October

It is an experience that I share with so many. My twin boys were due in October, but born in August, one a preemie — now a tall and gentle soul of a man — the other born still.

It is a powerful force that, all of these Octobers later, can still bury me in leaves of depression so thick it takes weeks to find my way out.

It is beautiful that this month of October, 2016, so far, has been kind to my head — the leaves gentle, graceful, and allowing the view of the clear blue sky.

It is precious that today I read for the first time that October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. This declaration was made on October 15, 1988, seven years to the day after my due date. The exact month and year that hell visited my head for the first time, only to continue on through every October.

Except not this year. Not as of October 18th, 2016.

It is a stunning show of grace that I now know that, should depression still visit this month or any month again, I can do it. I can look it in the face, embrace it, and love it, be it. No more resistance to the wisdom of the body. This woman-animal is willing to trust life, and to allow her native voice to speak its truth. Bring it on. Or don't bring it on. I am fine, either way.

Butterfly Socks!

If you have been a reader of this blog for a little while, you have read about my dear Betty who recently passed. I have been known to call her Betty of the Butterflies (links to previous posts about Betty can be found below the photo).

Recently I bought a Fair Trade camisole, and in the package was a piece of paper that said Free Socks. A web address was given, but no further explanation. I went to the website, and there I saw that I could get a free pair of socks, "as long as supplies last". It would take weeks. I forgot about it. It took about a week, and today in my mailbox... BUTTERFLIES! And, look! They were knit in a WIND powered factory. Sweatshop free. Organic.

Thank you, Betty, for sending these from wherever you may be. I love you always.

Previous posts about Betty:

http://spontaneouslypresent.blogspot.com/2015/03/betty-of-butterflies.html
http://spontaneouslypresent.blogspot.com/2016/07/butterflies-and-angels.html
http://spontaneouslypresent.blogspot.com/2016/08/fly-free.html

Peach Trilogy Epilogue

Last night. The last of this year's peaches. 

We had enough peaches to last into September! 

Saying goodbye was a happy occasion.

I'm not going to think about it anymore.

Endless Possibility

You probably would live your life just fine not knowing this first part, but here goes...

I have had a long history of gut problems, and in order to try to live without gut pain, to have intestines that actually work like the intestines of most people, and in order to be comfortable being out in public (my belly LOVES to yell loudly while sitting in a quiet room — it craves that kind of attention), I have refined my diet over the years until I am one of the cleanest eaters I know. Some people say I have a very restricted diet. I say I can't figure out why I would want to eat the way most people in the U.S. eat.

Yesterday, my chiropractor asked if I eat meat, and I told her that I don't eat red meat.

That was a nice, declarative statement.

Yes, it's true that yesterday I didn't eat red meat. In fact, I haven't had any for many, many years. But that statement is so solid, it doesn't allow for change. It doesn't allow for possibility, for becoming.

But I, like the seasons and the clouds and this moment, am ever-changing. That is beautiful. That is Life. So, from now on, I want to remember to answer such questions (at least in my own head) with something more open.

Q: Do you eat meat?

A: Today I had some turkey bacon.

Q: Do you like the positions stated by the man who is running for president?

A: Hmmm.. until you brought him up, I hadn't been thinking of him. I don't think I'll think about him now, either, so I can't answer you on that.

Q: Do you have enough money for everything you want to do?

A: Yes, right this moment, I have all I need.

There may be some who could object to this level of immediate honesty. If a politician were to answer in such ways, they could be labeled a flip-flopper. But right now, I'm not a politician. I want to be free to be transparent in the moment. Oh, I hear my gut. It says Thank You.

Joy

Within the spaciousness of the sky, clouds appear and change colors, shapes, and sizes. Inevitably, they soon disappear. And so it is with the comings and goings of all thoughts, perceptions, and appearances. Everything appears and disappears within the spaciousness of the eternal. I find tear-provoking joy in that.

Better Than Welcoming

There is something better
than welcoming. God is that,
and so is this place.

Welcoming means open arms,
but that which can be open
can also close. This that I am
pointing to is a constant stillness
and gentle acceptance. It easily receives
our presence, yet it's fine without it.
Laid bare itself, with nothing to hide,
it sees through our many disguises,
into our perfect nakedness. There is
room here for all that we are, and
there is nothing that we aren't.

Bluebirds outside my window
invite me to play. They would sing and dance
with you, too, and even a politician.
We all belong here. And here.
In this world,
every moment offers
something better than welcoming.


Carol Barrow
August, 2016

Peach Trilogy, Part III

One day on retreat, five antlered deer - one a cute adolescent - munched on squawbush and rested in the shade of a pinyon pine in the field outside my cabin. I watched them and photographed them through my windows. Hidden behind glass that reflected the outdoors, I was able to examine hides up close as the bucks neared where I was standing. Torn ears, necks striped with scars... They wore their histories without shame, no need to cover up any possible imperfections. 

