lightdancer

Beautiful!

KayC, A baby moose was born this week in the meadow behind my house. I watched as they licked each other's faces. That was a truly beautiful moment. You would have loved it.

Thank you Marty. Lovely to meet you here.

A New Time ~"There is territory of loss only we can enter. ~Martha Hickman I feel like I'm trying to make a transition from acute or short-term grief to long-term grief and I find myself struggling to find my place, again. I think the difference is that, with initial grief, people gather tightly around you, they travel closely with you. Life doesn't have much normalcy, the loss is out in front, the entire landscape of life. Long-term grief is a regaining some normalcy to life and living. A time of letting go of that tight circle that is carrying you and continuing a more solo journey although not totally alone. I need a sense of normal in my life. I don't want to be the odd-ball-out, the grieving woman. I don't want my whole identity to be my loss. I want people to see me for who I am first, and my pain second. Plus, it is too much to ask of those in my life, to be still carrying my pain. The difficult thing that comes with this is I feel like it will be forgotten, I will be forgotten, Chloe will be forgotten. People will look at me now and see someone who appears to be strong and well-adjusted. Someone who has healed. This couldn't be further from the truth. I know I still have work to do, I fall to pieces, I am shattered. There is never a day I don't feel it. The shock and feeling lost have left to a degree but still exist. I cry, I become despondent and detached, staring at ceilings, walls and floors. I lose my appetite, become irritable, want to disappear. I constantly work on regaining trust and confidence in life. I have bouts of anxiety and fear. I often don't want to be close to anyone as there is the lingering reality of losing them. I protect my heart. Life is work with moments of joy. I am working to allow myself to be happy, to figure out what happiness means now, in this new context, and how to obtain it. I am becoming better at letting myself be in the moment, whatever that means, knowing that a new moment will come.

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.

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

Dear feralfae, Thank you for taking the time to write such a thoughtful note and for extending compassion to me. There really is so much power and magnificence in this journey. I love the image of gathering around the "healing fire." I began seeing an intuitive healer about 3 years ago. Quite out of the blue she said, "so you know you're going to write a book, right? I was puzzled but deep inside I felt that stirring. This summer I went to a grief intuitive weekend workshop. The leader who had known be only for one day, and knew nothing about the book idea said, "so where are you at with the book?" I knew, then, that it was time. I have been working on it this summer and often become a little overwhelmed and insecure about it all. But I feel like people are coming from nowhere and everywhere to take my hand and gently lead me toward this work. Thank you for your encouragement. ~rich light surround you today, lightdancer

Thank you Carrie. Rich blessings and love surround you.

Thank you. Yes, I did write it. It just all came to me as I was driving one day.

A Place Between Three Trees I began going to the woods several weeks after Chloe died. I would lay on the earth and sometimes weep and sometimes feel energy and healing being drawn into my being. I began talking to her. In one of the first conversations I said, "So WHAT, It’s just just over?! After nurturing and growing the deepest of connections, it’s just done?!” I knew that Chloe was physically gone but I didn't believe for one minute that the connection of our spirits and hearts was done. Just because the answer for death as I knew it had always been, "she's happy and you'll get to see her again when you die." There was no way I was waiting that long! And yet, I knew that maybe it wasn't up to me. Still, I was unable and unwilling to accept the only answer that had ever been offered to me. I asked Chloe if it was over. I heard her say immediately, "our relationship is not over, but the language will change." I knew at that point that she was right there and I could pursue my quest to find her and understand what life and death really are. I didn't know what she meant by ""the language will change." I began to study, meditate, pray and feel. Shortly after the message from Chloe, I was reading a book and it mentioned the same idea, that it was possible to continue contact but you had to learn the language of your loved one. And so I gave myself to silence, listening, feeling and being. My senses began to grow and become fine-tuned. I was finding that I could now ask Chloe questions and receive answers. She began showing up in my life. Going to that place in the woods was a necessary place to finding that connection. It allowed me to cry, be at total peace, communicate with Chloe and just sit in silence with her.

