Wonder of Birds (The Innocence Mission)

Whew, what a week (in a good way), busy but rewarding!  

I wrote on Tuesday about attending our second bereavement support group; I am keeping them (mostly widows) in my heart, especially with the holidays right around the corner, a definite trigger. 

I had high hopes for my first therapy appointment, and she met all my expectations, and beyond.  I wept through most of the session, as I was able to speak so freely about Eric... the details of his passing, a multitude of memories, and what coping mechanisms (so many coping mechanisms!) I'm using to move forward.  We have set up an every-other-week schedule, with the next one being Monday November 27 (after we return from our trip to the Atlanta area for Thanksgiving).  I realize it's Pandora's Box, unleashing all the pain and suffering in the (my) world, but I have to believe that, like the myth, Hope remains an achievable possibility... 💖

Sarah and I did indeed follow through on our scheduled psychic reading; I've had so many visitations (stronger at first, less so now), so the timing felt right.  All I told Celeste (our reader) in advance is that I lost a loved one, and asked if we should bring something of theirs; she replied no, that she didn't like to know anything beforehand.  The session resonated on so many levels; I wish I'd recorded it but Sarah and I went back to her house for lunch afterward, and I took notes from what was fresh in our collective minds.  

Celeste used the Light Seer's Tarot deck, and I've been able to do some research since then.  I was pretty much a puddle from the beginning, but Sarah kept her wits about her to ask intuitive questions; The Queen of Swords was what came up when Sarah asked if E had a message for me (notice the bird, one of many in our session; also, many of the cards showcased a grouping of three).  Goosebump-inducing.  So much more, but I'm holding it close for now.  Maybe at some point I will share on Facebook the "map" of our read and ask for opinions/thoughts from those who have tarot backgrounds... 🤷

Lastly, I went over to Sarah's last night so we could watch Funny Girl together (she'd never seen it!); we had previously entertained the thought of attending the touring production, currently at our local Broward Center for the Performing Arts, but the timing didn't work out.  I picked up dinner from our fave sushi place, and warned her that I knew all the words to every song, but would try not to sing along, saving that for Thanksgiving clean-up with my sister Mari (I will share that story next week).  "I got 36 expressions, sweet as pie and tough as leathah" - ha!).

Dinner tonight with friends Buck and Kathy, and tomorrow will find me at the Miami Book Fair (zippity!).  Although grief is always in evidence (as it should be), Life feels calmer, more peaceful, manageable.  E assured us:  "I am standing right next to you".  I feel him... 💗

SONG:  Wonder of Birds by The Innocence Mission

BOOK:  And Still the Bird Sings: A Memoir of Finding Light After Loss by Linda Broder

POEM(S):  One Boy by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Today the heart is full of ghosts—

one doing backflips and one

eating ice cream and one throwing

rocks in the river. One drops

a camera into a lily pond while trying

to take a picture. One peels apples

and one rides on my hip and one

sings country songs. One lights a candle

and one blows it out and one spends hours

arguing about which of the ghosts is most right.

And one is never satisfied. And one

has a thousand dull gray eyes. And one,

one whispers, I’ve got this, Mom.

And I turn to them all, one at a time,

and say welcome, you’re all welcome here.

Even the ghost who slams the door.

Even the ghost who bristles, who swears.

Ghost playing drums. Ghost aiming

nerf guns. Ghost wearing button down shirts.

Ghost with a brain made for zeros and ones.

Ghost with hands in the dirt.

And the heart expands to hold them all—

or were its corridors already stretched?

Straight A ghost. Red canoe ghost. Ghost

of the man I’ll never know. Ghost

who sits beside me at the table,

who says nothing, sipping sweet tea.

Ghost who tucks me into bed, then

slips into my dreams.

While in the Middle of Many Errands by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

At the edge of the Big Five parking lot,

in a tree still fully leafed out in November,

there must have been hundreds of invisible birds

all singing as if singing is what a day is for,

and the riotous song traveled

over the vast black asphalt sea

crossing all the organizing straight white lines—

so much song for such a small tree—

and stunned, my daughter and I stood and listened,

our rush stopped by the glorious commotion,

as if awe is what a day is for,

as if we exist to be stretched ever wider by disbelief,

as if we are here to know ourselves

as part of something greater,

the world calling us again and again

deeper into the mystery.

QUOTE:  "It is the paradoxical nature of grief to lead us to love. There is a seed planted in loss, an evolution made in breaking, a genius found in separation that is rarely apparent in the heart of crisis. But often what looks like deviation is really proliferation, like satellite initiatives born from a group’s dissolution. Intimacy is forged in the hearts of those who know exclusion. To them is given the gift of tenderness which can mentor another through their own isolation." ―Dreamwork with Toko-pa

“Our work is to show we have been breathed upon—to show it, give it out, sing it out, to live it out in the topside world what we have received through our sudden knowledge, from body, from dreams, and journeys of all sorts.” ~ Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes