I can feel it build like a volocano exploding. It takes me hours to figure out what I need, where it is stemming from. Like a virus taking over my body. But then I remember, I remember the earth. And I turn to her for healing. I turn to her for truth. Truth I feel abandoned. I feel like everyone has left. I feel as though when I choose to step away from SR people stepped away from me. And that hurts. It feels unfair as if there is something wrong with me. As if I'm just not good enough. But maybe it's not my story, maybe I can rewrite my herstory. Maybe there is a way to transform all of it. To turn into the people that are willing to be there, the people that are willing to believe. What would happen then? I don't know. But I can say it is difficult to have only one parent and she doesn't believe, she worries. I know she worries about the money it costs I have a feeling she worries I'm not smart enough. And I feel hurt. I feel unheard. And most of all right now I feel deeply alone and disconnected. I feel overwhelmed and I"m not sure how to remedy and find space to breathe. I'm trying so hard to make it I'm afraid I may be missing the point. I may be missing the journey. Life isn't about shoving it all down so we don't feel but it's about the sorrows and the joys, but I feel so disconnected from life. And I simply want to crawl into a hole and stay there. Somedays I wonder who would really care, who would really notice. And I'm left pondering the short list. Do I need a long list or do I simply need someone to hear my story, to hear how difficult the journey has been, to hear that I am still sad, that I am still not okay. Maybe I just need to tell it over and over again. Maybe I need to write it and draw and dance it out. Maybe I need to do all of that. And maybe I need to call and share. Maybe I just need to cry.

Maybe I need to try something different. Maybe maybe is a new motto.

Transformation

They say change is hard. Is transformation harder? A butterfly turns to mush. Is that we do when we transform? What does it truly mean to transform? Does it mean to fully change like a butterfly or slowly change like Darwin's theory of evolution... I wonder where I sit and where I stand. Where I stand in power and where I stand in fear. The word transformation for me means an all encompassing word for all words. It requires patience, courage, bravery, risks, safety, compassion, love, and the words go on. I was reading through some old poems I wrote just 6 months after my father's death and seeing the change.

To Begin Again (5/31/2011)

Each night I live alone

The darkness fills the room

Like an old friend. 

It consumes me. 

I am left to fight it without you.

Since you've left I've forgotten how to live. 

As if I slipped into a void when you died. 

I died too. 

I am no longer living.

The pain has taken over.

I sit in the middle of night

crying your name. 

Wishing for only my father. 

You do not answer. 

The screams echo in the darkness.

Nothing comforts. 

Nothing heals. 

Life is too much. 

Yet somewhere I hear a faint whisper. 

Of hope.

Of faith. 

Of remembrance. 

Your legacy will not die with me. 

If only I could find a way to live again. 

To begin again. 

I am no longer feeling as though I am the walking dead. How does it change by choosing to engage with life a little bit at a time. And quite frankly committing to live my dreams. Learning to have discretion in sharing my heart carefully. I have learned to create my own rituals. The faint whisper is no longer a whisper. Its a soft quiet voice cheering my own. Reminding my that the even the smallest feats lead to transforming my life. Take climbing a mountain, you don't jump to the top, you take it a step at a time. Creating change in small increments and then seeing the big things happen. 

I want to begin again. I am calling in grief. I am calling in the release of what is NOT serving me. I am calling in a new way of living. I am calling in that I am indeed a healer and I want to embody that spirit. I want to heal. I want to learn to change the relationship with my father, i want to learn to communicate with him more clearly. I want to learn to hear him. I want to learn to hear the divine more clearly. I took a walk today and walked barefoot in the park feeling the grass beneath my feet. It is what I need a strong connection to Mother Earth. I want to learn to deepening. I want to redefine transformation. After so much healing work it feels tainted. The butterfly image for me feels tainted. I want to burn my anger, resentment, hurt, abandonment, loss, grief like a phoenix and rise from the ashes. I want to glow red and let me light shine. I want to break open the boxes around my heart. Though I want to do all of this in a gentle compassionate way. But transformation is the dark night of the soul. It is changing beliefs, behaviors, ways of being, stopping generational patterns. It is all of these things and it is not easy. But it is the soul path, and I do not want to be on any other path. This is my path to rebirth, this is my path to service, this is my path to a gloriously, brilliant, wonderful happy loving life.

