sueeeus

the data doesn’t lie

It’s just a matter of how you look at things.

Shangri-La

JOYSCAPER. As a landscaper is one who designs or crafts with the land, similarly, a JOYSCAPER is one who designs or crafts features or scapes that bring joy.

As landscaping refers to the art and craft of growing plants with a goal of creating beauty within the landscape, JOYSCAPING refers to the art and craft of expressing and sharing joy. JOYSCAPING can take many forms. It could be a sculpture or a painting or a craft or a writing. It could be a song. It could be a meal. It could be a garden. It could be anything! Anything that brings joy in the making or the sharing.

My new occupation. My new profession.

Today was a significant day.  A get dressed and take pictures on that first day of school kind of day.  Like that.  I could have stayed in my jammies, but I felt that the day warranted clothes.  After all, it was my last day at the OK Corral.

Last day at the OK Corral

It was an emotional day for me. I wrote some au revoir notes to my people and had flurried IM conversations with some of my teammates. Almost 34 years slogging away for what I hoped was the greater good.  I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course.

Things being as they are in this present worldwide crisis, there is no opportunity to gather together and celebrate.  There is no collecting my things from my office.  There are no face to face goodbyes.

It’s the ultimate Irish Exit and this time the universe orchestrated it for me.

Although it’s a happy life transition, I’m sad and feeling somewhat alone in this.  Maybe because it’s one more loss to add to the heap of losses that I’m still working my way through.

A collection of fragments until I can find how to process them further.

five years and ten million stitches of love

I thought I saw the hummingbird do a flyby past me on the deck, not long before I got the call to say goodbye.  I felt a surge, a thrill, a sense of hope.

Today I saw the hummingbird for certain.  Bright green.  One of mom’s favorite colors.  And not one, but two.  The other is a greyish brown, so maybe they are a pair.

Reading back on the dreams, I am caught up and overcome with further tears as I realize the one was prophetic, because it was exactly the scene when we were gathered with her to say goodbye.  I read it back and relive those moments, still so fresh in my mind.  In the physical present real world moment of saying goodbye, I felt at a loss, as though I couldn’t find the words to speak and I’d botched my only chance; in the spirit she knew that I was there with her and she knew exactly how I felt and what I wanted her to  know, limitless, undying love which shines around us like a million suns.

Some of the sorrow seems to revolve around wist.  There is no question about her now.  She’s blazing brightly, swimming in heaven’s embrace now.  The wist is for the earthly time, the moments not spent loving and joying, the time lost from all the things that distract us from love and joy.

So of course it comes to mind that if in this present moment I am rewinding and reviewing the aching years of her life and how she could have been more joyful, I can’t help but notice that I myself am often distracted from joy, and my own life is flying on by.

Forgetting to live my life joyfully because I’m busy taking care of or being concerned about something or someone else.  That’s not what I want.

Pot, kettle, black.  So I need to do a better job of living joyfully, of being present, of being aware of the journey.

I’ve been wrapped up in my quilt, soaking up the love and memories.  Every quilt has a story to tell.  Five years and ten million stitches, all at my mother’s hand, thinking of me, sewing her love to me with each and every stitch.  The colors, the fabric textures — she put careful thought into all of it.  This masterpiece has been stored away for years, because I never wanted it to get soiled or stained.   She would consider that ridiculous of me.  It’s a practical item,  meant to be used.

I’m using it now.  I wrap myself close and look at all the details and think about what life moments took place when those stitches were made, and realize how much love and life has been shared all along, in languages that I didn’t recognize.

a hummingbird in December

I’m taking it as a sign of some sort.  It will present itself eventually.  I hastened to clean and fill the feeder, in the hopes it will soon return.  My mom loves birds.

~*~*~*~

I’m going to tell you my dream, Mama.  And some of my thoughts.  I want to hear about your dream, Mama, and what it looked and felt like from where you are.  We will compare notes!

