A Lovely Thanksgiving

I was telling a friend that every morning when I wake up, before I do anything else, I spend some time thinking of things for which I'm grateful. The first thing I think of is always My Bed. Next, I'm grateful for my warm blankets, then it's my pillow. There isn't much that's better than my bed and warm covers, especially when it's time to crawl out of them into the cold morning air. That's when they become magnetic, trying to persuade me to stay just a bit longer, then another bit longer.

I do move on to other gratitudes that could be considered to have more substance, though I'm not sure that judgment is accurate.

In response to the description of my morning gratitude, my friend offered me this:

Every day, choose a letter of the alphabet, and throughout the day find things that begin with that letter and be grateful for them. 

Day one, I chose J. J was a challenging letter for me. But I saw Juniper trees and remembered making a happy face out of Juniper berries during my solo time while on wilderness quest years ago. I was grateful for that experience, and the memory of it gave me a smile. I also found gratitude for the Junctions of streets where I walk my dog each day; particularly the Junction that can be scary with cars whipping around the curve. That Junction wakes me up if I happen to to have been lulled into a daydream. 

In the evening while I was pedaling my arm bike, I looked around the room for things that began with J. Not even one book on my bookshelf had a J in the title. Oh! But I was using my arm bike for my shoulder JOINT! The Joint that has hurt so much and limited my movement so I can't even reach over to wash my other armpit. I love Joints, even ones that are limiting. Can you imagine a life with no Joints? 

Today my Letter is L. Ah. See that? Letter. I'm grateful for Letters. Letters that make up words that open the world for us in so many ways, allowing us to express, coming together to form books about Lives and Loves we might have not known without them. Oh, and the other kind of Letter! Something almost archaic now, but who doesn't love to read a handwritten Letter? (Unless the handwriting is mine and pretty much undecipherable...)

As I bake and cook and clean and prepare for family to come over for Thanksgiving dinner tonight, I especially want to pay attention to the L word Love in all the forms it shows itself. Love between humans, the Love it takes to get up early on a holiday in order to ensure the turkey is thawed and cooked just right, Love splashed all over the sky as a pink and purple sunrise, the Love that is shown by our Listening to each other. The Love that is everywhere in Life. Unlike my J day, I could spend this whole day finding L everywhere, because Love is everywhere, showing up in so many ways.

As I get ready to click on the Publish button, I am thinking of the few readers of this blog, people I know and Love. This day, and always, I hope that Love shows itself to you in each and every moment.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Love

Carol

As Dharma and I walk together

not too far from home,

I hear the voice of a hawk.

It stands out against 

the rumbles of the city,

and the sound wakes me up.

I then search the sky and trees

for the high I know will come

as the raptor flies us free

from the gravity of life.

Carol Barrow

November, 2018

Because

Love.
Not for a reason,
or to fulfill
someone else's
deserving.
Love,
because
love
is
what
you
are

.

I Wasn’t Fat; I Just Hated Myself

Because of something I had said the other night, my friend asked if I had ever thought I was fat. I answered, “No,” but then I remembered that I did think I was fat when I was eighteen years old, recently out of high school, with a badly broken heart.

Shortly after graduation, my boyfriend of two years had suddenly left me. I felt like I was standing alone out in a desert, winds of self-hatred, sadness, and failure pelting me till I curled up into a protective ball of numbness.

I weighed myself to see if I still existed, and I noticed the scale read 108 pounds. Always being thin enough that people felt a need to comment, 108 sounded like too much, so I began to live on a small handful of cereal, a couple of hard-boiled eggs, and a few saltines each day. When I saw 103 pounds on the dial of my parents' old scale, I began to feel a little more in control of my life.

What I didn't tell my friend the other night was that after losing those five pounds, things only got worse. Back then, a couple of girlfriends and I met a man while hanging out at Cheesman Park down in Denver. He was inviting people to a meeting where participants talked about God. Having little going on, and being the spiritual seeker I was, I bit the bait and started attending Wednesday night meetings, even driving the hour and a half it took to get there from the town I lived in while going to college.

I didn't know it at the time, but I was finding my way into a cult.

I ended up dropping out of school in order to be with the group full-time, and shortly after that a small number of us were sent to another state. There, I had at least a dozen companions who were doing the same meditations and following the same long list of rules as I was. We were a sick family, stressed by ridiculous exercises to make us more disciplined, while the leader used us to make himself rich.

I started eating too much. The needle jumped to 133.

One day the cult leader ordered several women to lose specific amounts of weight, while letting me know I should just "lose a few pounds." We were living under penalty of being cast out, of having to go back to living with "world people" who would suffer the anguish of the Last Days, and I didn't even know whether the loss of two pounds or ten would save me from all of that! 