Grief

Death brings unwanted feelings into my heart. I close it off in the hope of protecting myself from the darkness but it only seems to get darker. I look up at the stars and the moon and I see hope. I see my father bright as his life. And I wonder how I could let all the voices into my heart. I thought I was closing out the voices but I closed them. They are making decisions and choices I want no part of. The voices of get over it, time will heal all wounds, here let me fix it, the people who run away. And all I feel is alone.

Being truly heard today was healing, it's what I needed all along. Why is it so hard to get... well what I've come to understand is 1. my story gets in the way 2. people are doing the best they can 3. sometimes you have to choose to be vulnerable. The problem is I don't trust people to be there for me. I fear no one wants to hear about my struggles with my father's death. They don't want to hear how it shattered almost every will I had in my body. It shattered my belief in people, my belief in God. It shattered almost everything inside me. I lost any sense of who I was. Who can you ask for what you need if you don't even know who you are? How can you stand up for yourself when you're barely present... that's where I was at. I was in such a state of shock that I need someone to reach out a hand. I needed someone to say it's okay and hold me. But I fought, I pushed people away the instant they tried to relate. Why do we do this? I'm sure I'm not alone. We do this because our grief is unique and our love is our own. To have someone relate a loss that feels less than a tragic death feels like a punch to the gut. You don't want to be related to, fixed, or told it will get better you want to be held. I wanted to be held, I wanted someone to reach out their hand and say I see how deeply you are suffering. And now and now how do I step forward. The only way I know at this point is to talk to the moon, talk to the stars, do art, listening to music and remember that somewhere in all of that is me. Somwhere in all this grief is me. I so desperately want a place to share this.

"Grief is our natural way of coping with a loss. If grieving does not take place, we can remain tied to the past, unable to reinvest our energy or move forward."- Elizabeth Hospice

I am stuck and just want a place to share... It may be time to investigate other ways to connect with people who have experienced loss.

Lost for Words

I went to a music healing circle for grief tonight. It was powerful. We did a visualization and I've begun to realize how complicated my particular grief is. I feel the urge to share all of it all at once. Do you see how hard it is? It's like a need to scream so maybe someone would understand how deeply painful my experience has been, how deeply I need to be heard, witnessed, and honored in my grief. How much I want to be understood. How much I want people to reach out because the truth, the truth is I'm not okay. I want to feel okay everyday. And everyday it gets better. Tonight we did a visualization. As usual my father appeared as my guide reminding me of my strength and courage. That I have the strength to return to me. To find myself again. I'm learning how I am. I am artist, a healer, a pagan, a Unitarian Universalist, a woman, a sister, a daughter, a caretaker, a listener, a friend. And I am lonely, I am angry, I am sad. I am deeply sad and I can barely admit it myself. I've shoved it so far away and I've built huge walls around my heart. I do not know how to break them down without him. He was the rock of my existence. My father, my guardian, my guide, a confident... and now I feel so alone in the world. I see how scared people are of death especially young people. I get labeled needy, codependent, too much, heavy... I don't need to be labeled I need to be held, witnessed, seen in compassion. And now the anger seizes through me like venom... and I know there is grief sitting at the edge of this sword. The sword of truth that indeed I am still hurting. I am still living in a hurt body, overweight and willing myself to change the circumstances. I no longer want to be a victim to the events of 2010. I want to find a way to live again. But it is so hard some days. I feel like death has grown in my heart, it's sown it's cords around my heart. I'm desperately trying to find the light again, but without people to lean on, without people to witness the tears and anguish it feels so difficult. Instead I find myself drawn to imagery and art. The unspeakable occurred to me and I am left without words. Its time to find the words. Through music, through art. It's time to claim them both in body and in spirit. It's time to surrender and move into the a new community. A letting go a shedding is occurring.

As I claim who I am now and mix in who I was when my father walked this earth. I am all these things and more. I am his daughter, I am strong, I am tiger, I am beautiful, I am powerful and graceful. I am an emotional being that deserves to be heard and seen.  I deserve all life has to offer. And in order to have all of this I must feel. I must feel the grief that is laid into my heart. I must honor death and life as one. They intertwine as one. Most people try to seperate the two but truth be told as one child is born the elder dies. It's life's cycle it is sad. But what saddens and angers me more is the fear and inability to have time to honor the dead. We have time to honor the children born to new life but what about the time to honor the grief that comes to those left behind. I think about the disappearing flight and my heart feels angst. To not be able to say goodbye... is one of the worst experiences. The comments and insensitivity is appalling. I hope to create one day a place for people to feel safe to grieve, to share their experiences of their loved ones until they are tired of telling it, I hope one day to express the pain in my heart that's been so lost for words.