As I went to pull the curtains I noticed the full moon illuminating the night sky, casting beautifully framed shadows of the trees and landscape as if preparing for a sacred dance. I smiled a knowing “I get it” smile and remembered to take a slow deep breath and actually acknowledge the moon and nature and spirit. I began to think of how the moon is like our deepest dark emotions; hidden from sight yet in control of our waves. Think about it. The moon is invisible to us in daylight and controls earth’s cycles yet it is at night, when sunlight reflects off the surface, that its essence can have its full expression. The same thing goes for our deepest emotions; pain, fear, sadness, worry, shame, guilt, fear of abandonment, not feeling good enough… It can be a very long list. I know for me it was until I began to shine some light on the craters in my own inner moon that sat dark and festering for decades. They all related back to childhood patterns ingrained by my parents who had their own patterns ingrained by their parents and so on and so on. A negative karmic cycle of how I got screwed up by the child who grew into an adult to become my parents did their best with how they had been screwed up as a child. I have, until a two years ago, spent my adult life trying everything I could to hide from my pain. On some treadmill of life plodding away hoping that if I did this or that, took this or that, earned this or that, and made this one or that one happy, that I would be released from this strangle hold on my soul. No matter what I did, I was not peaceful or content and was at times so far out of my body that my energy would spin like the Tasmanian devil, drawing in more karma (I mean drama) until it would subside, leaving residual scars on my psyche that were notches on my mind’s egoic belt. Ego (my mind noise) loved when I was in drama, that’s what feeds it. Ego does not want me to slow down and take a breath and take guidance from my heart and intuition. It wants me to operate from my mind’s fear so it can self perpetuate the cycle of I’m not good enough and keep me stuck.

Ego (my mind noise) only made me sadder, more worried, defensive, and a trying to please people as a “dance puppet dance” person existing with a body while only having glimpses of peace, joy, and equanimity. It knew how to play my pain strings like a fiery bow against my soul’s strings. I knew it was possible to authentically live with awareness and in my heart with no more than glimpses of it but did not dare try to achieve it for that meant I would have to feel my feelings, all of them! I know now that the more I tamped down all the “bad” feelings that I was also tamping down any chance of truly feeling the “good” feelings. The ego tricked me often by allowing me to feel happy or pleasure or reward but these were temporary and only physical; they are not even in the same realm as joy, peace, love, and equanimity which are spiritual ways of being from heart centered awareness. Equanimity comes from the Latin word aequus meaning balanced, and animus meaning spirit or internal state. For me it means not being swayed by anything. Maintaining a go with the flow of life’s awareness while staying in my heart rather than in my mind where the ego resides.

The only reason I began to learn a new way was by being shattered. I was broken on April 23, 2011 by the sudden death of Jill, my wife of thirteen plus years. I learned eventually, after trying everything I could to avoid giant onslaught of pain that crumpled me into a skeletal lump of broken pieces, that the only way to see my moon shine was to head directly into the craters of pain and sadness and fear and see what they were and where they came from. Even in the throes of do I kill myself or not I knew that I was not depressed, I knew that somewhere there was a light but I did not how to see it yet. I learned how to be alone and not lonely, I learned what it was that was missing in me and what was not being filled anymore by her. I learned that it is okay to feel, to truly feel all emotions without judgment or labeling them as good or bad or right or wrong. I slowly learned through practice to allow all my feelings their full expression, which sometimes left me prostrate on floor sobbing until it was done. Each time I allowed these waves to have their way it opened me up to more light and healing. I learned to breathe and stay with my emotions instead of distracting from them. I learned, finally, that I can only elude my sadness but cannot escape it and that the only way out was in. I remember some lyrics to a song that go “you’ve got walk through the darkness, uh huh, until you get to the light.” There is no other way to become peaceful, joyful, and equanimitable. No book, or retreat, or meditation tape will undo the deeply ingrained scars. They are tools to aid in healing but it is only me who can heal me through awareness and introspection and breath. I hear often in my yoga practice that the pose begins when you want to get out of it and it is the same for the spiritual yoga I was learning. I like that yoga is referred to as a practice. Like awareness it is continual learning and requires conscious breathing.

As Rumi penned “As you start to walk out on the way, the way appears.” Intentionally shining light on the deep sadness and staying with it wherever it leads is the way to release the hold on the soul. It is with awareness and practice that the unburdening of emotional baggage begins. Each wave that comes in is an opportunity to surf it instead of drowning in it. I remind my self to breathe. Slow inhale, pause, slow exhale. Three times in a row, at least. Practicing this in the midst of turbulent emotional waves becomes more automatic in time as the heart strengthens by becoming more vulnerable. And to clarify, a vulnerable heart is not fragile and does not get broken. It is steady, and calm and strong and is open to all feelings without bias. So back the moon and my moons and all their hidden majesty and influence. Let the light shine and guide me with loving kindness as I journey with life’s waves instead of sitting on the shore for fear of where they may or may not lead. namaste

It’s been another interesting year. I fell in love again and it was wonderful. What wasn’t so wonderful was living together. To clarify, we like all the same things, live a very similar life, have the same values, and made passionate love. So why didn’t we stay together. I’ve always known that just because people love each other doesn’t mean they can live together or be in a conscious relationship which is one that does not live today with yesterday’s mind. That’s why we fall in love so we can learn how to love without attachment or fear or blame. Falling in love is spirit’s way of giving us the opportunity to put down our baggage.

I saw a quote while in Whole Foods that read “Let go or be dragged.” To me it is about being present and not in the past or future. I only have right now and choose to flow with life’s river in lieu of clinging to the side for fear of where it might lead. It’s not about giving up sadness, or defeating pain, or fixing patterns engrained since birth, but rather allowing these feelings to see what is so scary about them and to let go of that which does not serve me anymore. Connecting to the genuine feelings without the mind noise that dictates our lives and releasing the trigger associated with it which is usually shame, guilt, and lack of self worth. “Guilt is a disease of the soul. It breeds fear in dreams and stops the heart from living all that it was meant to love.” (JEV)

What I have learned is that once I shine the light on the roots of my pain I can begin the process of healing them and putting them down. From these healed roots spring forth spirit’s flowers of unimaginable beauty and peace because there is no attachment to the outcome of anything, no more clinging to the edge. That doesn’t mean that I don’t hope for things but rather that I appreciate the guidance I get from love (god, spirit, nature) all the time that keeps me in my heart and not in my mind. See when I hope it is for peace, love, friendship, and joy however it manifests, or doesn’t. I pay attention to a gust of worry coming to my mind and then let it go on its way. Why base my present moment on a gust? Have you ever tried to capture the wind in your hands? Giving the foundation of my being over to gusts of nothing is like building a house on a foundation of sand. No matter how hard I try, I’ll just keep falling apart. This poem came to me one day while I was reflecting on love’s journey.

Bouts of Harmony

Under one roof but not together

The slightest of nothing ruffles the feathers

Emotional scars endured from the past dictate the day

And the bouts of harmony are farther and farther away.

Talking the language but unconsciously salting the wounds

Forbidding the sadness and locking joy in a room

Not willing to feel the one for fear of not coming back

Yet closing out the warmth of the other, not seeing the lack

Courage is honoring and speaking the truth of the heart.

Living with armor is not for the body

It is about feeling the heart and spirit’s sorrows,

Allowing the soul to be cloudy.

Dive into the sadness, the rage, and the fear

Allow them their due

Give them rise to your ear.

And once they have released their burdens

The cloudiness will clear;

Rousing courage with vulnerability

Compassion and trust

A journey worth the rest of a lifetime

Until the return to the dust

I had begun to shut down healthy parts of myself to try to make things better and prevent the baggage car from leaving the station. Turning off my heart flow was a great disservice to my spirit and heart as well as to hers. Again, I was trying to make the woman I love feel better, trying to help heal old wounds that were not of my doing. This was the pattern I was in for thirteen years in my previous wonderful love that I am glad I am finally able to witness clearly and notice my desire to make things better so everything would be okay. Got it! Our compatibility was hindered by our unresolved baggage. I am so thankful for every moment of love I shared with her, another guided gift to me. The more I trust my heart and disregard the wind gusts that come through my mind the more I will flow with life rather than just existing in a body. I know that I am going to share in more great love in a healthy, conscious relationship as this wonderful existence in my body continues. “It is not what I have become, it is how I became.” (JEV) Namaste

The lotus flower is a symbol of purity, enlightenment, self-regeneration and rebirth. In Buddhism every person has the potential to become perfect and enlightened, and it’s just a matter of time until each human reaches the light. Buddhists believe that it’s necessary to be reborn thousands of times, polishing one’s being through many incarnations, until one reaches nirvana – the highest state of consciousness that humans can access.

