I will hold my daughters, Grace & Lily, who left before they really came, forever in my heart.  This week, a number of years after each one left this life, I had a memorial ceremony to say good-bye and finally let them go.  It was beautiful and sweet and filled with love and gratitude.

One day, soul to soul, may we recognize each other once again, sweet ones.
Until then I will love you.  That is enough.

]]> http://healingpages.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/everyday-gratitude/feed/ 0 Emily Lake at Sunset http://healingpages.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/daisies-dreams-and-drumming-finding-the-beauty-of-what-is/ http://healingpages.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/daisies-dreams-and-drumming-finding-the-beauty-of-what-is/#comments Fri, 08 Apr 2011 06:11:52 +0000 Emily http://healingpages.wordpress.com/?p=1055 Continue reading →]]> Last night, as I drove home from a laughter-filled, fun couple of hours with some of my favorite people, I was stuck by how happy and peaceful and deeply grateful I felt.

• Grateful for these people who have brought so much laughter & love & fun to my life.
• Grateful for so many other amazing people I am so privileged to know.
• Grateful for parents who love me and support me in so many ways (even if they don’t always “get” me!).
• Grateful for this diverse, anything goes community I live in.
• Grateful to be a part of creating a school that empowers kids and encourages them to focus on their strengths
• Grateful to be here, now, with all the ups and downs and twists and turns of my life
(just to name a few)

Yesterday was a somewhat bittersweet day for me. It’s the day that would have been my daughter’s 8th birthday. I miss her. I miss that I never got to hear her voice or see her eyes or watch her grow. As I’m working to help create this school, I often find myself thinking of what I would have wanted for her and how much fun it would have been to bring her there to learn and create and discover.

Yesterday could have a very sad day. It has been in the past. It would be very easy for me to wallow in the what-could-have-beens and sadness. Instead, it was a good day. It’s become a day to celebrate all the beauty in life and to be grateful for the beautiful beings that touch my life – just as my little Grace touched my life. Instead of wallowing in the sad, I reach for gratitude. And each year on her birthday, I give away a bouquet of yellow daisies to someone (or several someone’s) who, in the previous year, helped remind me of the beauty, fun, and joy in living.

Instead of regretting what could have been, I get to celebrate the beauty of what is and honor my Grace in the process.

This has been the most peaceful and, well, easy birthday anniversary since she died. I laughed a lot. I was very productive (yippee!). I spent some time outside taking in all the spring flowers and leaves and sunshine. I remembered all that’s beautiful about my life and how blessed I am.

Grace has been here with me, too.

I have one ultrasound picture of Grace, taken shortly before she died. I’d been thinking it was about time to take that picture down and put it away. Seeing it always made me a little sad. Wednesday night that frame fell off a ledge and completely shattered (and I do mean shattered – frame, glass, and all!). Ok, Grace. I get the message

Wednesday was actually the day I felt the saddest. Until I went to hear a group of women drummers perform. They were amazing. Just a few minutes into their performance and I felt the sadness dissipate and lift. And I danced and laughed and simply leaned into the experience of it all.

The rhythm of the drumming stayed in my head all night and I dreamed of it. Grace was there, too. I couldn’t really see her clearly and she didn’t say anything out loud, but she wrote the words to this poem in the air in letters of bright blue that sparkled and glittered. When I woke up this morning, I wrote them down.

Some would probably tell me that was just my mind merging the two events. But I know Grace was there, lifting that sadness. The picture frame breaking and the poem were reminders that life is always moving forward and that the beauty of life is found now, in what is.

Thank you, Grace. Even though you couldn’t stay, I’m so grateful you chose me.

Drumbeats

A thousand drumbeats in my head
Pulsing
Beating
Crying out
Tear the veil of there to here
Open, open
Light pours through.
Rhythm dancing
Body swaying
Feel the pulsing beat.
Open, open
Chanting, singing
Grace in motion.
Breathing faster –
Stop.
Booming silence
Echoing
A thousand drumbeats in my head

I believe in my own divine spirit and my own courageous power.

I believe who I already am is always bigger than whoever I think myself to be.

I believe my life is a divine creation.  My divine creation.

I believe in the beauty of all life.

I believe in the beauty of MY life.

I believe that every possibility exists for me – right here and right now.

I believe there is nothing I cannot be, do, or have – if only I would allow myself to believe it.

I believe that every step of my life path has been and is perfect in every way. Even the messy times.

I believe the best in me will rise up the rest of me.

I believe in love.

