Listen
to yourself, daily. In this over-stimulated world recognize you are the
person who can reset the balance for yourself. Do you listen to
yourself daily? Or do you complain about how much noise there is in the
world? The more you become an ambassador of loving silence and space,
the more the template that you create inside yourself will be felt by
others. The more a certain way of being is felt by others, the more it
becomes shared between people. We each share with each other. This is a
sharing planet.
~~Lee, from 2012: Year of Power
Prayer
for Today: Dear Angels, My greatest prayer is for peace on every level:
physically, emotionally, mentally, intellectually, and spiritually.
Please give me signs as to how I can best improve my health in all of
these areas.
Hey
beautiful friend! Today is a very powerful energy day with the
combination of the Full Moon, final eclipse of the year & the Solar
storms creating bursts of light energy that are entering our atmosphere.
It's an excellent time to share our intention & deepest desires for
the next few months & beyond. because what we focus on will
magnify! Please share your intentions by commenting below, and let's
create a powerful vortex for miracles to continue unfolding for all of
us!
This
degree of the Lunar Eclipse is also the very same degree planet Venus
was at during her epic transit of the Sun earlier this year. And it is
also the very same degree aspected at the Winter Solstice 2012 by
Jupiter, Sagittarian ruler of wisdom and higher learning. Get the bigger
picture? It is time to transform our understanding of growth as well as
remain optimistic. - Dharma Stars
It
is a key step on the path when we can get outside of victim and see
ourselves as creators of our reality, or at the very least, begin to
look deeply for the lessons and positive expansion at the heart of our
challenges and painful memories. But its also good to work through the
pain as part of the process, both to heal us and to empower us. When we
bury it below artificial forgiveness and feigned positivity, it actually
gives it more power over us. When we choose to take it out from its
hiding places, and really move through the emotions, we actually give
ourselves permission to shine.
Have
you ever seen someone so intent on swimming that they barely move
forward? It's noisy, uncomfortable, and exhausting. When we try to force
life to take a specific form or direction, it often feels like this.
Let go.
Illuminations ☾●☽Wednesday November 28th, 2012 PST
☾●☽ FULL MOON LUNAR ECLIPSE ☾●☽
For me, this will be a huge sign of relief day as things, ideas,
worries, and projects seem to really have grown during this new moon
eclipse… and today I shall begin to breathe a sign of relief and EXHALE,
knowing things will be winding up and we (ME) Shall much easier let go.
For me this eclipse was about things I could not change, and full of…
well events and people who do not play the same rules of life which I
do. Eclipses do have lessons don't they.
Today we begin at
2:33am with a GREAT aspect with URANUS the planet of change: 6:46am pst
the moon in Gemini asking us to look for options, opposses the sun in
Sagittarius which may think it already has the answer…balance is good
now.
At 8:01am Venus (what we want) and Pluto (Regeneration and
rebirth) Play well adding a bit of fate vs. free will to today 5:04pm
the moon moves v/c after making a TOUCH DOWN ON JUPITER the planet of
just want MORE, BIGGER, and also the planet which represents Faith.. for
us all hasn't this been a bit of what the last few months have been
about. What we think we want, and faith and hard work to get it?
Ideas run rampant this evening, try and NOT MAKE ANY MAJOR DECISIONS
until after 6am on the 30th. The moon moves v/c and times out for the
28th after 5:04pm until 5:55am on the 30th.
Leaving the 29th a
day of overdoing and overextending and ideas, options and a day best
not to plan things, but rather kind of feel your way through all those
options.
Happy eclipse and may this lunar eclipse allow that
last vestige of pain, sorrow, and the past to pass gently and easily
from us all. Let this eclipse bring us bright, happy new thoughts
(Gemini) to find New and better truths (Sagittarius) as we recognize
what we have held onto for so long has caused the pain long after the
event has passed.
Letting go time is her my friends and I like you let go of a 40 year cycle of my life.
☼ My mantra and Kiss for the next whole year is (THE BEST YEARS OF MY
LIFE HAVE NOT HAPPENED YET) the best moments, the happiest days, the
best nights and the most fun are ahead of me by me letting go of the
past.
☼ Color this day for me Orange for creativity.
☼ Gemstone choice is of course LARIMAR.
☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼
REMEMBER like losing weight, the end result is good but the process
sometimes is not exactly what we want… BE OPEN to looking FORWARD to
being where you desire to be by letting go of where you are now… (if you
are not happy).
Repeat after me.... I promise to bring my best
self to every person I meet, to every place I go, and mostly, I promise
to bring my best self to me as when I shine bright, I light the way for
others to do the same... in their own way of course. I DO! Do you?
You can choose to see life as beautiful or ugly. Just like you can
choose to see dandelions as beautiful flowers or as weeds. How fun is it
that you get to choose how you see the world and speak about it. Yep...
pretty darn fun! All Things Positivity.
Today, I resolve to
let go any resentment or condemnation that has limited my life and to
accept all the good that life has to give. TOMORROW is coming and by
Friday the energy will be really working fabulously for us all IN LIEU
of the eclipse and what is going on. I will be writing more tomorrow
night using that JUPITER Energy:
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
(this is a very SAGITTARIUS and GEMINI saying) "The individual has
always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To
be your own man (woman) is hard business. If you try it, you will be
lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay
for the privilege of owning yourself."
~ Illuminations via Carol Barbeau
Why Today Is Different
What carries us when the day is different, harder than it has ever been before?
Making the trip to see my father is often tiring. He has advanced
Alzheimer’s and is living at a facility for folks with dementia who have
become too aggressive to be cared for safely elsewhere. The staff are
highly skilled, patient and caring, often light-heartedly making the
residents smile. Still, the six hours of driving and the ache of seeing
how the disease is affecting him usually leave me a little weary at the
end of the day.
Not today. Today the trip is exhausting.
Often Dad doesn't know who I am. And that’s okay. I don’t need him to
know who I am. I want him to be free from suffering, and I cling to the
hope that his forgetfulness allows for present-moment-contentment, or at
least some freedom from feeling frustrated about something none of us
can stop or reverse. When he doesn’t know who I am, I hope and imagine
that a moment of walking arm in arm with another or drifting off to
sleep with someone holding his hand gives him some pleasure.
Not today. Today when I touch his arm and say, “Dad,” he turns and looks
at me. His whole face lights up, and he says, “Oh!” with real
recognition.
He’d been shuffling around the room in navy sweat
pants and a grey t-shirt, white socks gliding along the tile floor.
Always in motion, more agile than most, several inches shorter than I
am, shrinking but still wiry strong. He never could sit still for long,
always needed to be doing, moving, working.
