Journal of Sacred Work

Days 181-182 Our Sacred Song

“If you want the truth, I’ll tell you the truth: Listen to the secret sound, the real sound, which is inside you.” -Kabir

At the beginning of creation, many believe "a divine, all-encompassing consciousness took the form of the first and original vibration manifesting as the sound ‘OM’ "- A Holy name of God.

When we sing our sacred song, soul’s door naturally opens to awaken our happiness. Nature too, provides ample opportunity for us to enter into the presence of the Divine. If we offer a listening prayer we may experience a taste of God's eternal song.

Last May, I visited my mom at her home in Vermont. Each morning, I walked the winding hill from her house and back again to appreciate springs flowering. On one occasion, I heard the most exquisite bird song serenade.

Uncertain as to the origin of this enchanting overture, I wondered if it could really be a bird or perhaps was instead a human who whistled the tune. I noticed two cars parked by an entry into the woods. I surmised that most likely birdwatchers were the virtuosos of this sweet, sweet refrain.

Later that week, my friend Jean and I took a walk along the same country road and I told her about my experience.  We saw various native birds and listened to their songs of joy but we did not hear that otherworldly melody. This only confirmed my earlier suspicion that the tune I heard must have been a human; such was its mystery.  Still, the encounter left a lingering fragrance.

The morning I was to leave Vermont was poignant as I anticipated my mom's goodbye kiss.  I decided to walk the hill one last time before heading off. Walking along, I breathed in morning’s freshness and took in the quiet. That is when I heard that remarkable bird song again, so clear and so true; was this song of God’s abundant Love.

~liz Sorensen Wessel

polyprint watercolor by ~liz

Definition of OM from Wikepedia

Days 179-180 - Sacred Story

"The goal in sacred story is always to come back home..." - Richard Rohr

We leave home and head off on our search. What we discover, if we are persistent, is that what we seek is always "back home."

   But, we can't know home unless we have been away. "Home" is where our greatest truth lies.

   Sacred Story doesn't live in the shallow waters of Facebook or in the thin crust of most conversations. The holiest of ourselves lives in the deep.

   I learned a remarkable fact from Eckhart Tolle. The word person is derived from ancient words that meant "per" - "through" and "son" - "mask." People long ago invented a word for us that means we are people who "look through a mask" at the world and, in turn, present a mask to this same world.

   When we really go all the way back home, we look behind our own masks. There, we see our stories honestly and touch the edge of our mystery.

   Carl Jung understood. "Life is a luminous place between two great mysteries, which themselves are one." Every great storyteller helps us know this.

   Too often, we brush the surface of our own stories. In so doing, we miss the power these tales hold for us.

   In making a little film to celebrate my mother's one hundredth birthday (she is 13 years old in the photo above), I felt compelled to focus on happy events, smiling family, birds that she loves, and her favorite music. Imagine how much I left out.

   In fact, I didn't really tell her story at all because I thought the audience at the party would only want the Hallmark Card version.

   You can't live a hundred years without collecting chapters of pain as well as joy. Yet these are the pages that may tell us the most.

   Do photographed smiles tell the truth about our journey? Do you have any pictures of yourself in tears?

   More important, do you have any photographs of the stories you tell yourself? These images live inside of us (although they can sometimes be discerned in the corners of an expression.)

   "Why think about the hard times?" people often say. Caregivers know the answer to this.

   The deeper we study our most difficult chapters the closer we come to developing empathy for the suffering of others. And the more we learn to empathize with our own suffering.

   Suffering nurtures kindness.

   Can we face into our stories courageously and artfully enough to grow all the way into Radical Loving Care?

-Erie Chapman

Days 176-178 - Bed

 

bed covers 2 - copyright erie chapman 2012

Ample make this bed.
Make this bed with awe;
In it wait till judgment break
Excellent and fair.
-Emily Dickinson

 

   How long since you have used the earth as your bed?

