono...i am sorry, please forgive me, thank you, i love you...

seeking clarity...

i gave up on the day i planned and went to sit by the water...i wanted to lean myself against the great puddingstone at a beach here in rhode island and whisper into it all my sudden sadness...and i did...letting the cold sink into me...letting my inner warmth rise up...letting go...shedding tears...giving way to the place in me that aches sometimes...letting the ocean reach in...the rawness of resurfaced grief stinging but i am grateful...always grateful...

asking for help...asking for a clearer understanding...

the puddingstone said "go to your wound...that is where purpose is found"...and so i did...feeling the losses...missing my friends and family that have gone on...for a moment standing in the in between place where some of them stand...feeling their love make its way to me...feeling the sacredness of it...letting my human heart rise up to be touched by the divine...

then i turned to look out at the water...waves chomping on each other...roaring to shore...and in my minds eye i saw it...out a ways but close in my mind...the spirit of a whale and the spirit of a man tangled up in a line together...and the whale spirit came closer...i understood...the man died in struggle and fear...he didnt know he was dead...the whale spirit stayed with the man until the trapped whaler could be set free from his confusion...

it was so much to know...so much to take in...this beautiful whale spirit staying with the man who had tried to kill it...staying for over two hundred linear years...

so i went about doing psychopomp work...calling in my psychopomp guide to help the man gain awareness of his own death and find peace...slowly the man stopped fighting the guides help...i spoke to the man...watched the man let go...ropes vanishing...whale spirit free of its commitment as well...i watched the light come on the horizon...it was...as always...so calm and grace-filled...i felt the whale's gratitude...its beautiful spirit going into the light and then the man followed...

as quickly as the whale came to me they both were gone...and i stood there leaning against the stone...awestruck at what had just happened...

this is my life...this is what i am...this is how i am...alone so much of the time...doing this work...a kind of hospice worker for the dead i suppose...

i gave myself a few more minutes against the cold stone...breathing...clearing my mind of thoughts...empty...i was the ocean and wind and sun and stone and sand for a moment...then i was more...the seagull, the couple bundled up and walking briskly...expanding...to the towns and cities and countries...expanding to be everything...until everything was a solid hum...infinite...whole...perfect...

i am filled with gratitude...and so much love...was going to do a water blessing today for world water day...instead my heart was blessed by the ocean...

feeling myself inside the consciousness of the beloved unseen who is happy for my happiness...

reflecting on my lifes purpose...

i have travelled to many countries and am getting ready for a long trip again...i have taught many places yet each time i teach a class or meditation i grow and learn as well...

i remember one of my first teaching gigs and amazing adventures...i was in sedona with a friend...i gathered the class on a big red rock and sat there for 3 hours...we sweat our shapes onto the rocks at one point...when we all got up it looked like deep red shadows dancing...some more fully formed shadowy beings...others just blurry masses...we watched them slowly fade and it was as if the rock was blessing us...it was a deeply spiritual moment...one person said they had felt like they were sitting in the hand of god as we meditated...and i agreed...it did feel like we were being held in a loving sacred way...

another time i was teaching a group of very active children in belfast ireland...i covered the room with a large square of canvas and we worked on a large improvised bird...we all just started seeing this bird appear as paint got splashed and smeared...so we started adding feathery shapes...a brightly colored tail appeared...swirls of clouds...it was visual music...you could hear this exotic bird singing colors...a story came and each child added something to the story of the great bird who flew beyond what we could see with our eyes...

i taught a family how to paint a landscape when i was living in nova scotia...we watched storm clouds roll in from the ocean...sun on one side and loud clouds of fierce grey racing to the shore...we made it to the car and had a picnic inside as the rain hammered the car roof and lightning zipped across the sky...

i think of all the spirited art classes and meditations and talks i have given...all the stories shared and all the meals...i think of the long string connecting me with so many of these people...they were friends i hadnt met yet...

and so soon i go to taiwan...to meet friends i havent met yet...adding more threads of connection...more growth...more lessons...

as i think of all these times here and in other places i become so moved to know i am made a better person for the adventures...with so much more to learn from others and spirit...always learning...always filled with the grace of it all...

it began with a prayer...

in my right palm...turned up in praise...a dragonfly landed...it stayed with me in its last moments of life...resting upon my life line...

nothing is wasted in nature not even the act of death...all is woven by the beloved as we undress our wounds and ask for a healing...my prayer was answered...it is as simple as accepting the answer and the actions one is asked to take...

this dragonfly...a healer...rested on my wounds as both of us prayed for each other that day...

and there began my heartfelt journey...there began my final epic quest...to transform my suffering into a new life force...to find my way back from the dead...

imaginal cells were dormant in me but as i reached deeper for truth...the truth set the cells free...

cells...like building blocks...formed deep within my world...

i left the edge of me...crawling into the mystery...

i climbed a branch of thought on the tree of life and made myself a home away from the outside world...

slowly the imaginal cells began to shapeshift my pain...slowly all i thought i was dissolved...only emptiness remained...

as i began to feel foreign to myself fear gripped at my melting bones...panic kept me jolting awake to the change...doubts collected in my mind...beginning to add too much weight...

yet the branch of thought held strong..the tree of life stood still...and in this place of refuge
i began to let go and regenerate...

at first it was too much...to feel all the love that had been waiting...flow so easily in to me...

held by the unseen beloved of all yet i nearly tore myself away...

but i have always been driven by more than fears...i had a mission to complete...i knew i was more than my sorrow...i am the resurrection of my original self...

in the stillness i let the process make its self known to me...each part of my body surrendering...

the world i saw with one pair of eyes was leaving...a new pair of eyes came up to see the world i was reentering...

hands that once took up a battle ax...now became hands that would hold tools...

feet that walked into every broken place now were feet that would simply stop and turn away...

the heart that once took on others pain became a heart flowing with love...resistant to the beguiling ways of others who suck the life out of those who love in compassionate ways...

the belly where suffering churned became a cave of wisdom...the carved up misery of a uterus taken from me became a carved crystal bowl of blessings...my blood was cleansed and filled with vitality...my bones covered with loving psalms...muscles toned with jazzy notes...flesh kissed ripe with the sun...

recovered from a tomb of my own living hell...i was now reshaped and in the sacred yes of redemption i received my wings...

upon the branch i sit ready to fly away...find the life i wanted...before i gave my dreams away...

the transformation from the willing victim to the self loving being i am today has not been easy...i came to the brink of taking my own life...then for a time i let go of those things and people most precious to me so i could be alone and go deep into the wilderness of myself...through the darkest parts where i healed horrible wounds...into the unknown parts where i explored and found more wounds...to the greener places in me...the places where i am strong and loving and kind to myself...

i kept going there...til i was brave enough to let myself change into who i originally was...long ago...when i was pure and without wounds...

the tree of life is there...the healing...the acceptance of all my past wrongful actions...i confessed everything to the tree...

i built a loving altar beneath the tree....

all my wounds came to the altar of love to be transformed...i humbled myself...conscious of the knowledge i am not god but of god...standing in the consciousness of god...the beloved unseen...

i held my fears like a macabre security blanket all these years...as if they were keeping me safe...but as time past and through many journeys i began to break free of the patterns so ignorantly created in me as a child...my mother is a great weaver of fear...she is weighed down by a heavy blanket of fears to this day...but i kicked the blanket off often and lived more of my life out from under the covers...

under that tree i let go of fears and climbed...and let the chrysalis hold me...there in that swirl of imaginal cells i let go of more fears and said yes...yes to my own redemption...yes to forgiving myself for all i thought to be failures...yes to the love waiting to embrace me...cocoon me...transform me in a chrysalis of light...

i am renewed...a new born...full of wisdom untapped...unsure of what to do...but trusting fully this next part will be what i need it to be to give me those things my heart is drawn to...i am so in love with my new life as it rises before me like the dawn...shimmering on my new wings...i am eager to taste the nectar of life flowering open...i look forward to these new days...this new season...this new life...

paradise lost...