I touch his hair,
white and sparse but well trimmed, stroke his cleanly shaven cheek. As
he ages his face seems to collapse like a balloon that is slowly losing
air. He must be feeling generally calmer- the staff do not push haircuts
or shaving on anyone if they are irritated or resistant. I stroke his
arm, take his hand and tell him I love him. Usually he is content to let
me walk or sit with him.
Not today.
Today there is
something he wants to tell me, something he needs me to understand.
“Real. . . . everyone was. . . . where. . . . ladder. . . I don’t. . . ”
His tone is urgent. Mini-strokes robbed him of words even when
comprehension was better. Sometimes I can tell by his intonation and
gestures that he is trying to make small talk, asking about the drive or
the weather.
Not today. Today, he struggles with the words, his eyes filling with tears.
I have only seen my father cry once- fifty years ago, when I was eight.
On that day, Lassie, the collie who had been his only companion growing
up in an impoverished and brutal household, had been hit and killed by a
truck on the highway. My father wept at the side of the road. He was
thirty. I remember feeling frightened and protective at the same time.
I feel the same now. I tell him it’s okay. I keep my tone calm.
Usually, he is quickly distracted, his attention drawn to exploring some
sound or movement in the room.
Not today.
Today there
is something he has to tell me, a window of recognition and a need to
communicate thrashing against the barrier of a brain that will not give
him the words. I move closer and rub his shoulders. I keep looking into
his eyes- blue-grey like mine, transformed to green when either of us
wear that colour, his favourite. He watches me. “I don’t. . . .” I wait
and will my heart to understand what he wants to tell me. It has been
months since he has said a complete sentence.
Not today.
Today, he backs up a little and tears spill from his eyes following the
lines on his weathered face. Leaning forward he speaks, wrestling each
word into being in an impossible act of will. His voice rises, the words
becoming a wail of terror and anguish: “I don’t know who I am!”
I step closer. He leans into me, trembling, sobbing. I hold him.
Somehow I speak, squeezing words past the sharp rock that has formed in
my throat, making myself breathe, keeping my voice steady. I don't know
if he understands me or even hears me- he will no longer tolerate
wearing his hearing aids- but I pour my heart into my words. “You’re my
father. You are Don House, and you’re my father. It’s okay Dad.” My
throat closes.
My father has always had the greatest respect
for and faith in my social work training and my work with groups and
individuals. I can feel how recognizing me has ignited both his anguish
and his hope. He is asking me for help, is hoping I will know something
that will help him make sense of what is happening to him. And I would
give anything to be able to do so.
Not today.
Today I
worry that recognizing me has actually made it harder on him, although
the nurse tells me he regularly goes through a wide range of emotions
pretty quickly. Even today, in between moments of tears and hugs, he
wanders away and is happily preoccupied with movement at the end of the
hall, or a sound from the dining room.
People who know about my
Dad regularly tell me with great conviction that Alzheimer’s patients
are working through past life karma, are souls who have chosen the
disease to learn something, are truly content in a reality closer to the
divine. I understand the need to make sense of something so horrible,
the desire to seek or offer comfort by claiming as true things we simply
cannot know.
Not today.
Today, my father's plaintive
wail pulls me to stay with what I can know. Today, I am with him in his
anguish, and later, on the drive home I will remind myself that I do not
know whether he will remember or re-experience this heart ache and
confusion three minutes after I am gone, whether he has felt it before
or will ever feel it again. Today I accept this sliver of comfort from
the vastness of what I cannot know.
Today, driving home, I let
the tears quietly stream down my face, and I offer a prayer fueled by
the ache in my chest: "Help him. Please. Help him."
Today I ask Love to carry us both, because there is simply nothing else I can do.
Oriah (c) 2012 (Weekly blogs shared here are published on Wednesdays at http://oriahsinvitation.blogspot.ca/)
Affirmations for Gemini Full Moon ~
My mind is open and spacious so that I may perceive the highest truth possible for me at this time.
I honor the power of m
y words and use them wisely.
I am flexible, adaptable and open to learn new experiences and ideas.
I listen with care and attentiveness.
I clearly observe, I discover, I discriminate. - Carla Mary
"Rest now my soul.
Leave behind your religion and your empty show of faith. Remember when you had no religion?
Remember when all you had was Him?"
--- Rumi
~~Lee, from 2012: Year of Power
Prayer
for Today: Dear Angels, My greatest prayer is for peace on every level:
physically, emotionally, mentally, intellectually, and spiritually.
Please give me signs as to how I can best improve my health in all of
these areas.
Hey
beautiful friend! Today is a very powerful energy day with the
combination of the Full Moon, final eclipse of the year & the Solar
storms creating bursts of light energy that are entering our atmosphere.
It's an excellent time to share our intention & deepest desires for
the next few months & beyond. because what we focus on will
magnify! Please share your intentions by commenting below, and let's
create a powerful vortex for miracles to continue unfolding for all of
us!
Hey
beautiful friend! Today is a very powerful energy day with the
combination of the Full Moon, final eclipse of the year & the Solar
storms creating bursts of light energy that are entering our atmosphere.
It's an excellent time to share our intention & deepest desires for
the next few months & beyond. because what we focus on will
magnify! Please share your intentions by commenting below, and let's
create a powerful vortex for miracles to continue unfolding for all of
us!
This
degree of the Lunar Eclipse is also the very same degree planet Venus
was at during her epic transit of the Sun earlier this year. And it is
also the very same degree aspected at the Winter Solstice 2012 by
Jupiter, Sagittarian ruler of wisdom and higher learning. Get the bigger
picture? It is time to transform our understanding of growth as well as
remain optimistic. - Dharma Stars
It
is a key step on the path when we can get outside of victim and see
ourselves as creators of our reality, or at the very least, begin to
look deeply for the lessons and positive expansion at the heart of our
challenges and painful memories. But its also good to work through the
pain as part of the process, both to heal us and to empower us. When we
bury it below artificial forgiveness and feigned positivity, it actually
gives it more power over us. When we choose to take it out from its
hiding places, and really move through the emotions, we actually give
ourselves permission to shine.
Have
you ever seen someone so intent on swimming that they barely move
forward? It's noisy, uncomfortable, and exhausting. When we try to force
life to take a specific form or direction, it often feels like this.
Let go.
Illuminations ☾●☽Wednesday November 28th, 2012 PST
☾●☽ FULL MOON LUNAR ECLIPSE ☾●☽
For me, this will be a huge sign of relief day as things, ideas,
worries, and projects seem to really have grown during this new moon
eclipse… and today I shall begin to breathe a sign of relief and EXHALE,
knowing things will be winding up and we (ME) Shall much easier let go.