After they had moved on, I pulled a peach out of my little fridge. It, too, wore scars. And so do I. I guess we all do, whether they are worn as obviously as those of the deer and peach, or they're kept hidden beneath shirts or coping mechanisms. 

The deer and the peach have no self-consciousness regarding their wounds. Still, just as we do with human models, artists often paint portraits of deer with unfaltering coats. A still life with peach will have no bruise or blemish.

I don't want to go through life pretending I don't wear evidence of aging, pregnancy, and doctors' good fix-it skills. I am learning to accept my history without shame. Still, I spare all those at the pool from seeing the road map I call my belly - a line of decency I don't cross over in a culture that cringes when reminded that, in order to stay among the living, sometimes the surgeon's knife must leave its mark.

I know a woman whose favorite peaches are those with bruises. It is true that the wounded parts of the peach are the sweetest. With a different way of looking, maybe we could treat ourselves and each other a bit more tenderly, since in one way or another, we are all scarred dears.  

(You know I could have said we are all just peachy...)

Peach Trilogy, Part II

One year, maybe 2013, in August, as we were nearing the end of the summer's peaches, a man who called himself a spiritual teacher stayed at our house for three days. I offered our home as a favor for a friend. And also out of curiosity. I don't remember the name of this man who stayed with us and gladly accepted all we offered (and more). I will call him Joe, even though he was from Iran and was probably not named Joe.

For the most part, it was not a fascinating visit. Conversations were about this man's tall dreams of bringing westerners into alignment with the way to peace, according to some great Iranian man, long dead and never well-known - if known at all - in these parts. Joe seemed to have little interest in anything other than this project. It was a good project, and it takes a lot of commitment to bring dreams into fruition. I get that. And I enjoyed hearing Joe's plans for at least a day and a half.

Wanting to be generous and hospitable (but, obviously not thinking this through), I told Joe to help himself to any food he may need during the day. I was home working in my office, and Joe would spend time on his phone in the guest room making connections for his upcoming stops across the U.S. I never saw him take me up on my offer of food, other than the meals I fixed or the one we treated him to at Ali Baba's, our favorite Middle Eastern restaurant.

The day Joe left and I once again felt free to move about my home without being informed of further stories about this appointment and that contact, I opened the refrigerator to grab one of the few peaches I knew were in the lower bin. There was nothing there. He had cleaned us out of peaches. 

How could anyone take the last peach without making an announcement? Without saying, "This is the last peach. Does anyone want half? Hello! I know that peaches are holy and sacred, and we must honor the end of peach season — the time of year when it's okay to die because we are in fuzzy-fruited bliss — so does anyone want some before I indulge?"

There were no more peaches that year. The season had ended. Joe ate the last peach (and a few almost-last peaches) with no fanfare. It would be eleven months before Colorado's western slope juiciness would arrive once again. 

I went outside under the cloud-dotted sky and grieved.

(But I'm okay now. Sadness and peaches — they come, they go.)  

(Plus, this is what the lower bin of our fridge looks like now. Heh heh...)

Peach Trilogy, Part I

Every summer,

I agree with myself

(so I must be correct):

If death must come

(and I think that is a fact),

let it come after I've eaten

the season's perfect peach.

Walking in Sunshine

Today I realized that there is no difference between walking deserted dirt roads under huge, silent skies and walking the dirt paths at the nearby park where the buzz of traffic fills the air. Spacious ahhhh/awe is all there is, and we can focus on the contents that appear to come and go within it, or we can meld with its vastness, which is always here, now, forever and ever. Neither is right or wrong, or good or bad. It's all offered generously. 

Fly Free!

I returned yesterday from a two-week retreat in southern Colorado. A little after noon on the day before I left for retreat, and about a half hour after a yellow butterfly zigzagged leisurely in front of me and my friend, I received a text. "Mom passed away this morning. Thanks for visiting her yesterday." A couple of days later, while alone in my little cabin, another text: "The funeral will be on Friday at 11:00 a.m."

On the day of the funeral, I would be a little over halfway through my two weeks of retreat, and four hours away from the church where Betty would be remembered. It didn't seem rational that I would interrupt this precious time by going to Denver. And it made no sense that I would never see Betty or her family again.

I decided to go. I had no transportation of my own, but many kindnesses got me to Denver a couple of hours before the funeral, then back to my cabin that evening.

Goodbye, Betty. Thank you. I love you.


Thank you.
As is the custom for these types of things,
the Episcopal priest in his white robe
stood before us telling stories of Betty,
butterflies throughout her home,
her final words the last time he saw her alive —
Thank you,
which, according to Meister Eckhart —
and he may have been correct —
is the one prayer,
if one is all you have.

