Tag: Loss

Opportunity for a Collective Emergence

Hey peeps, it’s been a while. I just wanted to drop in before the end of the year to share a few thoughts. I saw that my last post was titled, Emerging, which I was at the time, but that was nineteen months ago when things were about to go sideways. I just didn’t know it yet. More on that later.

Anyway, this got me to pondering about how many times a person can actually emerge, or re-emerge, without feeling embarrassed about it.

Well, if we think about it in terms of swimming and breathing, emerging becomes a completely natural and important part of the process. This is especially true for people who find themselves, for whatever reasons, frequently navigating the Neptunian underworld of human trials and tribulations. Sometimes we’re going to be underwater for a while, not necessarily drowning, but definitely looking around and figuring stuff out.

We also emerge from sleep – every single day. I guess there’s a reason why the word ‘awakening’ has such currency in spiritual parlance, LOL. And while emerging isn’t quite as glamorous as a full blown awakening, it’s definitely worth celebrating every time it happens. Yay, hurray, welcome back… tell us where you’ve been!

Well, it goes like this. Last year I made a decision to dismantle my beautiful life in Windsor, and move to a different city to be near family. The family part has been truly wonderful, but the physical transition itself did not go smoothly. Not at all. I am a strong and resilient woman, but when I get knocked off the beam, well, recovery can be slow. And just as I was beginning to venture out and explore my new community in the hopes of making new friends, the pandemic hit.

Tomorrow will be exactly nine months since everything in my region started to get cancelled due to COVID-19. Like many, I ended up in ‘solitary confinement’ for the first trimester, and it was absolutely HORRIBLE. The second trimester improved, and though not normal by any means, the beautiful summertime weather helped a lot. Now here we are at the end of the third trimester, and all hell is breaking loose. Again.

If nothing else, this entire experience is manifesting a birthing of sorts – the likes of which none of us has ever seen before. And whatever comes out of it, on the surface it will look different for each and every one of us. Nevertheless, we are ALL feeling this together – some way, some how, as the collective trauma that it is. 

In the meantime, I’m sure you can relate to the feeling of being submerged in the aforementioned Neptunian soup, where swimming around and trying to figure things out means learning how to be brave and have faith that the Universe has our back, and that everything will eventually work out one way or another.

The beauty is that all of us will be emerging together when this is all over. And for the ones that we lost along the way, may they rest in peace and forever remain a beacon of Love in our hearts.

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A buzz cut for Samhain this year...

 

Beyond the Grave

Mixed States Series: Impression

You didn’t know
I would pull you
from the grave
and hold you so close,
but neither did I…
and now here you are
your blood in my veins
a face in the mirror
that is not me,
but us—
a father
a daughter
a mysterious fusion
forged ever so lovingly
because I still believe in you.

Imagine the place
where miracles are born
of hearts and desires
and the alchemy of the impossible
is made tangible to the soul.

The more I work on the Mixed States project, the more I feel connected to my father, who was lost to me in a fatal car accident when I was only five years old. After his passing I was not permitted to grieve, and for fifty years it was drilled into my head that he was nothing but an asshole. This was difficult for me to reconcile because I was his only daughter— daddy’s little girl—and in 1963 he was frozen forever in my mind as a god on a pedestal. A wise person recently suggested that [in order to resolve conflicting stories and feelings] I needed to learn who my father really was—not the god, not the supposed asshole—but the human being inside the man.

What I’ve learned so far is that he was very generous, affectionate, a great storyteller, and a gifted artist. He liked to travel and read, and always kept a dictionary beside his bed. He loved new gadgets and cameras, and his boundless passion for knowledge required a serious investment—a twenty-four volume, leather-bound, hardcover set of the 14th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1962). I just know my dad would have loved today’s gadgets, Google, and especially the work that I do! I’d like to think that he would have been proud of me.

The Mixed States project is turning out to be much more than I had anticipated. Today I ran the first generation double-exposures through additional processing, which has transformed the images even further. Unexpectedly, it gave the feeling that I was melding my father even deeper into myself, thus the Beyond the Grave idea and the poem above. Although this journey is intensely personal, I can only hope that my work resonates with some of you out there. ❤

 

Place

Detroit

The pull of place
on frayed strings
attached to faded memories
and beating hearts
gnawed upon by time
and childhood traumas
holds strong
even now.

She looks back
on loosened ties
in so many places—
the happy moments
the kisses and farewells
the many ends
of many beginnings
each thought to be the one
that would tame
the longing
forever.

It is a haunting
that echoes
down a winding trail
of silvered hair
and dried up tears
roaming
searching
driven
and blind—
une force majeure
so terribly misunderstood
by those who would have her
bound and chained to a hell
more closely resembling their own.

But the “nomad” knows
she is not that
and now it has come to this—
a place where a bridge
spans a river
so fresh and new
in its familiarity
linking this time
with that place
in her memory
where fragile roots
were torn so violently
from their knowing
and she is finally home.

A little background:

Some years ago it occurred to me that “chemistry” was a pretty interesting concept. We often talk about finding pair bonds with our fellow humans and the role that chemistry has in successful unions. People are drawn to each other, or not.

For me the chemistry theory also applies to our relationship with place. For example, over the years I’ve lived in over a dozen cities and towns. Some were great, but there were others in which over time I began to develop a sense of angst—like I knew I wasn’t supposed to be there and it just wasn’t “my place.” This had nothing to do with friends because I’ve always had the good fortune of finding great friends everywhere, which made leaving all the harder.

I also believe that place of origin (or place of birth) imprints on the souls of young children. I was five and a half when my father died and my mother moved us from Detroit to Timmins. Those two places could not be more different. It never ever was my plan to remain in such a remote northern community with brutal winters to raise a family of my own, so at age eighteen I packed my bags and hightailed it south… then west, then east again, then north, etc., zigzagging around the country.

Now after ten years in North Bay, I’m living in Windsor just across the river from my birthplace. I remember so much from my childhood—although more like a vivid dream—and I cross over to explore Detroit as often as I can. Every time I get over there my heart just leaps with joy. It’s hard to describe, but I suppose I’ve finally found my place.

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