For me this eclipse was about things I could not change, and full of…
well events and people who do not play the same rules of life which I
do. Eclipses do have lessons don't they.
Today we begin at
2:33am with a GREAT aspect with URANUS the planet of change: 6:46am pst
the moon in Gemini asking us to look for options, opposses the sun in
Sagittarius which may think it already has the answer…balance is good
now.
At 8:01am Venus (what we want) and Pluto (Regeneration and
rebirth) Play well adding a bit of fate vs. free will to today 5:04pm
the moon moves v/c after making a TOUCH DOWN ON JUPITER the planet of
just want MORE, BIGGER, and also the planet which represents Faith.. for
us all hasn't this been a bit of what the last few months have been
about. What we think we want, and faith and hard work to get it?
Ideas run rampant this evening, try and NOT MAKE ANY MAJOR DECISIONS
until after 6am on the 30th. The moon moves v/c and times out for the
28th after 5:04pm until 5:55am on the 30th.
Leaving the 29th a
day of overdoing and overextending and ideas, options and a day best
not to plan things, but rather kind of feel your way through all those
options.
Happy eclipse and may this lunar eclipse allow that
last vestige of pain, sorrow, and the past to pass gently and easily
from us all. Let this eclipse bring us bright, happy new thoughts
(Gemini) to find New and better truths (Sagittarius) as we recognize
what we have held onto for so long has caused the pain long after the
event has passed.
Letting go time is her my friends and I like you let go of a 40 year cycle of my life.
☼ My mantra and Kiss for the next whole year is (THE BEST YEARS OF MY
LIFE HAVE NOT HAPPENED YET) the best moments, the happiest days, the
best nights and the most fun are ahead of me by me letting go of the
past.
☼ Color this day for me Orange for creativity.
☼ Gemstone choice is of course LARIMAR.
☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼
REMEMBER like losing weight, the end result is good but the process
sometimes is not exactly what we want… BE OPEN to looking FORWARD to
being where you desire to be by letting go of where you are now… (if you
are not happy).
Repeat after me.... I promise to bring my best
self to every person I meet, to every place I go, and mostly, I promise
to bring my best self to me as when I shine bright, I light the way for
others to do the same... in their own way of course. I DO! Do you?
You can choose to see life as beautiful or ugly. Just like you can
choose to see dandelions as beautiful flowers or as weeds. How fun is it
that you get to choose how you see the world and speak about it. Yep...
pretty darn fun! All Things Positivity.
Today, I resolve to
let go any resentment or condemnation that has limited my life and to
accept all the good that life has to give. TOMORROW is coming and by
Friday the energy will be really working fabulously for us all IN LIEU
of the eclipse and what is going on. I will be writing more tomorrow
night using that JUPITER Energy:
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
(this is a very SAGITTARIUS and GEMINI saying) "The individual has
always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To
be your own man (woman) is hard business. If you try it, you will be
lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay
for the privilege of owning yourself."
~ Illuminations via Carol Barbeau
Why Today Is Different
What carries us when the day is different, harder than it has ever been before?
Making the trip to see my father is often tiring. He has advanced
Alzheimer’s and is living at a facility for folks with dementia who have
become too aggressive to be cared for safely elsewhere. The staff are
highly skilled, patient and caring, often light-heartedly making the
residents smile. Still, the six hours of driving and the ache of seeing
how the disease is affecting him usually leave me a little weary at the
end of the day.
Not today. Today the trip is exhausting.
Often Dad doesn't know who I am. And that’s okay. I don’t need him to
know who I am. I want him to be free from suffering, and I cling to the
hope that his forgetfulness allows for present-moment-contentment, or at
least some freedom from feeling frustrated about something none of us
can stop or reverse. When he doesn’t know who I am, I hope and imagine
that a moment of walking arm in arm with another or drifting off to
sleep with someone holding his hand gives him some pleasure.
Not today. Today when I touch his arm and say, “Dad,” he turns and looks
at me. His whole face lights up, and he says, “Oh!” with real
recognition.
He’d been shuffling around the room in navy sweat
pants and a grey t-shirt, white socks gliding along the tile floor.
Always in motion, more agile than most, several inches shorter than I
am, shrinking but still wiry strong. He never could sit still for long,
always needed to be doing, moving, working.
I touch his hair,
white and sparse but well trimmed, stroke his cleanly shaven cheek. As
he ages his face seems to collapse like a balloon that is slowly losing
air. He must be feeling generally calmer- the staff do not push haircuts
or shaving on anyone if they are irritated or resistant. I stroke his
arm, take his hand and tell him I love him. Usually he is content to let
me walk or sit with him.
Not today.
Today there is
something he wants to tell me, something he needs me to understand.
“Real. . . . everyone was. . . . where. . . . ladder. . . I don’t. . . ”
His tone is urgent. Mini-strokes robbed him of words even when
comprehension was better. Sometimes I can tell by his intonation and
gestures that he is trying to make small talk, asking about the drive or
the weather.
Not today. Today, he struggles with the words, his eyes filling with tears.
I have only seen my father cry once- fifty years ago, when I was eight.
On that day, Lassie, the collie who had been his only companion growing
up in an impoverished and brutal household, had been hit and killed by a
truck on the highway. My father wept at the side of the road. He was
thirty. I remember feeling frightened and protective at the same time.
I feel the same now. I tell him it’s okay. I keep my tone calm.
Usually, he is quickly distracted, his attention drawn to exploring some
sound or movement in the room.
Not today.
Today there
is something he has to tell me, a window of recognition and a need to
communicate thrashing against the barrier of a brain that will not give
him the words. I move closer and rub his shoulders. I keep looking into
his eyes- blue-grey like mine, transformed to green when either of us
wear that colour, his favourite. He watches me. “I don’t. . . .” I wait
and will my heart to understand what he wants to tell me. It has been
months since he has said a complete sentence.
Not today.
Today, he backs up a little and tears spill from his eyes following the
lines on his weathered face. Leaning forward he speaks, wrestling each
word into being in an impossible act of will. His voice rises, the words
becoming a wail of terror and anguish: “I don’t know who I am!”
I step closer. He leans into me, trembling, sobbing. I hold him.
Somehow I speak, squeezing words past the sharp rock that has formed in
my throat, making myself breathe, keeping my voice steady. I don't know
if he understands me or even hears me- he will no longer tolerate
wearing his hearing aids- but I pour my heart into my words. “You’re my
father. You are Don House, and you’re my father. It’s okay Dad.” My
throat closes.
