note: as life would have it, i found myself with gloria this morning. inspired by much of what i write below, in a blog post that i JUST NOW rediscovered in my draft box from September 2019. how magical in its poignancy and timing.

written by my september 2019 self (and offered by my march 3, 2022 self):

The rumbling in my gut, in my deep-down soul, lets me know that there is new life coming.

From within me.

I know this feeling. I’ve learned to love/hate it. Even after all this time, there is still some flailing. Until I can finally relax into my darkness.

The rain helps, granting quiet and cleansing and a soft, tender rhythm that is an old lullaby.

First though, I find misery. My mind races. My body tightens. My heart hurts. I feel stuck in self-doubt, feelings of inadequacy, failure. Not good enough. Not doing enough. Falling short.

Hello darkness, my old friend.

Bless my heart.

In times like these, I turn to my girl, Gloria. I’ve been in love with her for thirty years. She helps me see in new ways. Always. She never gets old. She is always relevant. She is always there. My teacher.

A game we play is pick-a-page. I pick up one of her books, open the book randomly to a page and dive in for some Gloria-style wisdom. She never disappoints. This time, I chose Light From Darkness.

She offered:

“And in descending to the depths I realize that down is up, and I rise up from and into the deep. And once again I recognize that the internal tension of oppositions can propel (if it doesn’t tear apart) the mestiza writer out of the metate where she is being ground with corn and water, eject her out of nahual, an agent of transformation, able to modify and shape primordial energy and therefore able to change herself and others into turkey, coyote, tree, or human.”

My old friend reminds me to trust my Self. Follow my Self into the darkness and depths and trust that falling will lead me back to where I belong.

Back to my Self. I always find my way.

My heart has been heavy this week.

I’ve spent some time considering why. Honestly, I’m not sure, exactly. And I’m learning to be okay with not knowing. I don’t need to understand. I don’t need to try to solve my sadness, or to fix it.

In fact, my tendency to want to do this–to get at the root of my own suffering–pulls me away from it. Pulls me away into my mind, where I ruminate on the past and theorize about the future. And while this maybe sounds like a good thing, it’s actually not helpful. We need to be present to our suffering, to feel it and fully experience it. This presence invites Wholeness, Holiness.

The thing with being present to suffering is that first, I have to notice it and allow myself to experience it. These days, in all our busyness, this isn’t an easy thing. We need time and space. A strange commentary of the state of affairs: we need time and space to be with ourselves and to feel what we feel. And yet, so true.

Just yesterday, in two separate conversations, when friends spoke of things happening in their lives, they were surprised by their tears, by the emotions that arose as they touched on what was bubbling underneath, all along.

Today, Good Friday, the day Christ suffered on the cross, I am thankful for this Christian tradition. Today, this day invites me to remember the sacred role suffering plays in transformation. Today reminds me of the power of being with suffering.

What if, when we touch on something tender, we simply stay with that tenderness? Instead of turning away and running (to a glass of wine, Netflix, another topic of conversation, a theory as to why, or a solution that will fix it), we tend to the tenderness?

Tending is not fixing. Tending is holding, caring.

And that is all. And that is enough.

a year ago
i said yes to an invitation
that only my soul understood

to join with others
broken-hearted by the suffering of our world
open-hearted to the joy of our world
who shared faith in power unleashed through right relationship

this year has been one of painful unlearning
of letting go of false selves and forms and ego
of grieving hope and answers and truths
of remembering presence and connection and wholeness

how thankful i am that i trusted my soul
and dared to listen to my Self
i said yes to awakening
choosing who i want to be

which is to say i choose to be nobody
a valley rather than a mountain
mystery rather than a brand
free floating rather than attached 

funny that a path that feels
so new, so radical
traces back to the beginning of humankind
we only have to forget all we know to remember who we are,

together

the past couple of weeks, i’ve come undone. this, i know, is life. over and over again, we become undone. the practicing comes in accepting it, being in it, and not retreating in utter fear.

i’m still practicing.

the thing is, all that we’ve learned our entire lives tells us otherwise: to hold on tight. to try harder. to grin and bear it. to be strong. to keep it together. these messages rob us of rich living and dying and in the process, dehumanize us. these messages tell us we are pathetic and incapable and weak for being just as we all…in the words of the great grace lee boggs’, “human human beings.”