We are in the spirit, so we present ourselves in joyful child form, sparkling little girls.  You with your platinum curls, golden eyes, and milky white skin, me with my wispy brown waves that won’t stay out of my face (I get that from you, by the way).  We are wearing fluffy dresses and roller skates, regular Shirley Temples!  I take your hands and we clasp them criss-cross.  We are in the spirit and I assure you that we can do this.  After all, I saw it done at Teatro Zinzanni!  We are on a circular pedestal and we begin to skate in a spinning circle, round and round, faster and faster.  We are joyful little girls, skating our hearts out, giggling with delight.  I’ve explained to you that as we spin, we are weaving a web of light, and we are opening a portal to heaven.  Because we are getting ready to do some healing work.  We need a strong beam that will serve as a funnel, a tornado of light that will draw the poisons and sufferings out from our beings and incinerate them with the fire of heaven.

We spin together, round and round, faster and faster, and we weave a funnel like a beehive, with thick honey golden coils, but it’s not enough.  We need a pyre with the strength of a hurricane for what we are to do.  The dream changes, and we are no longer little girls.  I’ve summoned the siblings and we are all here, your tribe, all of us, in the spirit.  We are joined together hand in hand, encircling you, tenderly.  You are a slight and elder form, seated on a cushion or a couch, maybe your hospital bed.  You glow with an ethereal platinum light, and we, your tribe, glow brightly with a golden white light.  You are not strong and we radiate a cushion of warmth that surrounds you and holds you so that you can rest and float and allow the poisons and sufferings to flow out when heaven’s gate is opened.  Our hands clasped, we form a tribal circle and dance around a blazing fire.  It’s a magical display, a joyful pow-wow.  There is so much energy as we dance and celebrate and rejoice and love.  The fire blazes stronger and stronger and the golden tendrils of light weave together, stronger, tighter, stronger, tighter, forming a blazing tornado of golden white light.  The tornado blazes, tended by the tribe.  You and I are back to little girl form, two Shirley Temples, seated in the center of the tornado, where it is quiet and still.  My arm is around you and I’m the big sister now.  You feel lost and afraid; you are small.  I hold you and comfort you and assure you that I will protect you, that you don’t have to be afraid, you don’t have to know what to do, you don’t have to know who to be or how to be.  You can just rest and I will hold you and take care of you.  I’ve got you.  We are in the spirit, I say.  See?!  You relax and melt into my embrace.  I brush a wisp of your platinum hair from your sweet face.  Now we are ready.  I hold you, you beautiful, pure, innocent and precious child.  You are wrapped in my embrace, and we are wrapped in the holy blazing embrace of heaven.  We are in the still place where time and space have no meaning.  The space between.  Where our molecules and our energy are distinct, and we swim about through the waves and fields of the essence of our being.  Here we find the poisons and sufferings and draw them out, out, out, like the way a log jam collects and grows and is gently yet persistently carried downstream towards a waterfall, the poisons are pulled through the blazing tornado, seared, clarified, and absorbed into heaven’s embrace.  We swim and stir up the waters to release more sufferings.  We extend our reach to embrace those near us, our beloveds; we are all in the spirit in this cosmic goo, so we beckon their sufferings out and away, to send them back to become one with heaven, too.

There were other dreams.  So many dreams.  I showed you my chedvah place with the bright pea pod green grass and blue blue sky.  I showed you my sleeping diamond-skinned dragon mother-ship.  We climbed inside the ship, two little girls, and hid and played.

And I helped you see, from my eyes, how worthwhile your life has been, how you always did the best that you knew how to do, how your part brought about deep and widespread blessings, and how thankful I am for you.

~*~*~*~

Somewhere in the night I had a moment of conviction in which the clear act of faith is to go ahead and book the vacation rental house for our summer celebration of life and family, and to boldly assume that we will celebrate her birthday together in February as planned.

I hope she feels strong enough to continue earthly living.  For myself, I think about the sunset years, and there is a hope to share the sweetness of age with my dear sisters.  I wish for my mom and her sister to be able to share more of their sunset together.

And selfishly, we all wish for Mom to want to hold on, because we’re just too tired to process more loss right now.

The sadness is overwhelming.

My youngest brother died on Monday.  In some ways, it feels like forever ago.  And it feels sort of surreal, to see the word ‘dead’ and try to wrap my head around that word’s application to my brother.  How can that be?  It can’t possibly be.  But it is.

