New Ways To Be

 

How often do we gear, “I would die for you”?  Grief came to visit.  How I wanted to die with him.  I could not imagine life without him. 

I had waited so long for him to find me.  Those were halcyon days.  I retired early and moved to Maine.  I spent days out on a boat, fishing and taking in how wonderful we were together.  I had the time to begin writing my book.  I had time to make a rock garden Medicine Wheel.  We went on a cruise.  We spent winters in Yuma, Arizona and it was so thrilling to hike the mountains with my brother and his wife.  We got along so famously.  I felt whole.  I felt, for the first time, being loved and cherished by a partner.  Little did I know, it would not last.  15 years later, we had the VA move in a medical/hospice bed.  In five weeks, we went from him saying something was off, to the day he died.  Not even the loss of my parents equaled his loss.  Ever since, 2015, I have simply been putting in time. 

Once I gathered who I was without him, I made myself a promise that I would live for him.  I have taken him, in the blown glass necklace that holds some of his ashes, silver, gold and bronze, everywhere important I have been:  trips, cruises, and when I feel lonely for him, I put it on. I wear his turquoise Bear totem along with my Goddess. He has gone on more cruises with me. I have seen far and distant places through his eyes.  I have not been able to write poetry any more.  I cannot go that deeply that is necessary to write it.  I felt rudderless until I got that I could live for him.  The heart is such a memory-keeper.  He promised me feathers.  They have come dropping out of the blue of the sky.  They have landed inside my vehicle on the dash as I was driving.  I find them, as have some who have been with me in auspicious places.  The features in strange places remind me that I am living for him. 

For those of you who grieve, try what I am doing:  make yourself a promise to commit to care, to share, to be there with the person you are without, in a thousand quiet ways.  I never lost him.  I found new ways to be with him.   

©Carol Desjarlais 6.22.26

 

 

 

 

 

Walk in Forgiveness

Forgiveness is not forgetting.  It is not dwelling on the negative.  It is in the past.  It is not your present.  I am working diligently on forgiveness right now.  I am going to those who have misaligned me, have caused me harm through the discourse of gossip.  I can only do what I can do.  There are some things I need to do to forgive them.  It is a tough walk, betimes. 

I am reminded of the braid my brothers and sisters wear (those with the original DNA of the Americas).  The braid represents our body, mind, and spirit.  A strong braid of three does not break easily.  Our body, mind, and spirit all need to be healthy and braided evenly and well, right to the end of the strands.  When one strand is not strong, it weakens the rest.  The damage to one strand weakens the rest. 

Harm is not the Creator’s fault.  Harm is not the Creator’s idea of what we should experience.  It is people.  Since I have moved back to the homeland that I grew up in, I am remembering.  I am immediately forgiving those who harmed a lonely, fringe little girl, teenager, young woman, mother.  I am becoming more of what the Creator wanted for me. 

What harms us, harms the creator.  When we harm others, we harm Creator for life down here on earth is a walk with Creator.  I spent many early years being afraid and then hardened against God.  It was not until I heard and experienced the Red Road, that I chose to replace the name God, for Creator.  It helped me feel less hurt and less alone.  Somehow my soul needed that badly. 

As we walk with Creator, we may have been hurt physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.  Creator hurt with us.  But we had choices as to let it weaken our strands, or strengthen our strand.  We may choose to carry that pain in our body, and it shows.  It shows in our eyes, in our posture, in our actions and our very spirit is inflicted.  We become spiritually hurt and by holding onto that/those hurts, weaken the base strand.  We turn on ourselves.  We become angry and all the expressions of anger show up in our lives.  We can become bitter.  We walk a journey of time in that anger and it shows.  I have walked in all the expressions of anger.  I slowly (because I seem to be a slow learner) began to work on following the Medicine Wheel concepts in order to heal from my personal traumas.  This ios very hard work.  Blessed Be to those who have walked this path before me and shown me the way.

Forgiving the perpetrator(s) is probably the toughest.  We are all fallen creatures.  Someone hurt them and so they hurt others.  They have gone merrily along in their own life path and we are stuck back there when it happened.  We do not have to dwell on revenge in any way.  It is in our heart that we hold that hard nut of anger against them.  In doing so, we keep a strand I our braid weak.  We become weak and end up not walking the right path ourselves. Many of us have walked the walk with Creator weeping.  Creator offers us ways to walk the path of forgiveness to heal ourselves.  We cannot wait for someone, or even Creator to heal us.  Creator gave us a path to healing; we must walk it in order to be strong. 

Oh, then it is trying to forgive ourselves.  When others hurt us, I do not know why we automatically find a way to blame ourselves.  We curtail our future blessings by sinking into a puddle of muddle and our judgments become off, our decisions become off, our braid begins to unravel.  We have to pray for our healing and…yes, pray our perpetrator(s) might be healed as well.  Eventually, it seems to me, that where I was broken, becomes stronger.  I actually met one of my monsters when I moved here…without any ire, we sat and talked for over an hour…oh, my goodness I felt it all slip away.  He was drunk.  I saw he was weak, I guess, and the mother/comforter in me came out.  I have felt so proud of myself.  That healed all the years I had been hanging on to that.  I felt it automatically, miraculously, be whisked away.  Aw, 70 x 7…  got aa lot of work to do yet.  We cannot harbor the wounds we carry and keep them open.  Best healing is having a good long talk with Creator for healing by forgiving and not forgetting.

I find my fight/flight response waning.  My limbic system storehouse was pretty full.  We cannot rewrite our experiences.  But to forgiven means to be forgiven for our reactions to it all, as well.  Positive experiences wash us.  I, also, smudge, carry protection (which reminds me not to react, as well). 

 

I am walking a solitary walk on my journey right now.  I feel like I am coming out of the fog.   I have to remember that my wounds and scars made me who I am.  My spirit, I have protected, well) is strong and getting stronger. 

I forgive them.  I forgive myself.  I love them.  I love myself.  Braid on.

©Carol Desjarlais 6.20.26