sleep wont come...but the sun soon will rise...and i will fly...too close...like icarus...feathers and wax failing me...falling fast...the ocean swallowing me up...but unlike icarus i am part selkie...i will swim to the island and go ashore...tasting the ocean on my lips one last time...breathing in the air...nostrils taking in the scent of this place...

what does it smell like?

all my lost hopes and dreams...

and there it is...every unasked question...every broken bottle with a faded message inside...glass biting me as i shed my skin...

i climb up the cliff...

the view...

once i saw the world from so high up...now i just see the ocean...seal skin drifting out with the tide...

here i stand...self exiled...

yet there is the memory...of smiles and youth and future ripening slowly on a summer vine...young feet running fast...so young...

i didnt even know my true loves name...but there she stood with her eyes not looking at me...

the years piled up and the heart kept on...til her wings wrapped around me...and the salty scent and the land of green and the faith and the love all came to set me free...i had a glimpse of what life could be...when she turned to me and answered my prayer...then took the answer back when i failed to fly...

but there is no anger...there is no blame...i came with my broken wings to this creature of the sky...i came undone in a slow unraveling of time...i came and went like a ghost...

but with one last bit of strength i melted down the bees wax and gathered up the feathers...i tried...oh how hard i tried to make sturdy wings...i tried to keep up...i tried to fly...but there was too much to overcome...there was the sun...

i look at my young self and smile and wave goodbye...i look out over the ocean and let go of the sky...i watch the wings of a goddess spread wide...golden...shimmering as the sun blazes across those perfect wings...goodbye hopes...goodbye dreams...

i came close...i almost found paradise...

finding my REALigion

 

i have a feeling this bit of writing...always stream of conscious...may become extreme of conscious before i am done here...

ignition...lift off...full throttle up...here i go...

when i was a little girl i fell to the ground and stopped breathing...long enough to hear odd sounds...like sound that was movement...like a fluted tunnel...i saw many pinpoints of light grow into one big light...it was a very brief experience but in the split of a second i felt it...the love...all love...or at least a feeling i associate with what love is without all the gravity of being flesh and bones...i felt a fluttering of my own energy...i didnt know it was the real me at the time but i do now...

then i took a gulping breath and sat up...i think that was the moment i started on this quest without fully knowing it until later in my life...the quest to understand what being human is and what being a human with spirit is...

i have often failed at being human...not good at fitting in or dealing with the bullshit...i see through a whole lot of bullshit and it often feels like wool against my skin...it annoys me...sometimes i will say something to the manufacturer of it but most of the time now i just try not to get any on me...

i love and speak of life in a way that messes me up...i have given people chance after chance to be kind to me and they find it safe to be unkind to me instead...for they know if i love them i dont walk away easily...well until the last couple of years...i got my heart ripped out by some cruel words and since then i started changing this part of me...i dont like the change...it has broken me down...i have nightmares about it...wake up with such sorrow it literally makes my heart hurt...i stopped trusting myself...and others...i felt the human part of me shriveling up...death has been near...not suicide but death...illness after illness...sinking into poverty...giving up...and i know if i didnt deal with this i would end up hopeless and homeless...and then death would come and ease me from this life...and i would regret this...

i would regret failing to be a better human to myself...i would regret the loss of this life and the time i could have spent loving better and being me...

so as i sat in the bathroom last night...trying to get my asthma under control...wondering if this was it...i spread a blanket out on the cold floor...i had a few pictures of loved ones sitting on the floor next to me...and i looked at them and felt comforted...i wasnt afraid...

i have never been afraid of death or what is on the other side of it all...i know there is love and compassion...and i spoke in my heart to that god i love...which is love...the unseen beloved...and i just asked for courage to live and not fail...

i went to sleep early this morning on the floor of the bathroom with friendly faces beside me...i didnt dream...i did empty out of my sadness...and when i woke up the sun was shining and snow had settled on the world outside...i sat up...got up...put my hand under the bathroom faucet and took a handful of water to my dry lips...

