HI all, I joined the energy of the morning and went to Target at 7pm. They had a 19 inch TV with a DVD player in it I've been eyeing for about 2 months but refused to spend 329.00 for it on sale for 199.00 Needless to say, they had a palete of them and I'm the proud owner of a new TV. This is good as the one I use for my own musings does not have a remote and I wanted one that I could watch DVD's or TV when on that torture device called a stationary bicycle. I love to exercise if I can be out in the woods, going for a walk...but my life and my doctor say I need to get more cardiovascular exercise. I'm the proud owner of genes that entail both parents with heart attacks and though I have been very vigilant about my weight/exercise for the vast majority of my life....the last two years I've not done alot of intense physicality. Everything is fine on physical etc....but yoga to relax is not the same as getting the heart rate up. I was reading my friend Linda's blog this am and she speaks of issues of grief and of death and some of what it means to sit with the death of her Husband Keith. Keith was diagnosed around the same time as Mary and we spent lots of time sending each other music, food, love and comfort. Sometimes I call Linda up and she is there with me on the phone and we laugh, be stupid, cry or talk about if I need down time as caregiver. She is leaving today for Hawaii to spend a week with Mirka Kraftsow/yogi to work on her personal yoga practice. She wrote this a couple of weeks ago.....
Death is nothing at all
I have only slipped away into the next room.I am I, you are you,Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.Call me by the old familiar name.Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.Put no difference into your tone.Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.Laugh as we always laughed,at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.Let it be spoken without an effort,without a ghost of a shadow upon it.Life means all that it ever meant.It is the same a it ever was.There is absolute and unbroken continuity.What is death but a negligible accident?Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?I am but waiting for you. For an interval,somewhere very near, just round the corner.All is well,-Henry Scott Holland
Linda writes-As one of the co-travelers along this route, I have to say, I have had better trips. Since I last talked with you all, I have slipped twice into that whole ( pun intended) known as grief. I gave myself some space the first dip down but this second one has my inner critic screaming. " I thought you would be over this by now"! " How much is enough? Already" “ People forget why you aren’t happy, that is why you are supposed to wear black!”I have even booked a trip to Maui for one week at the end of the month and I am not even excited about it. I feel as if it is something that will be good for me and hoping I can finish my yoga homework for my official Viniyoga teacher training certificate...Spent enough, thank you very much!.I am sure as the days arrive, I will get a little “joy” rush, but nothin now!I am learning to recognize the signs, (slowly) of this new emotion called grief. It has me wanting to recount the past, verses looking to the future and holding the present as precious. I can't seem to get there. And can I say, I am enjoying the distracting qualities of TV and wine. As my poem once read on the bedroom wall of my 3426 apartment on Janssen, “The I that is we of possibility can be spoken when two souls are opened like Pandora stepping out to dine on wildflowers and wine”.Now, the emotion of depression I do know something about. I can identify it. I can even tell you what brain chemicals are involved and what man-made and herbal chemicals and remedies relieve it. I can even tell you if it is symptomatic or chronic.This grief thing, however, has me a bit stumped. As promised, I am still trying to get through the book a second time. And as far as a "joy" list?, I can't really remember what used to bring me joy with the exception of yoga. Thank goddess for that. I am so grateful for my practice. Yoga is a magic bullet.I am not even sure if what used to bring me joy still would. I have a little experimenting to do, so my joy list will be of a different sort. Perhaps those things I have never tried that I might allow me to open into my spirit and connect with that innate right to joy would be a better tact for me. ( ...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.). I like that.I have finally written the morning chant, mantra, prayer, intention or whatever you would like to call it. ( It will follow this blog entry) Something to practice for 108 days. You can make up your own or use this one.I hope all your journeys are filled with wonder and adventure, wherever they may lead you. -Linda
LG writes:
I've had a few experiences with Grief in the past......I lost my brother in 1980, my first boyfriend in an accident a few years later and my first girlfriend in an accident in 1988. I did think my world was over and spent alot of years trying to figure out why I was left. I guess it is kind of like cancer...why us....well why not. What I do know is that I do really get how to be a caregiver in all of this as it lauched me into this role of trying to find a way to make life better-a reason I was here. I did get so depressed around these losses. Yoga/Meditation is the only way that I know to get it out of the physicality of the body. Therapy & western/eastern interventions and friends/support to get it out of the mind-help it to move through; prayer to take care of the spirit and giving to others to allow the experience to move away for awhile until time has a healing touch. I've never quite figured out why people don't say my brothers name. Everyone gets so sad....his name was Gregory Lynn Bailey. GLB to my LGB. We were mirrors of each other. He was my protector and I idolized him. I still talk to him very often and he is always present with me and for me. The thing I miss are the smell of him and the hugs. (Even his farts as they were really stinky and his favorite thing to do was to fart and then grab me and try to push me into the stink-it was the original way I learned to squeal-Mary loves it when I squeal) I've looked at these losses and the people that I lost as the foundations of the sears tower. These loves in my life and are like the steel beams that form the foundation. As you look at the tower it gets smaller as you go up. Theses loves are the solid grounding on which I build my life. I can go really, really far but as one goes up..it is abit narrower at the top....you never lose all that you had....it just gets more quiet and more streamlined. The people you gather at this point are often on their own path..and are the floors. Each one has it's own beauty and are wonderful respites of color, warmth, clarity, view and a place to rest or work or sleep or love. If they are around long enough....they add to your steel beams of strength.....they allow you to go higher. are such a part of who made me and who I am.....am becoming. Eventually you get high enough....you touch the essence of God and the meditation you become one with that essence while you are still here in the body. It is very cool. I know why Greg climbed every mountain in the Tetons....My favorite picture is the one above my meditation alter. He has his climbing helmet on and a rope is hanging down...he is looking down and helping someone up higher. As I meditate....I feel he helps to pull me higher and will always be there to help me on my way. I'm very grateful. much love, LG
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