I tried an all-protein diet for ten days. I ate too much. I fasted. I ate cartons of ice cream. 108. 130. 110. 125.

I medicated with food, eating a whole box of Triscuits or a package of cookies in one sitting. After throwing away the empty box, I would buy a milkshake and drink it dry. This was my dessert ritual after eating a big dinner.

My pain came from much more than my big, bloated belly, but I only had the means to relieve the physical symptoms. I failed at self-induced throwing up, but I was a master at purging through the over-use of enemas and laxatives. After each cleanse, I would feel a lightness, like I was walking out of a sort of prison and into the huge sky of freedom. I would swear that I never wanted to be a prisoner of my bingeing again, and I would vow to stop over-eating.

The last time must have come two years after joining the cult, right before I popped a couple of bleeding ulcers that put me in the hospital.

In the hospital, I couldn't binge and purge. I couldn't do the required meditations or follow the rules of the cult. That was all fine. More than fine. When I left the hospital, I also left the cult. Two bleeding ulcers and a few hospital stays began the healing I still work with today.

The other night, if I had thought about it a little longer, I would have told my friend that, honestly, I never thought I was fat. But the dark thoughts of self-hatred and some horrendous fear of trying to live in this world used to warp my view of food and life. 

Self-hatred and fear continue to be shadows over my left shoulder, but at the same time, right in front of me, I see the sun rise, I feel air filling my lungs, and I know love is so much bigger and truer than the thoughts that try to undermine the beauty of this world.


Carol Barrow
October, 2018

waiting

how 
does
one
wait
?

michael's
cancer
status
is
“watch
and
wait”

ethan 
and
emily
wait
to
find 
out

but
how 
does
one
wait 
?

i
can’t
see
your
waiting

can 
one
wait
in
her
sleep
?

no
it’s 
a
job
we 
take
on
by 
day

except
when
we 
forget

what
a 
relief
the 
moments
i 
forget
to
wait

and
i 
wait
without
waiting.


Carol Barrow
September, 2018

Now That I’m Sixty-four

I am sixty-four years old. I don’t have that many years left. Some would say, “You could have another thirty!” That doesn’t feel true to me. Or desirable.

I am sixty-four years old. I have to be honest. As sweet as life is — and it is sweet beyond words — I can’t believe that this beautiful, finite, hard and violent, loving and kind world is something to be held tightly.

I am sixty-four years old. I hold onto this life tightly.

But sometimes, I don’t.

The play of light and shadow seems to grab my attention quite often. And I forget to look to find what it is that is shining the light and casting the shadow.

But sometimes, I don’t forget.

And none of that matters, I guess.

Can I say it?

Dare I?

I don’t find living until ninety-four to be desirable because it’s too hard to live this life believing in the lights and shadows. Too tiring to believe I am someone who needs to be happy, liked, loved, warm, cool, young, smart, beautiful, loving, giving, perfect.

I have to laugh.

Stop believing such things, and then life won’t be so hard!

I am sixty-four years old. I don’t have that many years left. Some would say, “You could have another thirty!”

In the moments I am free of the need for an identification, none of that matters.

Can I say it?

Dare I?

It’s not that anything matters, or that it doesn’t.

There is another option: To be free of the need for anything to matter, and to love all the mattering.

I am sixty-four years old. I don’t have that many years left.




Carol Barrow
September, 2018

I Won't Always Be Here

Stephen Jenkinson asks, “Until your ability to see the flower is rooted in the fact that it won’t always be there, and neither will you, how much of the flower do you see?”

I hadn't gotten around to posting this photo of dinner the other night, a dinner where all but the almonds came straight from our garden to the stove to the table:

I remember thinking about how common and boring pictures of food can be. Maybe that's why I never made the effort to post the photo of dinner or the photo of just a few of the green beans I picked last weekend.

We had great vegetable gardens this year. Our soil was happy, and our plants were healthy. Until...

 Swiss Chard

...yesterday afternoon, a scary, windy, rainy, haily storm came through and pretty much annihilated the vegetable gardens, and stripped many trees of their foliage. Now, eighteen hours later, hail and strewn leaves still cover our yard.

Kale

If it hadn't been a hailstorm, it would have been frost or something. All things must end. Or continue on in another form. Or...

Every summer, I carry with me the fact that the plants in our garden are impermanent, that they will wear out by autumn, but I don't entertain the possibility that they could all be gone in some unsuspected moment, long before the first frost. I live that way in other areas of my life, too, thinking that everyone I love, including me, will naturally die in old age; there is always lots of time before I need to look at an ending. I put off living with the fact of impermanence until autumn approaches, until someone is in her 90s, until...

