angelbirdflies

We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.   T. S Eliot

Tears pour out like an ocean from hidden depths, grieving a loss too old to express in words and too wide for thoughts to confine.  I sit, surrounded by salt and sea foam, on a desert of water.  Seven years of hiding, twenty years of believing.  I wake to an ocean wide with solitude, rocking on the tide.  I cry and heave into her unfathomable spaciousness, a salty offering, one drop at a time.  Mind echoes the voices of thousands, "I am a wave imagining itself separate from the sea". Words. They fall heavy into the depths and I am left thirsty, surrounded by water and longing for a drink.

Owen turns twelve today.  Thankfully his Nana has been visiting from Illinois for the past several days (she literally pulled up to the house the moment Bodhi was bitten by the snake) and the two of them have been celebrating in style.  I have been a bit preoccupied by rattlesnakes and hospitals, but tonight we celebrated together with a dinner at Owen's favorite sushi spot with his Nana. He hosted his buddy birthday party last weekend, with an evening of lively gun play and frivolity.   I can't believe the boy is twelve and at the same time it is hard to believe that he is only twelve.  It seems like he has been around forever!

Bodhi is HOME!  He is up walking and energetic and full of spunk.  The lines on his foot indicate the progressive demarcations the doctors used to track the black areas of poison as it spread up his ankle.  The swelling went much higher.  Now it looks fabulous by comparison.   Once home, he decided to venture outside and stand on the step where he was bitten.  Bodhi is like that.  He doesn't sit and ponder fears, allowing them to grow and overtake him.  He just walks into the middle of them and sits right down until his natural tendency to embrace life overtakes them.  When he stood there he said.  "You know mom that wasn't a bad snake or a nice snake.  It was just a snake.  You can't be mad at a snake for being a snake". I LOVE THIS BOY!

For the past several days we have been in the hospital...three hospitals in three days and we are getting ready for our third night at Children's to treat a baby rattlesnake bite on his ankle, which occured Tuesday after work.  I don't have the mental, emotional, or physical stamina to write in depth.  So with brevity in mind I will say this- Bodhi Katz is one of the bravest, most beautiful humans I know.  I am astounded by his depth and joy, his resilience and courage. Moments like these help to remind you about what is important in life and the little things that occupy much of our trivial mental babbling ARE NOT IT. Thank you to those who have been holding the truth in consciousness I am grateful beyond measure.

" Fear is love under a different name! In letting fear arise without trying to get it to go away, it finally shows up as what it really is -- love. Let love choke you, let it throttle you, let it surrender you, taking the fight out of you. How? By letting fear be as it is, without analysis, without labels, without any agenda to be rid of it." ----Scott Kiloby

"Once you have reached a certain level of consciousness, (and if you are reading this, you almost certainly have), you are able to decide what kind of a relationship you want to have with the present moment. Do I want the present moment to be my friend or my enemy? The present moment is inseparable from life, so you are really deciding what kind of a relationship you want to have with life. Once you have decided you want the present moment to be your friend, it is up to you to make the first move: Become friendly toward it, welcome it no matter in what disguise it comes, and soon you will see the results. Life becomes friendly toward you; people become helpful, circumstances cooperative. One decision changes your entire reality. But that one decision you have to make again and again and again -- until it becomes natural to live in such a way." ~ From:  A New Earth , by Eckhart Tolle

Contemplate this: there is no such thing as a true belief. ~ From:  Emptiness Dancing , by Adyashanti.  www.adyashanti.org/ (If you are local to the Denver/Boulder area, Adya will be speaking this weekend in Boulder.)

Fever dream.  Spinning mind stuff.  A dervish of suffering, surrounded by "me". Aching and longing, grasping at other, A deluge of tears. Silence. The world opens, singing heart, a symphony, a wide embrace. Sunrise born and never dying, Salted river, seeking sea. Empty. All this water all this longing, arms extended empty still. Mind in stillness, never knowing, I, the river.  I, the sea.

Flowers are my drug of choice these days.  I see them and I tumble head over heels into their beauty. For a moment I am no longer "Angelina", a self imagining separateness and isolation, but LIFE, beautiful beyond reason and astonishingly shameless in expressing that brilliance with unrivaled abandon.

On one particularly sad day several months ago, long after both boys were put to bed, I thought it safe to have myself a good cry.  As I cried in pathetic fashion, face pressed into the Berber carpet, my eldest came in to check on things.  I asked him to go back to bed, telling him that even Mom's have to fall apart sometimes.  He left and returned again several minutes later, curling up beside me and wrapping me in his thin arms, saying, "Even Mom's need someone to hold them when they cry."  I cried a while longer, then he said, "Mom, you have been a pansy all your life.  Pansies are beautiful flowers.  They are amazing.  They can weather rains and snows, sleet and hail.  You can step on a pansy and it just goes on blooming.  But Mom, maybe it's time for you to be a rose. A rose is one of the most beautiful flowers and it smells wonderful, but it has thorns and if you step on a rose, you will bleed, it will literally TEAR UP YOUR FEET." Now...

Gifts from my mountain...how I love having Green Mountain right beside me.  I love it like a dear old friend, the kind with whom you can bare your soul, laugh, cry, dance, sing, holler, bellow and be.

 How's this for style.  What you can't see is that those pants are on backwards (zipper in the back) and his tye-dye t-shirt is inside out.  He picked that hyacinth and tucked it in his pocket just as we were getting in the car for school.  This kid is his own person.

Bodhi told me today how I came to be his mom.  He didn't choose me.  He was sitting in God's hand and God looked out and saw me (through some mirror that allows God to see into the hearts of people) and saw my heart was crying.  So God took a deep breath and blew Bodhi into my tummy where he kicked and kicked and kicked until he was born with eyes wide open.

I lay awake at night, in the arms of sadness, rocking against the dark. Tears, salty and wide, an ocean of sorrow. Years of life calling life, longing. Beloved, may this pain break me open. May it crack the hard veneer of self and spill life over this thirst. Lapping at the shore.

Here is a picture of us at Garchen's.  Davey boy is blowing the conch.  I am cracking up and Bodhi is deep in contemplation. Good times