I am that I am, Penny, of sovereign domain!
What does that statement of My Soul--my entire Body of Consciousness--mean? It simply means that I am accepting full responsibility for my entire life, and beingness, and that no other has any dominion over me. I am a child of our Creator/Source of All That Is/God, Whom has bestowed me with Divine Free Will. I accept that Gift with Honor.
Many of us humans have been playing the game, most of us without consciously knowing it, of giving our sovereignty away on a platter to others who touch our lives—family, friends, neighbors, community, religious and educational institutions, government corporations, businesses. The list goes on and on.
We've all been deeply ingrained with Self Doubt. And our human minds have developed a type of pattern from this cycle of giving our GIFT of FREE CHOICE away, where we’re seduced into feelingly believing that we have to tangle with the web of illusion that’s been in place, for age upon age upon age. Frankly, I’m done being sucked on by some make-believe hairy-scary spider that really can’t touch me at all.
I’m tired of, and done with, playing the game of “who I am not trying to figure out who I am.” No more!
I know who I am—I know what’s in my heart and my intentions—and I know that I come from GOODNESS ITSELF, thus how can I be anything but GOODNESS?
The last twelve months, I had the opportunity to interact with the Census Bureau of the Corporate U.S. government—through one of its slave employees acting like a government agent. One of the ladies showed up ringing my doorbell on a bitterly cold winter day over a year ago. Being the kind person that I am, I invited her in and I answered her survey of very intrusive questions—many of which were about my husband, which I had no business answering. They asked me his salary, how many hours of overtime he worked the previous week, how much money we spent on groceries the previous week, how much we spent eating out that week, how many people lived in our house—I think by now you get the gist.
I didn’t mean to, but I was pulling figures out of the air and she was punching my answers into her long questionnaire. We finished up with this little episode, only for her to tell me as she’s leaving that she will be contacting me over the phone for the next three or four months to interview me some more about the previous weeks.
Okay—I allowed the bullshit to continue through the invasive proceedings into my husband’s and my own life for the following four months. I knew it was all crap and I was amazed at the stupidity of this survey, but I chose not to make waves and I kept telling myself that these women were just trying to keep food on their tables doing this dumb-ass job.
After the four months was up, I was told that they were going to contact me again beginning this past December, and then do four more months of surveys into my husband’s and my life.
December came around and I’d received a letter from the U.S. Census Bureau telling me of the survey starting again and that my participation was “voluntary.” I did not know this before or I would have turned the first person away who appeared on my doorstep. I chose to cooperate rather than make a stink—out of compassion.
So, when Field Representative, Aemilia, called me again to start the surveys over I told her that I realized this was a voluntary act that I chose to no longer be part of it.
And she told me, “You have to call your congressman in order to be taken off the list. Otherwise they’ll keep sending your name to us and we’ll have to keep contacting you.” In the meantime, she interviewed me to fill out her survey for that month—and I kindly allowed her to do so. All of this was after I had told her that the survey absolutely meant nothing to me and that I saw no issue-solving value in it whatsoever. BUT SHE DIDN’T LISTEN!
As we concluded that phone conversation, I told her—and I meant it from my heart—that I would have enjoyed meeting her under other circumstances, that maybe we could simply have a cup of coffee together as friends. I didn’t let my bitch loose on her at any time in any of our interactions.
But evidently, I should have. She contacted me again—and this time, Kelly answered the phone and told her I wasn’t interested in participating anymore. Then she asked him if he would—and he told her he was not interested either.
Evidently the “no” over the phone wasn’t enough. Doesn’t “no” mean anything? After the turndown over the phone on Saturday, I got an overnighted letter via FedEx from Cathy L. Lacy, Regional Director of the Regional Office of the U.S. Census Bureau in Denver, CO, informing me that their field representative will be “calling on me again in the near future.”
No “congressman” ever contacted me to ASK me to “volunteer” for this survey, so why should I have to figure out who he is and then track him down in order to have him take me off a list? A list volunteering me for taking part in something I was never consulted about, by him in the first place. I am a sovereign being—the Corporate U.S. Census Bureau should not even be messing with me using peon employees—they should be sending GOOD WILL AMBASSADORS, if anyone at all, to visit me.
In all their stupid long lists of mindless questions, not one asked the important things about me, and they should never have been asking me questions about my husband’s life--a sovereign being I had no place in speaking for, even if I was "married" to him.
These are the important, world-difference-making things people should know about me. I’m a benevolent sister, neighbor, friend and I’m sometimes that compassionate stranger you might meet while walking, or while out and about on errands. I’m not going to tell you what you should believe, nor am I going to grill you about what you do or don’t do.
I’ll honor your free choice to play out your life however you wish and I won’t pretend to have your answers. I’ll tell you to trust in yourself every time and I’ll remind you to remember the gift that you are--to be kind to, and appreciative and unconditionally loving of, yourself first, so then you can be that way with your neighbor, too.
As to the rest of you who would force yourselves and your ideas upon me—the first time or two, I’ll give you the chance to go on your own way quietly, but if you come back and try to negotiate with me, consider yourself served notice. The bitch will be set loose and you’re not going to gain one thing except an education in honoring sovereignty. And so I am!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
In Loving Memory and Honor...Arlen
“Penny—you did it! I’m so proud of you!” He said this as he was walking up the steps towards me, smiling. And then he leaned over the rail and kissed me.
Few dreams have ever felt so good. And prior to this one, twenty years in the making, in all my other dreams/nightmares he was always angry with me for not waiting for him, for going forward in my life with Kelly.
It wasn’t really Arlen who was angry with me though—the dreams were a mirror of the struggle I was having within myself—and Arlen wasn’t allowed by me to come in, in any other way, until I resolved my feelings of guilt and shame and worthlessness surrounding him.
That dream of him being proud of me was the first chink out of a gigantoid iceberg. It was the marking of a point in my life where I had made the conscious choice to no longer beat up on myself. I had looked in the mirror one day, looked into my own eyes leaking over with tears, and realized how cruel and harsh I had been with myself—more so than I would be to anyone outside of me. I sincerely apologized, right then and there, to myself. And I began to actually practice loving myself unconditionally and with compassion. The girl who stared back at me in the mirror had tried and tried and tried SO HARD to do, and be, all the “right things”—only to be harped at and to go unappreciated by me. I was finally done with not being good enough.
Arlen was my first love. We were neighbors—grew up on farms and ranches—and he and my brother, Tim, were best friends from childhood. Tim and his wife, Cheri, pretty much orchestrated the two of us getting together, and from the moment of our first date we were a foursome who did everything together.
When I slip back into our year together, I remember it as being so fun and full of laughter. Arlen and I both loved animals and nature and looking at the stars--true romantics at heart. He picked me a bouquet of wild yellow sweet peas when he, Tim and I went to check out the damage after a tornado had passed through a deserted neighboring farmstead. When I quit school and returned home, he stopped the pick-up in the middle of the road on the way into our family farm where Tim and Cheri lived, to kiss me, saying, “I’ve been wanting to do that ever since you got home.”
He and Tim whole-heartedly threw themselves into acting like fools just to entertain their women. One of my favorite memories of those two is watching them run, in their cut-offs, down to the beach of Haley Dam, girlishly squealing as they held their towels in front of them and then daintily dipping their toes in the water.
The four of us were parked in the pick-up on the Big Hill, and I remember Tim making some wise crack to which Arlen replied as he kissed me, “Shut up, Lewton, I’m trying to seduce your sister.”
