Empty Moments

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.-© Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Hush, There Are Crows About

crick of crickets  harrumph beneath peonies

blossoms swooning from heat

petals parachuting in wildest winds

i take my love there

Litha tosses colors to four corners

prisms fractured by moonlight

crystallized dew weeps

rock hard diamonds delivered

so speak wren chicks hidden in lace

between shadows and moonstreams

under heavy humid sky

hush     i whisper

there are crows about

Juno delivered mighty blows

riding in on her dark horse

slither of snake in its greens and golds

dark stripe of hiss and curl

sage is stirred in air

by lift and loft of ether

to heighten hierarchy of moontime beings

a bumblebee moth makes spirals

in hopes of one last sip of nightime nectar

i rise and come here

hem of white gown stroked

by reflected Luna's luminescent lines

smocked with shades of another full moon

after moon after moon after moon

no bitter sip from sorrow's chalice

a seamed serenity around such wounds

as once felt ominous and growling urge

made silent by years of yearning still

i take my love here and there

where sings night serenades in choirs

when crows have nestled too high

to hear our veritable vulnerability

hush     there are crows about

©Carol Desjarlais 6//2019

 

We have gone through the poem, "The Invitation", section by section.  Has it caused thought and empowerment?

©Carol Desjarlais 6.30.19

What Sustains Us

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. -© Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Not many of us have not started over...and over.. and over, again.  I have gone from throwing kid's clothes into black plastic garbage bags, spending 6 months in RCMP hiding, to moving every four years to another Reservation community to work, to packing up everything I owned, in another country,  overnight, and flying home to Canada, then moving from one Province to another.  Not too many moves were adventure.  The worst was moving from Maine to Alberta, overnight, when Man Hands passed away and I broke.  My daughter had to lead me by the hand to the airport and back to Alberta.  That was the worst.  Indeed, remaking life after trauma can be the hardest falling away.  Been there, got the scars.  What keeps one going when this happens...?  When, even, one might not want to survive it?

We are such resilient beings.  WE do not seem to be able to give up.  I can't.  No matter how tough it got, the tougher I became.  At my lowest moment on this earth, when Man Hands five week battle and passing went on, I broke.  I am serious.  I broke, completely.  Nothing on earth ever hurt me worse.  I do not think I will ever be so hurt again.  In fact, I brace myself against that kind of hurt.  I am well aware of what could break me again and I am hoping I go first.

There are things that make us sad.  There are things that wound us so deeply, but that is only surface things and we tend to get over them with strength drawn from people, places and things.  Some things will never heal.  We redefine ourselves and know when frustration hits a level that we can no longer sustain it.  We learn, I learn, to back off for a bit so it does not move to wounding more.  I learned self-love and self-compassion.  

I am, constantly, learning to control what I can and allow non-control when I cannot.  I realize, my poor daughter, that best friends can be best enemies.  We have all been betrayed by such at some point in our lives.  I can say, most times, I like myself and who I have become.  Yes, there are some things I need work on, for sure, but even recognizing what needs work is taking a step forward... sometimes a huge leap.  I have gained more and more confidence as I try try again.  Sometimes fear of being hurt can immobilize us, but, if we did not care, it would not matter.  

I refuse to let my mind control me...oh, that Evil Inner Witch!  A great deal of mental junk only hinders us from knowing our inner strength and bravery.  I am no good when things get clouded and fuzzy.  I am not a fence sitter for very long before I jump off and make the best of a best choice.  I try to maintain a positive attitude, sometimes that comes off as strength, but it is my weakness.  Betimes, I have been crucified by those I was remaining positive about.  But, I have always given people three chances.  After the third chance I allow a relationship to simply fade away.  Oh, I might mutter and sputter to myself and a close friend, but I still work at letting negative people go on without me.  Sometimes we have to save ourselves.   

Life down here on earth can be difficult...perhaps it was meant to be.  I try to be open-minded and ask the WHY of things.  I persevere by putting one foot in front of the other, come what may.  I crave peace with self and others.  I have only so much energy anymore and I want to expend that energy on things that truly matter.  Fear is a huge factor in our lives and until we know the WHY we react so, we cannot control our fear.   Something I always told my kids rings loud and clear in my today long after they have grown u0:  "Are your guts hanging out, are you bleeding to death?  Ok, so you can make it!"  There is something in me that will not let life's troubles defeat me.  I cannot give into fear or it will simply take over.  The mind is a crazy thing.  Sometimes it screams, "Give up!  Give UP!" I own it.  I cannot let my mind own me.

What sustains me is that I do not care if life ends now.  Perhaps that is the key;  the surrender and acceptance that I am okay with being done.  Sometimes I am willing because I want to be done when things are going smoothly, before the next hard part.  There is strength in that, for me.  It is ok.  I am ok.  We will all be ok.  Sometimes we can, mentally, give up but there is something deep inside that says, "Not Yet!" and a strength comes that we have not bidden.  

