LOVE (Contemplation again...)

Is there time for love?

Not the kind of romantic love where there is dating, fast-paced excitement, and sharing smiles. I do not speak of something figurative or otherworldly.

The love I name is broad and foundational and interwoven into the fabric of souls, time, and space--the essence that inspires confidence and learning and sparks desire for beauty, and lifts one to wonder when we experience birth, or human kindness, or nature. I refer also to the hard under-layment of love that supports our mountains and seas and the living that takes place on the planet. That is the love I'm looking for, watching for around me. It is not random or ethereal. It is not superfluous or vague. It is so all important that there is no resting place without it. We would be literally suspended in space, no hope for an ark of safe landing, no peace to shelter us. I ask because it is something I carry inside, but when I try to speak to it, no amount of explaining brings a connection to many on the outside. Then there are those who nod and smile and can look directly into my eyes and say," Yes." They get it, they wanted it, knew they needed it and searched until they found it. We are kindred in this way. But I find these gems of people fewer and fewer. Why? Some young folks know what I mean because they say, "Yeh. My parents have that." or "My grandpa has that." But they seem to think along with malls and cell phones that that is something that is just there, or not. If someone doesn't give it to you, then there's lots to do meanwhile 'til they get around to it. Surely this is a thing learned. How is it taught? It was a given 100 years ago. How is it unlearned?

When I breathe, I am aware of breathing this in. Whether I drink water or survey the sea, it is there. When I walk, when I look up, accomplish daily routines, when I survey a crowd, examine the minuteness of a snow flake or garden mosses; when I stand in the stillness of night or watch the stars; when I reach to touch others-- it is with this essence that is not mine, but that speaks through me. When I pray it is the earth beneath me, the alter of my prayer, the stairway that lets me know I have been heard.

I am baffled by the randomness that is found amusing. The purposelessness that is considered witty. The music that has no message. The connections that can't be made, and the lost children crying because they can't make them. In such a world suicide is optional, drugs are recreational, abortion is meaningless, worship is deluded. It is a state of being, but the becoming something, becoming more than we are is met with,"huh?' Stares that mean, "Oh, you're a religious fanatic." and the need to wander away. No one walks purposefully away, TO somewhere. Nowhere is everywhere. Somewhere does not happen. These are masses waiting to be fed, to be directed, to be given to, sway in similar patterns if something focuses them, (anger, fear, revenge, sadness, compassion) but own of themselves, none of these passions-- have little thought individually other than a restlessness, insatiable unhappiness, that has stopped being hungry. It has the same feeling and face of someone on the brink of starvation, who has gone past the point of living, but still lives, the concentration camp victim who has lost hope. What mist of darkness is this? I shudder in horror. I ask Why-- How? But I do not see the answers clearly. When I try to name it these same masses fight back and do not want it to be named. They speak of me as being reactionary, extreme, over emotional, conspiracy oriented, or apocalyptic. It is not any of these things to name the loss of love.

But is is a grief that is far too big for me.

Holding My Breath

February 9, 2011

The blue brightness of mid-winter days has the effect on me-- perhaps like being suspended in time and space. I feel held securely, yet spin freely, as though from a giant rope... There is a holding of breath-- waiting for something to happen, something to change. Wrapped together in all this loveliness is the invariable uncertainty, (which somehow is different from unexpected) of wondering what weather the next weeks will bring? -- Will it be spring? Will it be blizzards, freezing temperatures? Winter might hand out endless days of fog, inversions, or simply the days of gray everything..no sky, no snow, not warm enough to green, not cold enough to set the mud? One year it was violets in February, weeks of balmy air and blue heaven, followed by 2 foot drifts, ice, and a spring that couldn't get the right foot out front till April's end. In Fine, SUSPENSE. The whole while, a funny little inner voice retorts on any change in the weather, "I guessed as much." or "Just what I expected, of course!"

I love the crispness of air that in not nearly warm, but not cold. The freshening of willow boughs, and the deep breaths of outdoors that feel clean, new,-- unopened really. Today is like a package, holding unexamined delights. I will not be able to fit into it all that I know I'm longing to do. The river walk entreats, with its' sweet tang of cottonwood leaves and bark, watching the clear brown ripples. I imagine listening for birds, that never left, but have been silent until now. Today might hold a game of growling tiger with a six year old daughter; a visit to family; hosting a young folks movie night with buttered popped corn. The days' mid point melts out a time for singing out loud, arms open. Little Spring walks home with tiny skips and giggles for no other reason than it is today.

And yet, I go quietly. I zip coats, take children to school, and kiss foreheads. I say hello to people. I go to work. I hurry through tasks, though I admit to adding a twist of doing routines backwards. And after all, song or not, walk or not--it is okay, because the day has gotten inside me and will work its way out spontaneously, regardless of what I do.

******

I'm not sure why now I have decided to make a post.

The day is the typical grey haze of mid January winter. I'm cold. The girls are cold. The things that I believe are very important in my life are unraveled or unraveling faster than I can fix. The children have been sick. I wrote New Year's resolutions, sort of, and then am trying to solve the amazing brain puzzle of seeing not only if it is going to happen, but is it survive-able? They are good things and should be priorities then..but bad habits are hard to break and good one hard to make and... But that isn't why I am writing a post.

I'm writing because all though there are some serious potholes in the road, I am happy.

I read my daughter's post about looking forward to spring and I am not yet impatient. I feel that the beautiful is flowing like angel wings around me, through the gnawing of unease, the seasonal colds, the obstacles in the future. I'm not sure why I am happy really except that the unseen world wishes me to be so, and I am.

I've noticed, that though the world is full of tangible things, it is equally brimming with the things we know, but we cannot touch. Another welcoming thought is that today's society acknowledges that virtues, kindnesses, learning, power, hunger, fear, courage, hopelessness, planning and anxiety, love and pain, even altruism, and a myriad of other intangibles are real and valid. Which makes me hopeful because it seems a small step away from trusting in the miraculous: those things that are equally real, often serendipitous, and the other side of the coin, dangerous as a bad idea, or a foolish choice.

It is also clear that collectively this is a topic we steer away from. We dislike discussions of the underworld enough today to practically ignore its existence, in fact to argue through media and reasoning that evil does not exist, except in those who are misunderstood, even in the face of real crime, real villains, and real terror over much of our globe. So much do we fear to own such a thing, that mental illness, or superstition or lack of scientific thinking are the first life boats we lunge for, even for those who own the existence of a Supreme Being. Which makes the acknowledgement of heavenly beings difficult...can we own the one without having to accept the other? Likely not, and that is all the trouble. Yet real as energy and light, wind and sound, are they!

Now, I'm really not sure that this is an acceptable post, since I feel very aware of welcome allies that I do not see, yet feel apathetic that I will convince any to change a thought process. One woman said it well: to those who believe, no explanation is necessary; to those who do not, none is possible.

Yet I am quite certain that the presence of unseen companions is why I am writing today and why I feel happy. No other cause is as readily apparent. I guess I just needed to acknowledge the existence of these nurturing presences. I want to welcome and accept this gift.