The journey of the consciousness from spiritual ignorance to perfection happens through many rebirths and can be very painful and difficult, as the process of reincarnation involves the need to repair past mistakes at every new life and one faces the consequences of every action, thought and words. While humans are not conscious of their spiritual greatness, they believe that life is unfair and worthless, but as they evolve through many cycles of death and rebirth, all the darkness is slowly removed. I believe we surf life’s waves; fall down, get up.

The lotus flower also represents beauty and non-attachment because it is rooted in the mud yet floats on water without becoming dirty. For me the lotus flower represents impermanence and the reminder to see the beauty in being alive. It reminds me that beauty can still rise from turbidity. To always see the truth without judgment and continually check to see if I am coming from mind noise or heart center. I know that when we see things for what they are it is easy to make right choices because any other choice is in direct opposition to natural flow (our hearts, intuition, and spirit).

After posting my last writing I knew to get a lotus flower tattoo. It’s an homage to Jill for it is she who is the lotus that has opened my trust in flow and shared her depth of wisdom without ego or prejudice. I will always love Jill and I will also remember what I do have now, that I am always being guided, love and joy will be in my life again, and embrace everything with an open heart, trusting spirit, and relaxed mind. namaste

Why should I go on? It’s a thought that has been echoing in my mind for over a week now. I’m not thinking about killing myself but I have been wondering, what’s the deal? Who says so? Jill would want you to be happy. Jill would want you to go on. Really?!

I know that Jill said that the human existence is the most difficult one to have versus other existences that our spirits have. I also know we only need the body to exist here and that she is okay. She also told me that she wasn’t sure if she is going to come back again. It’s a choice we make before becoming human again and again.

I know that when I realized it was March first six days ago I became pinned to the kitchen floor wailing sounds from my soul that left me hoarse and void of existing. It was another one of the million triggers to remind me that she left her body on April twenty third, two thousand and eleven and that it has been over ten months. Another reminder of images of our last days together, most images are horrific. Passover dinner on Monday and gone four days later on Good Friday. I still marvel that our last supper was a Seder. So again I ask, why? I know peace, love, friendship, and joy. I know how lucky I (we) are to know this with each other. I know that Jill will lead me to my next love. And? I know it was supposed to happen…. or it wouldn’t have. This I don’t like. I get annoyed that I can completely accept this knowingly as truth. Neil Diamond is singing ‘I’m Alive’ on the iPod random shuffle just now. Go figure.

So it took me six days of crying to get to this keyboard and I continue to remind myself of what I know with the belief that again I’ll know what it is to not feel sadness as the undercurrent of my circuitry. It’s not that I do not have genuine laughter and enjoyment of life and people but there is a good amount of going through the (e)motions of a day.

I know that we are nature and there is a universal (energy) consciousness of everything. I know that this energy has its rhythm and rhyme which I do not necessarily understand or like and I accept this rhythm and rhyme because I am part of this consciousness and trust that it knows what it is doing. I know that I am always being guided and should feel my way through most things from a centered place rather than thinking my way from a fearful place. Any decision made when fearful is never the right one. Any action taken from the heart, as long as it is the true choice, is always right. The more I stay in awareness the more I know from where I am operating at a given moment.

I know that I am done writing for now.

Okay, second attempt one night later. When thinking about what I wrote yesterday I thought that I might not even post it because it seemed woe is me. Which it is. But I was judging it as bad or not worth sharing. Now that I see this I am okay with leaving it as is. Because it is what it is, right? For awhile now this ‘is what it is’ theme is something that I remind my friends. The majority of these friends are women. This is because women are more willing to be vulnerable and talk about feelings. I’m not judging it.

We talk about seeing things for what they are. Seeing the truth of something or someone without judging it as good or bad. Just seeing it for what it is. By seeing things for what they are we can make better choices without guilt, obligation, or insecurity. This is because staying in the truth allows us to stay in our hearts because we feel it as centered and grounded in light. Our minds want to tell us anything but this because it operates from insecurity and fear and takes a dominant role in our being. But when we stay aware that this mind noise is trying to rule the moment, we can choose to see something or someone in the truth of it.

