Us women how wait, sometimes how we wait forever. Us women how we hope. And then, love's shattering brings us home-to the center of the universe.
At the moment of my fathers death I was speaking to him, the phone held to his ear, and this is what I was saying:
I love you Dad, thank you for bringing me into this world. Everything is going to be fine, the children are growing strong, and Mathias is so much like you....
The atmosphere shifted, almost imperceptibly, and I continued:
There is no pain, no deceit, no harm. There is love, there is love, there is love, there is love, deep joyful love at the center of the universe. I am with you, I am with you there.
And he passed!
I didn't know I could cry so much! I didn't know of tears like a waterfall unceasing, day after day and night after night...
And then comes peace. Why not? Rest in PEACE. That's why we say it, that's what happens.
Last week, strong currents of peace interspersed with the waterfalls of tears. And today, this is Hafiz's gift to me:
Today love has completely gutted me.
I am lying in the market like a
Filleted grouper,
Speechless,
Every desire and sinew absolutely silent
But I am still so fresh.
Everything is now the same to me.
Listen:
The touch of a beautiful woman
As she lifts me near,
Drawing my scent into her body;
She thinks about taking me home.
The touch of a wondrous fly
Drinking my vital fluids
Through a strange shaped flute,
The sun laying its radiant gaze against my cheek,
Human voices and the breeze from a passing
Horse's tail,
All send miraculous currents into
My world.
God's beauty has split me wide open.
Throw Hafiz on a scale,
Wrap me in cloth,
Bring me home.
In three days time I fly out to California for the funeral. My children will come along. We will stay a long while and rest. We will cook, we will read, we will dance, and we will sit. I especially, will make carrot cakes and weed his garden, and listen to the birds he loved to hear as they whispered truths to each other among the eucalyptus trees. Peace.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Dad
My dads green eyes are twinkling at me, the creases around them thick with laughing. His chest shakes and his belly sounds fill the air. With childlike simplicity, he rocks back and forth, laughing for a full 5 minutes or more. He has told a bad joke.
Digging patiently in his garden, he attends to the bugs populating the place, the texture of the soil, the quality of a stem. He has plowed and read and shopped and sorted for months preparing this garden, later in the summer it will produce lovely beets and eggplants.
Lying in his hospital bed, his body pushing for just a few more minutes of life, he hangs on with his particular sense of humor. He hangs on until we are all present, and then he slips away, just like that, into the journey of a lifetime.
I see him in the clouds today, I saw him there yesterday and the day before. He is still laughing, he is a jolly old elf, a dragon spirit, and there are hearts flying past in the sky.
I love you dad.
Digging patiently in his garden, he attends to the bugs populating the place, the texture of the soil, the quality of a stem. He has plowed and read and shopped and sorted for months preparing this garden, later in the summer it will produce lovely beets and eggplants.
Lying in his hospital bed, his body pushing for just a few more minutes of life, he hangs on with his particular sense of humor. He hangs on until we are all present, and then he slips away, just like that, into the journey of a lifetime.
I see him in the clouds today, I saw him there yesterday and the day before. He is still laughing, he is a jolly old elf, a dragon spirit, and there are hearts flying past in the sky.
I love you dad.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Skating Back
As I reflect on the past two years, the original length of our intended stay in Cambridge, I simply see spirals layered upon spirals over circles reflecting circles, skating back to places we have been, are going, are at now.
The term skating back comes from a reading on the artistic process of poets, and I like it, I like the feel of the word skating in this context, as if the effort is simply a pelvic initiation and nothing more. It implies following, following the natural flow of energy: spirals, circles, seed dots.
Love is huge, really huge. Life is hard, not what we expect. Beauty rests among the weed patches everywhere.
Some things never change, such as the child's proclivity to imagine the world as they wish it to be. I like being a child for some of the day each day right now, in a purple saffron sky beneath the earth. I like being a grown up mother and dancer too, rockin' in the kitchen.
