10 Years Ago Today

For the generations who remembered where they were, what was happening on the day JFK was shot; this same experience is shared with the 9/11 tragedy. We were all somewhere living our lives, and although our experiences are different, and how can I possibly compare my experience to someone who lost a loved one that day?…..We were all affected.

On September 10, 2011 a mothers 17 year old sons’ lung collapsed. She was called at work and hurried to the high school, and after being checked at the small local hospital, they said taking him to a medical facility 30 miles away would be a better idea and since using an ambulance might take longer than driving him herself; she raced there. In emergency the doctor poked a hole in his chest with an instrument as big as quarter, no anesthesia, hoping to inflate his lung……….this is my story.

I spent the night in the hospital room with my son, waiting for his lung to right itself, to inflate, and hopefully avoid surgery. I’ve learned since that the pain in growing boys’ chests with this kind of trauma is one of the most extreme kinds of pain.  After a sleepless night his face was white, he was crying out……and the planes were hitting the World Trade Center. In retrospect of course I see the confusion, the grief, the fear in the nurses faces. But in that moment I saw people distracted, my son suffering in agony, and me powerless running around looking for doctor to give my son morphine or some kind of painkiller to ease him. The only thing on the small television in the hospital room was the Manhattan skyline…….

So much has been written of this event, of our feelings, of anger, fear, and grief. All of it expressed through the years in the most poignant ways.  I cannot come close to conveying all the event, and peoples experiences of 9/11 entails. Today on the 10 year anniversary, I do know what I have learned through this. More about our human capacity for compassion and empathy for one another.  More about hate and fear and how that destroys our hearts and the hearts of others.  More about how one event can rip a country apart, and bring it back together. I have learned so much about New York City and its people and love them as if I was one of them. That is unity in the midst of pain.

My son had the emergency surgery that day, and was in intensive care for a week.  I basically lived at the hospital for two weeks and missed much of the initial fallout of the tragedy because of caring for him. Being a postal employee I missed that we were called into Civil Service emergency, with no planes meant no mail moved. The country was in crisis and so were we, in a different way. The TV in the hospital kept us informed and there was nothing else on, just as when I was ten years old, and John Kennedy was assassinated. 

I remember a night in the ICU. Two of my son’s friends had snuck in to visit him. One, a young girl, was curled up on the bed with Casey. I recall that feeling of caring and sharing pain, and loving each other and how I hoped his friends would carry on in their lives with that. Life’s moments are made up of these small instances that bring to our hearts what really matters.

In honor of those who died on this day ten years ago, for those who suffered in any way because of this violent action; I send hope and a heart full of thanks for the resilience and love of the human spirit.

Glen Ellen

Glen Ellen

In Northern California  now, the scent of sage, dry grasses, the  fragrance of the late

summers of my youth, of my life. Absolutely incredible how our sense of smell

stirs the brain organ in as sundry  ways (geez always have trouble with the

spelling of that word! Another brain block)

Anyway to get back to where I am. Sitting up in bed in the most beautiful renovated

barn you will ever witness, feeling like a little princess with my tea, early in

the morn, friends stirring in the house, wild California oaks under foggy skies

out my window.....and the freedom to do whatever my heart desires (ok, within

reason) all day today.

There was a time I lived up this road a piece, on a hill overlooking Sonoma

Valley. It was a small redwood cabin with a wood stove on the edge of a

vineyard. So amazing what passing time, recollection and retrospect will do

to our memories. It was one of the most difficult times of my life, but the

smell of the morning air with that hint of wild sage this morning, blankets my

memory with a sweetness and longing. Wondering where that time went, where I went,

where  my dead friends have gone……

I am not sad at all, just nostalgic, even hopeful, sentimental.

Looking at my age and the passing years.

Gee, I hope there is some new wisdom inside me, or do we keep relearning the same

old lessons? Not that I feel old, in fact my heart has the same stance, the never aging quality

of curiosity hope love awareness,  awake to the future……..oh the air and coolness of this morning,

and the strong scent of summer dried grasses carries me.

World Suffering

How many Navy Seals went down in that helicopter in Afghanistan?

Their families, their daughter sons wives mothers fathers

The grief of this time on their shoulders

No more sitting at the dinner table

Walking in the woods

Playing with the dog

Swimming in the ocean

But there is much more suffering than we can fathom

The face of famine in the children in Somalia

The young people being massacred in Syria

The prisons around the world filled with suffering spirits

The misfortune and distress caused by men against men

How does our psyche hold all this pain?

Of the world, our earth, without bending over

In a fetal position of utmost surrender

How do we keep any semblance of hope alive

In our Spirits?

Poetry is Good

Poetry is good. Good therapy. Good for the soul.

Good for the heart.

Poetry is a release. An exercise.

Makes you feel you’re doing something to help yourself.

Nothing to do with thinking others may read it.

An exercise of desperation.

Maybe healing a slight wound.

Or a major one.

Writing helps me to go on.

Just one more minute. One more day.

All of it doesn’t really matter.

Life begins with birth. It ends with death.

All in between is extra.

Gifts and burdens.

Love joy pain awake in life.

And so many feelings.

Often confusing; sometimes tingles, sometimes tickles.

Sometimes a knife.

Poetry is good.