Another theme that we also talk about is trusting our heart’s instinct (intuition, gut sense) about someone or something. You know the feeling you get when you knew you were right but it’s always after the fact? By tuning in with awareness to the signals we get we can better navigate life and its surf. Basically it’s like smelling smoke in the wind ten miles away, knowing you smell it, and ignore it because your mind tells you it will change. But your heart was telling you differently all along. That’s because many of us are scared to trust ourselves because somewhere along the way we have lost our value, our power. I remind my friend(s) to own her power. It has nothing to do with taking your power back, it’s about owning what you already have and trusting that it will guide you. Try to recognize this and see if it stirs a shift in your being. It’s scary to do and takes time to sharpen this tool but will likely show positive flow even if it is not how we imagine it to be. Usually the thing that scares us the most is the thing we most need to do.

Well it’s late and I’ve run out of thoughts for now. Glad I rambled on as this needed to come out. Remember to breathe, trust universal flow, and only ask for peace, love, friendship, and joy. Namaste

 

Our last dinner together on Monday night

Although I may be able to elude my sadness, I cannot escape it. It permeates my DNA and lies in wait to spring upon me like the flu which is influenza which was originally termed to mean under the influence of evil or negative spirits. I know this is not negative influence upon me but it hurts so, so much sometimes that there is no escaping it. Sometimes it feels as if I want to remove my skin and shake it out like a kitchen rug so all the trapped particles can fly away in the breeze. It’s Friday January 27^th and I have

been wafting through this week. My thoughts are spongy and my conversations disingenuous. I’ve neither motivation nor drive and whatever I do is going through the (e)motions. Still make it to yoga 3x each week and still cook well for myself but it just doesn’t make it go away.

I’ve written before about testacular, a combination of test and spectacular, and the last 30 days have been a series of these. Christmas, New Years, Jill’s birthday on 01/15 and mine on 01/23 which is when this new round of fuck it set in. Spent Christmas and New Years in the mountains of North Carolina outside of Asheville at a wonderful place called Peaceful Quest Retreats. I befriended some amazing, wise, heartful people there. The owners, Millie and Bobbie, welcomed me to this special property with warmth and compassion which helped my spirit and me feel my way through the holidays. It was truly a wonderful experience that I was guided to in different ways and am thankful to have the awareness to notice these subtle nudges from spirit.

When I arrived home from PQR, that’s what they call the retreat, I brought the container of Jill (her ashes) home from my mom’s bookshelf where she had purveyed all she could. Walking into our home with her in hand I felt this wave of she’s gotta go this weekend. It felt like she no longer wanted to be contained and that I would need to release her. I know that it is only ash and bone and that her energy and spirit is okay but I also know that my spirit, for whatever reason, needed me to release her physicality. The question was how. I knew it would be in the Atlantic in Watch Hill, Rhode Island but I needed to figure out what to use to get her out into the water from shore since it was going to be 10+/- degrees and windy. First thought was biodegradable paper sandwich bags. Fill em up, fold, and that should be enough weight to get it out into the waves. Maybe add a rock in the bottom so it will sink faster. Then I remembered the conch shells we had collected throughout the years. Into one I put our wedding rings, some white sage, and her. Into all the other shells I put the rest of her. It worked out perfectly as I scoured the house for just one more shell into which I could put the remains of the remains. Found it. Done. This process took me 5 days to complete. It was heart wrenching and heart cleansing. It put me face down on the kitchen floor and sometimes had me laughing. I did not realize until that Wednesday that her birthday was the coming Sunday so it made perfect sense to do it then. She came in with a body and is going out in a shell into the Atlantic which is eternal and infinite. A perfect place to be. Truly uncontained. Immediate family went to Watch Hill, froze our asses off walking down to the beach and Of Course The Tide Was Going Out. We didn’t say much, I said a little, and all but two of us took turns tossing Jill into the ocean as far as we could throw her. I tossed some tulips into the tide and finished off the day by opening Bingo’s can of ashes into the winds (13.5 years old and was put down when Jill was in the hospital). It was a release and a relief. It felt freeing. When I returned home and entered there was a void. Not the same as before. A distinct energetic disconnect that still permeates the walls and my soul. I did a spring’ish cleaning and that’s that.