As I was driving to my riding lesson I was thinking about healing and felt something was coming to me but I couldn't explain it. Then, a dialogue began and it was as if I was watching two actors on the stage. It was between a character named Grief and one named Life. The experience began with Grief dominating, and Life being dormant. As time went on Life opened up a little crack, but Grief said, "NO, there is no place for you. This is too tragic." Life said in a quiet voice, "I think I feel myself breathing again." Grief responded, "How could you, you've lost everything." As time went on and healers appeared the dialogue got stronger. Lifesaid, "I want to live and breathe." Life became passionate, I want you to stop hurting" Grief responded,"I will never stop hurting, the loss is too profound, you need to let me bleed." And Life said, "You need to let me live." And so the conversation continued. Life believing that living would never be possible with Grief around and Grief afraid that Life would push away the need to honor the profound loss. Life wanted to breathe and dance, Grief wanted to collapse and cry. Soon Life and Grief faced each other, they dropped the tug-o-war rope. Life said, "it is ok for you to cry and hurt for the rest of your life." Grief said, "it is ok for you to live." And so they moved closer to each other. Life knew it did not have to wait for Grief to go away in order to live. Grief knew that it was ok to hurt while Life was opening up. Grief and Life embraced and locked hands and existed side by side. I can't sit and wait for grief to end in order to start living. Grief does not have to go away in the presence of abundant life and growth. When the two can exist side by side, and it is not one or the other, well, that is healing.

Grief and the Brain Exploring information on how the brain reacts to grief helped me in a couple ways. In the early days of loss, I could only process bits and pieces of information. If I received an email asking me to respond to more than one or two questions, I quickly bypassed it, procrastinated or just deleted it. I could have an entire conversation with someone only to come away from it realizing I had heard nothing. At work I had to plan more carefully so as to not put myself in a position of having to make sudden decisions. The process of decision-making was monumentally difficult. Brain-power was just generally not there. I removed myself from committee work and extra-curricular activities so I could apply my brain power to self-care. I now understood why I was having irrational fears and even panic attacks. My right brain was saying that if it was a Sunday afternoon and I was home alone with Dillon, then tragedy was going to strike. There was no separating the past to the present. Where was my left, logical brain when I needed it? It is why anniversaries started producing, not just sadness, but anxiety. My right brain was telling me that what happened in 2010 was going to repeat itself in 2011 as well as all subsequent years. It is why, on the way home from work one day, I went into a panic. I got home and burst through the door in a tearful train wreck, sobbing that Chloe wasn’t okay. It was a tug of war. I knew everything was fine, but that other part of me was saying that what happened in the past is happening right now. When I started to see that reactions could start forming habits of fear, whenever a trigger would appear, I could say to myself, “this is 2012, not 2010.” I could also choose a left-brain activity to help me reset my brain, or to switch over to another channel. However, it took more than mantras and awareness. It took help from Chloe. On the night that I had the train-wreck, sobbing attack was the night I had the dream about the magnificent bird in the sky which appeared and disappeared, leaving the message that "I am always with you whether you can see me or not." The next day was when I received the message about Chloe’s constant presence with me. This is yet another way in which both Science and Spirit have helped me in my grief.

Carry on warrior.

"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/

I feel like I'm entering a new stage, a new time. I feel immobilized on one level and functional on another. I think I am withdrawing a little more as a realize what a solo journey from tragedy to transformation it is. It is not for lack of loving family and friends, it is just the need to resolve my own loss. I dream about people dying and being at Chloe's service, feeling very sad. It is almost as though the reality of the magnitude of the loss is very sharp now. I am feeling things about her death that I could not feel in those first days. I can see it all, and with that comes a new wave of grief. And yet, I can feel moments of light and life. I look the same on the the outside, but my foundation is tilted. Inside there is that stream of sorrow and processing where I'm at and who I am, what planet I've landed on and how to accept and adapt to it. I find a greater weariness from the work I am doing. But I have hope and courage that I will find my way. "May I be at peace. May my heart remain open. May I know the beauty of my own true nature. May I be healed." -Joan Borysenko, Fire in the Soul http://cindyweaver2015.blogspot.com/