   Western society alienates us from the ground as a place to sleep. Why lie in the woods when we can climb in to our Serta Perfect Sleeper, our Sleep Number Bed, or our high-priced Tempurpedic?

   But, our beds are too powerful an image to be reduced to commercial names. Sacred things happen there.

   We were likely conceived in a bed. It is equally likely that we conceived our own babies there. 

   We could not rise from our first bed unaided until beyond our infancy.

   In illness, we take to our bed.

   We spend a quarter to a third of our lives in sleep. There we experience dreams that bend our consciousness. 

   It is remarkable how quickly we discard the stuff of our dreams. Desperate to reorient to the world's "reality" we cast off the "crazy" landscape we have just left.

   Yet, thinkers as far back as Plato have told us that life itself is a dream.

   Our everyday mind too often and too easily discards what it cannot at first understand. That is how we read our dreams.

   Beds are among the most intimate places we occupy. We even change our clothes (or wear none) to sleep in them. 

   Among the most powerful images of caregivers are those portraying them at the bedside.

   Our ultimate bed will be our last. We want it to be as Dickinson described:

Be its mattress straight,
Be its pillow round;
Let no sunrise' yellow noise
Interrupt this ground.

-Erie Chapman

Days 174-175 - Beyond the Mere Confines of Words

Watercolor "Jacaranda Tree Tops" by ~liz 6-17-12

Note: The following reflection surfaced for me upon reading Erie Chapman’s fine essay “Intimacy: The Sacred Encounter between Caregiver and Patient”, (June 8, 2012).

It can be very difficult to stand present with someone who is suffering or within the poignancy of their dying. Our first inclination may be to run as we are uncertain of what to say or do as well as being confronted with our own vulnerability. Yet, if we show up with a listening heartfelt presence it communicates beyond the mere confines of words; for we can trust that the sacredness of Love will guide us and mutually bless the encounter.

Yet, we are human and sometimes even with the best intentions we may falter. The one person in the whole world I wanted to show up for was my brother, John Sorensen. During his intense six month illness, our family rallied to support him and rotated staying with him at his home. Since I lived cross country, I came home to companion him during his hospitalizations and stayed with him 24/7 for 2-3 weeks at a time, without a bed and little sleep.  Still, we developed a good rhythm and I provided for his most intimate care. We had a trusting easy flow between us.

I remember the afternoon when my sister and I met with his oncologist. He planned to tell my brother of his poor prognosis the next morning. Wanting to protect, my sister and I decided that it might be better if I told him that evening. I attempted to gently relay the truth. Naturally, he was very upset and felt that he was given a death sentence. It was somewhat of an outer body experience for me, surreal. His girlfriend was upset with me that I broke the news. I did not mean to crush his hope; only soften the impending blow. Perhaps, I forgot everything I knew as a palliative care nurse. Looking back, I deeply regret intervening and I wish I had let the doctor be the one to tell him.

After that, my brother sought a second opinion with a prominent physician in Manhattan. He gave him a more favorable prognosis and a glimmer of hope. Johnny went through major surgery and endured unimaginable pain with great courage but his condition continued to rapidly worsen.

I can recall a few times when Johnny gave me cues that he wanted to talk about his dying. You see we were always very close. Instead I sat quietly with him, afraid "to go there again ”.  I  regret the missed the opportunity to open into that sacred space with him. Now, I can think of a million diffent ways I might have responded.

Eventually, Johnny was admitted to a hospice hospital to better manage his unrelenting pain.  I was alone there with him the night he died, suctioning him, providing his care, singing, praying and talking to him. It required all my courage. Yet, since then I have lived with this terribly painful regret. Three years have passed, and the feelings are beginning to ease to the point that I can share this with you. Still, in doing so, I feel quite vulnerable.

 I do not wish to cause discomfort to anyone who might happen upon this page. Nor, am I seeking your sympathy. Perhaps, it is a part of the healing process; as blessings gradually replace painful memories. It is my hope that bringing this to light might be of benefit to someone else in need.

