A Thread of Light
Yesterday feels like days ago... and still, I can't remember much about the day. The edges of sunrise and sunset blur, marked only by my drive each day to Riverview Cemetery. The sun reappeared, cracking the sky, warming my skin. I rose at 4:30am-- earlier than my usual 5am-- but I wasn't sleeping and I love the dark quiet of early morning. I lit the candles that I've placed around the angel that I received, with love, from "the universe". I wrapped myself in the blanket my friends gave me, put on some quiet music, had my tea on the warmer beside me, and wrote my letter to Hunter, tears streaming steadily getting both me and Bella quite wet. I keep a notebook at hand so that when the tasks of life start crowding my mind, I jot them down and continue to write. "It can wait", I told myself, "It can wait". I edited the photos from the grave and posted them here, took a deep breath, then made notes (as I do every day) tracking my health, sleep, exercise (non-existent at the moment), meditation, gratitude, books/movies/music, acts of kindness, and what/how I'm eating.
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As I sit here now my mind is blank about what happened between 9 and 12pm-- I likely wandered around the house looking for things that got displaced in the remodel that, unfortunately, was in full swing when Hunter died. Tasks I could have easily completed a month ago are now either impossible or that one effort takes all the energy I had for the entire day. And so, the books are still not back on the bookshelf, the walls are bare (though beautifully repainted), my clothes are in piles rather than neatly tucked in drawers. Thankfully our community of angels has been filling our refrigerator with readymade food because actually cooking is beyond me right now. Now I have one sacred task only... be with all the feelings. Honor them. Bow down to them. Do not rush or get too busy. I've been liquified, dissolved into a puddle of dust, earth, tears, and if I move too fast I may not come out the other side transformed.
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When I went up to the grave the black calla lilies I'd placed yesterday had fallen over and a deer had selectively munched a few of the flowers. Each time I stand before this canvas I have no idea what will emerge. I bring things from my home or I find things at the store so that I have fabrics, flowers, rocks, prayer flags at the ready depending on what calls to me. Then bit by bit a new design emerges and it becomes clear what belongs on the grave today and what doesn't. When I finish, I clean up my mess, take pictures, then face East to say Kaddish. Yesterday, just as I was about to go I looked down and saw an ambitious Woolly Bear caterpillar making a beeline for the grave. This made me smile... "Thanks, Hunter," I said out loud. I watched as he crawled over the fabric, determined to reach the red flowers. This is it, right here, I thought. This furry little guy will find a resting place for the winter, create a cocoon, liquify, go through a complete metamorphosis and emerge an Isabella Tiger moth. Does he know this? That he will be nothing of his former self? I imagine not-- this critter is on a mission to eat enough to have the reserves for this process to occur-- one petal or leaf at a time. It's a surrendering. Does the moth long for its days as a caterpillar inching along the earth when now it can fly? Unlikely. Does it hurt to liquify? To allow nature to shape you? To release what was in order to become something entirely different?
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One of the many gifts I've received is the book "Where Did You Go?" by Christina Rasmussen. I was given this book months ago and never opened it, then two weeks ago I found it and began to learn how to journey to the "Temple World" as she calls it. On the fifth day of doing this practice I recorded this experience:
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It was as though I was driving fast towards a mirrored door in the distance, yet I couldn't see myself coming. The door reflected the world I knew and was familiar with. As I approached the door morphed and lifted, and light-- brilliant light-- enfolded me. Hunter appeared and took my right hand. He guided me along a path showing me the plant world through which I could see glimmers of the cosmos through portals (or portholes)-- we paused to marvel at the stars and galaxies and then continued on. He showed me his garden-- he was so proud of it-- and then we sat on a bench. He pulled out a thread of light and luminescence and proceeded to stitch the hole in my heart left from his death. He said, "I can only stitch it partway-- there will always be a hole, but I'm sewing in a cord of connection, my heart to yours, through which we'll communicate." When he finished there was a visible cord of light between us. We hugged and I said, "Can I give you something to represent my forgiveness?" And he said, "Yes, please." I reached out and tattooed a raven on the inside of his arm so that he would have a physical reminder of my love. He said, "I miss you, Mom." "I miss you too, my love.... and everything is going to be okay-- I'm with you and I'm going to be okay. So are you. We have work to do." And with that we touched our foreheads together, then hugged and said goodbye.
It is from these experiences that I have drawn strength and courage. I'm grateful for all the realms in which I get to travel and for your presence and witnessing.