Singing a New Song

October 15, 2017October 15, 2017 becomingandbeholding1 Comment

Not sure how it happened

whether it was gradual

or sudden.

I wish I could remember

the moment it all changed –

when my voice no longer matched

the person that I am.

Suddenly,

it hurt to speak –

not only physically,

but existentially.

It has been a painful five years.

Do you know what it is like

to hate the sound of your own voice?

To feel the inward disdain

and embarrassment?

To see the expressions of others change

when you dare to speak?

To bravely express yourself despite it all

and then to feel the pain of faulty speech patterns?

It has a way of shutting a person up,

holding you back.

But now I have hope again,

hope of a voice that sings effortlessly,

a voice that is a joy to listen to,

lilting and silky,

warm and welcoming –

powerful in its message and impact,

comforting and present.

I have hope of healing

the incongruence

of who I am and how I sound.

You see,

I have all this love in my heart

and a soul that needs expression.

Now that I am getting real help with my voice problem,

my whole life is opening up

to what I can be and do

as a beneficial presence for others.

Let the healing commence.

I am in!

Blessed Assurance

September 27, 2017September 27, 2017 becomingandbeholding2 Comments

No more a need

to solve, cling, or do.

I am done with all that.

Breathe.

Just be.

I turn my attention outward

trusting that inwardly,

I am whole.

This is an important shift

and not one that is

familiar –

a down shift,

into trust –

rather than constant acceleration.

True freedom comes in

letting go of the wheel,

not needing to see the road ahead.

Gradually, I am learning to be

more of a passenger.

It is strange how unfamiliar it feels.

I have learned so deeply

to be on my own,

driving solo.

But I repeatedly follow the wrong directions

being the simple human

I have learned to be,

confused by which GPS to heed.

Now I call upon my divine nature.

It has taken decades to

own it.

Such a beautiful feeling…

to know it is not all

up to me –

that no map is needed.

A look back

in the rear view mirror

confirms.

All is well –

and has been all along the way.

Blessed be.

Poem · Poetry

She Kept to Her Schedule

September 24, 2017September 24, 2017 becomingandbeholdingLeave a comment

I remember a time
when time was not just another consumable,
and moments were embraced
instead of thrown away by distraction
and the addiction to over-doing.
A time when moments were moments
and clocks were wall decorations,
their faces barely noticed.
There was no inward push
or unrelenting need to get from here to there,
to check off this list or that.
I remember a time
when moments unfolded
with youthful joy and presence.
That was eons ago.

When did keeping time morph into losing it?
We schedule, we plan, we run around getting things done
and in a flash, another day is done.
Do the morning routine,
get the workout in,
clean up and put on the public face and accessories,
suffer the commute,
work long hours,
scrape together some nutrition,
eat fast and mindlessly,
catch up with social media,
the news,
go to bed.
Then try to sleep with a restless mind in full gear,
still ticking through your list.
Get up.
Do it all over again.
Time is spent.

But not wisely.

Life is short.
We all say it,
but few of us get it
until we get to be fifty something
and our friends start getting sick and dying.
Life is really short!

What if we get to the end of our life,
and this is what our tombstone says:
“Loving mother and wife. She kept to her schedule.”

Ouch.

We must learn the art of The Stop.
Stop the inner push that moves us forward
into the next thing
when we have not even experienced
what is before us
right now.

How many times have I been so busy planning
that I forget to notice
what is in my current vision?
How many times have I missed the colors, the beauty, the scents
the loved one next to me
because I am in my head
instead of my moment?

How many times have I pretended to listen
while I get something else accomplished simultaneously?
How often did I forget to look into your eyes
to see the longing
or the love there?

We are taught to do
instead of to be.
We are deceived into believing
that filling up our days with busyness
means we are doing well in life.
It is not true.

We must stop.
Push the pause button as often as possible.
Notice. Relish. Honor. Appreciate.
Embrace fully
as if our life depended on it,
because it does.

Otherwise, we spend our life
like we are on a credit card binge
which leaves us empty and bankrupt
in the end.

Life is short.