It’s interesting that I never know what will trigger an emotion and whenever something does show up I let it do its thing. I had thought that crying my way through some of the holidays and crying for Jill’s birthday stuff was the only triggers I would need to feel with for awhile. It was my 44^th birthday 5 days

ago and I woke up, got out of bed, pulled a comb across my head. Sorry, The Beatles popped in for a moment. As soon as I walked into the living room I lost it. I spent my entire birthday alone (by choice) sobbing and sad. Since then I have had this sadness that lies upon me like a fogbank between two looming mountains. I know that sadness is just as okay as not sadness and when it is done, it will be done. But it sucks! Thankful for yoga to fortify my body for the deep breathing required for crying and also for centering again once the crying has ceased. I am wrung out and so tired that my lower left eyelid has a slight tic to it. Not worried but would certainly appreciate some good sleep. I still have laughter and I know that the spiritual sun will shine again but for now I need to stay aware and in truth and not in fear. Jill and I had an agreement that the one in the least fear leads. It was a wonderful way to support each other through our own growth. Now that she is not here to lead or be led it is I who is taking the helm when I am in fear. It isn’t easy to do but I look at my fear or pain and where it’s coming from. With this I gain the time to remember that we are nature, all is as it should be even if I don’t understand, and to allow peace, love, friendship, and joy to be my lead in whatever way it manifests, or doesn’t. I’m glad I got to ramble on. I needed to get this out. Live truthfully, love with vulnerability, honor your body, and follow your heart, not your mind.

One final thought is a quote by Jeff Brown “Excessive analysis perpetuates emotional paralysis. The mind is just a tool, not a place to live. Surviving by our wits comes at a price. We can’t heal our hearts from up high. We have to surrender to the body temple. It knows the path to wholeness. I have the hardest time listening to it sometimes.”

Have you ever had the laugh that begins with your toes and ends out of the top of your head? The laugh that hurts so hard that you cant breathe and you beg someone else to stop whatever it is so you can stop laughing and then when you think you’ve got it licked, you just look at or say something and it begins just as intensely as the first time. It is fun, and gleefully exhausting with resulting body aches.

Now take sobbing. Lying on the kitchen floor peering at cobwebs under the cabinets through tear blurred eyes. A sorrowful wail that will not stop until it has had its voice. The kind of sorrow that is not enjoyable or welcome. It depletes the body of all faculties and it feels like you’ve been wrung out like a dishtowel.

And finally, orgasms. Intense, heated, toe tingling, please don’t stop, orgasms. The kind of feeling that takes hold of you with shared heavy breathing, muscles contracting automatically in a rhythmic pulse that would make a percussion section put down their sticks. This is a most wonderful gift that renders the body useless afterward because there is nothing left to give.

I am not saying that they are good or bad but I do believe that there is a common thread. A full body release. It is a complete opening of all conduits; physical, emotional, energetic, ethereal, and spiritual. So the thing that I try to do at all times is to allow full expression. It is not easy to do and I have to do a lot of deep breathing when the sobbing hits but I do know that it is just as important to feel the bad as much as I know that the other feelings are needed as well.

Laughter is the best medicine. It is also best to practice it proactively. I do not know how I would have survived this transition if weren’t for levity and a curiosity for life. I connect with people through my heart and with humor. I always tell my prospective clients that if there is a heart connection and we have a laugh then we will likely work together.

I cannot tell you how often I laugh during the day but it is often. I make myself laugh all the time, laugh at situations, and laugh with my friends whenever I speak with them. No class clown here but a quick wit and humility can go a long way in any relationship. Well almost any. With this being said I find it curious that so many people find it amazing that I am able to be happy so soon after Jill’s physical departure. I also find it curious that one thing I often hear is that she would want you to be happy. Just following orders!

I know that I can choose to engage in and enjoy being here while I am or I can  choose to be broken hearted. It really isn’t a choice for me anymore. It seems as if a switch was flipped in my being that knows truth and love and will not allow anything but that. I do have an essence of sadness that still tints my spirit’s colors but it is not as intense as it was. I choose to completely allow the sadness whenever it arises and that helps release the trigger to the painful part of a memory or thought. Whenever I think about doing something that I don’t want to do and I know will make me feel the sadness and usually lead to sobbing, I do it. Listening to her seventeen voicemail messages I have saved through the years, looking at her photos and videos, or cooking foods that remind me of her. Each time I do this it hurts, but a little less, and I am able to rejoice in the pleasure of that experience for all the beautiful wonder that it is, I am, and life is. Sometimes it takes longer to come out of the sadness but I am able to let it have its voice and then it is done just as much as a good belly laugh doesn’t last forever.

