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Lying in the Woods I had an agitated feeling of needing to get out to the woods. I stepped outside and it felt too cold. I went inside and knew I needed to go no matter how cold it was. I got ready and took a sleeping bag and I found a place in the shelter of the unwavering Aspen trees where there was no snow. I talked to Chloe and told her I wanted to grow with her, to know her and be with her. I meditated on things like courage, compassion and increased sensitivity to the spiritual world. I just lay there in the quietness. I asked the trees and the earth to be with me. It started to snow lightly and it felt good on my face. I sat up and looked out of the trees and up into the sky. The snow was light and gentle. I asked Chloe where she was, what she was doing today. I heard a bird calling from far away. Then two birds flew over my head calling to each other. They did that a couple times. As I was sitting there I saw two long, slender stems of some kind of plant. They were standing together with nothing else around. I just kept watching them. It was funny how they seemed to be talking to each other, but without words. One would lean in toward the other and then back out again. Spirits communicate without words, but through thoughts and feelings. Words don't provide enough vocabulary for the richness of their communication. I also thought that maybe they weren't communicating. Maybe they were just being together, just existing. As I watched the two stems I thought that maybe that is how I will communicate with Chloe. It won't always be important to have words but just to sit together, just to be there. I stopped at her tree and talked to her. I thanked her for her words about identity in her writing. I told her it is a relieving message, like getting off the treadmill. I gathered up some snow and gave her tree a drink. I told it to grow strong and give life. “My very existence is my identity.” ~Chloe

Speaking the Pain I woke up this morning without any real motivation for the day. I stared at the ceiling, then pushed myself out of bed. I felt longing, aching, vacancy. I went downstairs and sat on the couch and read a little. One of the things I read is that if you present yourselves to others as being "alright," they will be comforted and you will turn to stone. What you experience must be felt and acknowledged. So I sat down on the couch, I closed my eyes and just started breathing. Every breath contained pain and loss. I wanted to hear Chloe's footsteps, her voice, her laughter, her hug. I just said what I was feeling, that I felt so sad without her, I didn't know how to make it to the end of this life. Then the tears came. After that I just sat and talked to her. I talked about letting her physical presence go. I said I could let her go but I still needed her in my life. It is hard to be in this place of no control, no power. It just happened and no button I push can bring her back. It's just done. Honesty and tears released the aching from my heart, giving me a renewed motivation for the day.

Sometimes I feel good and then all of a sudden I feel so far away. I thought death was just about missing someone. But it is so much more. It is the loss of yourself and your identity. I poured myself into Chloe and then she was just gone. I don't know how to interpret my world or my life. I take on my responsibilities, but inside I feel like a nomad, a wandering soul. I am reminded that what I feel today, I likely won't feel tomorrow. No feeling is final. I breathe, I love and accept myself through each moment. http://cindyweaver2015.blogspot.com/

Healing? Is that what I can hope for? When a wound heals, sometimes it closes and is no more, other times it heals and leaves a scar, either way there is restoration, repair. Does that mean I will “heal” from this deep gaping wound festering around my heart? How could there be healing, how could that even be a word in this journey? The whole idea angered me, but staying in my initial torchered state was not an option either. A wound closes in time. My heart would never close, and I would never mend or be restored to the person I was. Although Webster’s definition is an appropriate definition for healing after physical injury, it is not accurate for what happens in the context of emotional loss. So what does happen? The wound remains open, but it is that gap that propels you to dive deeper, that raw exposure that makes you long to transform. There is no waiting for the wound to close in order to step into life. ~Healing is holding and accepting the pain while allowing life to open up at the same time~ http://cindyweaver2015.blogspot.com/

"If you bring forth that which is within you, Then that which is within you Will be your salvation. If you do not bring forth that which is within you, Then that which is within you Will destroy you." from the Gnostic Gospels Levine, Peter A.; Frederick, Ann (1997-09-08). Waking the Tiger: "Real grief is not healed by time...if times does anything, it deepens our grief. The longer we live the more fully we become aware of who she was. Love often makes itself visible in pain." Henri Nouwen In the first months I experienced anxiety and fear, something like a panic attack. The irrational idea that this event of loss was going to repeat itself. My body was trying to release the shock, something humans don’t do well. I didn’t feel like this was a time to be a hero and took anxiety meds as sparingly as I could They helped to ease my body so that I wouldn’t be presented with an additional challenge. In time I started observing why I was having anxiety and when it was happening. I saw that anxiety was really just whatever it was I was holding and not releasing. Crying was having the same effect as the meds because it was bringing up my soul contents and releasing it. The other “fix” for me was laying directly on the earth and breathing. In time, both of these began to replace the meds. http://cindyweaver2015.blogspot.com/