He hunted all over his parents’ home to find a child-size helmet that would fit me when he took me with him on a motorcycle ride in the pastures to check cows. As we stopped to open a gate, he told me, with the most charming grin, that I looked like a little kid in that helmet.
The memories go on and on, warming my heart with every one. I used to be terrified of forgetting anything from our time together, and I actually did forget for an awful-feeling frantic moment. But then my heart started filling in the gaps: and the memories, I’ve discovered, have gotten sweeter with age and experience.
That year was filled with a lot of firsts for me. My grandmother had passed away when college started, and Arlen, my first boyfriend, and I had just started dating that summer. I was in my second year at NDSU for landscape design when I hit school burnout. I was sick with something like walking pneumonia most of what was to be my last fall quarter, and the school thing was just something I was doing because everyone else my age seemed to be doing it. In looking back, it wasn’t my desire—I was feeling really empty and lost there. I was in a void.
The idea of an education in a life-long career of doing one thing was feeling really limiting and suffocating for me. I couldn’t put it into words then because of feeling so much shame at “being a quitter” in the first place, plus I was mentally exhausted from trying to perform to the level of excellence I was expecting of myself. Even then, I was wrestling with the “not good enough” theme.
At nineteen years of age, I was an expert at rote regurgitation of all kinds of subject matter—my teachers and instructors loved it—but I was losing my sense of unique identity, my own “I am-ness.” My sense of imagination and creativity had just torpedoed down a black hole. I was a conglomeration of everyone else’s ideas and belief systems, molding myself this way and that, immersing myself to the point I no longer even felt real. And so choice-making,for me, became overloaded with overwhelming and paralyzing fears of making the wrong choice.
So, I quit, returned home and went to work at one of the local drugstores part-time. I was a painter-for-hire with my mom and sister on our days off. And pretty much every weekend was spent with Arlen and Tim and Cheri, and my newborn niece, Crystal.
Arlen never once treated me like, or intimated that, I was only a fling for him. I was treated with honor and affection all the while we dated. So, now when I look back at one of our last times together, I’m astonished at how much an I’m not good enough self-perception managed to twist and distort what was really a very unconditional love-based act.
He had pulled over on the township road, after leaving Tim and Cheri’s, to talk. As he held me, he asked, “Do you think we should break up so you can go back and finish school?”
Believing he was sick and tired of dating pathetic me, I found myself bawling my eyes out at the thought of parting from him—and that only made it worse in my eyes, because I detested women using tears to manipulate men. And there I was seemingly doing that very thing—even though that wasn’t my intention.
It took me nearly twenty-five years to look at that moment from some other perspective than “I’m a loser nobody would want to be with.” Twenty-five years to even consider the possibility that that was maybe guy-speak for, “I’m feeling serious about us, but I don’t want to get in your way of happiness. And I’m asking you how you feel about us.” He sure kissed me afterward like he meant business. Grin.
But no—I couldn’t even let myself fully enjoy that at the time, because, in my mind, I believed he was resorting to kissing me in order to calm down a hysterical wreck and to smooth over an awkward moment of trying to break up with me nicely.
I was SO NOT PROUD of MYSELF back then, and for all those years afterward…and that made for a very long and difficult journey.
This is the start of my story with Arlen…there is so much more to come…but this is enough for now…
For more on the story of Arlen, click the titles here to read the posts:
Can Death Be Transcended?
Good-bye Conspiracy Theories
Few dreams have ever felt so good. And prior to this one, twenty years in the making, in all my other dreams/nightmares he was always angry with me for not waiting for him, for going forward in my life with Kelly.
It wasn’t really Arlen who was angry with me though—the dreams were a mirror of the struggle I was having within myself—and Arlen wasn’t allowed by me to come in, in any other way, until I resolved my feelings of guilt and shame and worthlessness surrounding him.
That dream of him being proud of me was the first chink out of a gigantoid iceberg. It was the marking of a point in my life where I had made the conscious choice to no longer beat up on myself. I had looked in the mirror one day, looked into my own eyes leaking over with tears, and realized how cruel and harsh I had been with myself—more so than I would be to anyone outside of me. I sincerely apologized, right then and there, to myself. And I began to actually practice loving myself unconditionally and with compassion. The girl who stared back at me in the mirror had tried and tried and tried SO HARD to do, and be, all the “right things”—only to be harped at and to go unappreciated by me. I was finally done with not being good enough.
Arlen was my first love. We were neighbors—grew up on farms and ranches—and he and my brother, Tim, were best friends from childhood. Tim and his wife, Cheri, pretty much orchestrated the two of us getting together, and from the moment of our first date we were a foursome who did everything together.
When I slip back into our year together, I remember it as being so fun and full of laughter. Arlen and I both loved animals and nature and looking at the stars--true romantics at heart. He picked me a bouquet of wild yellow sweet peas when he, Tim and I went to check out the damage after a tornado had passed through a deserted neighboring farmstead. When I quit school and returned home, he stopped the pick-up in the middle of the road on the way into our family farm where Tim and Cheri lived, to kiss me, saying, “I’ve been wanting to do that ever since you got home.”
He and Tim whole-heartedly threw themselves into acting like fools just to entertain their women. One of my favorite memories of those two is watching them run, in their cut-offs, down to the beach of Haley Dam, girlishly squealing as they held their towels in front of them and then daintily dipping their toes in the water.
The four of us were parked in the pick-up on the Big Hill, and I remember Tim making some wise crack to which Arlen replied as he kissed me, “Shut up, Lewton, I’m trying to seduce your sister.”
He hunted all over his parents’ home to find a child-size helmet that would fit me when he took me with him on a motorcycle ride in the pastures to check cows. As we stopped to open a gate, he told me, with the most charming grin, that I looked like a little kid in that helmet.
The memories go on and on, warming my heart with every one. I used to be terrified of forgetting anything from our time together, and I actually did forget for an awful-feeling frantic moment. But then my heart started filling in the gaps: and the memories, I’ve discovered, have gotten sweeter with age and experience.
That year was filled with a lot of firsts for me. My grandmother had passed away when college started, and Arlen, my first boyfriend, and I had just started dating that summer. I was in my second year at NDSU for landscape design when I hit school burnout. I was sick with something like walking pneumonia most of what was to be my last fall quarter, and the school thing was just something I was doing because everyone else my age seemed to be doing it. In looking back, it wasn’t my desire—I was feeling really empty and lost there. I was in a void.
The idea of an education in a life-long career of doing one thing was feeling really limiting and suffocating for me. I couldn’t put it into words then because of feeling so much shame at “being a quitter” in the first place, plus I was mentally exhausted from trying to perform to the level of excellence I was expecting of myself. Even then, I was wrestling with the “not good enough” theme.
At nineteen years of age, I was an expert at rote regurgitation of all kinds of subject matter—my teachers and instructors loved it—but I was losing my sense of unique identity, my own “I am-ness.” My sense of imagination and creativity had just torpedoed down a black hole. I was a conglomeration of everyone else’s ideas and belief systems, molding myself this way and that, immersing myself to the point I no longer even felt real. And so choice-making,for me, became overloaded with overwhelming and paralyzing fears of making the wrong choice.
So, I quit, returned home and went to work at one of the local drugstores part-time. I was a painter-for-hire with my mom and sister on our days off. And pretty much every weekend was spent with Arlen and Tim and Cheri, and my newborn niece, Crystal.