My word for this time in my life is "courage." It takes so much of it to live each day. Courage is not the absence of pain, but the ability to recognize it and allow it to flow as profoundly as it needs to. Every day seems to be an act of courage. Get up, move forward. Just put one foot in front of the other. That is enough for now. In time courage begets courage and grows strong and fierce. Fear begins to cower in its presence and pain never needs to hide. Courage is really trust. At times I wanted to lay on the couch and stare at the ceiling all day or allow myself to fall into the deepest darkest pit and sometimes that is what was needed, but courage will move out into the black not not knowing what is there or if it will lead you into any light at all. It just steps out because it trusts. ~But courage isn’t about being fearless— it’s about feeling your fear and stepping out~ http://cindyweaver2015.blogspot.com/

Healing comes by stringing the light together, one at a time. You won't feel like you're pursuing light, you won't even see it as light. It may all feel like darkness, but when you choose to meditate and clear your mind for 5 minutes, one light goes on in your soul, no matter how small. When you take a restorative Yoga class, another one goes on. When you walk in the woods instead of staring at the ceiling, another goes on. You probably won't see it as light, you'll see it as an act of desperation, survival. When you touch a horse, read a book about spiritual growth, read a holy book, learn about angel stones, you are stringing light together in your soul, even without your awareness. In between each light there may be darkness, hold it, weep, feel it. But if you keep stepping out of the darkness, soon the collective light starts shining brighter and you feel it, you see it and you move from surviving to thriving. http://cindyweaver2015.blogspot.com/

I move through the world as a warrior now. Stronger and more courageous than I have ever been, but I am also deeply wounded. Sometimes I stop and address my wounds, other times I have to keep moving or I know I will die. A warrior is someone who has to be strong, courageous and brave in the face of deep challenge; A warrior does not know how it’s going to play out, but pushes forward in the face of uncertainty. The warrior hurts but continues to fight in order to get to a better place. The alternative to not being a warrior is to be consumed by the challenge. According to Guy Finley in his article,The Ten Traits of the True Spiritual Warrior, a warrior never postpones a battle that must be engaged. the true spiritual warrior is never afraid to look at what he doesn’t want to see. The true spiritual warrior knows that the path of spiritual liberation that he has chosen must lead him to one encounter after another with conditions that always seem greater than he is. http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/lettinggo/2010/07/the-ten-traits-of-the-true-spiritual-w http://cindyweaver2015.blogspot.com/

"Grief has its seasons and they are unpredictable, but they will pass and each has its own inner logic. Sometimes the best we can do is say, "okay that's how it is today. What can I do that is most compatible with this mood?" Martha Hickman I find no difference in grief and death. In death there is grief, but grief itself is death. It is not a mere missing what has been lost, but a personal death ensues. You lose what you have loved and you lose yourself. It all comes crashing down to nothing. Losing a child is not just the absence of a physical presence, missing their physical features and their love, you lose yourself as well. The process becomes finding yourself again and grieving the absence of the child at the same time. It is the loss of dreams. New dreams will have to come, but not now. Deep loss is like walking through a field of landmines. You don't always know where they are or when they will detonate. They can do a little damage or a lot. This isn’t unique only to people who have experienced a catastrophic death, but the accumulation of unacknowledged losses throughout life. We all carry them with us, and are surprised when they go off and we often don't have any idea why. You just can't get around it, no matter how hard you try to push it away or yell or scream or ignore it, or sing or dance. Grief will just wait for you until you acknowledge that it hurts and release it http://cindyweaver2015.blogspot.com/

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/