My father has always had the greatest respect
for and faith in my social work training and my work with groups and
individuals. I can feel how recognizing me has ignited both his anguish
and his hope. He is asking me for help, is hoping I will know something
that will help him make sense of what is happening to him. And I would
give anything to be able to do so.
Not today.
Today I
worry that recognizing me has actually made it harder on him, although
the nurse tells me he regularly goes through a wide range of emotions
pretty quickly. Even today, in between moments of tears and hugs, he
wanders away and is happily preoccupied with movement at the end of the
hall, or a sound from the dining room.
People who know about my
Dad regularly tell me with great conviction that Alzheimer’s patients
are working through past life karma, are souls who have chosen the
disease to learn something, are truly content in a reality closer to the
divine. I understand the need to make sense of something so horrible,
the desire to seek or offer comfort by claiming as true things we simply
cannot know.
Not today.
Today, my father's plaintive
wail pulls me to stay with what I can know. Today, I am with him in his
anguish, and later, on the drive home I will remind myself that I do not
know whether he will remember or re-experience this heart ache and
confusion three minutes after I am gone, whether he has felt it before
or will ever feel it again. Today I accept this sliver of comfort from
the vastness of what I cannot know.
Today, driving home, I let
the tears quietly stream down my face, and I offer a prayer fueled by
the ache in my chest: "Help him. Please. Help him."
Today I ask Love to carry us both, because there is simply nothing else I can do.
Oriah (c) 2012 (Weekly blogs shared here are published on Wednesdays at http://oriahsinvitation.blogspot.ca/)
Affirmations for Gemini Full Moon ~
My mind is open and spacious so that I may perceive the highest truth possible for me at this time.
I honor the power of m
y words and use them wisely.
I am flexible, adaptable and open to learn new experiences and ideas.
I listen with care and attentiveness.
I clearly observe, I discover, I discriminate. - Carla Mary
"Rest now my soul.
Leave behind your religion and your empty show of faith. Remember when you had no religion?
Remember when all you had was Him?"
--- Rumi
It
is a key step on the path when we can get outside of victim and see
ourselves as creators of our reality, or at the very least, begin to
look deeply for the lessons and positive expansion at the heart of our
challenges and painful memories. But its also good to work through the
pain as part of the process, both to heal us and to empower us. When we
bury it below artificial forgiveness and feigned positivity, it actually
gives it more power over us. When we choose to take it out from its
hiding places, and really move through the emotions, we actually give
ourselves permission to shine.
Have
you ever seen someone so intent on swimming that they barely move
forward? It's noisy, uncomfortable, and exhausting. When we try to force
life to take a specific form or direction, it often feels like this.
Let go.
Illuminations ☾●☽Wednesday November 28th, 2012 PST
☾●☽ FULL MOON LUNAR ECLIPSE ☾●☽
For me, this will be a huge sign of relief day as things, ideas,
worries, and projects seem to really have grown during this new moon
eclipse… and today I shall begin to breathe a sign of relief and EXHALE,
knowing things will be winding up and we (ME) Shall much easier let go.
For me this eclipse was about things I could not change, and full of…
well events and people who do not play the same rules of life which I
do. Eclipses do have lessons don't they.
Today we begin at
2:33am with a GREAT aspect with URANUS the planet of change: 6:46am pst
the moon in Gemini asking us to look for options, opposses the sun in
Sagittarius which may think it already has the answer…balance is good
now.
At 8:01am Venus (what we want) and Pluto (Regeneration and
rebirth) Play well adding a bit of fate vs. free will to today 5:04pm
the moon moves v/c after making a TOUCH DOWN ON JUPITER the planet of
just want MORE, BIGGER, and also the planet which represents Faith.. for
us all hasn't this been a bit of what the last few months have been
about. What we think we want, and faith and hard work to get it?
Ideas run rampant this evening, try and NOT MAKE ANY MAJOR DECISIONS
until after 6am on the 30th. The moon moves v/c and times out for the
28th after 5:04pm until 5:55am on the 30th.
Leaving the 29th a
day of overdoing and overextending and ideas, options and a day best
not to plan things, but rather kind of feel your way through all those
options.
Happy eclipse and may this lunar eclipse allow that
last vestige of pain, sorrow, and the past to pass gently and easily
from us all. Let this eclipse bring us bright, happy new thoughts
(Gemini) to find New and better truths (Sagittarius) as we recognize
what we have held onto for so long has caused the pain long after the
event has passed.
Letting go time is her my friends and I like you let go of a 40 year cycle of my life.
☼ My mantra and Kiss for the next whole year is (THE BEST YEARS OF MY
LIFE HAVE NOT HAPPENED YET) the best moments, the happiest days, the
best nights and the most fun are ahead of me by me letting go of the
past.
☼ Color this day for me Orange for creativity.
☼ Gemstone choice is of course LARIMAR.
☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼
REMEMBER like losing weight, the end result is good but the process
sometimes is not exactly what we want… BE OPEN to looking FORWARD to
being where you desire to be by letting go of where you are now… (if you
are not happy).
Repeat after me.... I promise to bring my best
self to every person I meet, to every place I go, and mostly, I promise
to bring my best self to me as when I shine bright, I light the way for
others to do the same... in their own way of course. I DO! Do you?
You can choose to see life as beautiful or ugly. Just like you can
choose to see dandelions as beautiful flowers or as weeds. How fun is it
that you get to choose how you see the world and speak about it. Yep...
pretty darn fun! All Things Positivity.
Today, I resolve to
let go any resentment or condemnation that has limited my life and to
accept all the good that life has to give. TOMORROW is coming and by
Friday the energy will be really working fabulously for us all IN LIEU
of the eclipse and what is going on. I will be writing more tomorrow
night using that JUPITER Energy:
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
(this is a very SAGITTARIUS and GEMINI saying) "The individual has
always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To
be your own man (woman) is hard business. If you try it, you will be
lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay
for the privilege of owning yourself."
~ Illuminations via Carol Barbeau
Why Today Is Different
What carries us when the day is different, harder than it has ever been before?
Making the trip to see my father is often tiring. He has advanced
Alzheimer’s and is living at a facility for folks with dementia who have
become too aggressive to be cared for safely elsewhere. The staff are
highly skilled, patient and caring, often light-heartedly making the
residents smile. Still, the six hours of driving and the ache of seeing
how the disease is affecting him usually leave me a little weary at the
end of the day.
Not today. Today the trip is exhausting.