The Search

My goodness there is so much information on the internet. Take for instance, bettering your life; either through yoga, healthy eating, prayer, learning to love yourself, taking charge of your life, that manifestation thing……..you get the drift (I love the word drift used like that). Anyway these entries on blogs, columns, in Huffington and a million places actually do have answers. I am making fun slightly, but there is some great advice, solutions, insights, all at the end of a clicking mouse. People have stuff to say about their lives, how they cope, their inspirations, what works, self love blah blah blah. There I go again.

And so many great quotes from down the ages………..it’s all at the end of our fingertips, in books, so many books. Don’t even get me going on books. My mind is a sponge for the answers to happiness within, acceptance, love in all its forms, the Sweet Spirit we are all a part of………..But I am lost in all of it. I soak up everything and nothing clings. The next day I start over with what simple thoughts I can remember to apply to my horrendously painful mind.  Yes, I’m in a quandary (another word to like) a darkness of the soul, pains of spiritual growth, depression of mind and spirit, or the shit…….whatever you would like to call it. And there are incredible helpful stupendous answers out there. But the awakening will happen within, not out there.

I have some very clear short sentences that help me remember I am a lovable spirit in this human body. And that a whole lot doesn’t even matter in this life we live, as centers of our own universes. Phrases that save me from myself. Sayings, affirmations that help change my thinking. I will not repeat them here, as they are that personal.  I am not a blogger/writer/theorist with the answers for anyone, but someone reaching out in the ethereal cyberspace ozone (while practicing my writing too) attempting  to become visible. Possibly seen, possibly felt. Maybe even a joint empathy in our crazy trials and tribulations.

In my search for answers, helpful solutions, or the set of words that will awaken the light, kick out my monster, and have me live happily ever after………I learn about you, myself, the world. And as far as feeling on top of the world? Well, it just ain’t happening today. Maybe tomorrow. I promise my next blog will be funnier.

Creativity

I haven’t blogged in awhile because it seems everything is personal, and I don’t particularly want to get personal with cyber. Internal controversies they’re called in some circles. And although ‘those’ people meant something slightly different, I have got them big time. So, let’s try this. Remember the point of this blog is to practice writing, with the hope someone might see it and give me feedback. Hint hint.

Creativity is a gift and most of us are unaware we have it. Unaware as in unconscious. Yes, we walk the planet with our eyes closed, our ears shut; but mostly to drown out the deafening sound and sights of all the chatter. Chatter being media, internet, social online overload, TV, drama, Wal-Mart, traffic, business, sometimes family and friends even, and you get the drift. I like that word drift; float, saunter, ride, skim, become carried. And that’s what we do. Ok, that’s what I do. I become carried by what’s in front of me, thinking I’m paying attention, but not really. Becoming insensitive to the trauma of the world, because how do we survive in full awareness of what is really going on.

Yes, I know you’ve heard this all before. So my dilemma is to channel the internal strife caused either by internal or external forces (in most spiritual paths the external is actually decided by the internal. Ok, another subject for another day) and make art. Some creative energy period. Pen to paper. Finger to computer. Paint to brush. Eye to camera. Blueberries to pie. Seed to ground. Fingers to piano. And that’s just the beginning.

Now, I may not be able to do all these things well, but amazingly I have already done all of them! (Seriously, me on the piano is like science fiction). But becoming inventive and being ourselves in this inventive process is not about anybody else. It is about the expression of our dreams, our spirits, our internal nature. And since we are all unique in beautiful ways, what we have inside waiting to be expressed, counts.

So my friends, without divulging all the tiring tribulations of my insides I managed to write a little piece about hope. Hope for your dreams. Hope for the discovery of ways to dance through this life a bit lighter, taking in all that affects us, and generating some small creative piece of life that is you. And at the same time I gave myself hope for this.

Thank you.

4AM

Trying to write wanting to write can’t sleep so might as well. Making sense of it is not the prize just blah blah blah write to fill the time ease the soul keep from picking up someone else’s writing. Gosh, that’s so tempting. To read what’s already written, and so much of it. Could fill my days escaping into stories and pictures real and imagined. So many ways to take a trip without putting words to paper. But…….

What about my own creativity my own story, not my story story but a story. Although I suppose all writers have a bit of themselves, their heart their soul in the story they write. Yes? Maybe not. I’ve read some pretty crappy stuff.

Do you think our parents/ancestors leave psychic mush in our DNA, our neural net, the stuff that haunts us, that makes us wonder why we feel this way, act this way, think this way? What I mean to say, the things we can’t explain that don’t seem a part of us, but seem to have always been there? And not good stuff, let’s get clear about that. The dark parts, the sadness, the self-sabotaging thoughts, the complacency, the holding back on our dreams. Do you think some of that is ingrained by another life, another spirit?

There I go off in the ozone. I like it there. I want be to somewhere besides here in my own head.  Been reading about our souls, before life, during life, after life. Reminds me this isn’t all there is, thank god. I’m not sure what is “there” but that other dimension is captivating engaging comforting. So much of what I give power to, what I may think is important, just plain isn’t. Just useless sludge.

And I will stop here, because if I tell you what the only thing that matters is, I will sound trite and like so many of those sayings clichés spiritual wisdom coming out of my you-know-what.  The word, at least this morning, seems so over used and does not do its’ meaning justice. The meaning being grand, vast, empowering, blessed, heartfelt.

But, I do wish you much of it.