Of course it would be something goofy and in Denise-speak. If Spirit was trying to break through to a 5-year-old, it might stir up something using colored crayons or Legos as the medium and metaphor. Well, what do I know most about in my everydays and every-years…? Dog. Really? That is what you have for me, God? I was standing there in a sacred alignment, humans around me respectfully immersed in ritual and...Spirit said, "Dog!"
I know what this means, luckily, and I thank the Universe for the succinct, one-word, 3-simple-lettered directive. No dramatic "You need to usher Jimmy Carter to the top of the Himalayas with you, and there Mother Teresa will announce herself to the both of you from some shimmery, silvery cloud, showing you the unequivocal, irrefutable way to Nirvana" revelation. Just something custom-made for me, ladled with plenty of familiar and dog-adorer gumby and geeky, which the Universe understands is – fortunately and hilariously – so me.
So today, on the last day, the last week, the last Wednesday deadline of my 52 Project of this beautiful year 2015, I want to give credit, where credit is due.
I want to state, in a clear and strong voice, the gratitude that I feel in my every cell, in my Heart and in my belly for the sweetness and the happiness I am able to experience today. Why? How? Thanks to Spirit and thanks to the beautiful endeavor of writing.
I have never interviewed any of my friends that are Atheists. But I would like to know. Because after a year of spiritual renewal, afforded to me through my writing and the explorations caused by the process of brain-to-soul and psyche-to-hand-to-paper, of such astonishing and yet many times painful outpour, I want to know: what fuels you? Who or what do you thank each of your every mornings?
I see the Love is his face. I read the Love in the way he talks about his wife in a seemingly simple facebook posting. That connects him to me. No religions and no deities. Those are terms and a language we both can understand. A photo of a vegan meal shared with her….the joy of a trip to Asia. In his respect for his wife and for Life, we find commonality. I too love my husband with undying breath. I don’t need to sign up my Atheist friend to The Lifetime Scholarship In The Church Of All Things Christian to give him respect and full attention as a person, a good person. I have my own vehicle. I understand that I am Catholic, and that it is very personal, and that it works for me. And that is the beauty of it all: that which may not work for the next person or for many others, makes your vehicle UNIQUE.
I understand that you are Atheist or Agnostic or any religion or denomination, and if I respect you and you me, we will come to a place where common denominators will abound. You probably thank Love every morning….or Mother Nature or the ocean. I do too. I want to know.
There is a Muslim man in the deep, lush woodiness of Tilden Park who once cried in awe at the linear, veined structure and the edged curvatures of an Oak leaf in the palm of his hand. He thanked the Universe for the leaf, for the Oak, for the branches and the roots. I want to talk to him. I want to thank him for feeling that moment. So, please, let’s picture this: let’s open up the dialogue; let’s dig deeper in the rich soil we have been granted. There is no room for war anywhere in our Earth, if we are willing to explore those sacred places where the most diverse of individuals could look at each other, eyes locked, and exclaim with happiness, “Me too!”
I don't need to critique where you come from as long as I see, without gray veils of preconception, that we both share something. If I can find your resting places of respect and awe and Love, I will be happy.
I, for myself, have felt and feel a Universal Spirit. Something so sacred and beautiful that once you start putting a name to it....Inti, Buddha, God, Jesus, Allah...you make a few people uncomfortable, or you make some fully happy, or you make others fully check out from listening.
Writing is about word choice so many times. But some days it is not about the single word selected but about the whole effect that an honest all-encompassing sentiment can bring. That huge warm, wild and beautiful turquoise-of-bluegreens Caribbean wave that gently slaps your body and enfolds you in a watery comfort you never want to end. So that is my religion: the sentiment that I feel loved and respected in our Universe, and I love and respect you.
I didn't have that a year ago. Not truly, not hand-to-the-fire absolutely.
Writing gave me that. Introspection and perspective. It roused an ability to love within me, and to have empathy no matter what tragedy our own family had suffered. Just when you think you are taxed beyond your ability to endure any more, you will realize that is Life's exercise to make you more able. This is the eternal way in which we are all made to care and comfort others beyond our wildest imagination. That is the moment in which we will surprise ourselves. That said, I don’t wish suffering on anyone. Ever.