When I speak with someone about my approach to being they are compassionate and amazed at how “strong” I am. I have always believed that if you don’t like something, do something about it and quit your bitchin.’ Life is a wave meant to be surfed; fall down, get up. I also know that having a human body is only necessary to be here and that our existence is way beyond this physical blip. So with this knowledge I can not feel as woe is me because she is okay, I am okay, and this is just another shift in my being as much as it is a shift in her being.

To be clear, it is not easy and it is worth the hurt. There’s a new slogan. “Worth the hurt.” Not masochistic hurt but a heart centered, mindful, acceptance of sadness as much as I accept all other feelings. Each time we come back into a new body it is to spiritually clean house. Karma is the script we create for ourselves before entering our physical life that will help us to become loving, compassionate, and accepting. The lessons we are presented are not always clear but I do know that we are given many subtle and not so subtle signs as to what our path is. When we take the time to stop, breathe, and process before acting or reacting, it becomes much clearer that we are being guided. How many times do you know something in your gut, don’t follow it, and afterward say “I knew I was right.”

That gut sense is a wonderful tool that is not used enough. It can be your most powerful ally, ardent protector, and lighthouse in the fog. Trust it more and it will strengthen; because we are all part of nature and this is your animal instinct that can be developed with practice. No one or thing is infallible and sharpening your instinct does not necessarily happen overnight and it isn’t always right or wrong but it is a gift that is not often fully appreciated. Let yourself off the hook and laugh at/with life for it can be very funny if you can just take a moment to consider the source, stop, breathe and process. Enjoy as much as you can of every moment of every day for it is all temporary and wondrous. Namaste

It’s interesting. That is the word I always seem to use that best describes my life now, my being. I do not know how many days it’s been since Jill left as I stopped counting many weeks ago. It didn’t really seem to matter any more, one day, thirty, two hundred… Every day is a new day and this is the blessing that I acknowledge. The new day brings more love to me as I am more able to tap into that source from which Jill and I share and also shared when we were both physically here. It is this love that gets me through the days, knowing full well that her physical departure was an agreement that Jill and I made before entering our bodies this time around. This pact is a weighty one because of the pain the had to occur for us both. It must be in some great part an agreement to awaken my full being and for her continued path of existing to which I am not privy the details. I believe that had she not left her body that I would still be on my life’s treadmill and might have physically died before her because of the intensity of it. This physicality we have is only a way point in our existing.

Some moments are better than others but no day is terrible anymore. I accept that she is gone from her body and I also know that I will have relationship and joy again to which I will be guided. With that acceptance I also fully engage the sorrow, and sadness, and loneliness that invade my being from time to time. I do have peace and laughter as well.

Being alone again, not in a relationship, is quite the extreme from what I have known for over 13 years. Our home included Jill, Bingo, and me. Notice that I put Bingo before me. He was our baby (a 110lbs. Great Dane/boxer mix) for the entire time Jill and I knew each other and he left his body four months before she did. It’s been one hell of a year. The house is the same, our bed, the décor… but the palpable shift in energy and lack of physicality is at times horrible but mostly different.

With all this new experience my being is easier to be. The rules have changed. There are no more rules. No obligation, no guilt, no regrets, no fears, no worries, no expectations, and no judgment. A change from the previous Ian that once inhabited this body. I am not saying that I was all of the aforementioned but I certainly did entertain a tighter tone sometimes even whilst living with Jill; the essence of love and compassion. What’s interesting about this new being is that I can not undo it, I like it, and I am free. My spirit has been unchained from its karmic shackles and has taken flight again, remembering what it’s like to see my way vividly through the dark and completely engage in everything “good” and “bad”.

It’s all interesting and when I am able to question I know that I am on my path. Am I really doing this? How am I able to be so peaceful? Is this walking the walk or just talking it? My friend Charlie laughs every time I pose this query because he says that it is genuine and rife with love and grace and that only a crazy person doesn’t question if he/she is crazy. I welcome all the experiences that come with this new being and indulge in awareness that radiates love like the brilliant gem that warms my body when I am in a cloudless day.

Okay, so it has been an interesting Thanksgiving week and I have had my share of waves to surf. Some were enjoyable like beautiful blue waters in Bali and then there were the crashing breakers of the North Sea.