I won't always be here. I won't always be here. I won't always be here. This culture does not prepare us for, does not educate us in, that truth. Nature is offering it up to us all the time. I am trying to remember to listen.

What Really Matters III

when i try to find the answer
to the question
what really matters?
i 
get 
stressed

i 
run around
in circles
looking 
for something
i can't find.

maybe this is it!
but what if it isn't?
that over there
seems to matter more 
than this
but 
everyone says
THIS matters most

i get dizzy
fall down
look up
at the huge
              blue
                  sky
                     above 
                             me
grass tickles my skin

i fall again
in love
with this fresh nowness
and 
forget the question


Carol Barrow
August, 2018

What Really Matters II

The summer before I started second grade, we moved into a new home. Somehow, between our old house and the new one, my favorite stuffed, yellow kitty got lost. I loved that kitty. To me, she was as real and alive as anyone. She mattered, and I spent many, many nights looking up into the darkness and searching for an answer as to where she could be. I had failed as her caretaker, and I felt as though a piece of my heart had been yanked from my chest.

We moved again, to Colorado, when I was a young teen. Moving from a small, conservative town to a large city, I felt like I had just awakened from a long and boring dream. There was so much that mattered! I became aware of war protests, and suddenly the Vietnam War mattered. So did my new friends, bell-bottoms, make-up, and long hair. Boys mattered; especially the one who asked me to dance. Sometimes God mattered, and so did the huge pimple that showed up the morning before a date.

Now, fifty years later, I  still remember many of the things that once seemed important. Who I think I am is made up of those memories and many others; they have stuck to my True Self like frosting on a cake. So sweet.

I notice that my ideas of what matters come and go, many lasting a few minutes; some, several decades. But a ribbon of mattering has been woven throughout my life. It is made of air, food, water, sun, beauty, kindness, friendship, and love. These things have mattered throughout, even when I turned my attention to other matters.

But what happens when I die? Does mattering need a “someone” for it to matter to? Are there some things that REALLY matter, no matter what? I don’t know how to know. I don’t know if the Earth needs us, or if it matters to the sun that the planets encircle it. I don’t know if the universe cares what goes on within it or around it. Still, I have a sense that all of this does somehow matter. Like the dancer depends on floor and gravity, space and relationship, all that we are aware of depends on everything else. In the dance, all parts matter, and maybe that is true of the universe, of everything. Acknowledging this, it makes sense to me to be with each moment, each dance partner, each stuffed, yellow kitty as though they all matter, but to do so lightly, with the freedom to accept what comes next in these ever-changing appearances of life. 

Do all of these words matter? They did while I typed them. Now, I'm not sure. And that feels so right.

What Really Matters?

Just got the news.
A friend took his life.
What really matters?

He mattered
to me
to many others.
Did he not know?
Did it not matter?

Does mattering mean
that we are obliged
to suffer so others won't?
I would never put that on him
or anyone.

Does it matter that
the two friends I've
had who took their lives
were smart and
kind and
creative
and
we
needed
them more
than we need
the politicians
doing damage to
this precious, fragile
world? Who invented
this game, anyway? And why?

The ripples of
sorrow, they matter.
The guilt - I hadn't
reached out in some time - egoic
but a reminder again and again.
Love, love, love, love, love.
Please let us love this tender,
tender, hurting world and
all in it with our whole
being. We can't
afford to be
stingy
with
love
love
love
love
love
love
love
love
love
love
love
love
love
love
love
love
love

What Really Matters... To Me

A woman on a bike with a kiddie trailer behind it pauses at the stop sign and asks her young son which way he wants to go to the library. He is on a bike so small you could step over it with no effort. He is on a bike that requires no balance, no pedals. He walk-rides his little bike with equally little legs. He wants to go this way. Mom suggests that way, but he wants to go this way, so she says Okay. Then they take off, mom turning the way her son wants to; her son taking off straight in a near collision with her. But then he turns, and they pass my house on their way to the library. That really matters to me.

My heart cracks at the adorability of the son finding his way in this world, balancing and falling and exploring, which will lead to... We don't know where he will go as he grows. That not knowing really matters to me.

And the sky is blue above the mom and son (and also on whomever it might be who rides along in the kiddie trailer behind), and there is peace in the air. Beautiful skies and peace really matter to me, and so does the library down the street that houses so much wonder, we would all explode if we tried to take it all in. That little boy will walk into the wonder and choose to let in just a bit. And that little bit might take him to other lands, to new learning, and wild imagination. Wonder and imagination really matter to me.