Often Dad doesn't know who I am. And that’s okay. I don’t need him to
know who I am. I want him to be free from suffering, and I cling to the
hope that his forgetfulness allows for present-moment-contentment, or at
least some freedom from feeling frustrated about something none of us
can stop or reverse. When he doesn’t know who I am, I hope and imagine
that a moment of walking arm in arm with another or drifting off to
sleep with someone holding his hand gives him some pleasure.
Not today. Today when I touch his arm and say, “Dad,” he turns and looks
at me. His whole face lights up, and he says, “Oh!” with real
recognition.
He’d been shuffling around the room in navy sweat
pants and a grey t-shirt, white socks gliding along the tile floor.
Always in motion, more agile than most, several inches shorter than I
am, shrinking but still wiry strong. He never could sit still for long,
always needed to be doing, moving, working.
I touch his hair,
white and sparse but well trimmed, stroke his cleanly shaven cheek. As
he ages his face seems to collapse like a balloon that is slowly losing
air. He must be feeling generally calmer- the staff do not push haircuts
or shaving on anyone if they are irritated or resistant. I stroke his
arm, take his hand and tell him I love him. Usually he is content to let
me walk or sit with him.
Not today.
Today there is
something he wants to tell me, something he needs me to understand.
“Real. . . . everyone was. . . . where. . . . ladder. . . I don’t. . . ”
His tone is urgent. Mini-strokes robbed him of words even when
comprehension was better. Sometimes I can tell by his intonation and
gestures that he is trying to make small talk, asking about the drive or
the weather.
Not today. Today, he struggles with the words, his eyes filling with tears.
I have only seen my father cry once- fifty years ago, when I was eight.
On that day, Lassie, the collie who had been his only companion growing
up in an impoverished and brutal household, had been hit and killed by a
truck on the highway. My father wept at the side of the road. He was
thirty. I remember feeling frightened and protective at the same time.
I feel the same now. I tell him it’s okay. I keep my tone calm.
Usually, he is quickly distracted, his attention drawn to exploring some
sound or movement in the room.
Not today.
Today there
is something he has to tell me, a window of recognition and a need to
communicate thrashing against the barrier of a brain that will not give
him the words. I move closer and rub his shoulders. I keep looking into
his eyes- blue-grey like mine, transformed to green when either of us
wear that colour, his favourite. He watches me. “I don’t. . . .” I wait
and will my heart to understand what he wants to tell me. It has been
months since he has said a complete sentence.
Not today.
Today, he backs up a little and tears spill from his eyes following the
lines on his weathered face. Leaning forward he speaks, wrestling each
word into being in an impossible act of will. His voice rises, the words
becoming a wail of terror and anguish: “I don’t know who I am!”
I step closer. He leans into me, trembling, sobbing. I hold him.
Somehow I speak, squeezing words past the sharp rock that has formed in
my throat, making myself breathe, keeping my voice steady. I don't know
if he understands me or even hears me- he will no longer tolerate
wearing his hearing aids- but I pour my heart into my words. “You’re my
father. You are Don House, and you’re my father. It’s okay Dad.” My
throat closes.
My father has always had the greatest respect
for and faith in my social work training and my work with groups and
individuals. I can feel how recognizing me has ignited both his anguish
and his hope. He is asking me for help, is hoping I will know something
that will help him make sense of what is happening to him. And I would
give anything to be able to do so.
Not today.
Today I
worry that recognizing me has actually made it harder on him, although
the nurse tells me he regularly goes through a wide range of emotions
pretty quickly. Even today, in between moments of tears and hugs, he
wanders away and is happily preoccupied with movement at the end of the
hall, or a sound from the dining room.
People who know about my
Dad regularly tell me with great conviction that Alzheimer’s patients
are working through past life karma, are souls who have chosen the
disease to learn something, are truly content in a reality closer to the
divine. I understand the need to make sense of something so horrible,
the desire to seek or offer comfort by claiming as true things we simply
cannot know.
Not today.
Today, my father's plaintive
wail pulls me to stay with what I can know. Today, I am with him in his
anguish, and later, on the drive home I will remind myself that I do not
know whether he will remember or re-experience this heart ache and
confusion three minutes after I am gone, whether he has felt it before
or will ever feel it again. Today I accept this sliver of comfort from
the vastness of what I cannot know.
Today, driving home, I let
the tears quietly stream down my face, and I offer a prayer fueled by
the ache in my chest: "Help him. Please. Help him."
Today I ask Love to carry us both, because there is simply nothing else I can do.
Oriah (c) 2012 (Weekly blogs shared here are published on Wednesdays at http://oriahsinvitation.blogspot.ca/)
Affirmations for Gemini Full Moon ~
My mind is open and spacious so that I may perceive the highest truth possible for me at this time.
I honor the power of m
y words and use them wisely.
I am flexible, adaptable and open to learn new experiences and ideas.
I listen with care and attentiveness.
I clearly observe, I discover, I discriminate. - Carla Mary
"Rest now my soul.
Leave behind your religion and your empty show of faith. Remember when you had no religion?
Remember when all you had was Him?"
--- Rumi
Have
you ever seen someone so intent on swimming that they barely move
forward? It's noisy, uncomfortable, and exhausting. When we try to force
life to take a specific form or direction, it often feels like this.
Let go.
Illuminations ☾●☽Wednesday November 28th, 2012 PST
☾●☽ FULL MOON LUNAR ECLIPSE ☾●☽
For me, this will be a huge sign of relief day as things, ideas,
worries, and projects seem to really have grown during this new moon
eclipse… and today I shall begin to breathe a sign of relief and EXHALE,
knowing things will be winding up and we (ME) Shall much easier let go.
For me this eclipse was about things I could not change, and full of…
well events and people who do not play the same rules of life which I
do. Eclipses do have lessons don't they.
Today we begin at
2:33am with a GREAT aspect with URANUS the planet of change: 6:46am pst
the moon in Gemini asking us to look for options, opposses the sun in
Sagittarius which may think it already has the answer…balance is good
now.
At 8:01am Venus (what we want) and Pluto (Regeneration and
rebirth) Play well adding a bit of fate vs. free will to today 5:04pm
the moon moves v/c after making a TOUCH DOWN ON JUPITER the planet of
just want MORE, BIGGER, and also the planet which represents Faith.. for
us all hasn't this been a bit of what the last few months have been
about. What we think we want, and faith and hard work to get it?
Ideas run rampant this evening, try and NOT MAKE ANY MAJOR DECISIONS
until after 6am on the 30th. The moon moves v/c and times out for the
28th after 5:04pm until 5:55am on the 30th.