I believe in the complete and total perfection of all life.

I believe in the Oneness of All.  I am you and you are me, no matter how different we might appear to be.

I believe I choose to come into this body, this physical life, this particular path for a reason.

I believe that I am Love, I am loved, and that I love.

I believe in happiness.

I believe that life is meant to be joyful, beautiful, prosperous, and fun.

I believe playing is a deeply spiritual path.

I believe in choice.

I choose to believe in me.

I believe in me.

*          *            *

What do you believe?

Happy New Years’ Eve!

I am deeply grateful for all of the joys, the friendships, the challenges, the connections and reconnections, and the love in 2010. (I wrote about some of that in a guest post here.)

Each year I pick one word to be my guide for that year. It becomes a touchstone, a guiding light throughout the year. It’s usually something I want to experience growth in and it’s always both a little scary and exciting when i find that word. I never know where the word and intention will take me.

In the last half of 2010 several themes have been coming up in my life (or, old themes have been coming more and more into my awareness in the last few months). A desire to feel more connected to people and myself, a desire to let go of my fears of commitment and experience more stick-to-it-ness in all areas of my life, a desire to feel as if I provide something of value in the world and to those I love, and a desire to know and feel that I am enough and I am loved – by others and by myself.

Wholehearted.

In the end, I realized that what I desire more than anything this year is to live and be wholehearted in all that I do and feel and am. 2011 is about learning to live wholeheartedly. With connection. With commitment. With love. With clarity. With purpose. With openness. With my whole heart.

I am equally torn between wanting to say “Yikes” and “Yippee! Let’s go!”

Wholehearted

In the pale rising of the day
Lighting up the world within –

Remember.

On the flow of ease and grace
In laughing fits and hugs abound –

Remember.

Amid missteps and stumbles
In the gap and in tears –

Remember.

In the moments of doubt and fear
And the brilliance of joy and creativity –

Remember.

There is only love – you are loved.
Life is perfect – you are whole.

Remember.

And be wholehearted.

Love on the Wind

A gentle gust of wind
Sends fallen leaves to scatter
A lonely rustle
Across a space once filled by you

The echo of a laugh
Faint on the dancing air
Remnants of endless stories
Silenced
By your sudden leaving

Yet, like a soft caress,
The wind brushes by
In a feather light bear hug
Sent on winter’s breath

Sweet memories that tumble
Like scattered leaves
Across hearts so touched
By your presence

And as you journey
To the great mystery beyond
The love that is you
Was unbound

Set free to dance
Upon the air
And to touch us -
Again and again
With every breath of wind

A couple hours into the craft fair, a woman came to our booth and purchased my book. She was paging through it and almost immediately came across the poem below. She then asked if it would be possible to share this particular poem with her adult children who were with their father in Iowa.   The woman said that their father was in the process of passing & making his transition, but for whatever reason was still hanging on. She said she thought her children would like to read this poem to him.

So, she gave me her son’s phone number and I sent the poem to them via text message.

They read this poem to their father. Several hours later the son sent me a text saying “Thank you” and said they were very touched by the words of the poem and how grateful they were to share it with their father.

This story brought tears to my eyes today. It reminded me why I write and why I feel so compelled to share the words that flow from some magical place inside of me.  I needed that reminder.  It also reminded me how easily we can touch the lives of others with simple words and simple acts.  It’s good to remember that, too.

Lean In

Standing on the edge
The precipice of change
Anticipation vibrates
Reaching out to touch
The misty veil of old
Becoming new

Lean in

Comfort and familiar
Whispers of safety behind
Uncertainty, unknown
Beckons from beyond
One step, one moment
And all the world can change

Lean in

Let go and fall
Feel the wind rise up
Lift me out of darkness
Arms reach out and become
Wings that catch the wind
As I soar above

Lean in

Lean into life
Into uncertainty and fear
Reach out, into and through
The misty veil of doubt
To find the space between
Where magic breathes the air

Tangled sheets
Cold sweat of fear
Choked back screams
Mar the air

Pale light filters
Through winter trees
Breaking darkness
From the night

Gasps of breath
Still the shaking
Give voice to a tiny whisper:

“Whole.
You’re still whole.”

Standing in a fog
Thick with doubt
Damp with fear

Stumbling
Tumbling down
The rocky path
Uncertain and unsecure

Breathe deep
Still the blinding fall
Listen to the tiny whisper:

“Whole.
You’re still whole.”

