growing empathy for the one who broke my heart

For several mournful hours this afternoon and evening, our dog Chispa was missing. I wasn’t too worried in the afternoon hours, as our neighbor’s dogs have temporary residence in our backyard, and I was sure she was freaked out and might have dashed off, but would come back. We found her outside the fence when we got home last night, so I figured she’d just do the same again. As it got dark, I got worried, and drove and then walked around the neighborhood, looking for her. When we got back, dejected, I posted a photo of her on Facebook, hoping that would turn up a lead. I also called a coworker from many years back, as she’s married to the local dog catcher, hoping she could tell me if he had caught Chispa today. I left her a message.

On Facebook, a friend responded to my post about Chispa with kindness and a suggestion. I was struck by this little interaction, as this same friend had posted a photo of her lost dog within the last few days, and I hadn’t commented on her post nor followed up to see if she’d found her dog.

Eventually, my former coworker called me back and let me know that her husband had picked up a dog today that matched my dog’s description, and on the road we live on. I felt flooded with relief, knowing that while my dog was probably scared and miserable at the animal shelter tonight, at least she was safe.

The interaction with my friend, who’s local, on Facebook struck a chord, harmonic with another chord that’s been playing over and over again in my heart lately. Now, now that I’ve experienced this, I can feel my empathy grow for other friends when they lose pets. It was a stark contrast to how I’d breezed over that same friend’s post about her lost dog just a few days before. This isn’t about Facebook etiquette and dynamics. It’s about growing empathy.

I am better at growing empathy when I have experienced something myself. I don’t consider this a virtue or a fault. I’m also an experiential learner – I need to touch it, I need to DO it. So too, with my heart.

Today I grew some empathy and expanded my forgiveness for the one man who’s broken my heart in romance; I do believe there are other ways to break a heart, and I’ve experienced some of them. My one heartbreak so far in life occurred just a few years ago, and I was devastated to my bedrock. I also healed and am healing many needed wounds, congestions and dis-ease from my inner core in the process.

In my work towards equanimity and developing a healthy indifference to Heartbreak Henry, as I’ll call him, who lives also in my excruciatingly (in this instance) small town, I continue to struggle in my mind a bit with not seeing myself as the victim and him as the perpetrator, blaming him, and probably many other predictable emotional habit patterns of those of us distressed by heartbreak. Yes, distressed, because right now I experience the remnants of that heartbreak only as mild distress, anxiety and disappointment that arise when I encounter him or information about him. I’ve learned to clear out my system clearly and efficiently with muscle testing and energy healing when my awareness arises shortly after the distress reaction emotions.

In months and years past, I have been a kicking, screaming, barfing, weeping mess about this heartbreak. I have walked through the gauntlet. So, with as much progress as I’ve made, I’ve learned to forgive myself these judgmental habit patterns, not resist them, and watch them float by on my river of thoughts, just like everything else. Away it goes…

Today, in conversation with a friend, I discovered that ol’ Henry has left another woman (a post-me woman, as pre-me was his wife, with whom he was still married during our relationship, and still is) in a puddle of heartbreak. And then, wham, whiz, marvel of it all, my mind cracked open, and Heartbreak Henry once again became the mirror for my healing process.

See, prior to my affair with HH, I had never experienced a truly broken heart. I thought maybe I’d never REALLY been in love, though now I realize that hindsight in affairs of the heart can be quite distorting. I’d been in love before. AND, I’d never so fully given my love before in a romantic relationship. My love for my children had and continues to reach those angelic heights. I cracked open my heart, and gave of it fully, to him, to HH.

In previous break-ups, I’d left a small but still significant trail of broken hearts.

As I heard today the story of HH and this other woman, I remembered how I’d felt sad and some longing in past romantic partings, but a bit of disconnect; I wasn’t fully invested, so though my soon-to-be ex’s heart was breaking, mine wasn’t. I was witnessing his sadness with a bit of distant concern, almost like he was a character in a film with whom I empathized.

And I remembered, in those moments when I was pounding my fists on the ground and vomiting and screaming and weeping, HH had always appeared so far away, so disconnected, so unaffected. And it hit me – HH had never had his heart broken.

Maybe. I could be off here. As with so many things with HH, it’s not really about him. It’s a wonderful, flying-into-the-glory chance for me to expand my consciousness, and my heart.

I remembered old, disconnected me. Though I’m older and wiser now, I’m less decrepit, less stiff, less set in my ways. And I am most definitely still doing the good work so that it may continue to be so.

From my time with HH, I discovered how fully I could give my love. And now I’ve been blessed with the most generous and hilarious best friend of a hot lover of a partner, and I have learned to give that love AND receive that oceanic love right back. My heartbreak was the path to this bliss, for me. When we came together, my Love was in a state of heartbreak too, though his was an unbearable sense of heartbroken loss from a young, beautiful, loving, passionate and gifted friend who was lost in an accident, gone way, way too soon.