Leaving the 29th a
day of overdoing and overextending and ideas, options and a day best
not to plan things, but rather kind of feel your way through all those
options.
Happy eclipse and may this lunar eclipse allow that
last vestige of pain, sorrow, and the past to pass gently and easily
from us all. Let this eclipse bring us bright, happy new thoughts
(Gemini) to find New and better truths (Sagittarius) as we recognize
what we have held onto for so long has caused the pain long after the
event has passed.
Letting go time is her my friends and I like you let go of a 40 year cycle of my life.
☼ My mantra and Kiss for the next whole year is (THE BEST YEARS OF MY
LIFE HAVE NOT HAPPENED YET) the best moments, the happiest days, the
best nights and the most fun are ahead of me by me letting go of the
past.
☼ Color this day for me Orange for creativity.
☼ Gemstone choice is of course LARIMAR.
☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼
REMEMBER like losing weight, the end result is good but the process
sometimes is not exactly what we want… BE OPEN to looking FORWARD to
being where you desire to be by letting go of where you are now… (if you
are not happy).
Repeat after me.... I promise to bring my best
self to every person I meet, to every place I go, and mostly, I promise
to bring my best self to me as when I shine bright, I light the way for
others to do the same... in their own way of course. I DO! Do you?
You can choose to see life as beautiful or ugly. Just like you can
choose to see dandelions as beautiful flowers or as weeds. How fun is it
that you get to choose how you see the world and speak about it. Yep...
pretty darn fun! All Things Positivity.
Today, I resolve to
let go any resentment or condemnation that has limited my life and to
accept all the good that life has to give. TOMORROW is coming and by
Friday the energy will be really working fabulously for us all IN LIEU
of the eclipse and what is going on. I will be writing more tomorrow
night using that JUPITER Energy:
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
(this is a very SAGITTARIUS and GEMINI saying) "The individual has
always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To
be your own man (woman) is hard business. If you try it, you will be
lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay
for the privilege of owning yourself."
~ Illuminations via Carol Barbeau
Why Today Is Different
What carries us when the day is different, harder than it has ever been before?
Making the trip to see my father is often tiring. He has advanced
Alzheimer’s and is living at a facility for folks with dementia who have
become too aggressive to be cared for safely elsewhere. The staff are
highly skilled, patient and caring, often light-heartedly making the
residents smile. Still, the six hours of driving and the ache of seeing
how the disease is affecting him usually leave me a little weary at the
end of the day.
Not today. Today the trip is exhausting.
Often Dad doesn't know who I am. And that’s okay. I don’t need him to
know who I am. I want him to be free from suffering, and I cling to the
hope that his forgetfulness allows for present-moment-contentment, or at
least some freedom from feeling frustrated about something none of us
can stop or reverse. When he doesn’t know who I am, I hope and imagine
that a moment of walking arm in arm with another or drifting off to
sleep with someone holding his hand gives him some pleasure.
Not today. Today when I touch his arm and say, “Dad,” he turns and looks
at me. His whole face lights up, and he says, “Oh!” with real
recognition.
He’d been shuffling around the room in navy sweat
pants and a grey t-shirt, white socks gliding along the tile floor.
Always in motion, more agile than most, several inches shorter than I
am, shrinking but still wiry strong. He never could sit still for long,
always needed to be doing, moving, working.
I touch his hair,
white and sparse but well trimmed, stroke his cleanly shaven cheek. As
he ages his face seems to collapse like a balloon that is slowly losing
air. He must be feeling generally calmer- the staff do not push haircuts
or shaving on anyone if they are irritated or resistant. I stroke his
arm, take his hand and tell him I love him. Usually he is content to let
me walk or sit with him.
Not today.
Today there is
something he wants to tell me, something he needs me to understand.
“Real. . . . everyone was. . . . where. . . . ladder. . . I don’t. . . ”
His tone is urgent. Mini-strokes robbed him of words even when
comprehension was better. Sometimes I can tell by his intonation and
gestures that he is trying to make small talk, asking about the drive or
the weather.
Not today. Today, he struggles with the words, his eyes filling with tears.
I have only seen my father cry once- fifty years ago, when I was eight.
On that day, Lassie, the collie who had been his only companion growing
up in an impoverished and brutal household, had been hit and killed by a
truck on the highway. My father wept at the side of the road. He was
thirty. I remember feeling frightened and protective at the same time.
I feel the same now. I tell him it’s okay. I keep my tone calm.
Usually, he is quickly distracted, his attention drawn to exploring some
sound or movement in the room.
Not today.
Today there
is something he has to tell me, a window of recognition and a need to
communicate thrashing against the barrier of a brain that will not give
him the words. I move closer and rub his shoulders. I keep looking into
his eyes- blue-grey like mine, transformed to green when either of us
wear that colour, his favourite. He watches me. “I don’t. . . .” I wait
and will my heart to understand what he wants to tell me. It has been
months since he has said a complete sentence.
Not today.
Today, he backs up a little and tears spill from his eyes following the
lines on his weathered face. Leaning forward he speaks, wrestling each
word into being in an impossible act of will. His voice rises, the words
becoming a wail of terror and anguish: “I don’t know who I am!”
I step closer. He leans into me, trembling, sobbing. I hold him.
Somehow I speak, squeezing words past the sharp rock that has formed in
my throat, making myself breathe, keeping my voice steady. I don't know
if he understands me or even hears me- he will no longer tolerate
wearing his hearing aids- but I pour my heart into my words. “You’re my
father. You are Don House, and you’re my father. It’s okay Dad.” My
throat closes.
My father has always had the greatest respect
for and faith in my social work training and my work with groups and
individuals. I can feel how recognizing me has ignited both his anguish
and his hope. He is asking me for help, is hoping I will know something
that will help him make sense of what is happening to him. And I would
give anything to be able to do so.
Not today.
Today I
worry that recognizing me has actually made it harder on him, although
the nurse tells me he regularly goes through a wide range of emotions
pretty quickly. Even today, in between moments of tears and hugs, he
wanders away and is happily preoccupied with movement at the end of the
hall, or a sound from the dining room.
People who know about my
Dad regularly tell me with great conviction that Alzheimer’s patients
are working through past life karma, are souls who have chosen the
disease to learn something, are truly content in a reality closer to the
divine. I understand the need to make sense of something so horrible,
the desire to seek or offer comfort by claiming as true things we simply
cannot know.
Not today.
