Hi Maggie,
I'm here! Really!
Last week was crazy. Every day I thought I would get here, but life kept lobbing balls at me. I kept punting.
S#3 was supposed to come up on Wednesday. She was planning to arrive just as a committee meeting was finishing. I thought she was late, until after the meeting when I checked email, and she said she would be here on Friday evening.
And I had the baby a lot. And...lots of stuff...some I will think about here...
When I said shame is soft, pride is hard, I think I was talking about the two extremes of resiliency, or more correctly - lack of resiliency. At the pride end, life is so stiff that anything can shatter it. At the shame end, life is so amoebic that anything can enter...there are no barriers.
I didn't mean the open-hearted welcoming, loving kind of soft...
As for your youngest, I offer you my prayer. It worked for me, and I really don't think I need it any more. If I need it for a grand, I will get it back..."Oh Lord, please get this one to 25 when adult onset thinking begins...please!"
I am physically exhausted, as you are. An for the same reason...the garden. I am probably a third of the way through. With all the rain, I just could not get out there. And when the weather was nice, I had other stuff...
And we didn't have a double birthday, we had a quadruple. And when my oldest son and his family get home, which I believe in my heart of hearts will happen, it will be a quintuple birthday. We have five birthdays in 13 days. We went down to the lake and had a picnic. It was nice. I enjoyed having everyone there...except for missing the other-end-of-the-country kids. And we are all such creative cooks, that it adds to the fun.
So this weekend, my meeting had a retreat. We are facing dwindling numbers, dwindling energy, aging, fear of loss...We scheduled this retreat before my youngest had the shock of changing jobs. I was supposed to go alone, but instead I had my granddaughter with me. That was distracting, and I felt like it symbolized my current connection with meeting. Because of the car thing, I am only half there. And I usually feel guilty.
The retreat was great. We started out talking about times we felt truly spiritual in our meeting. We talked about what we think we bring to meeting. So the leaders got us into a really positive place regarding our meeting. I know I looked around and thought, I KNOW these people.
Then they did something hard. They asked us to name each other's gifts. It was easy to speak to others, but hard to listen to Friends talk about me. We made one Friend cry. The rest of us were embarrassedly glowing.
The first person to speak said they have never seen anyone as loving, accepting and connected with youth as I am. Someone said I am the spark. I was shocked. I am the one who not only has ideas, but knows how to follow through. I don't see that in myself. Someone said I don't speak often, but when I do I nail the truth. Someone said my spirit is very gentle, but very present. I don't remember it all. I was overwhelmed. But the last person said that I am one of the kindest people they ever met.
And I thought about all the times I have been cruel, and was grateful that I am not that any more..or as much that any more...
So that has been life...and on top of that I have three dreams to share...any insight would be welcome.
In the first I was in the house where many of my dreams have been taking place. As usual, there are many people in the house. I noticed a little girl, maybe 3 or 4 years old. I asked whose she was and someone told me - Nobody's. I said if she needed adopted, I would take her. So I picked her up and carried her with me. At bedtime, I took her to bed with me. She was in the bed, pushed up against the wall, and I reached over and put my hand on her chest. I thought - you are always gong to feel my touch, you are never going to feel alone again. Then as I drifted to sleep, I wondered if she was me...
The next night, or maybe the night after that, I was in a big square field. The grass was overgrown, but soft and not hard to walk in. The north side of the field was a row of mature trees, maybe maple or oak. There were more big old shade trees in the field. There were also two or three big Victorian house...blue-gray with white trim. No one was living in them, but they were in good shape. There were a group of people, various ages, in Victorian clothes - all light colors, again blues and grays. Someone wanted to build something new, but not destroy what was already there. And the people were Finns. Like from Finland. Young people started excavating under the houses to see if they were sound. Suddenly they were excavating in my body, under my skin...
Message received in dream - must write a specific book. I messaged back - if I have the time and money...I will write the book.
I work up, turned on the light and jotted down notes about the dream. Then I turned off the light and laid back down...as I drifted to sleep, I was back on that land.
So the next dream...I was back on the land, but I noticed it was on top of a mesa. When I looked over the edge, there were lights way down below. I wasn't sure if it was a drop or a steep road. I was starting to panic, but then I thought - "this is a dream, don't worry." Then I was down below, attending a psychology lecture, being led by one of the Finns who had been up on the land, and who looked like an older Quaker I knew from my first meeting. I thought he was an ancestor, but Finn? And what are they excavating for under the houses? And there was a shack in the corner of the land...was that me? Under neath --- something about closing Gitmo...Asked our grandmothers and they were both there...I asked them to stimulate my memory...where are we in the line? I saw a storm in the far distance. Then I was thinking about our family line...I was in the person in Ireland who was displaced by Cromwell...and I became that person...as I came through our history, I became each person in turn. I was all of our ancestors...I felt it all. It was like riding a bullet...
All of the stories are just mine.
Crazy!!!
Love and hugs from Clare
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