What I learned from my experience is that I was not able to maintain nursing objectivity when caring for my brother. Also, I have a greater understanding of a whole other dimension of grief- beyond loss, which caregivers also may experience. On a less than rational level we can torture ourselves with the “what ifs” or I wish I said this or done that, rather than focusing on all we were able to give.

What I do know is that we loved (love) each other and our family infinitely, and that was abundantly clear to both of us, beyond the mere confines of words.

Gratefully,

~liz Sorensen Wessel

 

 

 

 

Days 172-173 Beyond The Body

  "God is that beautiful danger wherein the earth no longer needs to behave..."  -John O'Donohue

   Beyond the borders of the body, and the brain it houses, lies mystery.  Our minds try to figure it out. But the only answer is to yield to a "knowing" beyond analysis. 

   Unless we are attentive our body will block spiritual experience. As we glimpse the edges of "the beyond" the body constantly calls us back to its demands and our mind struggles to understand.

   Analytical thinking obstructs spiritual experience. The best our mind can do is to attend to signals, to watch where the heart is pointing. 

   What do the mystics and geniuses see? Why do we care?

   I read John O'Donohue, David Whyte, Emily Dickinson, Stephen Dunn, Eckhart Tolle and Anne Sexton because I know these people have seen beyond their bodies.

   I listen to Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Elgar and Paul McCartney because I believe they, in their clearest moments, hear a music so deep within them that it comes from beyond the body's boundaries. 

   When Joni Mitchell sings her slow jazz version of "Both Sides Now" she is singing from beyond herself. She allows her being to be the instrument of Beauty.

   To hear her, we must do the same. 

   When I listen to famed storyteller Minton Sparks (left) perform I hear music that comes from beyond her body and yet through it. Her stories are songs. Her songs are stories that travel through her heart and into ours.  

   Renoir saw it, Rodin felt it, basketball star Bill Russell touched it. 

   Meryl Streep, Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman have all known it.

   Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Clara Barton and Florence Nightingale appreciated it and lived it. That is why we experience them as otherworldly - as saints.

   They know that, as Antoine de St. Exupery's fox says in The Little Prince: "It is only with the heart that one can see clearly. What is essential is invisible to the eye." 

   Geniuses of this earth appreciate that knowing God means knowing an energy "wherein the earth no longer needs to behave."

   You know that what matters flows through our bodies only if we open to the spirit. Real relationships, including love's embraces and caregiver's sacred encounters, tell us this: Our truest sensuality dances with the spirit in the mansion of Love .

   The reverse is also true. Spiritual engagement weaves our senses together

   If you have heard Love in your darkest nights, or if you have held the heart of someone else in their darkest hours, you have seen beyond the body. You have transcended your senses. 

   Until we die, the earth will always pull us back to her. That is why it is so important to know earth's unique glory. When we meet her on her most intimate terms, we find earth's version of paradise - Love.

-Erie Chapman

Photo of Minton Sparks - Submitted

Days 169-171 - Intimacy: The Sacred Encounter Between Caregiver & Patient

 

Mother and Baby copyright erie chapman 2010

   "We are instruments of divine love...created in the image of love...and our goal is to grow more fully into that image by loving each other in concrete ways." - Sallie McFague, Ph.D. Professor of Theology  

   A newly minted mom lay exhausted and exultant. Beside her lay her baby.

   Our first caregivers are our mothers.

   Present as a CEO working on the front lines with nurses, I witnessed the glorious moment when a little girl rose in the world for the first time. I was also present when the new mom phoned her mom.

   "Guess what, it's a girl!" She announced. I only heard her end of a conversation that soon turned to heartbreak. "Well, I'm sorry, mom...mom, i'm sorry. It's a girl. Did I make some kind of mistake?"

   The new mom hung up on her mom and glanced over at me. I touched her shoulder, smiled, congratulated her and felt the inadequacy of my gestures.