Poem · Poetry

Structure

September 24, 2017September 24, 2017 becomingandbeholdingLeave a comment

Limping again

with another broken bone.

A repeat injury

only this time

on the other side

as if it had to happen

for a symmetry in the lesson.

I am feeling a little picked on.

Feet are important

for grounding and balance.

Standing is now clumsy and awkward

with one foot in a walking cast.

Walking is even worse.

I am forced to slow down.

Is God toying with me?

Forcing me to look at what I am made of

and what kind of condition I am in?

Now there is talk of potential disease

a thinning of my bones,

a weakness that clearly has been hidden
until this year.

All this makes me feel old

and envious of all those effortless walkers

out there.

I have heard that healing

can make us stronger in our weak spots.

I hope this is true.

And now that I have run out of feet,

perhaps I can get grounded again.

Poem · Poetry

Inspiration

September 24, 2017September 24, 2017 becomingandbeholdingLeave a comment

Trying to coax you

feels dishonest – and yet,

I do not know how to proceed

without you with me.

I love our usual rhythm

when you bubble up like a fountain

or surprise me with a flash.

The light you bring leads the way.

It is as if, like an eager child,

you grab me by the wrist,

pulling me with all your might,

to see what your wide eyes see,

to open to what is being born right before me.

This is our ritual,

our occasional awkward dance.

I long to know you better,

to deepen the intimacy between us

with more regular meetings.

I get jazzed when we can be together –

You, the lightening bug-

Me, the catcher.

But you are an unpredictable one,

mysterious in your ways

and sneaky.

I never know when you will appear.

You are always in the driver’s seat

while I ride shotgun,

trying to trust in the route you put me on.

You show up,

and I am knocked out of my usual rhythm,

suddenly consumed by your presence.

I love those moments.

They are like electricity lighting me up

on all circuits.

It is as if

you give birth to me all over again,

but in little flashes of light

to direct my unfolding.

I dare not ignore your brilliance.

Poem · Poetry

Noticing

September 10, 2017 becomingandbeholding1 Comment

The way it feels

when I dare to step away from patterns

long held onto

with a tight knuckle grip

as a way to hold me up,

glue me together.

The look in your eyes

when I am really paying attention,

allowing my heart to open to you.

The soaring freedom that sends me

to new depths and heights

all at the same time

when I get out of my own way.

How pain disappears

when my attention turns in a divine direction

instead of towards my navel,

so clogged with repetitive angst.

How a long walk by the sea washes me

of all the garbage

I have allowed to enter my soul –

a baptism of surf and sound,

wind and grace.

The thunder of the surf rocking me,

holding me with an eternal embrace.

Oh, how healing that is!

How the voice of a great singer

sends my spirit soaring

and beckons me to use my voice

with full expression and power,

freeing it

and healing me from the multitude of ways

I have held it back.

How Love is present,

when I am present

whether with the dying,

my love,

or my cat.

Turning away from the moment

robs me,

robs us –

of God’s company.

Waking up is a beautiful thing –

a peeling of the layers –

that so strangle and constrict.

We think these layers are important

but they are all false construction.

I love the release as they fall away

allowing a deeper joy

to be found.

I am noticing

two openings:

my eyes with inspired vision,

my heart with a tender softening.

Both are wrapped up in deep peace.

Poem · Poetry

New Ground

September 6, 2017 becomingandbeholdingLeave a comment

The pull of patterns weighs me down

and sucks me in

to that space that agitates

and darkens the room

keeping me from the lightness

that beckons deeply.

Even with you,

though I longed to be next to you

after seasons apart,

what is new and better and different

struggles to shine.

We settle for old and familiar,

the constrictions

set long ago.

I want you to know me.

Not the me you think you know,

but the evolving me

that dares to bloom

even at my age,

when most settle for being set.

I’m not.

I am a dynamic canvas.

Poem · Poetry

The Opening

September 6, 2017September 6, 2017 becomingandbeholdingLeave a comment

It is the space between
what I hear
and how I receive it.

It is the time between
what I think
and what I do.

It is the moment of rest
I sometimes allow
before the next thing.