so i get this. i’ve learned these lessons before. even still, this time as i practiced, i was surprised by my lack of self-compassion when i started beating myself up. as i transitioned from intense hospital duty with my mom back into life’s routine of kids, work, home, i began destructive self-talk as i started to drown. it got louder and louder. “why can’t you just let go of the dirty house?”; “why did you forget that email?” “you’re being hypersensitive.” “what is wrong with you? get over it. you’re so freaking privileged to have the resources you do.” in a time when i most needed loving-kindness, i met myself and my process of being undone with judgement.

now that i’ve noticed it, i feel lighter. i feel more compassion. i wonder what would it mean to accept being undone with an open heart and trust that from this place will be born life that is already taking shape within me–as a butterfly emerges from its undone cocoon.

i’ll keep practicing.

for the past ten days, my brother and i have accompanied my mom through test after test, appointment after appointment–126 in total. we have been waiting in limbo-land for life and death information.

waiting at the intersection of life and death, living takes on a realness that is both heavy and liberating.

the heaviness comes with the overwhelm of our human attempts to pin things down. and of course, try we must! after all, there are jobs, children, …responsibilities. there have been moments, feeling stuck here in minnesota in the midst of a blizzard, with my ailing mother, i’ve thought, i can’t just keep waiting here. i have to get home–i have stuff to do. i have meetings on monday! i have to get cat litter! i have to make sure meg gets to her first guitar lesson. after all, this period of waiting and limbo and in-between could go on forever and who knows what we’re going to need down the road? i have to spend my time wisely. yes, i need to go.

and then, reality hits and with it the truth that my mama’s heart is giving up quickly and that minnesota ain’t down the road from home and that this is where i need to be. after all, meetings and cat litter and guitar lessons can wait or go on without me.

and then again, can they? should they? what’s more important? missing meg’s first guitar lesson or waiting with my mom? bailing out on work or waiting with my mom? this is the heaviness of decision-making at the intersection of life and death, where every decision takes on a whole other layer of meaning. more is at stake.

and the joke is, we are always at that intersection. every day, every moment. we forget this truth, with all the business of our lives. and with that forgetting, we lose some of the meaning that adds weight to our decisions, to how we choose to spend our time and energy.

to be honest, i’m kinda grateful we forget! it’s easier. this limbo land of waiting ain’t exactly the most comfortable place to be. it can be exhausting.

mostly, it feels exhausting when i’m flailing around trying to grab hold of something solid. i wear myself out trying to stake my claims and assert my control. essentially, i wear myself out when i fight the present moment. on the other hand, when we can accept where we are and the reality of our situation, a peace sets in. an easiness.

yesterday, i witnessed my mama’s ease with awe. i’ll never forget her fearlessness. as she was prepped for her surgery today, she was being bombarded with all the people and all the interventions, all day. she was starting to grow weary of it all. she wasn’t alone. just as she started to order her food, two other staff entered her room and explained they were there to discuss nutrition. i’m assuming, to address her diabetes. one of them sweetly asked, “is it okay for us to talk with you?”

“oh, we can we talk.” my mom replied. “I’m about to have my second heart surgery tomorrow and so let’s wait. There might not be any need to have talks about nutrition.”

my mama’s truthfulness was a gut punch to these two, well-meaning staff who fumbled and mumbled and slid out of the room. when they left, the three of us broke into hysterical laughter, tears streaming down our faces as we sat squarely at our intersection. a sweet moment of being wholly together, with no pretense separating us. liberation from our delusions that we are ever anywhere else. freedom from our desperate attempts to be elsewhere, where things are planned and comfortable and where we police our own being.

as i sit here in the waiting room of the ICU, waiting for news on my mama, this is what i know to be true:

waiting is where we find God, Spirit, Source. it is in this in-between space, the land of limbo, where we face that we are always, in fact, at this intersection of life and death. this space is exactly where we humbly accept that being present is a place of liberation, where we can hold the joy and suffering of it all.

The piano man drew me in

With the sweet lullaby he played as a backdrop

To the swift movement of the herds of people.

I sat, thankful for this music

And it’s transformation of this place and space.

 

The man next to me invited piano man

To play Sounds of Silence

And with that, also invited friendship.