Today, my father's plaintive
wail pulls me to stay with what I can know. Today, I am with him in his
anguish, and later, on the drive home I will remind myself that I do not
know whether he will remember or re-experience this heart ache and
confusion three minutes after I am gone, whether he has felt it before
or will ever feel it again. Today I accept this sliver of comfort from
the vastness of what I cannot know.
Today, driving home, I let
the tears quietly stream down my face, and I offer a prayer fueled by
the ache in my chest: "Help him. Please. Help him."
Today I ask Love to carry us both, because there is simply nothing else I can do.
Oriah (c) 2012 (Weekly blogs shared here are published on Wednesdays at http://oriahsinvitation.blogspot.ca/)
Affirmations for Gemini Full Moon ~
My mind is open and spacious so that I may perceive the highest truth possible for me at this time.
I honor the power of m
y words and use them wisely.
I am flexible, adaptable and open to learn new experiences and ideas.
I listen with care and attentiveness.
I clearly observe, I discover, I discriminate. - Carla Mary
"Rest now my soul.
Leave behind your religion and your empty show of faith. Remember when you had no religion?
Remember when all you had was Him?"
--- Rumi
Illuminations ☾●☽Wednesday November 28th, 2012 PST
☾●☽ FULL MOON LUNAR ECLIPSE ☾●☽
For me, this will be a huge sign of relief day as things, ideas, worries, and projects seem to really have grown during this new moon eclipse… and today I shall begin to breathe a sign of relief and EXHALE, knowing things will be winding up and we (ME) Shall much easier let go.
For me this eclipse was about things I could not change, and full of… well events and people who do not play the same rules of life which I do. Eclipses do have lessons don't they.
Today we begin at 2:33am with a GREAT aspect with URANUS the planet of change: 6:46am pst the moon in Gemini asking us to look for options, opposses the sun in Sagittarius which may think it already has the answer…balance is good now.
At 8:01am Venus (what we want) and Pluto (Regeneration and rebirth) Play well adding a bit of fate vs. free will to today 5:04pm the moon moves v/c after making a TOUCH DOWN ON JUPITER the planet of just want MORE, BIGGER, and also the planet which represents Faith.. for us all hasn't this been a bit of what the last few months have been about. What we think we want, and faith and hard work to get it?
Ideas run rampant this evening, try and NOT MAKE ANY MAJOR DECISIONS until after 6am on the 30th. The moon moves v/c and times out for the 28th after 5:04pm until 5:55am on the 30th.
Leaving the 29th a day of overdoing and overextending and ideas, options and a day best not to plan things, but rather kind of feel your way through all those options.
Happy eclipse and may this lunar eclipse allow that last vestige of pain, sorrow, and the past to pass gently and easily from us all. Let this eclipse bring us bright, happy new thoughts (Gemini) to find New and better truths (Sagittarius) as we recognize what we have held onto for so long has caused the pain long after the event has passed.
Letting go time is her my friends and I like you let go of a 40 year cycle of my life.
☼ My mantra and Kiss for the next whole year is (THE BEST YEARS OF MY LIFE HAVE NOT HAPPENED YET) the best moments, the happiest days, the best nights and the most fun are ahead of me by me letting go of the past.
☼ Color this day for me Orange for creativity.
☼ Gemstone choice is of course LARIMAR.
☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼
REMEMBER like losing weight, the end result is good but the process sometimes is not exactly what we want… BE OPEN to looking FORWARD to being where you desire to be by letting go of where you are now… (if you are not happy).
Repeat after me.... I promise to bring my best self to every person I meet, to every place I go, and mostly, I promise to bring my best self to me as when I shine bright, I light the way for others to do the same... in their own way of course. I DO! Do you?
You can choose to see life as beautiful or ugly. Just like you can choose to see dandelions as beautiful flowers or as weeds. How fun is it that you get to choose how you see the world and speak about it. Yep... pretty darn fun! All Things Positivity.
Today, I resolve to let go any resentment or condemnation that has limited my life and to accept all the good that life has to give. TOMORROW is coming and by Friday the energy will be really working fabulously for us all IN LIEU of the eclipse and what is going on. I will be writing more tomorrow night using that JUPITER Energy:
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) (this is a very SAGITTARIUS and GEMINI saying) "The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man (woman) is hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."
~ Illuminations via Carol Barbeau
Why Today Is Different
Affirmations for Gemini Full Moon ~
☾●☽ FULL MOON LUNAR ECLIPSE ☾●☽
For me, this will be a huge sign of relief day as things, ideas, worries, and projects seem to really have grown during this new moon eclipse… and today I shall begin to breathe a sign of relief and EXHALE, knowing things will be winding up and we (ME) Shall much easier let go.
For me this eclipse was about things I could not change, and full of… well events and people who do not play the same rules of life which I do. Eclipses do have lessons don't they.
Today we begin at 2:33am with a GREAT aspect with URANUS the planet of change: 6:46am pst the moon in Gemini asking us to look for options, opposses the sun in Sagittarius which may think it already has the answer…balance is good now.
At 8:01am Venus (what we want) and Pluto (Regeneration and rebirth) Play well adding a bit of fate vs. free will to today 5:04pm the moon moves v/c after making a TOUCH DOWN ON JUPITER the planet of just want MORE, BIGGER, and also the planet which represents Faith.. for us all hasn't this been a bit of what the last few months have been about. What we think we want, and faith and hard work to get it?
Ideas run rampant this evening, try and NOT MAKE ANY MAJOR DECISIONS until after 6am on the 30th. The moon moves v/c and times out for the 28th after 5:04pm until 5:55am on the 30th.
Leaving the 29th a day of overdoing and overextending and ideas, options and a day best not to plan things, but rather kind of feel your way through all those options.
Happy eclipse and may this lunar eclipse allow that last vestige of pain, sorrow, and the past to pass gently and easily from us all. Let this eclipse bring us bright, happy new thoughts (Gemini) to find New and better truths (Sagittarius) as we recognize what we have held onto for so long has caused the pain long after the event has passed.
Letting go time is her my friends and I like you let go of a 40 year cycle of my life.
☼ My mantra and Kiss for the next whole year is (THE BEST YEARS OF MY LIFE HAVE NOT HAPPENED YET) the best moments, the happiest days, the best nights and the most fun are ahead of me by me letting go of the past.
☼ Color this day for me Orange for creativity.
☼ Gemstone choice is of course LARIMAR.
☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼♊☾✩ ☼
REMEMBER like losing weight, the end result is good but the process sometimes is not exactly what we want… BE OPEN to looking FORWARD to being where you desire to be by letting go of where you are now… (if you are not happy).