Arlen never once treated me like, or intimated that, I was only a fling for him. I was treated with honor and affection all the while we dated. So, now when I look back at one of our last times together, I’m astonished at how much an I’m not good enough self-perception managed to twist and distort what was really a very unconditional love-based act.
He had pulled over on the township road, after leaving Tim and Cheri’s, to talk. As he held me, he asked, “Do you think we should break up so you can go back and finish school?”
Believing he was sick and tired of dating pathetic me, I found myself bawling my eyes out at the thought of parting from him—and that only made it worse in my eyes, because I detested women using tears to manipulate men. And there I was seemingly doing that very thing—even though that wasn’t my intention.
It took me nearly twenty-five years to look at that moment from some other perspective than “I’m a loser nobody would want to be with.” Twenty-five years to even consider the possibility that that was maybe guy-speak for, “I’m feeling serious about us, but I don’t want to get in your way of happiness. And I’m asking you how you feel about us.” He sure kissed me afterward like he meant business. Grin.
But no—I couldn’t even let myself fully enjoy that at the time, because, in my mind, I believed he was resorting to kissing me in order to calm down a hysterical wreck and to smooth over an awkward moment of trying to break up with me nicely.
I was SO NOT PROUD of MYSELF back then, and for all those years afterward…and that made for a very long and difficult journey.
This is the start of my story with Arlen…there is so much more to come…but this is enough for now…
For more on the story of Arlen, click the titles here to read the posts:
Can Death Be Transcended?
Good-bye Conspiracy Theories
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The Gift That “Autism” Is
A couple of years ago, I once again became aware of a sweet, silvery, comforting, ringing sound in my ears. I heard it all the time as a kid, and I associate it with nights of stargazing—I think of it as the singing of the stars. I could hear it out on the prairies, even when the frogs’ chirping down by the creek was so loud they sounded like a tractor running in the field.
All of our human dramas, lights (especially fluorescent bulbs), electronics and appliances put out a great deal of harsh noise—and it drowned out this sweet sound, until I started listening for it again. Now I can call it up and still hear it over the hum of my computer. To hear it properly at first, I had to shut things off, including my head chatter. And in order to stop the mind-racing chatter I had to learn to consciously breathe deeper all the time, and yes, to once again be kind with myself.
I had to practice over and over again the art of giving myself a SAFE and SACRED SPACE in which to be.
If I was anxious and scared, then I gave myself the safe space in which to allow the “unthinkable” thoughts to be thought, and the “awful” feelings to be felt—all in a place where I had set the intention to think and to feel, without causing harm to myself or another.
That little practice, along with reminding myself to “breathe into my belly,” stopped my frantically racing mind, and brought me to a state of peace.
Remember SAFE, SACRED SPACE—this is one of the messages that those people labeled with the term “autism” have brought to us.
Imagine for a little while that you, a being from the fairly civilized society of today (2010), suddenly got sucked through a time warp and found yourself in Britain during the Dark Ages. I recently finished reading Ken Follett's international bestselling novel, The Pillars of the Earth. I found myself skimming through some parts because they were actually painful for me to read.
Consider the assault of smells, sounds, sights, tastes, textures—and emotional feelings—that you might experience. Bathing wasn’t a common practice, so body odors would be horrendous. People urinated and defecated right in the streets. Punishments were often public displays--gory and tortuous. Starving people ate anything at hand. Superstitions ran rampant. Class systems and prejudices abounded. Survival and safety were iffy states of being.
It would be an extremely painful bombardment of the senses to a person of our era. I have a feeling that is how our world today must feel to a highly sensitive being, the ones our society has labeled "autistic."
And last night, I realized what I do when I feel bombarded by what feels like chaotic energies all around me—I withdraw from the source of discomfort as much as I can, I seek the comfort of repetition, and I immerse myself in patterns familiar to me.
Some people rock themselves—it’s rhythmic--and rhythm is a function of the right hemisphere of the brain. The right hemisphere is connected to our divine Source, our intuition. It's our connection to All that Is.
Some find comfort in the familiar repetitions of their work. Some people find comfort in the patterns and beauty of numbers, some in the patterns of music, some in the patterns of artwork of all kinds.
Simply put, we seek a safe and sacred space in which to be. Too much change, all at once, away from the familiar can overwhelm sometimes, so the tools of BREATHING, and of the SAFE and SACRED SPACE, helps one navigate all that glorious change.
Safe and Sacred Space practices will help encourage those with autism to gradually let go of their comforting repetitions, which are like security blankets. I once knew a little boy, who found more solace in numbers, than he did in human touch. Human touch was too overwhelming for him--and now I better understand why that was so.
Autism is NOT a developmental disorder! These people just have a heightened sensitivity to the consciousness environment around them. For example, for a more multi-sensitive person, colors may have tastes, textures, and aromas, and maybe even some personality traits, too.
Our speaking language is harsh—there is very little lilt and rhythm to it anymore. And it’s become so over-used, in the sense that we are speaking from our human left brains, instead of from our hearts, that it’s been rendered meaningless and shallow--drab and loud.
How much heart is invested in all those cell phone conversations, I wonder? Why do we feel the need to fill our surroundings up with noise? Yes, I like to visit with people over the phone, but there also moments when I can't get that piece of equipment hung up or shut off soon enough, depending on the quality of what is said.
It’s been said that pictures paint a thousand words—they do for me. And so does music. I remember stories from my childhood because of pictures that captured my heart. I was born in 1964--so I grew up during the Vietnam War—and I remember listening to an announcer call off the draft numbers over the TV, holding my breath in fear that one of them would mean one of my brothers was being sent to battle. So I vividly remember songs from that era, like One Tin Soldier, Billy—Don’t be a Hero, Tapestry. They told the stories of those days, and they painted a picture of the relationships, on a heart level, that I could feel into.
I was so emotionally empathetic with my parents, that I “knew” when they were upset.
Kids are so tuned in to their parents that they feel their parent’s pain as if it is their very own. They KNOW intuitively when Dad, or Mom, isn’t feeling safe. And until you learn the difference of what belongs to whom—you REACT as though it’s your own issues and burdens.
That’s why the parents of autistic children (ALL children, actually) will do more good by their children if they learn the practice of Conscious Breathing and creating their own Safe, Sacred Space.
Example and personal practices are always the best standards.
You don’t need to find any miracle cures for your child, nor do you need to fight battles. Just learn to listen first, with your heart (which doesn't require a single word), in order to communicate with them. Help them “find their words,” or their own form of self-expression, by using tools (art and music) that are soothing and that appeal to their heart and imaginations. Sing them a story, read to them from books full of glorious pictures, and filled with lilting rhythms and rhymes.
Share with them the things, the moments, that have deepest meaning for you. Re-member your own childhood, with genuine authenticity--experiences with color and feelings--how you perceived things then, and how you see the same things now.
Be willing to share all your life stories of what it has been like to be an "imperfect human," and how you felt in the experiences. Talk about the moments when you "thought" you'd failed or done something wrong. Have compassion for yourself--and LOVINGLY LAUGH at all aspects of yourself. To love, means to unconditionally accept, and to release--to set yourself free--from judgment. His standard of being the FIRST to laugh at himself is probably one of the greatest gifts my Dad gave me.