We can choose different things to sustain ourselves.  What kinds of things sustain you?

©Carol Desjarlais 6.29.19

Standing in the Fire

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back. -© Oriah Mountain Dreamer

I think love makes us reflexive...in that, what you immediately do either shows love, instantly, or not.   

A while ago, my sister told a story about how someone had insulted my her.  My reaction was vehement and immediate.  I would have gone to battle for her right then, right there, if that person had been in front of me.  It was a slow burn and even now I can feel myself ready to do battle over it.  In fact, I do not think my sister was as insulted as I was.  I still find, when I think of it, that my immediate thought was, "How DARE she say such a thing to you!"  Everything in me wanted the gratification of telling that person off and big-time so she would never think to try to insult my sister again.  See, that is what love is.  It was not thought out, it was immediate reaction.  Yes, I would stand in the middle of a fire with her if she were in one.  She would do the same for me.

There are not many people we would do such for.  I would do that for my children, without thought, but friends?  Perhaps a few, but not many.  I am always one who really works on stopping and thinking the WHY of something, or someone's actions. 

I remember being told in a church meeting, once, a long, long time ago, that the day might come when we had to allow our children to suffer as it might be god's plan.  (Another wedge in that religion for me.)  No way!  No how!  No why!  I would simply give my life.  My kids know that.  I never ever spanked my kids and I was not about to let anyone else either.  An adult hit my youngest son, out of the blue.  Like a ravaging bear I attacked and that adult was so shocked but was known to be a violent man.  Afterwards, when I got that person out of the house, my young child said to me, "Mom, you would have died for me!" Yes.  Yes I would have.  My kids got so they would not tell me some of their stuff because I defended them to the law.  But, they knew my depth of loyalty to them.  Love is reflexive.

It is not that I do not think anyone can be wrong, or that things might have been said or done in a totally different perspective.  I am a defender of those I love.  In my work, I defended my 'kids" as I called my students.  And, many times I had to because many of them had violent histories within the system, within the community.  I always gave everyone three chances.  On the third time that they repeated something I could not agree with, and I had figured out the why and done the counseling to change that, then I would quietly withdraw.  One time I was retrieving a teenager who had a violent history, justice interception and referrals, and yet, when I met with him and his family, I saw something in him, felt something in him, and I had to do battle to let him be included in the retrieval program.  I was called to the main school office to meet with the principal.  He was all set to tell me that the young man could not be on school grounds.  I could tell, while talking, that the Principal had a closed mined and I knew the only way I was going to win for this boy was to talk psychological jargon.  I started off on talking about Multiple Personality, which I got a clue of when interviewing the boy.  I used all the specific language and spoke of methods and support of a MP Specialist I was friends with who would help train me to work with this boy.  Ok, the boy was 17 years old, taller than me, and could be very aggressive.  I kept on and on about braiding weak personalities with the strong positive personalities... blah blah blah until finally the Principal said, Ok.  Ok, you know your stuff.  You win!  I quietly turned directly to look at him because I had been 'pretty' adamant, and he said, "You guys are all the same.  You F.... with heads and you just f...ed with mine."  I said, "Yes, I did, was it as good for you as it was for me?"  We laughed until tears streamed.    And he said, well, Mother Theresa is going to be gone soon and they will need someone to take her place."  LOL... I left, telling him, "I did not win.  You did not win, but that boy is going to!"  And the boy did and he was the most interesting kid I ever worked with who opened up to me so wide that I was able to start braiding his personalities together.  I put him in vulnerable positions and saw him come, one time to the skiing adventure, with his pants up under his armpits and suspenders, and slobbering.  He was so vulnerable that Little D came instead of Doom or Big D.  Oh Doom was some kind of scary.  But, before he graduated out of my class he handed me a notebook full of writing from one personality to another; complete with the different language levels, and writing levels, for the corresponding personalities.  He taught me way more than I taught him.  I was driven to be of help to those 112 kids I eventually retrieved in those four years I piloted the program I had written for the Government and personalized for each community I was in.   Defended those kids right to the court rooms where a judge would say, "Well, if you are in her program that means you have a better chance of changing than being put in the Juvenile Center."  So much responsibility, but when I bought in to caring about those kids, I bought into defending them as well.  And, by the way, I had some I could not work with, some I would not work with.  I knew my limitations.  They had to show me they were worthy of me defending them.  I put my job on the line to defend what I believed of them, many times throughout the years.

So, how do we know who we would stand in the fire with?  Apparently it is not blood family.  Apparently it is not just within the home and family.  Apparently it has something to do with unconditional, yet, conditional love.  It isn't just the stranger on the street, but a stranger in the home.  That is pretty heavy duty; to say, and to risk, standing in the fire with someone.  

Who and in what circumstances would you stand in the fire with?

©Carol Desjarlais