and as if a voice had reached through time and space i heard the voice of one i have loved forever...her voice said "blessed is she who seeks"

it made me smile...and feel alittle crazy...but i understood it...and knew that voice...felt the strength of those words...let those words steady me and hold me to this body...i took a puff of my inhaler...a pill...let myself sit in silence for hours...thinking of those words...letting them become a meditation...

blessed is she who seeks...

and i have been seeking...for nearly all this lifetime i have known i am more than this cage of bones...i know i am more than a lifetime of experiences...i have fallen and gotten up again and again...always amazed at the grace and stillness i find holding me...

but the last few years have taken a huge hit to my faith in others and i became more and more upset at the way this world is being trashed...i was losing my religion...

my religion has been humanity...you have been my religion...

i consider us a sacred creation and have done my best all my life to treat others as sacred...but it has worn me down...these last few years...

my whole life has not been easy but i could always look around and see good people doing good...but the last few years i have begun to see good people pervert themselves...sell out...buy into the destruction of our world...gluttony has replaced generosity...power grabbing has become the norm...the worship of gurus and celebrity has replaced self awareness...egos are out of control...it is painful to witness...the planet is sick because human beings are sick...but so many reach for the poison and not the love potion...

the more i saw of it all the more disappointed i became...the more faith i lost...yet i denied it...i didnt want to know i was losing my faith...my religion...i began to see humans as the disease and not just symptoms of the darkness consuming the world...i began to secretly have anger and hatred for humans...

each animal abuse story...each child rape...each school shooting...each dirty government politician...each corrupt corporate action...each bite of polluted food...each sip of unclean water...each foul mouth speaking in a grocery line...each time someone didnt stand up and take a good action...each homeless person ignored...each gutter full of trash...each beach littered with dead whales and dolphins...each and every act of hate...i felt it...the coldness of losing my religion...of losing my faith in people...

and today as sirens filled the air...as i sat here letting my body recover from the asthma attack...i wept...for myself...for this world...for all the beauty being lost...for the horrors...for those sitting alone like me...struggling...mourning the loss of all this potential...grieving over the stupidity of it all...the waste...the selfishness...

i journeyed...to my storytelling guide...i asked him to help me...he has become family to me...and instead of advice he asked for a story...about the grim reaper...so i told him about the time the grim reaper came to town...this is the story...

this grim reaper had been coming to our town since its founding in the early 1800's...the reaper would come and take someone in a gruesome tractor accident...or from giving birth or from scarlet fever or from choking on christmas dinner...in some gruesome sorrow-filled way...

this time the grim reaper came for the most adored and oldest person in town...miss james...102 years old and still teaching first grade...a teacher for over 81 years...from riding on the back of a mule from homestead to homestead...to one room school...to the elementary built in the 1970's...she had seen nearly all the townsfolk in her class...and this was a woman so loved and appreciated that everyone spoke softer when she was around and had their manners in check...

but the grim reaper didnt care about how much folks loved her...he wanted to take a prize from the town...so he did...

miss james was standing at her bathroom sink one evening...she had disrobed and was taking a bird bath when the reaper passed over her...he whispered in her mind to go outside and sit down...and she did...as if walking in a dream...she was sitting under the maple tree in her front yard on the coldest of winter nights...without a stitch of clothes on...she thought she was sitting back at the one room school reading to children...

a neighbor found her in the morning...frozen to death...

the town was horrified...she was in her right mind...she would have never done such a thing...she was a modest woman...she loved life...and it began to be said that very morning the grim reaper was heartless and cruel...for taking such a good woman in such an insulting way...but the town put aside their hatred and anger to celebrate miss james...

they laid her out on a bed of pink roses...her favorite flower...sung songs to her she had taught them all...they told stories and praised her and served a feast in her honor...she was placed in the most beautiful white casket...lowered into the ground with gentle hands...flowers must have been in great shortage in the world that day for thousands circled her grave...

days later there was a big meeting at the town hall...it was decided to get that dirty grim reaper but good! it was miss mae...the healer woman and now the oldest person in town at 99 years who came up with a plan...

signs of welcome went up on every door and business and on every street corner...