It was true
about the butterflies,
and thank you were always her last words,
even for the aides who needed her
to stand longer than her weakened body
would allow.

My one prayer today:
Thank You
for butterflies,
for the huge yellow one meandering by
minutes before I got the call
(I won't make meaning - even
a coincidence gladdens the heart),
for the privilege of knowing You,
in Your beauttiful disguise of
healing mother, teacher, and friend.
Thank You
Thank You
My heart is shattered.
Thank You

Hands

When I was young, I was fascinated by my grandma's hands. They were signs of Old, boney, with veins and arteries like green and purple worms crawling all over them. I never held one. I never held my grandma's hand. Oh, that hurts. Surely I did as a toddler while learning to walk. But I have no memory of ever touching her in any way. When I stood next to Grandma, asking if it was okay to have a cookie, I would study her hand as it rested on the wooden arm of the chair. I could have picked it up, petted it, told her that I loved her. I didn't do that. We didn't do that. 

Grandma's hands kept the pantry jar filled with cookies for us grandkids, probably a million of them baked over her lifetime. (I didn't like it when they had raisins.) Grandma's hands farmed the land, took care of sick people, raised seven boys, wired together anything that had fallen apart, and made mulberry pies, picking the berries from her trees and rolling out beautifully designed crusts.

My hands are becoming Grandma's. They have purple worms, and cracks— like the desert, parched for rain — create a random pattern. I could be embarrassed. I wonder if Grandma was.

My hands have given thousands of massages. They raised a girl and a boy. They garden and type. They've had a much easier life than grandma's hands. Still, that doesn't stop them from aging and reminding me of hers. And I realize that, now, now I can hold her hand.

Butterflies and Angels

A follow-up on Betty of the Butteflies from March, 2015...

Butterflies and Angels

July, 2016

The room is large, a sunny sitting room. Two high-backed, upholstered chairs flank a low, round table cluttered with framed family photos and a smattering of mail. A single bed nudges up against the far corner. That's where I find Betty. Three months from turning ninety-nine, and so small now, I wouldn't know she was under the blankets if it weren't for her sleeping face and white clouds of hair resting on stacked pillows.

Every time I visit her, she has melted just a little more.

"Hi Betty. It's Carol."

Eyes open just a bit.

"Hi Dear."

Eyes close.

"I love you, Betty."

"I love you, too, Carol."

I pull up a chair next to her and find myself holding her hand, watching her breathe.

I ask if I should leave so she can rest. She says No.

I have lots of time to be here. So quiet. Only the breathing, closed eyes, silken skin draped over bone, and I love you.

So what is it that I love? Memories of our times past? Maybe recollections of wise words and her gentle being, like a nurturing mother. It could be the way she has loved all things butterfly, and the gifts she brought me at birthdays and Christmas—mostly angels who now protect every corner of my massage room. Blue ceramic cherubs, angels made of feathers, Willow Tree angels of Peace and Healing.

Beside her bed, a wedding photo, taken about a year ago, has Betty in the center, the place of honor, between her grandson (the groom) and his bride dressed in white. Betty's son and daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren stand on either side. It seems so right, this placing of pure love, disguised as a white-haired woman named Betty, at the heart of one's new marriage.

I turn again to the small figure in the bed. A deepening inward stillness seems to be preparing her for the next flight.

For me, it's a time to begin to learn what Betty has lived—that love loves, and it doesn't need a reason.

Carol Barrow

July, 2016

Life as a Dog

I try to learn from Dharma and Rumi. Neither of them takes things personally or cops an attitude toward the other when sat upon, stolen from, or made to go second for dinner or treats. I try to put this into practice when someone cuts in front of me in traffic and when Michael doesn't do what I used to think he should do. There are endless possibilities for exploring this practice of not taking things personally. Will I know that I have achieved a good level of it when I come back as a dog?

What I Really Was (Am)

(with Gratitude to Elias, Various Nondual Teachers, and Wonderful Friends)

Dear Carol,
Today I read some of your journals,
your scribbled print, non-linear dates,
incomplete thoughts, moments of clarity and immense joy
and, often, disturbing searches for peace to fill the vacuum
you thought you were.

You thought you were.

You thought you were required
to be what you weren't
before you'd be worthy
to be.

You thought you were special and damaged and right and wrong and,
if you only did more
yoga poses,
meditation,
reading of wise books,
and saying of smart things,
you would no longer be what
you thought you were.

Dear Carol,
When I read some of your journals today,
your scribbled print, non-linear dates,
incomplete thoughts, moments of clarity and immense joy
and, often, disturbing searches for peace to fill the vacuum
you thought you were,

I knew the words were not
the clean white sheets
of paper,
and it was so very obvious
that old beliefs rehearsed quite often
never touched the clear beauty of

what you are.