    Caregivers frequently have this kind of intimacy with their patients. Doctors and nurses literally reach into the most intimate parts of our bodies, loving us "in concrete ways."

   The best caregivers touch our spirits as well. But, it is the concrete work that often dominates day-to-day caregiving. It is the work behind the scenes that tells us how close caregivers move to patients.

   Outside the delivery room, feeling blessed by having been present at both a birth and a grieving, I was confronted by a person who works in housekeeping. "You want to go in now and help me clean up?" she challenged with a smirk.  She suspected my views of childbirth were romantic. She wanted me to see another side of caregiver-patient intimacy.

   The relationship between caregiver and cared-for is sacred when intimacy is approached with love, respect and selflessness. 

   During rounds one night at Baptist Hospital, I encountered a nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit who was stroking the back of a being who weighed less than two pounds. "How's the baby doing? I asked hopefully."

   "He's dying," Lisa told me as she continued to stroke his back. "It was too hard for the parents so the baby will die with me.

   When people ask me what Radical Loving Care looks like, this is a story I tell. The baby could not ask the nurse to be with him in his final moments. He could not raise his head to say thank you. The nurse was not required by any rules to accompany this infant in his last moments.

   When work is a calling, loving care occurs naturally. "We are divine beings" and our divinity shines forth when we reach out to love another beyond our needs and beyond the expectation of others.

   This is when the caregiver-patient relationship becomes sacred. This is when God appears through us to bless both our lives and that of those we seek to heal.

-Erie Chapman

Days 167-168 - ‘Til I leave You with A Sweet Dream In Your Head

“If you leap awake in the mirror of a bad dream/And for a fraction of a second, you can’t remember where you are/Just open your window and follow your memory upstream/To the meadow in the mountain where we counted every falling star” an excerpt from the song, "Father and Daughter" -by Paul Simon

Let us follow our memories upstream amidst the shimmers of light of our grandfathers, fathers, sons and father figures whose legacies gift our lives from one generation to the next.

Personally, I never had the good fortune to meet either my maternal or paternal grandfather because they both died before I arrived here. Nevertheless, on an intuitive level I feel I have known them through little idiosyncrasies, mannerisms, and quirkiness of love displayed in my parent’s actions. My curiosity is fueled by clues discovered in old family photos, stories and the breadcrumb trails uncovered by genealogy sleuthing.

I can’t help but wonder about the seemingly invisible yet palpable influences our ancestors have on our lives. Beyond any conscious awareness our grandparents’ values are passed on to us through our parents. Although we continually change and evolve over time, the significant contributions of our elders cannot be underscored. I find it a lovely thought to contemplate.

As children much of what we learn is through osmosis by what we observe and the meaning we find in our experiences. Images flutter in my mind of a young girl perched on the knee of my father, of the security of belonging to a clan of three girls and three boys; known in community as the Sorensen family, of my grandmother, cousins, aunts and uncles nearby, and of my father’s generous hospitality and propensity for happiness when surrounded with a house full of company.

Life circles, children metamorphoses into parents, bear sons and daughters who in turn may experience the miracle of birthing new life and eventually encounter joy in grand parenting. In the seasons of love, it is inevitable that we may climb exquisite peaks as well as fall into the depths of sorrow. Yet, amidst all the changing landscapes, the One constant, is Love.

“I believe the light that shines on you will shine on you forever/And though I can’t guarantee there’s nothing scary hiding under your bed/I’m gonna stand guard like a postcard of a golden retriever/And never leave ‘til I leave you with a sweet dream in your head” -Excerpt from the song  "Father and Daughter" by Paul Simon

~liz Sorensen Wessel

Note: mandala drawing by ~liz

Please enjoy this delightful song by Paul Simon called "Father and Daughter"

 

 

Days 165-166 - Sudden!

   Deadre Hall knows as much about sudden life change as anyone I know. A neuro-intensive care nurse for nearly four decades, she has seen the shock on the faces of families and friends.