Sitting side by side, we were now joined

Together by our love for this music, for this moment.

 

His kind face and wise eyes

Turned to me and offered his story to me,

A story of love and loss and cycles

Returning here again with his wife, Mary

Ready to face the truth, together:

 

He and Mary, married 54 years

With 8 children, 30 grandchildren

77 and 74 years young

Not a perfect marriage, he offered. 

And what is? we laughed.

 

He, a musician himself

Playing lead guitar in a band with 3 of his children

His drummer daughter, with 5 children of her own

“It’s getting harder for us to play…what, with life” he murmured.

“And we’ve had such fun.”

 

The chorus of his story,

“Life’s been good.

We’ve done good.

The kids are good.

We’ll be okay.”

 

With the in-between sounds of silence

That his soul so clearly sang, and which spoke so much.

 

And as I rose to slip back into the herds,

We paused.

“And your first name?” he wondered.

“Amy”, I offered.

“Yes, and mine is Roy.”

How many times will we be here?

Waiting for answers to questions unknowable

About life and death and suffering and aliveness

 

Looking to strangers for directions on finding  “quality of life”

Alongside those we are bound to, through birth or by choice

Who in those very moments offer all the answers we need:

 

We are together.

Even now, even still.

For a long time, I understood “being grounded” as positive. I aspired to “feeling grounded”. For me, it represented a feeling of being solid, sure, connected with a sense of integrity and wholeness.

The irony of being grounded is that this groundedness is rooted in groundlessness–a deep understanding that there, in fact, no solid ground at all. This groundless form of groundedness allows us to experience life beyond the labels we claim, answers we assert, forms we grasp. Grounded in groundlessness offers presence, aliveness, vastness.

My mom is ill, really ill–one piece of the kaleidoscope of life these days that is shifting in uncertainty. We’re traveling tomorrow to Mayo Clinic for a week seeking answers. Seeking clarity. After all, we all need answers. And yet, I’ve learned that we can go and seek while also not hoping for any real certainty. Because the reality is, there are no solid answers. For anything. This might sound dark. I’m sure it does. But this is truth. And like all truth, accepting it is…liberating.

And that liberation allows me to be present with her, my family, my self as we move through this uncertainty.

Pema Chodron offers, “As we practice moving into the present moment this way, we become more familiar with groundlessness, a fresh state of being that is available to us on an ongoing basis. This moving away from comfort and security, this stepping out into what is unknown, uncharted, and shaky–that’s called liberation.”

What we’ve been trained to think of as comfort and security is a lie. Knowledge, truth, control–these are lies that we desperately grasp out of fear and need to secure solid ground beneath us. And these lies are stealing our precious lives from us, pulling us away from the present moment. And this present moment is all we have.

And in moments like this, with my mom, I want to savor every one.

So, I’m headed to Mayo with my mama, and no ground in sight.

when we truly open our minds and hearts, we become both nothing and everything all at once as we re-member we are part of the whole body of creation. when we experience this re-membering, it is like an old familiar place that lives deep down in our bones, long forgotten: we are but threads in a rich and vast tapestry of life, connected and held by all the universe.

and while this practice belongs to us, we have lost it. white supremacy, imperialism, patriarchy have stolen it from us and replaced this way of being with patterns of domination that are now in the DNA of our living. we must unlearn those patterns–notice them and then disrupt them–so that we can re-member.

re-membering is both born through and annihilated in relationship. relationships offer both the key to our liberation and the key to our oppression. as one of my teachers, meg wheatley has shared: “we are not broken people. it’s our relationships that need repair. it’s relationships that bring us back to health, wholeness, holiness.”

this weekend i participated in an intensive designed to build an intentional community of practice. coming together with other humans to unlearn these patterns of domination so that we could re-member…was holy. there was beautiful stumbling at first but within the container we created, there was slow and definitive movement as we practiced the dance of being that allows for the wholeness and re-membering we all seek.

i just love this prayer by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter, the Rev. Mpho Tuto that inspired us in our practice:

A Prayer:

Can you hold that space open for me? Can you keep your questions and suggestions and judgements at bay? Can you wait with me for the truths that stay hidden behind my sadness, my fear, my forgetting, and my pain? can you just hold open a space for me to tell my story?

i chose openness. i want to re-member. i seek liberation.