My work partner of 33 years retires this coming Monday, two days from now.  He’s had enough, and it seems that the tipping point has been reached.  It’s not worth it to continue pouring your heart and soul into something that is grossly misunderstood and undervalued, that seems to be constantly trampled underfoot.  He’s taken a beating, championing our cause, and I’m grateful that he persisted as long as he has.  The stress has made an impact on his health, and it simply can’t continue.

Three years ago today, my beautiful, vibrant niece died at the age of 29.  Today, and most days, our hearts ache for our people we’ve lost.

It’s a lot of loss to process.

Standing on the curb outside the office the other day, I said something about the timing being terrible, work-wise, but I need to take some time off soon, because I’m barely holding myself together.  I didn’t actually say the last part out loud, but my project manager asked me if I needed a hug.  I shook my head and was saying no as I stepped toward him and let myself be wrapped in his arms, and then we both kind of laughed and said, yes, I need a hug.  It was awkward in the sense that it’s sort of an unspoken thing that people at work don’t actually touch, and it was touching because it was a genuine human compassionate expression, and he hugged me with no perceivable awkwardness, and said quietly and softly, family is more important.  It was pure, kind, warm energy that he infused, and I soaked it up as deeply and quickly as I could, pulling myself away long before I was ready.  I don’t like to fall apart in front of people.

~*~*~*~

It feels as though the writing is on the wall, once more, and once more, the ship is sinking.  It was traumatic that time.  This time it’s traumatic with an extra twist of flashback fairy dust.  This time it feels like a tight clenching grip from the base of my throat to the top of my stomach, centered about my heart.  Sort of like the way the bladder pump fits in the palm of the hand as it’s squeezed to inflate the blood pressure sleeve.  This has been a persistent and increasing ache.  I’ve been stumbling across old blog posts in which I ramble on about work and exhaustion and stress and once I just get through this, then I’ll be able to catch my breath and everything will be fine.  I double check the date and recount and recall the stresses that I survived during that span of time, and say, ha, you thought you were at your limit then, and you’ve met and beyond exceeded it since then!  The human heart can be so resilient.  That, or I’m just killing myself slowly.  It’s PTSD, but instead of post-traumatic stress, it’s more like persistent traumatic stress, or maybe even perpetual traumatic stress.  It doesn’t seem to end.

My team in some ways is like an ugly bastard orphan that nobody wants — we don’t fit the traditional business model in these parts, and our first and second level management chain who understood our mission retired, and the remaining management chain had to absorb us, and don’t really know what to do with us.  We self-managed for quite some time, and that worked great.  Now it’s all about the funding, and not so much the purpose.  The thing that we do is a foundational element in the greater scheme of things, and rather than being stewarded carefully and respectfully, as one would expect things of great value to be stewarded, we are tossed about like a hot potato, dropped and smashed and left to scrape up our pieces and somehow put ourselves back together and keep on performing without missing a step, as if we were in tip top shape.

I’m feeling exceedingly depleted and am thinking about accelerating my retirement date, because I just don’t know how much longer I can go on like this.  It’s almost too much for me, this time.

It seems that there is often a battle waging between ‘what is’ and ‘what should be’.  It spans many layers of life.  In my professional incarnation, it comes out in the form of requirements that attempt to capture what should be, and the resulting implementation that describes what is.  In such case, the ‘what should be’ is known and understood, at least by me, the designer, and the ‘what is’ depends on how well I communicated the requirements and how well the implementer understood the intent.  If I’m the implementer, then the ‘what is’ generally aligns with the ‘what should be’, because things aren’t lost in translation.

When it comes to internal thought processes, mainly wrestling with emotions, things get murky.  There seems to be a nearly constant battle between how I feel and how I think I should feel.  The fact of the matter is that I feel the way I feel.  It’s ‘what is’.  The problem is that I’ve interjected some sort of judgment that, for whatever reason, I somehow think that there is some other way that I should feel.  I don’t know where I get the notion of ‘what should be’, other than that it is vastly different than ‘what is’.  The vast difference causes no small amount of havoc within me.