Repeat after me.... I promise to bring my best self to every person I meet, to every place I go, and mostly, I promise to bring my best self to me as when I shine bright, I light the way for others to do the same... in their own way of course. I DO! Do you?
You can choose to see life as beautiful or ugly. Just like you can choose to see dandelions as beautiful flowers or as weeds. How fun is it that you get to choose how you see the world and speak about it. Yep... pretty darn fun! All Things Positivity.
Today, I resolve to let go any resentment or condemnation that has limited my life and to accept all the good that life has to give. TOMORROW is coming and by Friday the energy will be really working fabulously for us all IN LIEU of the eclipse and what is going on. I will be writing more tomorrow night using that JUPITER Energy:
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) (this is a very SAGITTARIUS and GEMINI saying) "The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man (woman) is hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."
~ Illuminations via Carol Barbeau
Why Today Is Different
What carries us when the day is different, harder than it has ever been before?
Making the trip to see my father is often tiring. He has advanced
Alzheimer’s and is living at a facility for folks with dementia who have
become too aggressive to be cared for safely elsewhere. The staff are
highly skilled, patient and caring, often light-heartedly making the
residents smile. Still, the six hours of driving and the ache of seeing
how the disease is affecting him usually leave me a little weary at the
end of the day.
Not today. Today the trip is exhausting.
Often Dad doesn't know who I am. And that’s okay. I don’t need him to
know who I am. I want him to be free from suffering, and I cling to the
hope that his forgetfulness allows for present-moment-contentment, or at
least some freedom from feeling frustrated about something none of us
can stop or reverse. When he doesn’t know who I am, I hope and imagine
that a moment of walking arm in arm with another or drifting off to
sleep with someone holding his hand gives him some pleasure.
Not today. Today when I touch his arm and say, “Dad,” he turns and looks
at me. His whole face lights up, and he says, “Oh!” with real
recognition.
He’d been shuffling around the room in navy sweat
pants and a grey t-shirt, white socks gliding along the tile floor.
Always in motion, more agile than most, several inches shorter than I
am, shrinking but still wiry strong. He never could sit still for long,
always needed to be doing, moving, working.
I touch his hair,
white and sparse but well trimmed, stroke his cleanly shaven cheek. As
he ages his face seems to collapse like a balloon that is slowly losing
air. He must be feeling generally calmer- the staff do not push haircuts
or shaving on anyone if they are irritated or resistant. I stroke his
arm, take his hand and tell him I love him. Usually he is content to let
me walk or sit with him.
Not today.
Today there is
something he wants to tell me, something he needs me to understand.
“Real. . . . everyone was. . . . where. . . . ladder. . . I don’t. . . ”
His tone is urgent. Mini-strokes robbed him of words even when
comprehension was better. Sometimes I can tell by his intonation and
gestures that he is trying to make small talk, asking about the drive or
the weather.
Not today. Today, he struggles with the words, his eyes filling with tears.
I have only seen my father cry once- fifty years ago, when I was eight.
On that day, Lassie, the collie who had been his only companion growing
up in an impoverished and brutal household, had been hit and killed by a
truck on the highway. My father wept at the side of the road. He was
thirty. I remember feeling frightened and protective at the same time.
I feel the same now. I tell him it’s okay. I keep my tone calm.
Usually, he is quickly distracted, his attention drawn to exploring some
sound or movement in the room.
Not today.
Today there
is something he has to tell me, a window of recognition and a need to
communicate thrashing against the barrier of a brain that will not give
him the words. I move closer and rub his shoulders. I keep looking into
his eyes- blue-grey like mine, transformed to green when either of us
wear that colour, his favourite. He watches me. “I don’t. . . .” I wait
and will my heart to understand what he wants to tell me. It has been
months since he has said a complete sentence.
Not today.
Today, he backs up a little and tears spill from his eyes following the
lines on his weathered face. Leaning forward he speaks, wrestling each
word into being in an impossible act of will. His voice rises, the words
becoming a wail of terror and anguish: “I don’t know who I am!”
I step closer. He leans into me, trembling, sobbing. I hold him.
Somehow I speak, squeezing words past the sharp rock that has formed in
my throat, making myself breathe, keeping my voice steady. I don't know
if he understands me or even hears me- he will no longer tolerate
wearing his hearing aids- but I pour my heart into my words. “You’re my
father. You are Don House, and you’re my father. It’s okay Dad.” My
throat closes.
My father has always had the greatest respect
for and faith in my social work training and my work with groups and
individuals. I can feel how recognizing me has ignited both his anguish
and his hope. He is asking me for help, is hoping I will know something
that will help him make sense of what is happening to him. And I would
give anything to be able to do so.
Not today.
Today I
worry that recognizing me has actually made it harder on him, although
the nurse tells me he regularly goes through a wide range of emotions
pretty quickly. Even today, in between moments of tears and hugs, he
wanders away and is happily preoccupied with movement at the end of the
hall, or a sound from the dining room.
People who know about my
Dad regularly tell me with great conviction that Alzheimer’s patients
are working through past life karma, are souls who have chosen the
disease to learn something, are truly content in a reality closer to the
divine. I understand the need to make sense of something so horrible,
the desire to seek or offer comfort by claiming as true things we simply
cannot know.
Not today.
Today, my father's plaintive
wail pulls me to stay with what I can know. Today, I am with him in his
anguish, and later, on the drive home I will remind myself that I do not
know whether he will remember or re-experience this heart ache and
confusion three minutes after I am gone, whether he has felt it before
or will ever feel it again. Today I accept this sliver of comfort from
the vastness of what I cannot know.
Today, driving home, I let
the tears quietly stream down my face, and I offer a prayer fueled by
the ache in my chest: "Help him. Please. Help him."
Today I ask Love to carry us both, because there is simply nothing else I can do.
Oriah (c) 2012 (Weekly blogs shared here are published on Wednesdays at http://oriahsinvitation.blogspot.ca/)
Affirmations for Gemini Full Moon ~
My mind is open and spacious so that I may perceive the highest truth possible for me at this time.
I honor the power of m
y words and use them wisely.
I am flexible, adaptable and open to learn new experiences and ideas.
I listen with care and attentiveness.
I clearly observe, I discover, I discriminate. - Carla Mary
I am flexible, adaptable and open to learn new experiences and ideas.
I listen with care and attentiveness.
I clearly observe, I discover, I discriminate. - Carla Mary
"Rest now my soul.
Leave behind your religion and your empty show of faith. Remember when you had no religion?
Remember when all you had was Him?"
--- Rumi
Leave behind your religion and your empty show of faith. Remember when you had no religion?
Remember when all you had was Him?"
--- Rumi
Comments