All judgment of yourself, by others outside of you, actually originates with you. They're just being in loving service to you by playing the roles you've scripted for them, in order to have them mirror back to you something you're trying to understand--actually, to simply accept and release--about yourself. Thank everyone for playing all the parts for you--that GRATITUDE changes your reality and sets you all free.
And don’t throw any kids, whether diagnosed autistic or not, in rooms full of other kids. Those chaotic energies feel like an attack to a person already highly sensitive to the energies, of all forms, of everyone and everything around him. Get the safe space and breathing concept down first at home—they are tools that will help him get centered so that no matter what is going on around him, he knows he’s okay. He can then participate in life, instead of reacting to it.
I know this, because I have used these very tools, myself, over and over again these last several years. It took me a very long time to find my speaking words--I could write, but I struggled a long time with talking clearly when in groups of all sizes, or even sometimes in casual conversations with strangers. Public speaking moments were nightmares. This lasted well into my adulthood—sometimes the emotions that I was reading from those around me interrupted my train of thought. Words and full sentences would just dissipate before I could spit them out. It got extremely frustrating, to say the least. I experienced this even more drastically as I tried to fit in with the world around me, by taking on the burdens I was taught I should care about. The less worthy, and the more guilty, I felt, the less my confidence in myself. I began to lose trust in my ability to express myself. This is why I'm not a lover of the whole "born in sin" belief system--I see us all as gifts, and I'm sticking to that.
Sometimes the energies of crowded malls was so overwhelming that headaches and weird physical symptoms would exhaust me, and literally stop me in my tracks, until I reminded myself to breathe.
I've had my share of quirks as an imperfect human, but, thankfully, I never got a label, nor was I ever diagnosed as having any kind of disorder. No kid needs any kind of label. Mom and Dad and my brothers and sisters had me engaged in music and art of all kinds, and they shared with me lots of stories—some of them funny, some of them sad, many of them full of heart. And I had a feeling of unconditional acceptance, especially from my mom, who was with me the most. She never told me I should change, or be more like someone else. As a result, I usually had no problems clearly expressing myself with her. I treasured our relationship--it was a true friendship.
This autistic state of being is not here as a result of anyone’s wrong practices. We should be honored that they are here—they’re reminding us that we have come along far enough in our own evolution and consciousness that we’re ready to communicate on a higher, more heart-felt level than humanity has communicated in a very long time. Let them show us what we're capable of.
Embrace them, embrace yourself—and consider the possibility that maybe we don’t need fixing…
Viewing life from a different perspective for a moment or two isn’t going to hurt a thing…
All of our human dramas, lights (especially fluorescent bulbs), electronics and appliances put out a great deal of harsh noise—and it drowned out this sweet sound, until I started listening for it again. Now I can call it up and still hear it over the hum of my computer. To hear it properly at first, I had to shut things off, including my head chatter. And in order to stop the mind-racing chatter I had to learn to consciously breathe deeper all the time, and yes, to once again be kind with myself.
I had to practice over and over again the art of giving myself a SAFE and SACRED SPACE in which to be.
If I was anxious and scared, then I gave myself the safe space in which to allow the “unthinkable” thoughts to be thought, and the “awful” feelings to be felt—all in a place where I had set the intention to think and to feel, without causing harm to myself or another.
That little practice, along with reminding myself to “breathe into my belly,” stopped my frantically racing mind, and brought me to a state of peace.
Remember SAFE, SACRED SPACE—this is one of the messages that those people labeled with the term “autism” have brought to us.
Imagine for a little while that you, a being from the fairly civilized society of today (2010), suddenly got sucked through a time warp and found yourself in Britain during the Dark Ages. I recently finished reading Ken Follett's international bestselling novel, The Pillars of the Earth. I found myself skimming through some parts because they were actually painful for me to read.
Consider the assault of smells, sounds, sights, tastes, textures—and emotional feelings—that you might experience. Bathing wasn’t a common practice, so body odors would be horrendous. People urinated and defecated right in the streets. Punishments were often public displays--gory and tortuous. Starving people ate anything at hand. Superstitions ran rampant. Class systems and prejudices abounded. Survival and safety were iffy states of being.
It would be an extremely painful bombardment of the senses to a person of our era. I have a feeling that is how our world today must feel to a highly sensitive being, the ones our society has labeled "autistic."
And last night, I realized what I do when I feel bombarded by what feels like chaotic energies all around me—I withdraw from the source of discomfort as much as I can, I seek the comfort of repetition, and I immerse myself in patterns familiar to me.
Some people rock themselves—it’s rhythmic--and rhythm is a function of the right hemisphere of the brain. The right hemisphere is connected to our divine Source, our intuition. It's our connection to All that Is.
Some find comfort in the familiar repetitions of their work. Some people find comfort in the patterns and beauty of numbers, some in the patterns of music, some in the patterns of artwork of all kinds.
Simply put, we seek a safe and sacred space in which to be. Too much change, all at once, away from the familiar can overwhelm sometimes, so the tools of BREATHING, and of the SAFE and SACRED SPACE, helps one navigate all that glorious change.
Safe and Sacred Space practices will help encourage those with autism to gradually let go of their comforting repetitions, which are like security blankets. I once knew a little boy, who found more solace in numbers, than he did in human touch. Human touch was too overwhelming for him--and now I better understand why that was so.
Autism is NOT a developmental disorder! These people just have a heightened sensitivity to the consciousness environment around them. For example, for a more multi-sensitive person, colors may have tastes, textures, and aromas, and maybe even some personality traits, too.
Our speaking language is harsh—there is very little lilt and rhythm to it anymore. And it’s become so over-used, in the sense that we are speaking from our human left brains, instead of from our hearts, that it’s been rendered meaningless and shallow--drab and loud.
How much heart is invested in all those cell phone conversations, I wonder? Why do we feel the need to fill our surroundings up with noise? Yes, I like to visit with people over the phone, but there also moments when I can't get that piece of equipment hung up or shut off soon enough, depending on the quality of what is said.
It’s been said that pictures paint a thousand words—they do for me. And so does music. I remember stories from my childhood because of pictures that captured my heart. I was born in 1964--so I grew up during the Vietnam War—and I remember listening to an announcer call off the draft numbers over the TV, holding my breath in fear that one of them would mean one of my brothers was being sent to battle. So I vividly remember songs from that era, like One Tin Soldier, Billy—Don’t be a Hero, Tapestry. They told the stories of those days, and they painted a picture of the relationships, on a heart level, that I could feel into.
I was so emotionally empathetic with my parents, that I “knew” when they were upset.
Kids are so tuned in to their parents that they feel their parent’s pain as if it is their very own. They KNOW intuitively when Dad, or Mom, isn’t feeling safe. And until you learn the difference of what belongs to whom—you REACT as though it’s your own issues and burdens.
That’s why the parents of autistic children (ALL children, actually) will do more good by their children if they learn the practice of Conscious Breathing and creating their own Safe, Sacred Space.
Example and personal practices are always the best standards.
You don’t need to find any miracle cures for your child, nor do you need to fight battles. Just learn to listen first, with your heart (which doesn't require a single word), in order to communicate with them. Help them “find their words,” or their own form of self-expression, by using tools (art and music) that are soothing and that appeal to their heart and imaginations. Sing them a story, read to them from books full of glorious pictures, and filled with lilting rhythms and rhymes.
Share with them the things, the moments, that have deepest meaning for you. Re-member your own childhood, with genuine authenticity--experiences with color and feelings--how you perceived things then, and how you see the same things now.