Love,

Love

The Day the Sun Never Rose

Dear Dear Friends,

I'm typing on Michael's laptop in a small house we have rented for three nights. To get here, you drive through Moab's congestion of bikers, campers, and jeeps pulling ATV-loaded trailers, head south out of town, and don't fall off the road that hugs a cliff. Here, silence. Here I can forget that anyone exists except Michael and me. Oh, and the bird nesting outside the window. A western kingbird, I believe. Its light yellow belly and tendency to hover and dive lead me to believe this, though I am not a birder, and I could be wrong.

We got up early today. 3:45 a.m. All was utter darkness.Three hours of sleep due to snoring, heat, and windows whistling with wind. Our goal: to drive to Canyonlands to watch—and photograph—the sunrise on Mesa Arch.

By the time we reached the arch, a little after 5:00, the slightest hints of light illumined the clouds blanketing the sky, and we, along with about forty other hearty sun-worshippers, had high hopes that we would not only witness, but also capture on disk for all posterity, sunrise's iconic orange glow on Mesa Arch. People jockeyed for position. We waited. Sand blew in eyes, mouths, and expensive cameras. We shivered. We hoped the clouds would part. We waited more. And on this day, the sun never rose. Well, that's not quite true. I believe it did rise, but it never showed its face. The arch never oranged.

We walked back to the car in muted daylight, and that's when we saw in the landscape a rainbow of color, previously invisible during our dark walk to the arch. Purple lupine, white evening primrose, and some sweet, yellow flower, whose name I do not know, littered the desert sands. It was glorious. But too bad we hadn't seen the sunrise oranging up the Mesa Arch.





Now, post-nap, as I type this from the small house we have rented for three nights, my eye keeps catching Ms Kingbird flitting in and out of her nest.Through every window, beige rock formations can be seen guarding the land. All is silent, except the sounds of wind whistling through the window and Michael preparing dinner. We have no photos of the sunrise oranging up the Mesa; we have no goals. This day has been perfect.

Love

Carol

All Decked in New Greenery

It's Springtime,

and she's all decked in new greenery,

            designed by this cool, gray-skied

                        artist named April Showers  who arrived late,

in May.  She's never been one for calendars.

Thinking I wouldn't need them—

after all, it is May— I'd put away my sunshine glasses,

            good for warding off any darkness

                        that might come creeping in on a day like this,

                        so when you told us that guilt has nearly drowned him

            because he failed to stop her            

from drinking herself to death, I couldn't tell

whether it was rain or tears soaking

my cheeks. Oh, precious friends, we

cannot

            stop

                        this

                                    rain,

and surely we would if we could,

            being the sun-worshippers that we are.

                        Dry shelter is all we have to offer.  

                       

I wanted to hold you, to let your pain

            be diluted in both our tears. But you were across

                        the room, and this was not the time.

           

Maybe he thought that, too, the day

            she drank herself into springtime,

                        all decked in new greenery.

Carol Barrow

May, 2016

Lambs at School

Sheep dot the hill above the school where children yell. And play and learn. Around me, basketballs fly like popcorn, and jump ropes crack against blacktop.

I am overwhelmed. By silent, wooly innocence on the hill, contrasted with schoolyard voices raining down like a thunderstorm this spring day.  By the heart of that teacher over there — so obviously adored by happy little lambs of unchained energy and potential.

That teacher is of my body. I've known her since before time.  And, yet, I meet her new today, watching her confidently shepherd her flock from playground to classroom.  Her long chestnut hair plays with the breeze, she moves with ease. She is in her element, loving, teaching, providing  ground for the profound journey each child must take alone with the help of so many, including...

My daughter, the teacher. Sleepless nights spent dreaming of you, rocking you, waiting up for you, worrying about you, and mostly loving you. It all led to this day. This day of sheep and lambs and pride and love so big it can't be held. And I am broken. Wide open. In one of the best ways possible.


Carol Barrow
April, 2016

Homecoming

"I invite you to the world of no past. It's the only sane place to be." 

- Byron Katie

If you aren't familiar with Byron Katie's work, you may think that she is insane when she offers quotes like the one above. Maybe she is. We might investigate.

This past week, something inspired me to do a Google search for the leader of the cult I joined not too long before I turned eighteen. Wham! I hit the jackpot! I found a website that's been up for a couple of years. It was created by two ex-cult members who thought that maybe they could connect with others who had been wooed by the cult leader at a young age when people are ripe for such things,  .

Because of that website, I have now had phone conversations with Gary and with Chuck — men who were good friends, oh, about forty years ago.