Today, I remember what it was like to break hearts, to even feel a little superior in that moment of not being as devastated as the “other.” Today, my empathy and forgiveness grows for Monsieur Heartbreak, for I have walked in those shoes.

And I walked right out of them, into the barren hell of my mind, the deepest shadows that challenge my heart and my love for myself and all life. And I walked through that fire, as I surely will again, to the other side, and jumped into the seething, bubbling, pulsing, soothing, buoyant, saturating, life-filled ocean, into Love.

In my prayer for my own equanimity, I have found something more harmonic than indifference. I pray, with clear love and deep gratitude, that Heartbreak Henry gets his heart broken before he dies, and gets to experience the ineffable blessing of the journey back.

~rest in peace, you brilliant magician of the human experience~

Gabriel Garcia Marquez inspires me immensely - his writing introduced me to the delicious blend of magic and creativity in our lives, full of the senses and invisible things.

“To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.”

“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”

Both from Love in the Time of Cholera


~rest in peace, you brilliant magician of the human experience~

The Day Sky

Let us be like Two falling stars in the day sky.

Let no one know of our sublime beauty
As we hold hands with God
And burn

Into a sacred existence that defies -
That surpasses

Every description of ecstasy
And love.

~Hafiz

The Hidden Singer

The Hidden Singer

The gods are less for their love of praise.
Above and below them all is a spirit that needs nothing
but its own wholeness, its health and ours.
It has made all things by dividing itself.
It will be whole again.
To its joy we come together --
the seer and the seen, the eater and the eaten,
the lover and the loved.
In our joining it knows itself. It is with us then,
not as the gods whose names crest in unearthly fire,
but as a little bird hidden in the leaves
who sings quietly and waits, and sings.

~Wendell Berry

The Dream by Theodore Roethke

1  
I met her as a blossom on a stem
Before she ever breathed, and in that dream
The mind remembers from a deeper sleep:
Eye learned from eye, cold lip from sensual lip.
My dream divided on a point of fire;
Light hardened on the water where we were;
A bird sang low; the moonlight sifted in;
The water rippled, and she rippled on. 

2
She came toward me in the flowing air,
A shape of change, encircled by its fire.
I watched her there, between me and the moon;
The bushes and the stones danced on and on;
I touched her shadow when the light delayed;
I turned my face away, and yet she stayed.
A bird sang from the center of a tree;
She loved the wind because the wind loved me. 

3
Love is not love until love's vulnerable.
She slowed to sigh, in that long interval.
A small bird flew in circles where we stood;
The deer came down, out of the dappled wood.
All who remember, doubt. Who calls that strange?
I tossed a stone, and listened to its plunge.
She knew the grammar of least motion, she
Lent me one virtue, and I live thereby.

4
She held her body steady in the wind;
Our shadows met, and slowly swung around;
She turned the field into a glittering sea;
I played in flame and water like a boy
And I swayed out beyond the white seafoam;
Like a wet log, I sang within a flame.
In that last while, eternity's confine,
I came to love, I came into my own.

Me Gustas Cuando Callas

Me Gustas Cuando Callas
Me gustas cuando callas porque estas como ausente,
y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca.
Parece que los ojos se te hubieran volado
y parece que un beso te cerrara la boca. 

Como todas las cosas estan llenas de mi alma
emerges de las cosas, llena del alma mia.
Mariposa de sueno, te pareces a mi alma,
y te pareces a la palabra melancolia. 

Me gustas cuando callas y estas como distante.
Y estas como quejandote, mariposa en arrullo.
Y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te alcanza:
dejame que me calle con el silencio tuyo. 

Dejame que te hable tambien con tu silencio
claro como una lampara, simple como un anillo.
Eres como la noche, callada y constelada.
Tu silencio es de estrella, tan lejano y sencillo. 

Me gustas cuando callas porque estas como ausente.
Distante y dolorosa como si hubieras muerto.
Una palabra entonces, una sonrisa bastan.
Y estoy alegre, alegre de que no sea cierto. 

~Pablo  Neruda

I Like for You to be Still
I like for you to be still: it as though you were absent,
and you hear me from far away and my voice does 
not touch you
It seems as though your eyes had flown away and it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth.

As all things are filled with my soul
you emerge from the things, filled with my soul.
You are like my soul, a butterfly of dream,
and you are like the word Melancholy.

I like for you to be still, and you seem far away.
It sounds as though you were lamenting, a butterfly 
cooing like a dove
And you hear me from far away, and my voice does 
not reach you:
Let me come to be still in your silence.