Be willing to share all your life stories of what it has been like to be an "imperfect human," and how you felt in the experiences. Talk about the moments when you "thought" you'd failed or done something wrong. Have compassion for yourself--and LOVINGLY LAUGH at all aspects of yourself. To love, means to unconditionally accept, and to release--to set yourself free--from judgment. His standard of being the FIRST to laugh at himself is probably one of the greatest gifts my Dad gave me.
All judgment of yourself, by others outside of you, actually originates with you. They're just being in loving service to you by playing the roles you've scripted for them, in order to have them mirror back to you something you're trying to understand--actually, to simply accept and release--about yourself. Thank everyone for playing all the parts for you--that GRATITUDE changes your reality and sets you all free.
And don’t throw any kids, whether diagnosed autistic or not, in rooms full of other kids. Those chaotic energies feel like an attack to a person already highly sensitive to the energies, of all forms, of everyone and everything around him. Get the safe space and breathing concept down first at home—they are tools that will help him get centered so that no matter what is going on around him, he knows he’s okay. He can then participate in life, instead of reacting to it.
I know this, because I have used these very tools, myself, over and over again these last several years. It took me a very long time to find my speaking words--I could write, but I struggled a long time with talking clearly when in groups of all sizes, or even sometimes in casual conversations with strangers. Public speaking moments were nightmares. This lasted well into my adulthood—sometimes the emotions that I was reading from those around me interrupted my train of thought. Words and full sentences would just dissipate before I could spit them out. It got extremely frustrating, to say the least. I experienced this even more drastically as I tried to fit in with the world around me, by taking on the burdens I was taught I should care about. The less worthy, and the more guilty, I felt, the less my confidence in myself. I began to lose trust in my ability to express myself. This is why I'm not a lover of the whole "born in sin" belief system--I see us all as gifts, and I'm sticking to that.
Sometimes the energies of crowded malls was so overwhelming that headaches and weird physical symptoms would exhaust me, and literally stop me in my tracks, until I reminded myself to breathe.
I've had my share of quirks as an imperfect human, but, thankfully, I never got a label, nor was I ever diagnosed as having any kind of disorder. No kid needs any kind of label. Mom and Dad and my brothers and sisters had me engaged in music and art of all kinds, and they shared with me lots of stories—some of them funny, some of them sad, many of them full of heart. And I had a feeling of unconditional acceptance, especially from my mom, who was with me the most. She never told me I should change, or be more like someone else. As a result, I usually had no problems clearly expressing myself with her. I treasured our relationship--it was a true friendship.
This autistic state of being is not here as a result of anyone’s wrong practices. We should be honored that they are here—they’re reminding us that we have come along far enough in our own evolution and consciousness that we’re ready to communicate on a higher, more heart-felt level than humanity has communicated in a very long time. Let them show us what we're capable of.
Embrace them, embrace yourself—and consider the possibility that maybe we don’t need fixing…
Viewing life from a different perspective for a moment or two isn’t going to hurt a thing…
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Proselytizing Robots Armed with Pamphlets
A missionary once said that one of the biggest challenges in her work was first convincing the people (the ones she was out to “bring to Jesus”) that they were basically scum who needed saving—these are my words, not the missionary’s. She worded it more nicely, but the meaning is the same. Then and only then, could they teach them that Jesus was the only savior who could do the job properly.
The idea of that always brings a grin to my lips and a chuckle from deep within. You see, I’ve had the pleasure of being perceived as a heathen who needed a-savin’—along with the rest of my family members as we sat in the front rows at our dad’s funeral. The minister--whom I had asked to be included in the service, out of a sense of heartfelt appreciation for him being with us when Mom died--had turned what was supposed to be a celebration of my dad’s life into a spectacle. He made it into an egotistical “testimony” of how the minister had basically, personally brought my dad to Jesus.
Each of us kids (in front of all the other attendees) was handed a little white booklet filled with a bunch of words about Jesus—I’m sure there was a scripture or two in there as well. Out of a sense of being shocked and awed, plus being polite as we all were, we quietly took them without making a scene. But frankly, if I had a do-over with that experience—I’d have a HELL of a LOT of FUN making a scene!
On the one-year anniversary of Dad’s death, I was walking around Lake Nokomis with my nephew’s girlfriend when we were approached by a young man with a fistful of little white missives, who asked us if we knew God loved us. I replied, “Yes—I know.” I looked him in the eye when I said it—and he understood that I wasn’t saying the words without meaning. I had a sense of Dad having a good chuckle at my expense—and it made me smile to myself.
I don’t like the idea of judging God’s work as poorly done—and when someone judges any one of His Children as being any less than themselves or any others—I get a little irate. Actually, I get a LOT IRATE—extremely pissed. And if my words offend—well, maybe they’ve served my purpose of using them for some shock and awe of my own.
Through the years I’ve been blessed with all kinds of experiences of people who literally wanted to get me to “buy into” their beliefs. Selling belief systems is a business, and don’t try to tell me that anyone who sends a collection plate around isn’t in some sort of business. I’m more inclined to stick my monetary abundance into an unmanned donation jar, than I am with a manned plate being passed around.
And God doesn’t give a crap about money—even Jesus said that, and frankly, I do like and admire and appreciate Jesus a great deal. He’s been a great inspiration and reminder to me of who I am—I just never needed a savior because God/Our Source did a good job from the beginning with all of us, and I won’t ever be “convinced” otherwise.
When I read Jesus’ words I don’t see someone interested in being a suffering, sacrificial savior—I see a Divine messenger in human form who was sharing new perspectives with his fellow beings. He was saying, “Let’s open up your boxes of limiting beliefs. Let’s consider this old idea from another angle, something with more depth and meaning. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand—it’s right here with you, all the time. You just didn’t see it. You’ve forgotten how to see it, and self-doubt has taken the place of self-trust. You’ve taken a simple, straightforward idea and over-complicated it in your mind, and now you think you’re lost for good. But you’re not. And don’t trust anyone OUT THERE to have your own answers. Trust that God made you in His image in all ways.”
I’ve had people inviting me to their church activities—Bible studies, services—and I’ve had them ringing my doorbell handing me pamphlets and quoting scriptures AT me. They weren’t in the least bit interested in having a REAL and meaningful exchange with me from their heart. They were only interested in saying AT me all they’d memorized of the “tree of knowledge”—instead of sharing WITH me the tales of the real human (the one standing in front of me) who’d been on an amazing and unique journey.
I’m excited to hear all these amazing stories from my fellow progeny of God, and instead I hear nothing but a whole bunch of dry, meaningless mind chatter and “poor, pitiful me” and “saved wretch” stories—and gossip. I feel like I’m interacting with hypnotized robots with pasted on smiles saying syrupy words just going through the motions of living, but actually dead. Okay—maybe “dead” is a bit strong—how about “in a DEEP SLEEP?”
But I can see through the pretense—people can, you know. I once watched a man get down on his knees, and clasp his hands together in verbal, whining supplication to Jesus to enlighten his brother—all this was done in intentional, full-view of me and a few others. We’d all just observed the praying man come into his brother’s place of business and provoke the fight. My eyes rolled then with the absurdity of it, and they still do now. I’m thinking drama queen. And that makes me laugh.
I want to grab the sleepers who are pretending to be “born again” by the collars and make them look me in the eye, because I know there’s a REAL being in there somewhere, hiding away inside of them. Instead, in the past, I either got the “poor, poor, poor little human puppets on God’s string” version, or the one where someone was blaming all the other people in their lives for their sorry life conditions. But I’m done with that.