   "'He was fine when he left for work this morning,' they will tell me,'" Hall says. "People wake up and head off and the next thing they know they are lying in the intensive care unit. We never know."

   No, we don't. Unless we're scheduled to die on Death Row at a particular time on a particular date, we don't know which day will be our last.

   I think of sudden change at least twice a day now when I pass beneath a new sign the Tennessee Highway Department has posted on Interstate Freeways. It records traffic accident deaths. 

   The sign also says, "Don't be the next [to die]"

   The number is new every morning. None of those people expected they would be the next.

   Caregivers live right next to sudden change every day.

   Over and over, patients come into Emergency Departments reciting the same line: "It all happened so fast,": they say, describing their accident. Of course, if accidents happened in slow motion, most of them wouldn't occur.

   "Code Blue!" the PA system announces. Someone has had a heart attack. Caregivers race to stave off death.

   In hospitals and hospices, patients can change consciousness in radical ways. Many caregivers expect death as an everyday way of life.

   Most interesting of all is how easily we retreat from the news that our own death will arrive at the door of heart and break in.

   Theoretically, we have to engage in denial of death. Otherwise we would be paralyzed.

   Maybe this is wrong thinking. Amid our strength, appreciation of our fragile hold on life can enhance our appreciation of the only thing we have - the present moment.

   Caregivers are better positioned to take advantage of this opportunity than others. Those with a Servant's Heart live gratitude everyday. Other caregivers may subconsciously think of themselves as beyond Death.

   There is always a risk of arrogance in caregiving. "I am strong, skilled and healthy," a caregiver may imagine, "the patient before me is weak, ignorant and sick." 

   This kind of thought process can create a power hierarchy that can defeats Radical Loving Care. All it takes to remind us we have been thinking like this is to suddenly fall ill ourselves. 

   How many times have you heard a newly hospitalized caregiver say, "Gee, I never knew what it was like to be on the other side."

   Our health can change in a millisecond. Perhaps, a renewed awareness of this can awaken our deepest compassion for those to whom this has happened - on this day, in this very moment.

-Erie Chapman

Days 162-164 - Beyond The Mirror to The Servant's Heart

   "Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day....what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal." - 2 Corinthians 4:16

   I can't remember the last time I left the house without checking my appearance in the mirror. Most likely it was when I was a child more interested in how fast I could get outside to play than in whether my hair was combed.

   When we notice, in the glass, signs of our "wasting away" most of us think about how to cover or change these reminders that our earthly journey is nearing its end. The words of the Apostle Paul remind us that anxieties over death are misplaced. "...what cannot be seen is eternal."

   The most magical thing about the Servant's Heart is that loving caregivers focus not on the ego that stares back at them each morning from the mirror. Instead, they look with their heart's eyes on the Beauty of the eternal spirit that lives within. 

   For proof of this we need merely look at the lives of our best known caregivers. It's hard to imagine Jesus checking his reflection in the surface of the Dead Sea to see if he looked okay. No one thinks of the simply dressed Peter and Paul, not to mention Mohammad and the Buddha, as people who focused on appearance. Mother Theresa and Gandhi were comfortable in the wrinkled and vulnerable bodies.

   Each of these understood the temporal nature of their earthly journey. Each, by his or her life, sent a message to us that love and caring matter more than fine cars and expensive make-up.

   But, most who live their lives as true servants are people we don't hear about. (Fame may fall on the shoulders of a saint, but only the ego seeks fame.)

   Like the rest of us, caregivers with a Servant's Heart (including the famous saints) are caught in time's web and the pressures of the body during their lives. This is why true servants know how to heal.

   Loving servants can reach out to our suffering because they are in touch with their own. Their alignment with God's Love allows light to pass through them to those of us in need.

   The Servant's Heart is the greatest gift we can have. It lives within us all.

   Yet, Radical Loving Care can only shine through us into this world when we look beyond the mirror. 