This is the place that needs enlarging.
But I tend to keep it small,
even though it beckons me
with sweet whispers
and gentle nudges.

I hear it in the rhythm of the waves
and the rustle of the dancing leaves.
I see it in the glide of the seagulls
and the ballet of the small shorebirds
as they float across the shoreline.
Be like us,
they seem to say.
Float through your day.
It is easy
if you let go
and feel the flow.

The invitation is always there,
expansive and inviting –
a huge place of calm and beauty
waiting to hold me
with a comforting embrace.
Waiting to lead me
to the unimaginable.

But I am distracted.

I know I am not alone in this.

Thankfully,
Grace is a beautiful and patient teacher.
She has taught me many things.
I finally know that
You are in the space that calls.
You are in each breath –
especially the deep ones.
You are in me.
You are around me.
You work through me.
You need me as much as
I need you.

I have learned that turning away from you
and ignoring your sweet beaconing
is akin to a slow and lonely death.

Opening to You –
and the spaces between,
is like coming home
to who I am.

Poem · Poetry

You See Me

September 6, 2017October 24, 2017 becomingandbeholdingLeave a comment

Beyond the ways I hide

from myself,

you see me.

Underneath the make up

and beneath the gray roots and wrinkles,

you see me.

Despite my busy ways,

my lists,

my problems with digestion,

my anxieties,

my crafty ways of avoidance

and inattention,

you see me.

You see all of me.

Sometimes when I look in your eyes,

I catch a glimpse

of the me

that you hold in your heart.

It is a beautiful vision.

When I catch its glimmer,

I feel a wholeness,

an unfamiliar peace –

about life,

about Love,

about being me.

So, I am thinking…

this must be what Love is –

to hold onto that larger picture of our beloved –

to cherish it for them

and to protect it from harm

as if it were a world class masterpiece.

A beloved allows for the dropping

of all that does not matter

so that we can hold onto each other

for dear life –

for a life that is dear.

Beloved,

I am yours.

Poem · Poetry · Uncategorized

Breathing Rare Air

September 6, 2017September 6, 2017 becomingandbeholdingLeave a comment

“I don’t think you can see it,”
said my love one day
during one of our connecting moments
when he gently dared
to pull away my self-imposed blinders.
“You are too close to it.”

He may be right.
Maybe I don’t see it,
this reality that few get to be in.

I work in a strange land,
a land of life
and a land of death.
The terrain is sometimes rocky and treacherous,
sometimes peaceful,
always momentous.
Every day I am in the midst
of the end
and the beginning,
all wrapped up in the movement of breath
and the wrenching of hearts.
I get to witness this,
over and over.
And my love does not see
how I can do this.

I breathe rare air.
It is the air of final breaths,
filled with spaces, longing, regrets,
love and letting go.
On a daily basis,
I am next to bodies as they sputter to a stop.
I take in the worn faces and the withered forms
barely taking up space.
I breathe this rare air.
The air of souls bursting to be free.
I hear the sounds
and smell the smells.
I breathe rare air.

You may wonder what this does to me,
this rarified experience.
I wonder, too.
Is this death I witness contagious?
Will my disappearing act be hastened
because I am seemingly comfortable
in this strange land?

I think not.

If anything,
entering this territory on a daily basis
is an invitation.
A chance to truly see.
With eyes wide open to what lies ahead,
there is no pretending.
No glossing over or dodging the truth.
I will end one day,
or, at least my body will.
There is no covering this over
with any effort to avert it,
whether it is in being as healthy as I can be,
or in avoiding what needs attending
before it is too late.

No.

Working with the dying
and breathing this rare air,
has opened me up in ways
beyond my comprehension.
I am being changed.
How could I not be?
All I know now
is that with each inhale of this experience,
my tightly bound heart
unwraps a little more.
I am softening.
And here is the nub of it:
I am getting a head start
on letting go
of all that does not matter.
I am being schooled in death bed academics
and I intend to be a straight A student.
So, maybe working with the dying
and breathing this rare air
IS contagious
because in learning to let go now,
and do the work before me,
my death can be more beautiful
when my time comes,
and my loved ones
more at peace.