I was missing Jill as I pulled in front of our cabin today. I slowed as I always did to see her in the window at the kitchen sink beaming an effervescent white smile with blue pools of love streaming from her eyes towards me. Yet again I could not see this and my heart twitched for a moment in recollection of the love and the loss I was simultaneously feeling at that moment. I turned the key and quieted the engine and also with some deep breaths the mind noise that had just taken up primary position in my thoughts. Groceries in, fire built, vanilla candle wafting from its flame. We I don’t keep the house as neat as it was before. It could use some detailing. It hasn’t seemed as important as it did before. Tomorrow it gets a good once over. We I like things to present well, not perfectly, just well.

Rambling I know but this is what’s coming out so I just go with it. So when I got home I was sad for a bit and that’s okay for me just as much as being happy is okay for me. It’s just another feeling and there is wonder in all of it. Sometimes the sadness is terrible and then it shifts and I am okay again. I don’t like the sadness, it sucks, but I don’t necessarily fear it. I also don’t hold onto it when it is done. It continues on its journey as a tide crashing the shore and then flowing out again. Holding on to sadness is like using it as an excuse for being a certain way and it usually isn’t a good, joyful, or nice way of being. I’m not judging, just aware. So anyway I was sad, was walking into the bathroom to shower and was compelled, and I do mean compelled, to find the theme song to The Greatest American Hero right now, listen to it and hear the words. This is not a song, let alone TV show, that I have thought about in ages.

Look at what’s happened to me-,

I can’t believe it myself.

Suddenly I’m up on top of the world,

It should’ve been somebody else.

Believe it or not,

I’m walking on air.

I never thought I could feel so free-.

Flying away on a wing and a prayer.

Who could it be?

Believe it or not it’s just me.

Just like the light of a new day-,

It hit me from out of the blue.

Breaking me out of the spell I was in,

Making all of my wishes come true.

Believe it or not,

I’m walking on air.

I never thought I could feel so free-.

Flying away on a wing and a prayer.

Who could it be?

Believe it or not it’s just me.

This is too good to be true.

Okay I get it, thanks for the reminder and support Jill. The music and words roused a smile in me and shifted my mood. I know that Jill is totally okay, better than okay, and existing as always. It’s not that she died as much as she shifted being and left her body behind. It’s part the cycle of life and nature and we are all one in that cycle. What I know is that I am experiencing the dying of a way of being as I too shift. This is not to say that I do not mourn the loss of the human Jill and our coexistence corpus to corpus. What I am saying is that I strongly feel our love which is really a universal feeling that we tapped into together rather than something that we created between us. I am grateful that I was able to share in it with her and also grateful that I will share in it again. As much as I know that she is okay I also know that I am okay and this is yet another chapter of my journey as being a human being for however long it lasts.

As my loving friend Charlie Morris said to me when I told them to stop trying to revive her body “Jill is now in a place of love and joy and peace. Why don’t you try to match her at that frequency while you still have a body?” Thank you Charlie for those words, they resonated. I will engage in all of it with eager eyes as a child explorer does and venture forward with the knowledge (not belief or faith) that all is as it is. Namaste

PS: Too funny, I was going online to facebook to post this and hit a link to Buddhist quotes and found this.

“I do not perceive even one thing, O monks, that when undeveloped and uncultivated entails such great suffering as the mind. The mind, when undeveloped and uncultivated, entails great suffering.” ~The Buddha (from “In the Buddha’s Words” translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi)

PPS: Charlie’s blog is www.MeetingWithCharlie.com

“Ego is the problem. Sometimes ego is very spoiled, like a child who is constantly throwing tantrums. Sometimes ego doesn’t accept where we are. Sometimes ego doesn’t accept who we are. Sometimes ego doesn’t accept things the way they are without any real complaint. So what do we do? There is nothing that we can do. Sometimes ego doesn’t accept the fact that the sky is blue, but there is nothing we can do, you see. Sometimes ego doesn’t accept that we are living on a planet which is permeated with natural disasters, earthquakes, floods, and other catastrophes. All we can do is accept that, and learn how to surrender to the flow of all events.” ~Anam Thubten (from “No Self, No Problem)

So powerfully true. Our ego (mind) doesn’t accept things as they are but wants them they way it should be. Awareness of our mind and breathing into our hearts is a way to take the sting out of life. namaste