And let me talk to you with your silence
that is bright as a lamp, simple as a ring.
You are like the night, with its stillness and constellations.
Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid.

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
distant and full of sorrow as though you had died.
One word then, one smile, is enough.
And I am happy, happy that it’s not true.

~Translation by W.S. Merwin

Translation of an ancient Sanskrit love poem

Although I conquer all the earth,
Yet for me there is only one city.
In that city there is for me only one house;
And in that house, one room only
And in that room, a bed.
And one woman sleeps there,
The shining joy and jewel of all my kingdom.
 
~ Anonymous, Ancient India

Ephemeral Stream

This is the way water 
thinks about the desert. 
The way the thought of water 
gives you something 
to stumble on. A ghost river. 
A sentence trailing off 
toward lower ground. 
A finger pointing 
at the rest of the show. 

I wanted to read it. 
I wanted to write a poem 
and call it "Ephemeral Stream"
and dedicate it to you
because you made of this 
imaginary creek 
a hole so deep 
it looked like a green eye 
taking in the storm, 
a poem interrupted 
by forgiveness. 

It's not over yet. 
A dream can spend 
all night fighting off 
the morning. Let me 
start again. A stream 
may be a branch or a beck, 
a crick or kill or lick, 
a syke, a runnel. It pours 
through a corridor. The door 
is open. The keys 
are on the dashboard. 

by Elizabeth Willis

When You Are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep, 
And nodding by the fire, take down this book, 
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look 
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; 

How many loved your moments of glad grace, 
And loved your beauty with love false or true, 
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, 
And loved the sorrows of your changing face; 

And bending down beside the glowing bars, 
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled 
And paced upon the mountains overhead 
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars. 

 ~W. B. Yeats

Burning the Old Year

Burning the Old Year
By Naomi Shihab Nye

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.

For a New Beginning

This year I am not so moved to write a poem every day in April, as I thought I'd be. I celebrate my creativity! Five poems in a month is way more output than usual.

I want to share this beautiful poem I discovered today, which resonates so deeply in my soul that the connection between all beings is once again more deeply affirmed to me.

For a New Beginning 
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

~ John O'Donohue ~
from To Bless the Space Between Us

cinque - para la jaguar

every hair an antenna
every signal a flame
listening is not an imperative
she's
a slinky walk
a sharp-tipped recoil
a flaring strike

then sinking back into darkness
murmuring in the loud silence
receptively quiet amidst whirring life

she knows every ripple on earth
human minds call her a god
her knowing is deeper than mind
wider than body
longer than soul

all the waves connect and convey
through her blood stream
every choice to move
aligns with the whole of life

her blackness again 
submerges into the shadows
her golden eyes 
glow with fire

quatro

the circle divided 
into four pieces of pie
spins with a whirled balance
and sends up the divine pillar

so why do we divide our world,
ourselves, our bodies, our energies,
when the process of inner life
is to bring together what's been fragmented?

just in being what the Great, Loud I thinks,
those very ideas are automatically shattered 
from the great, mysterious whole

yet, how separate?
really? how can the universal experience
be condemned, in its beauty walk to truth
not for the truth lacking, but for the walk full?

and so I sing up high to the sky
and groan down low, press my toes and cheek
into our mother's heart, or into her bloomings
all around us

and praise and groan to the north,
east,
west, 
south,
and then some.
Above, 
below,
within.
To all my relations and all I forget.
To all I name and all the unnamed and unnameable.
The four directions frame my heart compass
and don't contain it.
In gratitude and beauty
may we continue to walk the human pilgrimage.

las tres hermanas

the three mountains rise from the mother
undulating sisters, each one a goddess breast

the balance of three is a dance of life,
much as the four sacred directions
cross the circle in balance,
the seven energetic centers
whirl through the human body 
and emerge from the earth's surface

the balance of three dances the tension and release
the three points leaning away from and into each other
the pelvis bones pulling out the triangle's edges
to arrive at a point through which the beginning of life travels

las tres hermanas
trust, remember, empower, support
find an odd way into a duality mind
find an abundant path for the one
looking for only its other one
find what's always been there
in a sisterhood of three

numero dos

The grand, mindless search for words
less the mind, stronger the voice
Finding the way to give thanks for my love
and love for my thanks

In these nine months, my body 
could have brought life into this world
Last year's spring cleaning has morphed 
but remains on my living room floor
We have entered the tipi and been blessed
by medicine and its dancing deer messengers

and still...
Feeling the words like a rubberband ball core 
in my stomach, millions of them, curled up
Breathing space, air, light that way
willing those words to unfurl and bloom
into the heart's perfection expressed

Encountering one of life's greatest loves
in the abundance of my heart, 
Where are the words to praise this love?