A couple of days after finding these friends, a different man sent me a friend request on Facebook. He was in my life even earlier than the ex-cult members. He, my high school boyfriend of two years, was someone who helped set in motion my road to Cultville. Shortly after high school graduation I called Rick's house, and his younger sister answered the phone. "Is this Carol or Sharon?" she asked. I had heard of Sharon before, but I didn't worry about her. Now I understood why Rick hadn't been very available for awhile. My friend and I gathered every album and stuffed animal that Rick had ever given me, loaded them into my car, and dropped them all on Rick's porch while he watched and said nothing. At that time, I felt that I couldn't share with anyone the exquisite pain that radiated from my heart throughout my body, so in my brokenness I befriended anorexia.

The next spring, I found love in the cult.

Only there wasn't much love there. Mostly rules and control.

All of this reunioning over the last few days has been fascinating, and it's given me the opportunity to look at ways I still live in a cult mentality without actually belonging to a cult. There are many ways people do this. My preferred (and painful) cult drug is living my days feeling like I'm auditioning for a part in the play of life, trying to be good enough to not be left out when all the parts are given out. I'm beginning to understand that the casting director isn't who I thought it was.

I'm also exploring my feelings about Rick, and, in typical Byron Katie lingo I ask, "How do I feel when I look at a photo of a 61 year old man, and I believe that he hurt me?" Who would I be without that thought? Who would I be if I looked at the photo of 61 year old Rick and saw a nice-looking man who I don't know? Because the truth is that I don't know him. Is it fair to anyone to think we know them other than in this fresh moment?

Today I removed the mulch that had accumulated in the daisy bed in our front yard. Brown, brittle maple leaves - remnants of summer past - were blocking the light, not allowing it to get through so that the daisies could do what daisies do best - grow and blossom. Letting go of thoughts that create a "world of past" is kind of like that, isn't it? It lets us do what we do best — grow and blossom. We can only do that in the present. Maybe the world of no past is a sane place to be.

Sitting With Mary Oliver

 Sitting With Mary Oliver

  Sometimes someone drops

  words into my life that break

  my heart so thoroughly I can

  barely breathe. And I must live

  in pieces, with no hope

  for the life that came before,

  until those same words love

  me into a new wholeness.

  I admit to jealousy, wishing that

  I, too, could paint just a few words

  capable of turning a woman like me

  inside out, but my life has not yet

  gone that way. For now, maybe

  you and I can sit with Mary Oliver and

  share a cup of awe.

  - Carol Barrow

  Everything That Was Broken

  Everything that was broken has

  forgotten its brokenness.  I live

  now in a sky-house, through every 

  window the sun. Also your presence.

  Our touching, our stories.  Earthy

  and holy both. How can this be, but

  it is. Every day has something in 

  it whose name is Forever.

  - Mary Oliver*

*Everything That Was Broken, from Mary Oliver's latest book, Felicity, which you can buy here or at your local bookstore.

A Snowy Spring Squirrel Saga

It has been snowing today.  And blowing.  And two people I know totaled their cars in accidents on the crazy roads around here.  It is the kind of day where everyone needs to just stay home. In their jammies. In bed. With a book. Only I don't know anyone who has done this. We have messed up priorities.

As I was not in my jammies and not in bed, but instead I was moving a table in my bedroom so that I could VACUUM under it and wipe down the baseboards for the first time in...

Anyway, I happened to glance out the window to see a squirrel moving along the top of this fence:

He was scurrying on the snow on the top of the fence under that tree, and then when he got to that higher place of snow (right arrow), he burrowed under. It looked like he just vanished! But then he reappeared at the left arrow, where you see the break in the snow. Yep! He had tunneled through all that snow and didn't knock off one flake. Until... he scrambled and almost fell (notice the break in the snow). But he didn't fall. He caught himself. Oh, but then he lost his grip and, Kerplunk! Right into the white powder below him. I didn't see anything moving, and I imagined him face down in two feet of snow with no arms to help him get out of there. But it wouldn't matter that he didn't have arms to push himself up and out, because even if he had them, they wouldn't be two feet long so they would be of no use in that deep stuff. I never did see him get up. I got interrupted. Maybe he's still there. Oh, I should have gone outside and pulled him out of the snow and given him mouth to mouth. Big human mouth to little squirrel mouth. But I didn't. If he truly never got up, he would be dead by now. And frozen. But I think I saw him running around in the tree just to the left of this photo. If it wasn't him, I swear it was his twin. What an amazing little trooper!

Next time it snows like this, maybe he will stay inside. In his jammies. In bed. With a book.

I Shall Remain Maneless

A few months ago, I had reached perfection. For most of a year, I had been designing and redesigning the cutest hairstyle I had ever worn. Asymmetrical, flattering, and fun.

If you do the astrology thing, you may appreciate that Leo is my rising sign. I love a mane. Ever since I was old enough to make my own hair decisions, I have put a lot of energy and identification into my hair.

