Insurmountable.

There are moments in life that feel utterly insurmountable. For the most part we seem to be able to find our way, however when there is a string of hardships - when we are throttled with disappointment and unable to grieve - we forget that this disappointment “is” the way.

Like the grief that resurged this month when way too many friends and family died around Mother’s Day and my mom’s birthday and my anniversary - life felt insurmountable.

I “tried” to figure it out - I willingly stepped into the middle of the lake of despair and studied the mountain of grief. I planned and plotted my ascent - from the East (this heart) or from the West (this mind), assessed the tools and gathered what I would need and then … crickets. I could take no action. I was frozen, unable to write or speak or express the compassion I felt for my friends let alone this longing to hold my dog Henry again and the shame of being unable to let him go; that’s when doubt and impatience arrived like a windstorm and I was once again unable to begin.

Well, in the quiet of this morning before Memorial Day, I began. I found this expression of my love for my mom that was unheard at her funeral. It was as if I sank into a conversation that was continuously happening on another plane - scribing the pulse of our shared consciousness.

What strikes hard is the realization that “what” we pay attention to is a remembrance that becomes a map, and that we must be attentive to ensure that what we are cultivating is bringing us closer to the destination that we desire. This includes the memories that come together to forge our personal, national and global identity. When we revisit those memories and anger persists, we must offer the emotions they stir up mercy, compassion and kindness. This is the only way we can honor the memory of those we love - to be fully embodied and present in the emotions that remind us that we are alive, that something alive is happening of which we are integral.

Blessings.🙏

Rainer Maria Rilke said,

“Death is our friend precisely because it brings us into absolute and passionate presence with all that is here, that is natural, that is love. Life always say Yes and No simultaneously. Death (I implore you to believe) is the true Yea-sayer. It stands before eternity and only ‘Yes’.”

And so, this is our challenge, we have known our mother and friend and sister, Maria, in the light - through her words and actions and intentions - and now we are tasked to recognize her in the dark so she can lead us again into the light of Love.

What I remember most about my mother is watching her. I watched her as she teased and fluffed her bouffant - the gazillion tons of hairspray - and the way she arched her brow as she applied mascara or puckered her lips with pearl lipstick.

I watched her as she cooked our meals. I watched her as she cut patterns and applied and sewed. I watched her as she challenged was was untrue and I watched her as she expanded into the unknown. I watched her as she cooked and how she set the table. - how there was a pattern and how she would bring in all the things from around the house to adorn it like a patchwork quilt.

I watched her as she greeted guests, offered them a place to rest or a meal to enjoy. I watched her as she kept her cool and watched her when she didn’t. I watched her as I broke her heart and made her cry. I watched her let me go and I watched her help me grow. I watched her as she held my sons and when she let me fly.

I watched her pride and I watched her love and just when she began watching me watching her, I watched as something pulled her down, away and inside like a rip tide. I watched anxiety grow and how her boundaries got real tight. I watched her memory fall away and I watched myself as I watched her - how she no longer looked like the person that I was watching.

I started watching her behavior too, to see if there were any patterns I could apply, and I wove things in from all spiritual perspectives and I welcomed her lost child, and her body as it was, and I began to see her in ways I’d never known.

And the night before she left us, I kneeled down on the floor beside her and peered into her mouth -  into the emptiness of the Divine Universe - watching her for the last time, nourishing all the life around her until she could no more.