To give everyone fair warning—don’t come looking for pity from me. I’ll probably grab you by the collar and if I don’t get something REAL right away, I’ll send you packing. I’m interested in talking with people who are willing to take COMPASSIONATE and COMPLETE RESPONSIBILITY for every single moment and aspect of his/her life. You’re all someone to celebrate and if we’re relating with one another, that’s what I’m focusing on.
So—you just got a whole bunch of words from me, but you don’t have to buy any of it, nor are you required to read it. Such as I am…
With love…ME!
The idea of that always brings a grin to my lips and a chuckle from deep within. You see, I’ve had the pleasure of being perceived as a heathen who needed a-savin’—along with the rest of my family members as we sat in the front rows at our dad’s funeral. The minister--whom I had asked to be included in the service, out of a sense of heartfelt appreciation for him being with us when Mom died--had turned what was supposed to be a celebration of my dad’s life into a spectacle. He made it into an egotistical “testimony” of how the minister had basically, personally brought my dad to Jesus.
Each of us kids (in front of all the other attendees) was handed a little white booklet filled with a bunch of words about Jesus—I’m sure there was a scripture or two in there as well. Out of a sense of being shocked and awed, plus being polite as we all were, we quietly took them without making a scene. But frankly, if I had a do-over with that experience—I’d have a HELL of a LOT of FUN making a scene!
On the one-year anniversary of Dad’s death, I was walking around Lake Nokomis with my nephew’s girlfriend when we were approached by a young man with a fistful of little white missives, who asked us if we knew God loved us. I replied, “Yes—I know.” I looked him in the eye when I said it—and he understood that I wasn’t saying the words without meaning. I had a sense of Dad having a good chuckle at my expense—and it made me smile to myself.
I don’t like the idea of judging God’s work as poorly done—and when someone judges any one of His Children as being any less than themselves or any others—I get a little irate. Actually, I get a LOT IRATE—extremely pissed. And if my words offend—well, maybe they’ve served my purpose of using them for some shock and awe of my own.
Through the years I’ve been blessed with all kinds of experiences of people who literally wanted to get me to “buy into” their beliefs. Selling belief systems is a business, and don’t try to tell me that anyone who sends a collection plate around isn’t in some sort of business. I’m more inclined to stick my monetary abundance into an unmanned donation jar, than I am with a manned plate being passed around.
And God doesn’t give a crap about money—even Jesus said that, and frankly, I do like and admire and appreciate Jesus a great deal. He’s been a great inspiration and reminder to me of who I am—I just never needed a savior because God/Our Source did a good job from the beginning with all of us, and I won’t ever be “convinced” otherwise.
When I read Jesus’ words I don’t see someone interested in being a suffering, sacrificial savior—I see a Divine messenger in human form who was sharing new perspectives with his fellow beings. He was saying, “Let’s open up your boxes of limiting beliefs. Let’s consider this old idea from another angle, something with more depth and meaning. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand—it’s right here with you, all the time. You just didn’t see it. You’ve forgotten how to see it, and self-doubt has taken the place of self-trust. You’ve taken a simple, straightforward idea and over-complicated it in your mind, and now you think you’re lost for good. But you’re not. And don’t trust anyone OUT THERE to have your own answers. Trust that God made you in His image in all ways.”
I’ve had people inviting me to their church activities—Bible studies, services—and I’ve had them ringing my doorbell handing me pamphlets and quoting scriptures AT me. They weren’t in the least bit interested in having a REAL and meaningful exchange with me from their heart. They were only interested in saying AT me all they’d memorized of the “tree of knowledge”—instead of sharing WITH me the tales of the real human (the one standing in front of me) who’d been on an amazing and unique journey.
I’m excited to hear all these amazing stories from my fellow progeny of God, and instead I hear nothing but a whole bunch of dry, meaningless mind chatter and “poor, pitiful me” and “saved wretch” stories—and gossip. I feel like I’m interacting with hypnotized robots with pasted on smiles saying syrupy words just going through the motions of living, but actually dead. Okay—maybe “dead” is a bit strong—how about “in a DEEP SLEEP?”
But I can see through the pretense—people can, you know. I once watched a man get down on his knees, and clasp his hands together in verbal, whining supplication to Jesus to enlighten his brother—all this was done in intentional, full-view of me and a few others. We’d all just observed the praying man come into his brother’s place of business and provoke the fight. My eyes rolled then with the absurdity of it, and they still do now. I’m thinking drama queen. And that makes me laugh.
I want to grab the sleepers who are pretending to be “born again” by the collars and make them look me in the eye, because I know there’s a REAL being in there somewhere, hiding away inside of them. Instead, in the past, I either got the “poor, poor, poor little human puppets on God’s string” version, or the one where someone was blaming all the other people in their lives for their sorry life conditions. But I’m done with that.
To give everyone fair warning—don’t come looking for pity from me. I’ll probably grab you by the collar and if I don’t get something REAL right away, I’ll send you packing. I’m interested in talking with people who are willing to take COMPASSIONATE and COMPLETE RESPONSIBILITY for every single moment and aspect of his/her life. You’re all someone to celebrate and if we’re relating with one another, that’s what I’m focusing on.
So—you just got a whole bunch of words from me, but you don’t have to buy any of it, nor are you required to read it. Such as I am…
With love…ME!
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Not a Sparrow Falls...
This story is a combination of my own and Kelly’s and Dad’s. I haven’t been sure how to write it down in a way that honors Kelly because this one began with him, and is truly his story for him to tell. It intersects with my own stories that take place later, and those stories have great importance for me, as well. It feels like a bit of a conundrum, but I’m going to start writing and see how it unfolds, then make further choices from there.
I believe I mentioned earlier that Kel had a difficult time with my dad being diagnosed with lung cancer—he’d lost a treasured uncle to the same illness many years before. It was so difficult for him that he chose to let me make the trip home alone to care for my dad, and while I was there, we hardly ever spoke over the telephone. I felt pretty much on my own, in that sense.
And while my poor little human ego said that was “wrong for him to do to me”--the truth is, he gave me the gift of honoring me with the opportunity to take a journey that helped me get really clear about myself. If I’d had a husband holding my hand, giving me a shoulder to cry on over every little thing, I’d never have discovered the amazing things that were in me, waiting for the chance to express. He literally took himself out of my way.
So I write this story, in honor of Kelly—my beloved partner in my journey of journeys of all time.
The last weekend before Dad died, Kel and my nephew drove from Minneapolis to see him. In spite of Laurie’s and my own agreed-upon efforts to make sure we took care of ourselves in order to take care of Dad, I had managed to get run down enough to get sick. Laurie and Terry’s sons had a football game that Friday night so our brother, Tim, came to spend the night with Dad in Laurie and Terry’s camper.
I’m not even sure how it happened anymore, but somehow Dad had agreed to try the camper one more time. He’d tried it a night or so early on and it didn’t feel right for him at the time—but he was in there alone. I’m thinking he probably agreed to try it again so anyone spending the night with him would have a place to sleep, rather than on the floor of his van.
Plus, our brother, Jerry and his wife gave us an intercom to use from the camper to the house. Dad’s anxiety was getting steadily worse, and he wanted someone nearby, in sight most of the time. I remember once not hearing him call us on the intercom, and getting a look from him only a few short minutes later that spoke of having seriously betrayed him by not being there the moment he buzzed me.