But one day, under the influence of deep introspection, I knew that it was time to cut it all off. As in bring out the clippers. The day I went in for my regular haircut, my cute and perfect 'do was amazingly cute and perfect.  My stylist asked why I was there since my hair looked so, well, perfect. But Emily is a flexible, wide-open type of woman, and she didn't blink an eye when I told her I wanted her to take it all off.

I love having almost no hair. I am not completely enamored with the look, but I am madly in love with the freedom I feel from within. My mom ignored me the first time she saw me, and a man at exercise class said he thought I was a guy. But there have been a few compliments here and there. I don't really care about the opinions of others because, like I said, I have this secret and immense freedom within. I love inhabiting a hairless head.  And I never thought I'd write or say those words.

Yesterday I accompanied Michael to his biannual oncology check-up (the cancer is staying pretty status quo). Before going there, I didn't think about the fact that people are seen very differently in a big oncology clinic. They can be seen as "patients." At one point, I was standing in a hallway waiting for Michael to talk to someone when a nurse going past me touched my arm and said, "Your hair looks really cool!" She was past me when she added something about "I know you didn't choose it..." Or something like that.

Oh, yeah. I forgot that I look like a woman recovering from bald chemo head.  But I am undeserving. I have not paid the price for having post-chemo baldness. There are so many people who have had cancer and would trade me places because I am cancer-free (as far as we know). They would trade me places and then grow out their hair because having hair would be a sign of health, a message to cancer of goodbye and don't come back.

Once, at Christmastime, I went to the mall with a hijab covering my hair and neck. I was with a Muslim friend who, like me, is a white American. She converted to Islam years ago, and she goes through life with everything covered but her face and hands. I walked the mall in hijab because I wanted to feel how people treat women dressed that way. Everyone was kind. I don't think that's always the case, especially when the women dressed in hijab have darker skin than mine.

So far, I have been lucky. Instead of having my hair fall out from chemo, I have willingly paid to have it taken off. Instead of wearing a hijab because of cultural proclamations, I freely decided to wear it out in public. Nothing bad came about while doing these things. Even so, my experiences have been sobering. Sobering, because while wearing the hijab, for the first time in my life I felt worried about how I would be seen by the person in the next car as we waited at a stoplight. Sobering, because I doubt the RN would have touched me on the arm and complimented me if she didn't think I had cancer (I could be wrong about this - that would be nice).

We are so very much related-to through our outward appearances, while what we are is much more complex and interesting. And hidden.

Remember those advertisements for x-ray vision glasses that could be found in the back of comic magazines?  I knew you wouldn't - you're too young. Anyway, wouldn't it be liberating if we could all own a pair of glasses that revealed the inner qualities of every living being, including the astounding beauty of the wearers? I'm talking about being able to see not only beyond the surface appearances of clothing and tattoos and cute, perfect hair-dos, but even deeper — past beliefs and behavior — to the place where we are more alike than not; the place of innocence, untouched by the judgments and expectations put on us by our culture.

Maybe we're already equipped with such vision. I think it comes through our presence and our hearts. I'm experimenting to see if this is true. I'll get back with you with my results.

Nature is a Mirror

Nature is a Mirror 

Nature is a mirror that reflects my face 

more accurately than the glass 

on my bathroom wall. It doesn’t highlight 

my wrinkles or remind me it’s time 

for a haircut. This mirror whispers 

You are This,  

For all Eternity.

Dear You

Dear You.

Your beauty cannot be argued, built up, or destroyed.

No compliment makes it true.

And no one can rip it from you through wounded remarks.

You are not responsible for it - it is your natural, innate essence.

God blossoms flowers in remote desert canyons.

Many are never seen.

But that is not their purpose.

Their purpose is to be a flower.

And yours is to be you.

That is so very, very enough.

Pockets

In elementary school - sometime early in kindergarten - my table-mate, Dana Arnold, told me that it was against the rules to chew gum at school. I had no idea! So I did what any gum-chewing, teacher-fearing five-year-old would do. I pulled the offending gum out of my mouth and shoved it into the pocket of the bright yellow dress I was wearing. I am sure my mom had a fun time with that after I got home!

I was in junior high - the summer between eighth and ninth grade, three weeks after my family moved from Kansas to Colorado - when my mom told me that Leslie, my best friend, who for years had been my fellow explorer of life and rock stars and the coolest clothes, had died. Mom told me the news while driving me and a new Colorado friend home from the neighborhood swimming pool. In the backseat of that car, with a girl I barely new and my mother telling me the saddest news I could imagine hearing, I didn't feel that I was in a safe and supportive place, so I did what any death-fearing, feeling-burying fourteen year-old would do. I shoved the crumbling pieces of me into some invisible pocket in my body and psyche.

