In the dream I had last night, I was a member of a group of students in a foreign country. We had been abducted and brought to secluded region where we were unwilling participants in a ritual. We had been brought to a field covered in tangled vines and all about on top of the vines, randomly placed, were hundreds of empty cradles. Each exactly the same and seemed to be carved out of one piece of dark wood. Grouped at one end of the field were people in padded black armor bearing black poles topped with small circular pillows. I entered the field a feeling of dread and mystery filled my mind. I never found out what this all meant, but I had a feeling, we were there to be symbols in some ancient rite that could not possibly be explained to us. We just were expected to go through it with no idea of what it meant or what the outcome would be.
I believe my mind is trying to tell me something again. Maybe something like, “You have no idea what is going on or how it will turn out.” All I can do is pay attention enough to keep from going crazy with all the uncertainties and learn as much as I can about the way my mind is working. There may be point in which everything gets clear and I can act in a way to help myself and others. But, obviously there are no guarantees.
I am still having a lot of fear when I have to trust in anything beyond intermittent brushes with community and belonging. I am no stranger to feeling alienated from my life and this dream is not an unexpected sign of my anxiety about venturing out of isolation. It is my subconscious trying to protect my pummeled spirit and vulnerable emotional state. It is a test of my resolve to live with less fear and denial. Any separation or alienation is an illusion that I must break through by focus on mindful attention to the way the world is. That is the trial and all the grim and fearful imagery are but shadows cast by my fears. I know I have no certainties in this life no matter what my actions or how much attention I pay to clearing the mind of grim warnings. but, I can learn control the fear and suffering that comes when I experience all these possible futures before whatever is going to be is the moment I am living.
My friends, it is always true, these things. It has already been time. It is always true that we should move with care and intention, asking Do you want to bump elbows instead? with everyone we meet. It is always true that people are living with one lung, with immune systems that don’t work so well, or perhaps work too hard, fighting against themselves. It is already true that people are hoarding the things that the most vulnerable need. It is already time that we might want to fly on airplanes less and not go to work when we are sick. It is already time that we might want to know who in our neighborhood has cancer, who has a new baby, who is old, with children in another state, who has extra water, who has a root cellar, who is a nurse, who has a garden full of elecampane and nettles. It is already time that temporarily non-disabled people think about people living with chronic illness and disabled folks, that young people think about old people. It is already time to stop using synthetic fragrances to not smell like bodies, to pretend like we’re all not dying. It is already time to remember that those scents make so many of us sick. It is already time to not take it personally when someone doesn’t want to hug you. It is already time to slow down and feel how scared we are.
We are already afraid, we are already living in the time of fires.
From Constructing A Nervous System by Margo Jefferson
I spent much of yesterday moving through the world with only minimal contact with a multitude of others who very likely were more connected to some other people operating as part of a family or chosen group of some sort. I moved through the world with no expectation of involvement or affiliation, merely acknowledging and affirming with eye contact and a greeting any person who responded to my gaze. I always make sure people know that I see them and that they exist for me, but I rarely strike up conversations with people. I respond to polite chit chat in kind with as much honesty as I am able to muster on short notice. I am a slow processer of language for the most part better at pondering than repartee. I went through my errands this way responding to greetings and cashier pleasantries.
lateras I hiked on my usual trail up and around the hill and woods close to where I live. I passed a young woman who looked lost in thought and a seemed to be struggling with something. I smiled and acknowledged her presence but did not speak a greeting. Then I heard her say, “Hello” in a very soft distant voice. I turned and returned her greeting as she passed and I saw a small nod. I was trying not to disturb her thoughts, but I am thinking she needed someone to affirm her existence, to be seen and acknowledged as a part of something other than alone. There have been so many times when I have needed this affirmation no matter how slight.
I proceeded to the top of a small hill and sat absorbed in the beauty of the day. The breeze pushed herds of clouds morphed across the blue expanse of sky making new leaves flutter and shimmer clinging to flexing stems as birds willynillied about in search of bugs and seeds, making their pronouncements in many varied voices and vocabulary. It was a glorious day to sit and be a part of. For no matter how alone I seem to be, I know I am part of this world and whatever moments I bring my awareness to, or not.
“In the whole of your absurd past you discover so much that’s absurd, so much deceit and credulity, that it might be a good idea to stop being young this minute, to wait for youth to break away from you and pass you by, to watch it going away, receding in the distance, to see all its vanity, run your hand through the empty space it has left behind, take a last look at it, and then start moving, make sure your youth has really gone, and then calmly, all by yourself, cross to the other side of Time to see what people and things really look like.”
Lately I am putting focus on integrating myself into a more interactive involvement in community and family. I have actively sheltered myself the past year to heal and grieve, a kind of cocoon of regeneration while I put into place a mindful practice of dealing with the world so I could emerge with my heart open to whatever this life has in store for me. I am starting slow, and the world is slowly opening as well. The Queen of Disks is about creating abundance for family and community. I am not so far along in my process to include anybody or group in the small circle of peace I have been able to create, but I am reaching out and accepting safe invitations and rebuilding the tenuous relationships with those people that are already a part of my life, people I work with daily and my family and longtime friends. Just recently I have been able to talk with people about my recent traumatic experiences of devastating loss and emotional turmoil without feeling the almost nauseating twinge of grief and regret that has integrated itself into my emotional fabric.
I never knew my partner when she was healthy and her sudden death, though not surprising given the state of the healthcare system and her failing body, left me with a grandchild to care for alone and the feeling that part of me had been ripped away leaving a gaping wound so that whenever I thought about her it was like touching raw nerves. I am beginning to be able to keep the memory of her love without all the regret and sadness. My grandson is back with his dad and doing well where he is. I am so glad I could care for him when he needed it, but I realized after he made the transition back to his father that I really had not begun to do the work I needed to do to heal. I was in constant crisis and problem-solving mode around his needs. Grieving while parenting is a never-ending tug of war of emotional focus. I am glad I was able to be there for him, but also very relieved when I could let go of that responsibility. I think we helped each other as much as we could to get through the initial grief and that was a good thing.
In the 5 years I was with my partner, I learned what it is to love and be loved unconditionally and that is something to build on. I am using this as my compass as I navigate out of the wilderness of grief into a life of connection and renewed relationships.
I woke up this morning feeling like I came out of dark tunnel that I have been slipping in and out for the last ten years, forgetting that we can not be alone because the universe is wired through all of us and that the only life that has any meaning is in this moment. The horizon of the moment is where all action takes place. I have been coming out of this dream of past/future for a while, and this morning and the last few days I have been edging out of the gloom. I have not fully emerged, but I have begun to feel like my present is aligning with my consciousness and even momentarily syncing with the way the world is. This feels a like waking up at a party surrounded by great moving music but I don’t know the dance. I am ready to start dancing my way back into this life figuring out the steps as I go.
Myriad Ways 