-Reverend Erie Chapman

Days 160-161- All Life is Emptiness at its Core

[Thanks to Candace Nagle for serving as a guest columnist with this essay. -erie ]

“All life has emptiness at its core. It is the quiet hollow reed through which the wind of God blows and makes the music that is our life.”   Wayne Muller 

 Essay written by ~ Candace Nagle

Sometimes I find myself living in a gray cloud of nothingness, a space of apathetic numbness that I mistakenly identify as emptiness. I have come to realize this fruitless place is actually overwhelming fatigue of spirit.  And I think the reason that I land there is because I have been so caught up in the demands of my commitments and duties that I have not stopped to develop the ear to hear the music that is my life. 

 When the wind of God blows through me, I want to be able to enjoy feeling the breeze.  I want to find myself standing like a solid tree, branches swaying with the life flowing through me.  And I have come to believe that this is possible only if I, as mother, daughter, friend, and caregiver leave enough space and time around my self to actually be with my dreams, desires, and passions.  Now heading toward 60 years of age, I regret to say, I am just beginning to make room for the wind of God to blow me into being.

 It takes lots of nothing to make something…just like the expanses between stars…all of that emptiness is needed for a star to shine.  These days I crave emptiness…not the gray nothingness of a bone weary life but the kind of emptiness that allows my soul to shine; the kind of emptiness which allows for deep luxurious breathing and warm syrupy stretching that lead me to feel the very core of my body’s aliveness. 

 When we take time “to listen to the wind of our souls”, others can feel the healing life flowing through us.  This is what we want.  But, also, when we do this, beautiful paintings and poems find their way into the world.  Gardens and fabulous ideas bloom.  Our bodies heal.   In loving our selves the world becomes a much better place for everyone.

 May the golden God wind flow up and down your spine, connecting your heart and your mind to your deepest greening dreams.  May all of the space around your body, all of the time around your soul be filled with new life and vitality.  And may you stand in your life like a tree; roots deep in the Earth, branches reaching up into all of that space and wind and light.  May you allow yourself to be that alive.

-Candace Nagle

Days 158-159 - What Does The Servant's Heart Want?

"No wise person ever wanted to be younger." -Native American Aphorism

   When one particular college student applied to medical school he knew that his chances were slim. His grades were adequate but not exceptional.   

   When the admissions committee reviewed his recommendations, they came across one with a key phrase. "This student does not have the best grades, but he has a servant's heart."

   Based on these two words, the student was admitted. Subsequently, he graduated, did his residency and became a great and loving caregiver.

   The Servant's Heart wants nothing. It is not grounded in desire. It does not "try." It will serve because it can only serve, not because it "wants" to.

   This notion confounds the world.  Only the spirit understands.

   A woman touched the hem of Jesus' garment and was healed. Jesus did not "try" to heal her. His goodness could only heal.

   The Servant's Heart is the home of wisdom. When we lie in deep need, it is the caregiver with a Servant's Heart who we want. 

   Some people seem to be born with a Servant's Heart. Fortunatetly, this heart for service lives within all of us. It flowers when nurtured by Love.

   Great healing organizations build cultures of loving care by recruiting for Servant's Hearts. These same organizations recognize and reward those loving care. They know this quality if one of the key ingredients of healing.

   "No wise person wants to be younger." No person who has found the Servant's Heart within them ever wants to go back to patient encounters as mere transactions. 

   The hardest truth about becoming wise is the same truth about becoming old - wisdom comes only after we have suffered through a period when we didn't have it.

   Dr. Bernie Segal told me once that no one changes without a traumatic event - without suffering. Perhaps, whether old or young, you have suffered enough living without a Servant's Heart. Perhaps, now, you are ready to turn open your spirit to the thriving energy of a service that wants nothing because it can, by its nature, only serve.

   The Golden Thread of the Healing Tradition. Respect for Sacred Encounters as integral to Sacred Work. Building a culture made up of caregivers with a Servant's Heart.

   These are the ways organizations go from body repair shops to places that live the holiness of Radical Loving Care.