WELCOME GRIM REAPER!
WE HONOR YOU FOR YOUR YEARS OF SERVICE.
COME TO THE TOWN SQUARE AND LET US CELEBRATE
YOUR 200 YEAR ANNIVERSARY.

now they didnt know if it had been 200 years or not...but they bet the grim reaper had lost count in his much longer track of time reaping souls...

day and night someone sat with a large bell brought down from the church tower to ring when the reaper came...each person watching...waiting...for the reaper to appear...and the grim reaper did come...

in dark cloak and hood...in a deathly cold blast of wind...the grim reaper swooped down and began walking up the middle of main street and to the town square...the bell sounded and town folks came running...

the mayor welcomed him with a key to the town...the grim faced ghoul reached out with a boney hand and took the oversized key inscribed with "thank you for 200 years of service"...a band played and miss mae was brought forward...

the reaper towered over her...his scythe held low...

someone brought a ladder to her and helped her climb it...she was still only eyes to chest but that would suit her just fine for what she did next...

she spoke with a strong raised voice..."old reaper you have been taking lives for 200 years...we all gotta go and there aint no one here would fight you...but you been taking folks in nasty mean ways...heartless ways...so i figure you aint got a heart!"

and as quick as a hummingbird darts through honeysuckle...miss mae reached into her chest and took out her heart...slamming into the dark hollow spot where the reaper was missing one...

miss mae fell back dead and was caught by her grandson who laid her down softly on a cart full of daisies...her favorite flower...and folks watched as her soul climbed up out of her and departed in a ray of light so pure it made everyone's heart joyful...

the grim reaper stumbled back...stunned...letting out a hellish cry...growing color to the flesh where before there was only sickly grey skin stretched over bones...his empty eyes of dullness turned to the sweetest color of summer sky blue...

he took a deep breath and fell to his knees...

miss mae's grandson stepped forward and said "reaper you aint so grim now are ya? you got the heart of a healer in you...a good woman and friend to all...you go on taking souls to their afterlife...but now i think you will be kinder and gentler in how you take them wont you?"

the reapers new eyes welled up with tears...he nodded yes and flew away...

and from then on when someone crossed over to glory they crossed over with a smile on their face...always found with a pink rose and a daisy upon their chest...

 ~*~

so this...in the middle of a day of struggle...was the story i told my dear storytelling guide...and as i wrote it my heart softened...i felt the acceptance of what i have been going through...and smiled at the thought of a whole town standing up to the grim reaper...not to defeat it...but to help it have empathy...i understood the teaching in this story...this is us...this is how the world can survive...if we give love to those who dont know how to love...teach them by example...with courage and open hearts...to have empathy...

i HAVE been losing my religion...my faith in humanity...understanding there are good folks doing not good things...as i have done this too...ashamed of my actions...saddened by the harm i have done...all of us struggling in some way...searching...hoping to find some kind of meaning to life...

tonight...i breath alittle easier...letting go...of beliefs...ways...patterns of behavior...even letting go of those i love so much...letting go of grief and disillusionment...letting go of what i thought would make my life better but in the end it only crippled me from living my life...i placed my faith in people who live in fear...the fear of death and of life and love...i placed my dreams in the hands of others and that was foolish...i take those dreams now...of children...family...a home...and i kiss them and let them slip from my heart...blessing them as they go from me...

and here i am...finding my REALigion...a different way of seeing the world...as it is...a mess yet beautiful...i see others and all their frail broken parts and love them...but i let go of...well...i let go of my need to struggle in it all...

i send my love into the coldness of this world...and there is light...and sounds like movement...like a fluted tunnel...and all the fragmented parts of myself i make whole...i give all my love to the broken hearted of this world...i understand...

the spirit of love...it is out there...if you need to feel loved hold out your hands and scoop it up...place it over your heart...let it sink in...the warmth of it...the music of it...the light...

this world is fading...will it fade into darker times or be filled with good works and much love? i dont know...i have lost my faith in humanity...but i have found a greater faith...in myself...in love...and in the hope that love will heal broken hearts...

blessed is the seeker...she found herself...