I didn’t and don’t have it all figured out all the time. Humbly, I must say I am still a hot mess quite often, but thankfully, I am a work in progress. But the writing has helped. It unravels the massive, knotted ball of yarn that made headstrong residence in my solar plexus and told my digestive system not to accept any food. I know I have mentioned the marvelous solar plexus before this year, and my intimate relationship with it. Thankfully also, the eating has resumed. From this place of healing, let me just say….eating is awesome! That is a funny slogan, but if you suffered Achalasia for any given time, you’d sign on too. I am almost grateful for the illness because it allowed me to be at a place where I will never take health for granted. That is a good place to be.
So please take care of yourself because I need you, and I will take care of myself so that I can be there for you. No large and cumbersome outward promises or announcements, just a quiet, mutual understanding. You'll be there, and I will be here - for each other.
A winter rose grows today in my garden. An inexplicable miracle in this current frosty and inhospitable weather – delving heavily into the 30s at night and in the early mornings and only making 55º at the peak of daytimes. It is rare in Berkeley, uncommon in Northern California. I go out in the yard with purpose. What is out there that is pretty, that is lovely? What will convey sentiment? Both heartbreak, and homage, and peace. It is at first hard to find….in its peach glory. Only one of three, I pick it as a tribute to someone nearby that lost his Life just this Sunday morning. I pluck it off its parent bush respectfully, remove the few large, deep maroon thorns, and place it in a little cobalt blue jar with a few ounces of water.
As I look at it carefully, the thought crosses, I hope it is not too shabby. Because the weather, the frost has taken its toll on the outer edges of the otherwise gorgeous petals. No, it is not too tattered or browned by the cold. It is perfect. The rose is still so beautiful – having withstood the battering of darkness and Sun-lessness for so long that the bush might have given up on its flower altogether. But it didn’t.
Please understand your wilts and your frostbites.
Learn to appreciate the individuality you have been handed.
That is were the Sacred resides.
I wanted to be happy. Yearned to be happy again. What would it be like to feel that, even after tragedy swung a mallet across my roots long ago? I prayed hard and endlessly and silently to be the happy of 5, of 18, of 33.
And today, I am.
There is an expression we use in our family all the time as a reference to doggies’ behavior. Follow your dream. We say it to describe the absolute exploding-of-the-head-with-wild-abandon joy that dogs show when they first hit the dog park or the doggy beach or the tree-lined trail. If you are a dog parent, you know exactly what it is. If you are a human, you also know it, since dogs are – lucky for people like me – fully ubiquitous in our societies. Follow your dream. That is quite a feeling!
I am there. Here is the point, the place where I start to follow my dream. Yes, I want to be that silly, perfectly-opposite-from-composed dog with the pink tongue hanging out not caring how goofy it looks, and simply wanting to take Life on fully.
I envision a future in which my entire family is no longer disabled and burdened by old griefs, ancient sorrows. I envision a new reality: one of health, and freedom, prosperity and happiness. Because I know that our natural resting place, our spot of equilibrium in this World is silly, goofy, unhampered joy.
I envision having the strength to help them, help others, and thrive through the graceful act of helping.
There can be Grace in every movement we make.
I now understand my place under this, our Sun.
Hold yourself close. Treat yourself well. You have much good to do.
As your inner Spirit, always has your back, and whispers sweetly:
Lil' baby, lil’ baby, lil’ baby.
You gotta say it 3 times.
For my daughter Geena, may she always find her Light and notice the Love all around her....
Music
Here Comes The Sun – written and performed by George Harrison
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfMWJi4req4
Blue Boat Home – written and performed by Peter Mayer
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gji9ZUsuw-k
Gratitude
I want to thank my family: my husband Jimmy and sweet daughter Geena, for loyal, unflinching support. My family members, my nieces and nephews, and those too many to list here (but you know who you are!), and those like my sisters Patricia, Delphy, Kathy, and Kippy…. – for always reading and caring and then reading and caring some more.
I want to thank my steadfast friend Claire Chiang Margain for her words of support always and for the loan of her trusty Apple PowerBook G4, without which these words could not had flowed freely from my little phone note pad to laptop to beloved website and this 52 Project.
I want to thank Michelle Favreault for her encouragement, and for helping to slowly save my Life one Sunday afternoon in October of 2011. Thank you for teaching me that this, our all, is a process. Photograph and you will see.
And, I need to give the biggest shout out to Thuy Nguyen at Berkeley Community Acupuncture, to Christine Ciavarella at Hahnemann Clinic in El Cerrito, California, and to Yvonne Beyer of Earth Circles in Oakland. Because sometimes it really ‘takes a village’ – and you are mine.
But firstly and lastly, I want to thank God.