In the swirl of fierce fear
That chokes and blinds
Grab hold the path –
Through rocky

Under the heavy cloak
Shadowed with doubt
Burdened by unknowns
A sliver, a faint light

Follow, follow the light
Til the rocks give way
Smooth to sand
Hold on, hold on to the whisper:

“Whole.
You’re still whole.”

All this talking about all this stuff that’s been coming up like an exploding volcano in me lately. Stuff that makes me want to run – run and hide in that deep, deep darkness where no one can see.  Stuff that says: Not enough. No good enough. Too imperfect. Don’t you dare let anyone see that in you.

But that running and hiding and shielding and fearing? Seriously exhausting. And it’s dark in here. So, not just exhausting, but stumbling and banging and tripping because I can’t see.

So, today? Bye-bye, darkness. Hello, light. This is the me I haven’t wanted you to see.

• I spend a lot of time & energy hiding – hiding from others & from myself.
• I’m really good at running away.
• Some days, I don’t shower.
• The amount of rage I feel inside sometimes scares me.
• I often hate myself.
• I can be very judgmental.
• I use weight as a shield to keep people from seeing me – and I’m not ready to let that go yet.
• I’m rather lazy…and messy.
• Sitting meditation bores me.
• I can be horribly abusive – to myself.
• At times, I just want to be rescued.
• I usually think my only value comes from what I do, not who I am.
• I refuse to let style & fashion & looks matter to me because they seemed so important to my mom.
• I’ve tried to kill myself 9 times.
• I’m sometimes afraid I’ll try a 10th…and succeed.
• I think I’m ugly.
• I get impatient & abrupt with people.
• I’ve gone weeks (months?) without shaving my legs.
• I have $20,000 in medical bills I’ve been avoiding because I don’t know how to pay them.
• I have a tendency to wallow in sadness.
• I feel ashamed that my body has failed to carry a baby to birth.
• I have a wee bit of a control issue.
• I’m more comfortable in pain than feeling good.
• I love bread and pasta, dammit.
• I’m really tired of having to be strong.

Fortunately for me, I’m only half-baked. And the oven is still on. That’s just the still-baking stuff. There’s some baked goodness in me, too:

• Through it all, I’m still standing and living and being.
• My complete & utter nerdiness makes me laugh. All the time.
• I have a knack for being with people who are in pain in a way that’s calming, lifting, and easing.
• I’m happier than I ever thought possible – and getting happier all the time.
• I like spinach.
• Once I get comfortable with you, my silly, goofy, smart-arsed side comes out.
• I’m risking everything that feels safe and secure for the chance to live the life I dream of.
• I love.
• I write beautiful poetry.
• I’m now addicted to hugs. (And not the fake chocolate ones…)
• I choose to believe the world is a safe, loving, and happy place.
• I’m a terrible liar. Seriously terrible.
• Kids love me. I love them, too.
• I’m good at seeing connections & the big picture.
• I’m gentler with myself than I used to be.
• I believe I can have the life I dream of…and that what I’m doing now is creating it.
• I’m mostly a big sentimental softie. Yep, that’s me.
• I have really clear boundaries.
• I adore giving gifts. It makes me giddy.
• I’m a good leader. And willing to do it.
• I think teenagers are the awesomest people on the planet.
• I have no problems saying no. I could give lessons.
• I say thank you (and mean it) a lot. A lot.
• I’m more than I used to be and less than I will be.
• I love meeting new people & seeing new places
• I’ve got lots o’ brains.
• If I tell you I’m going do something, I do it. Or I change our agreement.
• I can find beauty & poetry anywhere.

I’m still baking. And for me, for once, that’s enough.

(And, hey look! I hit publish and I didn’t die. Whew.)

Do you hear the whispers?
The whispers of the water?
Softly it is speaking,
Speaking now to me.

It whispers of the sunshine
And joy of all the ages.
It sings of all the laughter,
Echoing through time.

Do you hear the whispers?
The whispers of the wind?
Sweetly it is speaking,
Speaking now to me.

It whispers of the love here
And peace that fills a soul.
It sings of all the people,
Bringing light and love to all.

Do you hear the whispers?
The whispers of the fire?
Boldly it is speaking,
Speaking now to me.

It whispers of the power
And light that fills a heart.
It sings of all dreamers,
Giving passion now to life.

Do you hear the whispers?
The whispers of the earth?
Gently it is speaking,
Speaking now to me.

It whispers of the beauty
And wisdom of this life.
It sings of all the music,
Playing now to lift us up.

Do you hear the whispers?
The whispers of all life?