Maybe it’s part of  observing general operating characteristics within the crowd, and formulating the standard for ‘what should be’.  If I followed any sort of logical approach, I would accept that it’s clear that I’m not like the crowd, I’m an outlier, and as such, the general rule for the crowd doesn’t fit or apply.  I’m a corner case.  I shouldn’t torture and chastise myself for not being like others, and I shouldn’t expect myself to be like others.  I am how I am.  I’m a feeler.  I feel.  This, in itself, is exhausting.  Feeling all the feels.  Trying to squeeze myself into some other form than I am is like kicking me while I’m down.  So I’m already exhausted, just from being (not having sufficient replenishing measures in working order), and I’m knocking myself about, further abusing myself.  How could I treat someone like that?  I’m the worst.

The key is to know and  understand the ‘what should be’.  How do I determine that, for the corner case that I represent?  I’ve stumbled on some resources in my quest for understanding.  The self-chastising character whispers something about itching ears and heaping teachers.  The reasonable character agrees, maybe that’s the case, and goes on to assert that, even if so, what of it, if there is a benefit to come of it?  That inner battle aside (see?), we can continue.  There’s a  thing called sensory processing sensitivity.  People with a high measure of this are called highly sensitive people, HSPs.  It’s a thing.  It well describes me.  I am taking great comfort in reading the articles posted on The Highly Sensitive Refuge.  I keenly identify with so much of it, and it helps me feel less alone in this struggle, this struggle of being.

I want to finally give myself permission to feel the way I feel.  To simply accept it as what is and what should be, and let myself be myself.  Maybe then I can just spill it in all its honesty.  Maybe then I can finally feel better, stronger, whole.

He has gone back to the river of souls.

~*~*~*~

Sail on, little bird.  Sail on, my dear baby brother.  Thank you for shining your brightness in the world, for the time that you had to shine.  I’m the lucky one, that I got to be counted among your beloved.  We are the lucky ones, your beloved.  We love you so.

~*~*~*~

We are so connected, my tribe.  We seldom see each other, or speak with each other, but our ties run deep, not constrained by space and time.  We feel each other, as though we are networked together.  And so we are.

~*~*~*~

Such an inescapable anguish!  We know he wouldn’t wish this on any of us, my brothers in arms, and we are so acutely aware in this moment that we don’t ever wish this on each other, this inevitable part of living.  We don’t want each other to suffer.  We love each other too much, too deeply, and want to protect each other from such anguish.  To the extent that we chide with each other that we need to make a joint pact such that we can all just go at the same time and spare each other this part of things.  And then we laugh.  Because we know that it’s all just a part of things, and the thing that is important to remember in the here and now is just that, the here and now.  Live fully, here, now.  Joy in this day.  In this very day.  Love now.

~*~*~*~

I’m trying to find a way to describe with words the expression of these feelings.  Something like the way that all colors blend into one to become pure white, in a similar fashion, all emotions blend into one to become pure white love in its most raw and ragged form.  It’s blazing with a radiance that can almost not be looked upon, and the flames are ragged and jagged explosions, bursts, that radiate outward from the core, which is, I suppose, the main line, the spirit of God.  Exquisitely unbearable.  It’s a feeling that’s almost too painful and too exhilarating to feel, each extreme emotion pulled to its outermost ragged limit, to the point of shatter, and there they all coexist, all the emotions, as all the colors, on the verge of explosion, barely contained.  Raw.  Pure.  Love.

When I retreat to find that place of healing, I think it’s my version of prayer.  I described it, in part, before. 