-Erie Chapman   

Days 155-157 Love's Instructions

 As we discussed the idea of surrendering to God's Love, a male caregiver asked me, "Isn't surrendering like giving up?If I give up, than what would happen to my patients?"

   His question led her to a false conclusion because because he started with the wrong premise. In his mind, surrendering meant not trying anymore. What good caregiver would want to do that?

   The most confusing thing about surrender is the very word. It implies loss of the worst kind.

   But, what if you surrender to Love? Imagine your new life with Love as your guide?

   A patient needs something. Your new world directs you towards Love for the answer rather than towards the threats of a supervisor or the terror of being fired. .

   Love may tell you to help the patient before you or to determine that another patient down the hall needs you more urgently. It may also mean that you are too tired to provide meaningful help or that the patient's problem is beyond your skill level and you need to get an expert.

   If you consult Fear, however, you receive a different answer. Fear might tell you to help the patient even if you are unable to do so effectively because you are afraid of your supervisor. It may also push you to try to do something beyond your skills so that you can win praise.

   If you believe that Love is the highest energy, why fight with her? To fight God suggests that you think you know better.

   Should we fight Fear? If you have surrendered to Love, there is no need to fight with Fear. 

   It is not that you are more powerful than evil. It is that Love is. Let Love deal with evil.

   Jesus surrendered to Love so powerfully that the cross, once an ugly symbol of torture, was converted by his sacrifice into one of the most sacred images in the world.

   Trusting our lives to Love is the most difficult thing we can do, and the most important.

   In the midst of letting go, our other self will shout to us, "Watch out! You will suffer. Love will let you down!"

   But Love cannot let us down. Only we can do that to ourselves.

-Erie Chapman

Further question for reflection: Time is a trick. But, isn't the biggest trick the human notion of "reality?" 

Days 153 -154 - One More Circle around the Sun

“What say we make one more circle, one more circle, one more circle around the sun, around the sun.” -Peter Mayer

As June turns to greet us with gentle breezes, sun is busy splashing gorgeous colors amid Earth’s greening. Sweet scents of Jasmine, honeysuckle and lilac draw us out; birdsongs awaken us from our slumber, serenading us with ALIVE!

June ninth, 2006, marks the sixth anniversary since this sacred Journal’s inception. As I began to reflect upon this approaching milestone I decided to search the Journal archives and read June essays from those early beginnings.

A wave of nostalgia washed over me as I soaked up Erie’s nourishing poetry, images, and inspiring words of encouragement to caregivers, while reader’s impassioned responses further kindled Love’s eternal flame.

This journey has been resplendent in gifting, waxing and waning; some people stopped in for a time, received what they needed and travelled on. A few of us have lingered, some visible, some choosing privacy but contributing energy with their presence.

Some have risked being vulnerable, of being seen. We have reflected, discerned and searched for meaning. We shared (share) our deeper thoughts, feelings, perceptions, truth, wonderings, fears, frustrations, and little glimmers of our souls.

Why? What keeps us turning, returning, and circling in flight together? Sometimes, we soar and weave dreams of a greater good. Other times we tire; fatigued we fall back as others lead us forward on this sacred journey. We are fortified in love; companions with tender heartedness and strength of spirit.

As human beings we long for connection in the safety of non-judgment, trust and unconditional regard. We are learning and when we falter our friends love us…just the same. Here in this place, we can shed the forgotten, discarded, and long ago rejected parts of ourselves to reclaim wholeness and discover the Beauty of our essence. Although an inward journey, when shared, Love is expansive beyond measure.

As caregivers, let us take extra care to celebrate with Erie by nurturing the golden thread of Radical Loving Care with an open-heart. Illuminate one another with a kind word, a loving thought, a hopeful sign. Awaken now to the miracle and joy of being alive here together on this life giving Earth.

~liz Sorensen Wessel

 Note: Mandala and polyprint watercolor by ~liz