He was scared, that’s all—and didn’t want to leave before he was ready and didn’t want to be alone in the process. It’s an honor and a blessing that we mattered so much to him that he wanted us there beside him to the very end. Through my experience with him, though, I discovered that we leave our bodies when we’re ready—we have that choice. We just didn’t know it.
Some believe that they don’t have that choice, that some God out there is making all their important decisions and/or they’re stuck to playing out a destiny set in stone, so one’s free will to make that suggested belief his truth prevails--and they die before they’re ready to go.
Kelly and my nephew were only at Laurie’s one day, and I hardly saw him. He called me when they got back to Minneapolis Sunday night and told me excitedly of the conversation he’d had with my dad. I honestly admit, that at the time, I judged Kel as being selfish—putting his own wants before my dad’s. I didn’t say it out loud to him at the time, but I was thinking, Kel—how could you?
He had asked Dad that when he made it to the other side of the veil, if he would give him a sign that he’d made it. Dad’s answer had been, “I’m not sure if I can, but I’ll sure try.” I can still hear my dad saying those exact words.
Shortly after my mom died, Kelly and I started watching the show Crossing Over—a program where the psychic John Edwards would connect people on this side of the veil with loved ones who had died. I personally liked the messages he shared—they were comforting and they encouraged the continuation of relationships with those who had died, if only to heal, empower and see the gift of the relationship for the parties involved. And it was also filled with the message of unconditional love and gratitude. It was a show that helped me to shift my perspective and consider things from different points of view—to see this life as having more meaning than the things taking place outwardly on the surface.
I know there are those who judge all psychics as being charlatans—but every set of people has those who are legit and those who are out to swindle. It happens in science and it happens in religions and in governments, to name a few. As far as I’m concerned, life is full of challenges for each of us humans, and I’d rather get up each morning believing in something deeper, more loving and meaningful than what we’ve been taught. Survival of the fittest, that someone needs to lose in order for the other to win, that we’re just a bunch of disappointments to our Creator/Source, and that this life is about proving one’s worthiness so we don’t go to hell—well, those ideas simply don’t work for me. Something deep inside me says we’re so much more than that—and don’t settle or compromise for any less.
Dad died just a few short days after Kelly’s visit. Kel was in the midst of taking some college courses, so he didn’t come home again until the day before Dad’s funeral—he didn’t participate in the arrangements.
Right as the minister began the service a sparrow flew into the Ludlow community hall—and flew among the flowers, landing on the baskets of potatoes and vegetables gathered from Dad’s garden. And it made its way circling over the family. Now the minister, not knowing Dad all that well, didn’t get it, and actually glared disgustedly at the bird. But Dad’s closest family and friends knew its presence had meaning. No one else knew what Kel had asked of Dad, but my brothers and sisters and the grandkids recognized that bird as somehow being connected to Dad and possibly Mom. We have pictures of it.
After the service in the hall, we all drove up to our family farm just across the border in North Dakota to bury Dad’s ashes next to Mom’s on the Big Hill. The flowers Dad, Laurie, Kelly, Dave, Bonnie and I had planted the previous Memorial Day around the grave site for Mom were still thriving, even through all the dry heat and winds of July and August.
Before Dad’s diagnosis, he’d call me in Minneapolis from the top of the hill to let me know that all the flowers we’d planted (many of which I hadn’t expected to live up there) were growing. He had to have been hauling water—but no water was hauled the entire month of August. We’d even had a prairie fire that month in a field across the road.
On the drive to bury the ashes, I asked Kel if he thought the bird was his sign. He replied, “Yeah. At one point I almost expected it to land on my shoulder.”
When we returned to the hall for lunch served by an amazing community of people from around Ludlow, our little sparrow was still there, hanging out around the baskets. And it stayed with us until some time around 2:00 PM. As we were leaving, the bird left the building, too.
Kel left right after the lunch to return to Minneapolis. I stayed a couple extra weeks to finalize a few things with my sister. Even though my beloved cats were there, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to return to my old life in Minneapolis. I had a feeling of no longer belonging anywhere—all I wanted was to be left quietly to myself in order to come to terms with all that had happened. I felt just lost—everything that seemed to have mattered before didn’t matter at all. I seemingly had no desires or passions or ideas of a possible future. And I wanted to separate myself from people, especially those who seemed to want something from me.
Laurie and I stopped at Dad and Mom’s mobile home to sort through a few of Dad’s things before I left. We found an obituary from Dad’s mother’s funeral. Dad and Grandma Pearl were very close—she died September 4, 1983; and her devoted son died September 4, 2003--exactly 20 years later.
I remember walking into my kitchen in Minneapolis six weeks after I had left. Kel was welcoming, and our cats were there to greet me, but I felt like I was in some type of time warp, or other dimension—I was unsure about whether I wanted to be there. Neighbors wanted to see me to pass on their condolences and I just wanted to be left completely alone. I was so empty feeling that I didn’t feel I had any kind of reserve left inside of me for myself, much less another person.
I had felt pretty much torn apart trying to see others’ needs and wants were met while looking after Dad, and then the funeral meant, for me, just another something I had to do to fulfill still more wants, traditions, beliefs that weren’t my own. I didn’t want nor need a funeral service—others did, so it was done. I wanted to make sure no one felt left out or unheard. I just remember the sense of putting my nose to the grindstone to get it all done, so I could be done.
A couple of weeks after my return to The Cities, Kel told me there was more to the sparrow story. When he asked Dad for a sign, his intention was to ask him to give him a sign at a specific time and date—around 11:00 AM, five days after he died—but at the last minute, decided not to voice that part of his request. Dad died September 4, and we had his funeral September 9, beginning somewhere around 10:30 AM.
I never quite understood how a minister could miss so entirely the significance of the sparrow’s presence. The words--“Not a sparrow falls that God doesn’t know of”--continually flow across my mind. I don’t know where I got them—I thought I read it in The Bible, but I can’t seem to find it there now. Regardless—it makes me feel like I have compassionate company, that I’m not as alone or as worthless as I once believed myself to be. And that’s comforting. And that is how I felt in Dad’s company—and how, I believed, a lot of people of all walks of life felt in his company.
Thank you, Kelly—thanks for giving Dad a reason to focus on getting to the other side quickly. You asked him to do something great—a way to be of service after his life as Dean was gone--with the belief in him that he could do it.
And he did it…he reminded us we’re listened to and we’re so NOT alone…no matter how small or insignificant we think we are...that our lives are valuable—even if we’re perceived by others as being “a dirty bird.”
I believe I mentioned earlier that Kel had a difficult time with my dad being diagnosed with lung cancer—he’d lost a treasured uncle to the same illness many years before. It was so difficult for him that he chose to let me make the trip home alone to care for my dad, and while I was there, we hardly ever spoke over the telephone. I felt pretty much on my own, in that sense.
And while my poor little human ego said that was “wrong for him to do to me”--the truth is, he gave me the gift of honoring me with the opportunity to take a journey that helped me get really clear about myself. If I’d had a husband holding my hand, giving me a shoulder to cry on over every little thing, I’d never have discovered the amazing things that were in me, waiting for the chance to express. He literally took himself out of my way.
So I write this story, in honor of Kelly—my beloved partner in my journey of journeys of all time.