Over the years, many more griefs have been put into that invisible pocket. It's getting quite heavy.

I love pockets. I feel lucky if, when pulling my coat out of the closet as temps fall, I find a surprise of money or a movie ticket memory. I don't like carrying a purse, so my jean pockets carry my driver's license and credit card.

Because I'm a pocket stuffer, I have to be careful to check all pockets before throwing clothes in the wash. But my invisible pocket has never been emptied or washed.

Up until recently, I had not looked at its contents, let alone accepted them into my life. Every once in awhile, the loss of something or someone dear to me - or just an intimate conversation about loss - has opened that pocket, and an impressive amount of power has rumbled out. It was a recent over-the-top explosion of tears that motivated me to ask my therapist to help me look at what it was that caused so much crying over something that happened long ago.  The work I've done with her has helped me to admit to myself that this private holding place even existed.

The thing about these invisible pockets that most, if not all, of us carry is that they beg to be explored.  Kindly investigated.  Still, we can ignore them - until we can't.  If and when we do go mining into the depths of our pockets, it is good to have someone to join us in our exploration - just like we might need to employ the help of some major cleaning products to de-gum a yellow dress pocket. We created the invisible pocket because at the time of our loss or violation, we weren't able to grieve it, and now we need a trusted person to help us stay in our functioning adult mind so that we can hold and support the places in us that still feel so very young and vulnerable.

I love what Stephen Levine, in his book Healing into Life and Death wrote about a woman who was in physical pain - and this can be used for emotional pain, also:

"So each morning, at whatever time she awoke, she would whisper into her pain, 'Good morning, sweetie, how are you today?' she talked to it with loving kindness, recognizing the necessary balance that did not invite it to stay but no longer pushed it away. She greeted it as one would a colleague at the breakfast table. Not wishing her occasional pain to become a chronic difficulty, she did not make it the love of her life, but instead allowed the love in her life to exclude nothing. She used her pain as a means of focusing compassion on the predicaments of the world. Sending forgiveness and mercy into the pains of the world, she felt that no pain in her body was unapproachable by love."

Thank goodness for pockets - to hide unlawful gum, to carry our prized possessions, and to contain our wounds until we're ready to heal them.

Chasms

Last month as I rode in the shuttle on my way to the airport, I glanced out my window and saw what I can only describe as a chasm in the clouds.  Just as the road began to curve away from the sky chasm, I snapped the photo below. Then at the airport, I wrote the first draft of a poem.  

Some background:

When I was an adolescent, I used to walk around the house holding a big square mirror in front of me, mirror side up.  Frameless, this mirror was the perfect tool for me to practice walking on the ceiling. When I looked down into the mirror, I saw ceiling as my floor, so as I moved around the house, I needed to avoid stepping on lights that were now growing out of the white painted drywall beneath me. I also had to step over high thresholds in order to go through doorways, and I enjoyed noting how low the windows hung. 

So, with lots of upside down walking under my belt, it wasn't a big stretch for me to fantasize about walking on clouds and falling through the chasms between them.  I invite you to turn your view upside down and explore chasms with me now.

Chasms

in earth

and sky.

between people, too,

              though the cold, human chasms

              aren’t quite as obvious…

or maybe they are.

if i miss-stepped

while walking

upside down

on puffy white

trails and shores,

would I fall

through the chasm

between clouds

into sky,

forever and ever?

there really is no such thing

as a bottomless pit

of dirt or depression

   but I am told

   that the sky, stretching

   into outer space

      and beyond

         might just be

bottomless,

     edgeless,

         endless

             wonder

i can’t remember

ever really knowing

no end -

              roads,

                           lazy afternoons,

toddlerhood

and

              time spent with you

                           all end, especially when

i’m not ready.

infinity, eternity...

surely they’re more

or maybe less

than just

continuous repeats

of what we know now,

not planets and suns and daily life

stretching out over and over

in ceaseless choruses

of human imagination.

i would call that hell.

this chasmic exploration

is quite an

undoing -

there’s nothing

to hold onto,

the parachute fails,

and

     i

       fall

            into

                azure

                     abyss

it’s quite peaceful here.  really.

Carol Barrow

January, 2016

Till the Moon and Stars are Gone

Michael and I are going through everything in the house, one closet or drawer at a time.  We are throwing away and donating.  It is amazing how much lighter things can be.

Right now I am sorting through a box that we found in the closet we visited yesterday.  I am having too much fun.  This is how I am (you may be this way, too):  I love being a little pack-ratty, because at some point, I will visit a box or a file or a coat pocket, and I will find FUN!

For instance, I just found a biography of ME written by my daughter when she was fourteen.  She wrote it for school.  It is bound in a stiff paper binder, and the front looks like this (but without the messy cross-outs I added for privacy's sake):

I have had so much fun reading this!  Noticing the spin from a fourteen-year-old's perspective.  So beautiful.