There’s another version in which I’m not in the physical plane at all, so there’s no figure, no spinning, no tornado.  My non-physical self finds the heart-spark and I visualize breathing on it, deeply and gently, carefully coaxing the ember to emerge and grow.  I breathe my emotions out, feeding the glowing white ember, and it becomes stronger and stronger and warms me and nourishes me at the same time.  There’s a flow happening, kind of like a toroidal Fibonacci thing, and I suppose that figuratively my heart is at the center, and there comes a point where the center opens up (sort of like the way the jaws on a chuck open to release a drill bit), and the flow becomes more like a fire hose, bright white light, sort of like that scene from the 5th Element, where she completes the circuit.  Then I am breathing long deep steady breaths, and it’s as though I’m a vacuum cleaner, this firehose stream of bright light, pulling people’s struggles out and away from them.  It’s sort of like lucid dreaming, in which my physical body is doing one thing — the breathing — and some part of my mental self is monitoring the whole scene; it knows that my soul self has gone out to take care of a few things…  My spirit (?) then scans for anguish and sends tendrils out from the main stream to reach out and connect to those pains so that they can flow out from where they are causing suffering.  In those moments, it seems as though I’m channeling, that I am in the spirit, and that I draw those sufferings away from these people who are crying out in their innermost hearts, and those sufferings are drawn into the stream where they dissolve and become shiny new energy, ready to launch new dreams.  All the while, tears flow, and I feel as though I am healing (because my own emotions are flowing out and away from me), and that I am helping others to heal as well.

Sometimes I wonder if this is my calling, the thing that I’m supposed to be doing.  Maybe I’m a healer.  Nobody needs to know that I even exist, for me to do this work.

There is another version of healing trance that I can describe.  It’s like the first one, in which I visualize myself spinning, arms spread, spinning around and around, sending waves of light, love, comfort, and harmony out from my extended hands, weaving a tornado of protection around me.  I stand in the center of stillness and catch my breath and gather my strength.  When I am filled with strength, I envision myself, sort of like an Olympic figure skater, spinning so fast and then pulling the body in tighter and tighter, spinning faster and faster, tighter, so tight, all that spinning energy gathering speed deep and close in.  Spinning faster, faster, tighter, smaller, more and more concentrated, a cyclone, like nuclear fusion, faster, tighter, smaller, until it’s almost infinite energy bound in an infinitesimal point…   ….and then POW!  It’s a pulse explosion, and I send a blast across the cosmos and it surges over and through everything in its path as it radiates and washes a blast of healing energy out through the dimensions, cosmos, layers.  It sounds megalomaniacal, now that I describe it.

~*~*~*~

Those have been the forms my prayers have taken, for some years.  I have two new forms that have emerged since Tuesday last.

~*~*~*~

It’s like the others, in getting the ember going, and the tendrils of light are like threads, and I begin a looping crochet stitch, weaving a chain mesh until I’ve completed a circle and then begin the next circle, interweaving each new loop, and the chain begins to take form and grow strong, and then new weavers come, all of those who are pouring out their love right now, their spirits find this thread and they all begin to weave their light threads into a web of healing light, a fortress of love pouring into my brother, seeping into all the areas where strength and healing are needed.  All of the looping and interweaving continues, building a glistening, radiant cocoon, while concurrently, the beloveds are all joined arm in arm like a ring of children, dancing in a circle, singing a loving song, spinning an outer shield of pure white light up and around the weavers, around the cocoon.  We are all in the spirit, channeling our love together, nourishing him, nourishing each other.  We heal each other as we heal him.  And he heals us.

~*~*~*~

The other vision begins like the figure skating one, only we are here together, and he’s on a hoverboard  or skateboard thing and I’m on skates.  The first time, it began with just me, and then we found each other and teamed up.  Now, we meet back up and say, time to get back to work.  This, because I keep falling asleep from exhaustion.  I am so fatigued that my body just stops.  It’s been such a long time since I’ve been able to sleep deeply, and now I don’t have a choice.  I wake up, and go about my day in a sort of a detached state, doing the things that I have to do, but with a sense of hurry, because I need to be able to stop and be quiet and still and try to find my way back to that place, because we have so much work to do.  I get back, and we skate about, looking for all the places that need to be attended, and we infuse, we fortify, we weave new connections.  The beloveds have arrived, and we’re all skating up, down, in, around, our trails of golden light fusing new pathways.  It’s kind of like the enchanted cleanup scene from Beauty and the Beast, where all the enchanted ones dance about in a joyful and exuberant display, pixie dust sparkling here, there, twinkle, poof, all the while the place being put back into order, tip top.  He leads the way on his hoverboard, spinning loop-the-loops and figure eights, this way guys, follow me!  We laugh and skate and make a golden new network to let the love flow where it needs to go.