I walk my prayer 
I walk in beauty 
I stare into the dark
and into the fire
and let it all arise

thanks for my love
love for my thanks
mi vida

first poem April 2013, poem a day

with shitty poems
in my head, I embark on
a new April spread

Archangel Michael Clearing Prayer

I'm moved the share this prayer with you. Several dear friends shared it with me, and I use it regularly. I usually don't utilize these kind of tools too often, and yet find this one very helpful.  I think of it as a clearing tool. 

This needs to be read aloud, and then you tap your thymus (at your sternum) three times then touch your bellybutton :) Please use it if it resonates with you, with my blessings of love.

Archangel Michael Clearing Prayer

I, _________ , call in the highest energy of
Archangel Michael's fifth dimensional tube of Light.
I thank you, Archangel Michael,
for placing this tube of Light over me
in this lifetime, in all lifetimes,
all planetary systems, all solar systems,
all alternate worlds, all alternate universes,
all parallel worlds, all parallel universes,
and all space and time
by the force and grace of God.

I thank you, Archangel Michael,
for using your sword of Light to completely clear me
of all attached energies, all negative energies, and all attached entities
from my cellular memory
and from all other parts of my being.

I thank you for transmuting these energies
up through the fifth dimensional tube of Light,
to the fifth dimension,
where they can be transformed into their highest form of Light.

Should I have any attached energies
that do not wish to go to the Light,
leave me now and go somewhere safe within the Universe
without harming anyone.

I thank you for infusing all voids within my being
with unconditional love and Light.

So I speak and so it is.

I am receptive to this protection and clearing.
(tap thymus 3x and touch navel)

Four sacred medicines

The Medicine Wheel

Physical Quadrant

Tobacco is the first medicine given from the Creator. It is in the East and represents the promise that the Creator is always willing to listen. Yellow is the color, spring is the season and childhood is the stage of life.

Tobacco is the first plant that the Creator gave to the Anishinabe people. Three other plants: sage, cedar and sweetgrass are held sacred by the people. Together they are referred to as the four sacred medicines (Muskiiki). The four sacred medicines are used in everyday life and in all of our ceremonies. All of them can be used to smudge with, though sage, cedar and sweetgrass also have many other uses. It is said that tobacco sits in the eastern door, sweetgrass in the southern door, sage in the west and cedar in the north. Elders say that the spirits like the aroma produced when the other sacred medicines are burned.

Sacred tobacco was given to the Anishinabe so that we can communicate with the Spirit world. Tobacco is always offered before picking other medicines. When you offer tobacco to a plant and explain your reasons for being there, the plant will let all the plants in the area know your intentions and why you are picking them. Tobacco is used as an offering, a gift, and is an important part of Anishinabe ceremonies.

Mental Quadrant

Sweetgrass is in the South and connected to Mother Earth. It has a shiny and beautiful side as well as a plain side, representative of youth. When sweetgrass is braided, it cannot be pulled apart. Likewise when your body, mind and spirit are solidly connected, you will be full and strong in your personal life. Red is the colour, summer is the season and youth is the stage of life.

Sweetgrass is the sacred hair of Mother Earth. Its sweet aroma reminds our people of the gentleness, love and kindness she has for the people. When sweetgrass is used in a healing circle it has a calming effect. Like sage and cedar, sweetgrass is used for smudging and purification.

Emotional Quadrant

Sage is in the West. As we move into the adult stage of our lives, we always exit through the West and sage assists in that journey. The smell of sage is intended to attract the spirits’ attention. Black is the colour, fall is the season and adulthood is the stage of life.

Sage is used to prepare our people for ceremonies and teachings. Because it is more medicinal and stronger than sweetgrass, sage is used more often in ceremonies. Sage is used for releasing what is troubling the mind and for removing negative energy. It is also used for cleansing homes and sacred bundles carried by people. It also has other medicinal uses.

Spiritual Quadrant

Cedar is placed in the North. While Mother Earth sleeps, cedar stays green, symbolizing that Mother Earth still watches over and protects us. White is the colour, winter is the season and Elderly is the stage of life.

Like Sage and Sweet grass, Cedar is used to purify the home, it also has many restorative medicinal use. When mixed with sage for a tea, it cleans the body of all infections, cedar baths are also very healing. When cedar mixed with tobacco is put in the fire it crackles, this is said to call the attention of the Spirits (manitous) to the offering that is being made. Cedar is used in sweat lodge and fasting ceremonies for protection, cedar branches cover the floor of many sweat lodges and some people make a circle of cedar when they are fasting. It is a guardian spirit and chases away the bad spirits. 

Thanks to: http://www.chippewaheritage.com/1/post/2012/03/four-sacred-medicines-muskiiki.html

Axan's prayer at dinner tonight

Thank you creator for this beautiful food, and nurturing us so we can live in peace.

afterglow