We, as humans, can focus on our derelict qualities, as consciousness does, in order to transform them. We can also focus on our simplicity and love. Two sides to a penny, two ways to skate around a circle.
The grief and horror are so profound right now that I am sometimes in hysterics. The joy so real that my eyes are once again shining with fire; my kitchen dances get crazy fun :) For the next few posts, I leave the process of consciousness behind, and focus on the innocence and wonder of a chocolate garden. This, I think, will sustain me over the next two years, the new intended length of stay.
In the sky home and turquoise palace of the west, I am dreaming with you.
Remedios~
The term skating back comes from a reading on the artistic process of poets, and I like it, I like the feel of the word skating in this context, as if the effort is simply a pelvic initiation and nothing more. It implies following, following the natural flow of energy: spirals, circles, seed dots.
Love is huge, really huge. Life is hard, not what we expect. Beauty rests among the weed patches everywhere.
Some things never change, such as the child's proclivity to imagine the world as they wish it to be. I like being a child for some of the day each day right now, in a purple saffron sky beneath the earth. I like being a grown up mother and dancer too, rockin' in the kitchen.
We, as humans, can focus on our derelict qualities, as consciousness does, in order to transform them. We can also focus on our simplicity and love. Two sides to a penny, two ways to skate around a circle.
The grief and horror are so profound right now that I am sometimes in hysterics. The joy so real that my eyes are once again shining with fire; my kitchen dances get crazy fun :) For the next few posts, I leave the process of consciousness behind, and focus on the innocence and wonder of a chocolate garden. This, I think, will sustain me over the next two years, the new intended length of stay.
In the sky home and turquoise palace of the west, I am dreaming with you.
Remedios~
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Weaving Beauty
Life is for living! I am done now, with all the work of trying to love and fix this relationship into being all by myself. It is time for me to receive love everywhere it shows up, and it is showing up! Our show, our being the dancers and I, is opening on Sunday night in London; we have been selected to take a part of it to The Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August too; in September I am presenting a performance and a paper at Oxford University, and in October at Cambridge; there will be many many installations and performances that grow out of these seeds!
And, my children will come along with me, on this creative adventure. They are learning about real love, full of pain and full of blessings, and they are learning to weave a world of beauty. They are learning that life is full of wonderful friends who are full of love, and that the heart is so strong in its unbelievable tenderness. I am learning too, how to be the woman I am!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, all of you who are sending me endless messages, sessions of reiki, prayers from the bottoms of your hearts! They are working, they are working.
And now, another poem from Hafiz:
The moon came to me last night
With a sweet question.
She said,
"The sun has been my faithful lover
For millions of years.
Whenever I offer my body to him
Brilliant light pours from his heart.
Thousands then notice my happiness
And delight in pointing
Toward my beauty.
Hafiz,
Is it true that our destiny
Is to turn into Light
Itself?"
And I replied,
Dear moon,
Now that your love is maturing,
We need to sit together
Close like this more often
So I might instruct you
How to become
Who you
Are!
In endless Gratitude,
Remedios (I like that!)
And, my children will come along with me, on this creative adventure. They are learning about real love, full of pain and full of blessings, and they are learning to weave a world of beauty. They are learning that life is full of wonderful friends who are full of love, and that the heart is so strong in its unbelievable tenderness. I am learning too, how to be the woman I am!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, all of you who are sending me endless messages, sessions of reiki, prayers from the bottoms of your hearts! They are working, they are working.
And now, another poem from Hafiz:
The moon came to me last night
With a sweet question.
She said,
"The sun has been my faithful lover
For millions of years.
Whenever I offer my body to him
Brilliant light pours from his heart.
Thousands then notice my happiness
And delight in pointing
Toward my beauty.
Hafiz,
Is it true that our destiny
Is to turn into Light
Itself?"
And I replied,
Dear moon,
Now that your love is maturing,
We need to sit together
Close like this more often
So I might instruct you
How to become
Who you
Are!
In endless Gratitude,
Remedios (I like that!)
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