Listen, God is singing through the Elms, first as thunder, then as wind, then as trembling leaves and limb.
I’m hiding my wound from you,
even though I know you feel it too.
As surely as the Mourning dove leaves the church spire at sunset,
knowing that her love has flown
beyond the places she has still to go.
She struggles against the heaviness of her realization
and settles in the eaves.
She listens to dry leaves rustle over the driveway.
Sometimes it hurts so much to get out of bed I have to sing the gratitude song before I can do it. “Thank you for this day, Lord, thank you for this day, this healing, this healing, this healing day.” It is a beautiful chant I learned at thanksgiving last year when I moved in with mom. I’ll tell you who wrote it at the end of this post. I am writing on my tablet and it’s too hard to switch around trying to find the song on YouTube. I’m such a caveman on the computer I’ll end up erasing everything or emailing embarrassing pictures to Facebook if I try. For now let me just tell you it is a chant that has served me well; I sing it when I’m happy and when I’m in pain, when I’m scared, grieving, worried, despondent–whatever human experience I happen to be having, I sing that song.
It is possible to be grateful no matter how miserable a person is feeling. In fact, gratitude may be the very medicine for what is causing the misery.
Sometimes it’s not the stuff that is happening that hurts as much as it is our running away from it. We don’t want to have a headache so when we get one we start freaking out and adding all sorts of worries to it like, “Oh no, how am I going to climb Mount Everest now? Or How will I mow the yard, go to work, feed the masses, wash the dishes.” And so on. So we fight the pain.
Here is what a wolf in a vision taught me to do. I had been having one of those days and I was crying. In my mind’s eye, I saw a black wolf walking in deep, white snow. He was entering a thickly wooded forest. He turned and made eye contact with me, his breath curling blue into the air. I understood that I was to follow him, to walk in the steps he made in the snow. It didn’t matter that he was a wolf and I am human—it was a vision where anything can happen. I understood what he meant. I knew that I was to follow my pain in exactly the same way: carefully, mindfully, each time I take a breath, I need to notice the pain. Where is It? Is it hot? Cold? I try to describe it and ask if it has something to tell me—a message of some sort. Then, when the pain disappears, I am home.
We go out and then we come home again, following our pain or our bliss. Maybe when we realize this we will realize that we never left home at all. Maybe it has all been “home” after all.
It is amazing where the pain leads. I usually worry that pain will prevent me from doing the most important thing, but time and again I have been proven wrong. When I follow where pain leads, I find my life’s sacred path. and It is the same path that I walk when I follow my bliss.
Stay on the path. Let’s go home together. What stories we will tell!
Steven Hayes and Russ Harris are the founders of ACT, which stands for Acceptance Commitment Therapy. I’m sure that with a quick search online you can find more information on the work these two men have done than this writer could provide. I am not educated in ACT. All I know is that the methods taught in the ACT program and the exercises I have tried to relieve anxiety and change ways of thinking that are not really helpful to me, work.
One of the exercises is to defuse thoughts that cause harm.
This little video gives you an idea of fusion vs defusion.
This was in my Facebook feed this morning and it grabbed my attention. The guy who posted it has had many close calls with death, so he holds on to his life with a special tenacity. It seems that Life keeps calling him to go deeper into her mystery, and he always says “Yes.”
He is one of the most vivacious men I have ever known, and I only know him a little, I only know him from the posts he has made, and by the friends he associates with. But there is a quality about him that tells me he says Yes to life over and over, whether it is a battle cry or a whisper, he says Yes. He encourages people and gives strength, hope and love, he is compassionate in politics and I don’t think he has ever met a stranger.
His name is Atma Jodha Singh and you can find him on Facebook. He is truly remarkable.
This is a shout out to the resilient. Thank you for your courage and for the way you love this sweet ole world.
I do not know who to give credit to for this meme. I found it on Facebook.
I may have made it out of the Pit, but that does not mean I am home free. I can tell by the way my world is getting all jittery around the edges, like an analog TV that is losing its picture that I may need to go back into self-rescue mode.
I’m not feeling well, physically I mean. I am having some kind of autoimmune flare. I am on fire only no one can see that I ‘m burning. Even my lips are burning like they do when I have a fever.
Every joint hurts. My skin hurts. My eyes hurt. But the thing that hurts the most is that I am not grounded; I have lost that feeling that I’m moving toward enlightenment. Instead, I am slipping down a steep, muddy slope that leads to obscurity, to the unknowable
I don’t know why I have to lose my mind from time to time, but it seems to be part of the human experience. I don’t know anyone who goes through life feeling all blissed out every single day of their life. Maybe a saint feels that way, but probably, if they are like any of the saints I have read about, they have to have their share of misery just like the rest of us.
There is this song, it’s hilarious. It used to come on some TV show when I was a kid. All I can remember is that they sang, Pain, Despair and Agony on Me in a plaintive twang, and that’s how I feel this morning.
…which is really pretty funny when I think about it.
The birds think it’s funny too. It is barely daylight and they are ecstatic just because the sun is rising again. They wake up in such a good mood every day they would think anything is funny. I like their attitude.
So, I’m not well. That means the first thing I need to do is stop beating myself up for being sick. I have a terrible habit of kicking myself when I’m down. I’d never treat anyone else that way. Why do I do that to me?
I’m going to take care of me the way I would take care of someone else.
I’ve got several projects planned, but I’ll have to see how it goes.
Right now reiki jane wants to snuggle, and when your dog wants to snuggle and the sky is still grey, I say let the day start nice and slow. I kinda like it this way.
Maybe I need to add snuggling to my formula for what do when I feel frazzled instead of clear and serene: Chant, pray, work, play, and snuggle.
Here is a text version of the story:
http://asingingtree.com/2018/08/18/if-my-anguish-had-a-sound/
I love walking home with you.
Every day I see something new.
Looking into your eyes
when you’re wondering why
Buttercups dance in the sun
like they do,
I see inspired, unanswered questions,
Bloom one by one, into your truth,
Into your love, into your faith.
My world is blessed by your grace.
The whole world is blessed by your grace.
I went to an AA speaker meeting one night and this man that I already greatly admired for his creativity and intelligence blew me away with the disclosure of his heart of hearts.
After he told his story he sang this song. His version was every bit as moving as Sinead Oconner’s. Of course, I don’t have his video. But here is the original song. Feel the power.https://youtu.be/PU5PwOHJfoA
asingingtree 