Even though my son and daughter are now old enough to be parents, their little legs are still just as real to me as the legs of that little boy walk-riding his bike down the street. As with that mother, the mothering within me is as alive as ever, though I now channel it many directions, because my son and daughter don't need the mothering of a child, though they do need as much mothering as everything else — the planet and everything on it. I smile because beings of all kinds —whether human, duck, finch, cow, you name it — mother our world, and that is beautiful, and that really matters to me.

This is not all that really matters to me. Honestly, when my heart is open, everything that shows itself really matters.
 

What Matters?

what matters?

     i don’t know.

     do you?

     if so,

     how did you find out?

          if you found out,

               did you find that it’s

what matters

            to you? Does

what matters,

     matter to me?

          your family?

               your friends?

                    your city?

                         your country?

                              the world?

     does this

          matter?

     does that

          matter? 

     nothing matters

     everything matters

what matters?

     what

          what

               what

                    matters

                         matters

                              matters

what was the question?

ah

     ah

          awe

Carol Barrow

July, 2018

Letting Go Some More – or Falling Away?

I thought I had let go,
     but something in my head
     (or somewhere; I really can’t find it)
     still feels chained  
     by limitations that
     cancer demands.

I notice the roses outside
     release a few petals at a time.
Like the rose dropping petals,
     or a maple tree undressing in autumn,
     letting go of errant beliefs 
     seems to happen
           gradually 
              in its own time
                when conditions are right
                   effortlessly (though often there’s effort)

Maybe it’s not really a letting go that happens
     but more a falling away
         everything moving 
            in utter perfection
               falling
                 falling
                    freeing
                       freeing
                          making compost for new life.  



Carol Barrow
June, 2018               

Letting Go (Some more)

For six years
   except when I forgot
I thought I was the wife
   of a man with cancer,
   of a man treating lymphoma
   in his own way, ignoring
   the doctors and studies

But one day —
   it happened last week —
   I put down the labels.
Don't ask me how
   I carried them, nor
   how I put them down.
None of it makes sense
   to me now.

But I have to laugh
   at how a belief
   needs constant
   remembering
   or it will die.
Now, if nothing else,
   I want to remember one thing.
There's one thing
   I never want to let die
   and that is
        Love.



Carol Barrow
June, 2018

Letting Go

​​

To what can I hold on? 

     Is there anything that​ I have which can be let go​? 

          This belief, that desire, this pain. Already gone.

               Everything is constantly ​becoming what's next.

Day gives way to fiery sunset, then ​to ​the quiet of night.

     In​-​breath will always relax and breathe out. 

          I try to hold your beautiful smile so I can feel love forever, 

                but it slips through my fingers like a handful of water,

                     into the stream of now, of This, of...

Carol Barrow

June, 2018

#16

A blue jay 

speeds 

like 

a fighter jet 

through 

our 

backyard 

each evening 

between 

8 and 8:30. 

My 

security clearance 

doesn’t 

give 

me 

access 

to 

the reason 

for 

his mission.

Carol Barrow

June, 2017

God Kisses

On Sunday, she walked out the back door with the intention of allowing the scenery around her to inspire some writing. But the air was cool for sitting, so she laid her journal and pen on the table and walked into sunlight, scanning the view around her. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains touched the eastern sky. To the west, the San Luis Valley spread out wide and flat until it reached the San Juan range some hundred-fifty miles away. She took a deep breath of pine-scented air and began to explore the property where she was staying during her retreat.

Watching her footing amidst the stones and cactus, she caught sight of a ginormous moth grasping the base of low dry grasses. It was colored various shades of brown, with a fake blue eye on the upper corners of each forewing. Its antennae were like delicate feathers.

  

The woman crouched down to admire the moth’s size and design. She compared her index finger to the wingspan and saw that the creature was every bit as wide as her finger was long. She would later learn that this was a Glover’s Silkmoth, a member of North America’s family of giant silk moths.

She had somewhere to go, but before leaving she lightly touched the insect, only motivating it to move its wing slightly, as though lifted by a subtle breeze. She sensed the moth must be dying and would be dead by the time she returned. That afternoon, it was gone.

Four days later, on a Thursday morning, as she moved some papers off the counter, her attention was drawn outside the window to something like a leaf floating down. She walked over to the glass and saw on the ground the forewing of a Glover’s Silkmoth.

  

   

She immediately felt an even deeper connection between the moth and herself. Their interactions were a gift. A God kiss, she called it. She felt blessed. And she was.

But, looking up at the brilliant green of the aspen on the side of nearby peaks, and breathing in the freshness of the pine-scented air, she realized that God kisses too numerous to count show themselves every moment. Ah! There went one! Did you notice?