When Jamie mentioned her own birth, she didn't say a thing about how gorgeous she was, and she didn't mention the daffodils that were showing themselves in the park as we drove home from the hospital.  But she included a poem that I wrote for her shortly after her birth:

Jamie

You wake each day as

the sunshine rises,

Smiling to greet the dawn.

You laugh and sing with 

the birds outside,

Till the moon and stars are gone.

And I know each time

I look at you,

I see all that is and was

and will be.

The oceans and mountains,

the young and old,

are all within your eyes.

And this is what she wrote about me at the end of the biography:

The virtues she wants her children to have are kindness, self-esteem, and respect for others. 

She doesn't know what the future brings, but has high hopes.

Twenty-three years since this bio was written (wowzers!) and now I can take a look at a big piece of the future that young mother, Carol, was facing.  If time travel were an option, I would go back and tell her that her future will be interesting and challenging and rich and wonderful.  I would let her know that her children will truly grow to be kind, with sufficient self-esteem that continues to grow and, they have sincere respect for others. And all that is and was and will be - the oceans and mountains, the young and old - will always shine within her beautiful daughter's eyes.

Who Dies?*

This last week was a remembrance of David Bowie and his impact on music and on our lives.  His death brought up great memories for so many of us.  His songs.  And, for me, memories of an adventure which culminated in seeing him in concert.  

I had just moved into one side of a duplex, when my friend and I decided one evening to follow a new neighbor who I had heard was in a rock band.  Patti and I waited on my front porch until this neighbor left for, we assumed (correctly), his Saturday night gig, then we hopped in my car, and I followed him for miles.  One of my smartest moves was when, in order to avoid being obvious, I continued on past the parking lot where he had stopped and parked.  I planned to turn around and come back after Neighbor was in the bar setting up.  Then Patti and I could go in and listen to the band.  But as we drove past the parking lot where Neighbor was getting his guitar out of the back seat, he waved at us - he had known all along that we had followed him.  I would not make a good detective.

After we arrived at the dark, smoky bar, Patti and I sat at a small table immediately in front of the stage, and I drank my usual, bourbon and coke (this was another lifetime ago).  At some point, it was announced that I had won the door prize.  With the $50 I won, I bought beers for the band, then I told Patti that I was going to buy us tickets to David Bowie's Glass Spider Tour.  And that, my friends, is how I got to see David Bowie.  (I have no idea whatever happened to Neighbor.)

Many beautiful tributes to David Bowie have been shared. It has been fun to re-live younger days when Bowie songs were a bigger part of my life. I wasn't really a Bowie-aholic, and I can't add a thing to what has already been said about him.

But today I found out that Stephen Levine died, and I was/am a Stephen Levine-aholic.  I loved that man.  I consider him my first spiritual teacher.  I didn't know him personally - I only read his books (over and over), and I took a couple of workshops with him - but his writings and his presence changed my life.  He taught me how to "be with" life and death.  Because of him, I healed a lot of the pain and mistaken beliefs surrounding the loss of my baby.  I also owe Stephen Levine a deep bow for helping me to have the courage to volunteer at hospice for years. My family's legacy of "death is a failure" stopped with me because of what I learned from that beautiful man.

Now the teacher is gone, and the Beloved which he pointed me to, over and over in so many loving ways, remains.  Really, the Beloved was all that was here all along. It has sometimes showed up as Stephen Levine - and as David Bowie, and as you and me and all of this amazing experience called life.  And, still, right now, my heart feels broken.

From Stephen Levine's Breaking the Drought:

The light has been left on for us, p. 61

[final verse]

I am the imaginary hero of my hopes

lost between verbs that require I know

who I am, but I am just a passing thought —

yet somehow, somehow — as close to a

miracle as we get — the nature

of the heart — the Beloved

has left the light on for us all night . . .

Lorca and Whitman deas as Basho, and just as alive p. 142

[final verse]

The sun follows the superstition of blue

across the arc of summer

and the world comes to an end

just the way it began yesterday.

There is a silence between breaths, p. 77

There is a silence between breaths

when the heart becomes a sacred flame

and the belly uncoils which reminds me

how remarkable it is to wake

beside you another day.

Between deaths we dreamed together

between breaths, in that stillness,

which has joined us ever since.

In that first breath

we step onto the dance floor,

and waltz unnoticed through the void.

The sacred everywhere we turn

and turn again, as form so generously dissolves

and only the Beloved remains.

In this moment which lasts a lifetime

there is nowhere to stand

where you are not beside me

where you do not accompany me within.

*Who Dies?: An Investigation of Conscious Living and Conscious Dying is a wonderful book by Stephen Levine