The last weekend before Dad died, Kel and my nephew drove from Minneapolis to see him. In spite of Laurie’s and my own agreed-upon efforts to make sure we took care of ourselves in order to take care of Dad, I had managed to get run down enough to get sick. Laurie and Terry’s sons had a football game that Friday night so our brother, Tim, came to spend the night with Dad in Laurie and Terry’s camper.
I’m not even sure how it happened anymore, but somehow Dad had agreed to try the camper one more time. He’d tried it a night or so early on and it didn’t feel right for him at the time—but he was in there alone. I’m thinking he probably agreed to try it again so anyone spending the night with him would have a place to sleep, rather than on the floor of his van.
Plus, our brother, Jerry and his wife gave us an intercom to use from the camper to the house. Dad’s anxiety was getting steadily worse, and he wanted someone nearby, in sight most of the time. I remember once not hearing him call us on the intercom, and getting a look from him only a few short minutes later that spoke of having seriously betrayed him by not being there the moment he buzzed me.
He was scared, that’s all—and didn’t want to leave before he was ready and didn’t want to be alone in the process. It’s an honor and a blessing that we mattered so much to him that he wanted us there beside him to the very end. Through my experience with him, though, I discovered that we leave our bodies when we’re ready—we have that choice. We just didn’t know it.
Some believe that they don’t have that choice, that some God out there is making all their important decisions and/or they’re stuck to playing out a destiny set in stone, so one’s free will to make that suggested belief his truth prevails--and they die before they’re ready to go.
Kelly and my nephew were only at Laurie’s one day, and I hardly saw him. He called me when they got back to Minneapolis Sunday night and told me excitedly of the conversation he’d had with my dad. I honestly admit, that at the time, I judged Kel as being selfish—putting his own wants before my dad’s. I didn’t say it out loud to him at the time, but I was thinking, Kel—how could you?
He had asked Dad that when he made it to the other side of the veil, if he would give him a sign that he’d made it. Dad’s answer had been, “I’m not sure if I can, but I’ll sure try.” I can still hear my dad saying those exact words.
Shortly after my mom died, Kelly and I started watching the show Crossing Over—a program where the psychic John Edwards would connect people on this side of the veil with loved ones who had died. I personally liked the messages he shared—they were comforting and they encouraged the continuation of relationships with those who had died, if only to heal, empower and see the gift of the relationship for the parties involved. And it was also filled with the message of unconditional love and gratitude. It was a show that helped me to shift my perspective and consider things from different points of view—to see this life as having more meaning than the things taking place outwardly on the surface.
I know there are those who judge all psychics as being charlatans—but every set of people has those who are legit and those who are out to swindle. It happens in science and it happens in religions and in governments, to name a few. As far as I’m concerned, life is full of challenges for each of us humans, and I’d rather get up each morning believing in something deeper, more loving and meaningful than what we’ve been taught. Survival of the fittest, that someone needs to lose in order for the other to win, that we’re just a bunch of disappointments to our Creator/Source, and that this life is about proving one’s worthiness so we don’t go to hell—well, those ideas simply don’t work for me. Something deep inside me says we’re so much more than that—and don’t settle or compromise for any less.
Dad died just a few short days after Kelly’s visit. Kel was in the midst of taking some college courses, so he didn’t come home again until the day before Dad’s funeral—he didn’t participate in the arrangements.
Right as the minister began the service a sparrow flew into the Ludlow community hall—and flew among the flowers, landing on the baskets of potatoes and vegetables gathered from Dad’s garden. And it made its way circling over the family. Now the minister, not knowing Dad all that well, didn’t get it, and actually glared disgustedly at the bird. But Dad’s closest family and friends knew its presence had meaning. No one else knew what Kel had asked of Dad, but my brothers and sisters and the grandkids recognized that bird as somehow being connected to Dad and possibly Mom. We have pictures of it.
After the service in the hall, we all drove up to our family farm just across the border in North Dakota to bury Dad’s ashes next to Mom’s on the Big Hill. The flowers Dad, Laurie, Kelly, Dave, Bonnie and I had planted the previous Memorial Day around the grave site for Mom were still thriving, even through all the dry heat and winds of July and August.
Before Dad’s diagnosis, he’d call me in Minneapolis from the top of the hill to let me know that all the flowers we’d planted (many of which I hadn’t expected to live up there) were growing. He had to have been hauling water—but no water was hauled the entire month of August. We’d even had a prairie fire that month in a field across the road.
On the drive to bury the ashes, I asked Kel if he thought the bird was his sign. He replied, “Yeah. At one point I almost expected it to land on my shoulder.”
When we returned to the hall for lunch served by an amazing community of people from around Ludlow, our little sparrow was still there, hanging out around the baskets. And it stayed with us until some time around 2:00 PM. As we were leaving, the bird left the building, too.
Kel left right after the lunch to return to Minneapolis. I stayed a couple extra weeks to finalize a few things with my sister. Even though my beloved cats were there, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to return to my old life in Minneapolis. I had a feeling of no longer belonging anywhere—all I wanted was to be left quietly to myself in order to come to terms with all that had happened. I felt just lost—everything that seemed to have mattered before didn’t matter at all. I seemingly had no desires or passions or ideas of a possible future. And I wanted to separate myself from people, especially those who seemed to want something from me.
Laurie and I stopped at Dad and Mom’s mobile home to sort through a few of Dad’s things before I left. We found an obituary from Dad’s mother’s funeral. Dad and Grandma Pearl were very close—she died September 4, 1983; and her devoted son died September 4, 2003--exactly 20 years later.
I remember walking into my kitchen in Minneapolis six weeks after I had left. Kel was welcoming, and our cats were there to greet me, but I felt like I was in some type of time warp, or other dimension—I was unsure about whether I wanted to be there. Neighbors wanted to see me to pass on their condolences and I just wanted to be left completely alone. I was so empty feeling that I didn’t feel I had any kind of reserve left inside of me for myself, much less another person.
I had felt pretty much torn apart trying to see others’ needs and wants were met while looking after Dad, and then the funeral meant, for me, just another something I had to do to fulfill still more wants, traditions, beliefs that weren’t my own. I didn’t want nor need a funeral service—others did, so it was done. I wanted to make sure no one felt left out or unheard. I just remember the sense of putting my nose to the grindstone to get it all done, so I could be done.
A couple of weeks after my return to The Cities, Kel told me there was more to the sparrow story. When he asked Dad for a sign, his intention was to ask him to give him a sign at a specific time and date—around 11:00 AM, five days after he died—but at the last minute, decided not to voice that part of his request. Dad died September 4, and we had his funeral September 9, beginning somewhere around 10:30 AM.
I never quite understood how a minister could miss so entirely the significance of the sparrow’s presence. The words--“Not a sparrow falls that God doesn’t know of”--continually flow across my mind. I don’t know where I got them—I thought I read it in The Bible, but I can’t seem to find it there now. Regardless—it makes me feel like I have compassionate company, that I’m not as alone or as worthless as I once believed myself to be. And that’s comforting. And that is how I felt in Dad’s company—and how, I believed, a lot of people of all walks of life felt in his company.
Thank you, Kelly—thanks for giving Dad a reason to focus on getting to the other side quickly. You asked him to do something great—a way to be of service after his life as Dean was gone--with the belief in him that he could do it.
And he did it…he reminded us we’re listened to and we’re so NOT alone…no matter how small or insignificant we think we are...that our lives are valuable—even if we’re perceived by others as being “a dirty bird.”
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