  

Carol Barrow

June, 2018

#15

She was half walking half skating on those shoes with wheels hidden in the heels. She was coming up the sidewalk as I was going down. Maybe she was ten. She was laughing and singing and moving on her wheeled shoes. Laughing and singing and moving on her wheeled shoes, happy, unselfconscious. Something welled up in me. I wanted to do what she was doing! I could feel the freedom inside my chest. For nearly a second, her eyes and my eyes met. No, it wasn’t our eyes that met. They were just the portals for something else that recognized itself. We passed each other, and I wondered… If I wanted to do what she was doing, wouldn’t I do it? What was stopping me? Somewhere between ten and now, somewhere long ago, I began to care what others thought of me. So, no, I didn’t want to do what she was doing, because I cared more about how it would look than I did about laughing and singing and moving with or without wheeled shoes. 


Carol Barrow
May, 2018

#14

Circles

The hawk soars circles against a backdrop of blue sky.
The hawk’s body rests beside the creek
on soil made of the deaths that came before him.
The hawk is a memory to those who watched him fly.
The hawk is forgotten by those who watched him fly.
The earth and air are made of hawk,
but those who knew him do not notice.
The earth and air are made of hawk 
    and those who knew him, too.

Carol Barrow
April 2018

#13

three

puffball

baby

owls

on

one

branch

   mom

   watching

   close

   by

   from

   a

   different

   tree

easy

to

find

because

of

the

small

group

standing

below

heads

up

pointing

smiling

     a

     man

     with

     a

     huge

     belly

     shares

     his

     owl

     story

     with

     me

i

ooh

and

ahhh

and

love

owls

together

with

him



Carol Barrow
April, 2018

#12

If 

we

all

recognized

our

place

in 

Life

the 

air

would

be

filled

with 

songs

of

Thank You

Thank You

Thank You

Carol Barrow

April, 2018

#11

Haven’t loved my shoulder
     though it is hurting
          and much in need of love.

Haven’t loved my back or feet.
Haven’t loved my stomach.
And forgot my face
years ago.

I am sad for that
but so happy to know
to love now.

No,
scratch that “sad” part.

So happy 
to know to love.

So happy 
to love.

So happy. 




Carol Barrow
April, 2018

#10

This last day

of a winter

that barely

was,

snow art

leaves its

glory

everywhere

it can,

making

itself

known

before

it surrenders

into spring.

We humans,

before
we die,
often

concern

ourselves

with leaving

our mark,
gathering
up
evidence
that
we
existed.

We want

to be

remembered,

re

membered,

as though

what we are,

the love we are,

can

be

dis

membered.

No worries.

It is

always

here,
always

whole.

Carol Barrow
March, 2018

#9

one

reason

(of

many)

why

we 

have

dogs

in

our

family:

after

a

week

in

the

hospital

the

happiness

of

reunion

is

a

swarm

of

fur

and

skin,

arms

and

legs,

joy-ing

its

way

to

exhausted

ahhhhh...

Carol Barrow

March, 2018

P.S. I wasn't the person who was hospitalized. It was my dear hubby, who is doing well now.

#8

fever
losing consciousness
oh, my shoulder hurts
blood work
infection
antibiotics
oh, my shoulder hurts
scans
look here
look there
oh, my shoulder hurts
not here
not there
more scans
not there
either
oh, my shoulder hurts
hmmmm
look at shoulder
oh! there!
who would have thought
it was the shoulder?

this
makes
me
think...

maybe,
but
i'm
not
sure
of
this
yet,
the
meaning
of
life
is
right
in
front
of
us
to
notice
if
we
just
listen



Carol Barrow
March, 2018

#7

we
stay busy
moving
through air
like migrating
geese

despite
all our
intentions
we don't
know
where we
are going

but
oh
!
the view
!

#6

the sky

the sky

infinitely blue

i fall

i fall

i fall into you

Carol Barrow
February, 2018

#5

This taste of soup,

the sun’s warmth poured

through a window,

your face before me,

last night’s sleep,

a drink of water from 

summer’s snowmelt,

gravity holding us in its arms,

memories - both sweet and painful -

air given freely

to every living thing.

I could go on and on.

Life’s generosity is a friendship

we are never without.

Carol Barrow

February, 2018

#4

snow is pouring down

outside my window and

when I take out the trash

the air hurts my skin.

i imagine homeless people

stuffed down deep

in their sleeping bags,

tucked under bridges.

if my warm bed and

my shower’s hot water

can’t give me more patience,

especially for those

who sleep in pouring snow,

then what good are they?




Carol Barrow
February, 2018