The First Gift

Early AM Saturday while Anna sleeps and the dog is not quite ready to insist he be let out yet. The coffee pot makes its last gurgling sounds and I sit here knowing I need this fresh morning half-asleep energy to write. I struggle to keep the thoughts that at my waking seemed to be already creeping in to direct my day. Id made plans yesterday. I wanted to take advantage of the sunshine. I want to be outdoors. Mogli the dog just came downstairs and flopped on the living room rug to sleep some more.

I do not know what will become of my day. Like my life. Similarly as I have planned days before they very seldom are carried out accordingly. Part of me desires knowing now what happens next. However, it is ok to not know, as in much of my life I have only timidly stepped from one experience to the next. Lately I feel the old way in me shifting. I see more clearly the living I chose and more clearly, it seems for the first time. Id lived in such a dense fog. I felt lost. I knew I was lost. I could speak that part of my story. I just did not realize others were being affected by my living. There was no communication. It feels ok to not have known. I could barely hold my own head up in the face of all I met and carried.

Things change so fast! I stood watching the snow melting outside the kitchen window. I realize how silently change can occur, like the melting snow. I feel the subtly of change inside. I see the melting becoming a stream. Quickly it changes again and more ground is revealed. I am aware of my tentativeness in this different place. Sometimes I am afraid of it. There is an intensity growing in my belly, stirring me around. I realize I do not know. However, I feel calm. Calm in not knowing is new for me and becoming more constant. I still feel it and know it. I feel this calmness through all the other feelings I have experienced for several months now. It was familiar another time very early in my life. I remember following and believing, trusting without question. I know it is an intentional part of my being. An essential part of which I am. I became aware of the calm the same months ago when I first noticed the everyday clutching fear had left me.

Change is inevitable.

I am in my head far too often. I try to figure out the next piece by myself. I am beginning to get that it is not up to me to figure out any thing. My task is to listen. Do the homework.

My most recent homework came from these dreams:

Dream #1.

I am in a tent where many others are camping and gathered for some event. I am with my husband and our children. We go to a house with our children. We visit. I hear someone say there has been a terrible fire and our children are gone/dead. My husband and I return to the tent where I tie up one corner. I see my husband kneeling beside a small Child's bed. I see no evidence of fire. Yet, my husband is grieving, sobbing into his hands. I am clutching to me our small child. I become aware of his anguish and feel the same. We both cry together.

Dream #2.

I am with a small gathering of people. I see a pair of silver slippers passed toward me. I know they will be handed to me and then they are. At the same time there is a man approaching on the left. He wears a large red cloak. He sits near me and I want to be closer so I move to sit next to him. I know the slippers are for him and I begin to hand them to him. I see the slippers are oddly shaped and his feet look deformed. I worry the slippers will hurt his feet. Yet, he puts them on and stands. He then walks and appears to have no pain. I am amazed they do not hurt him.

My homework resulting from these dreams is to feel the grief of my lost child. And to see that my gift does not hurt Him. The string therapy done with these dreams at last weekends retreat has shown me how I give away my gifts before I even know to claim them. The grief is for my lost childhood, my lost child and for my lost children and the time passed without them. This work is reshaping my every concept of who I thought I was. I simply do not know much of the time. I expect that is the way it is for now. It will have to be. I expect my plans will be changed to match the course my God has set for me. The true course.

I feel I am a child born of essence and still in my innocence, I feel her in me. She has held onto hope tenaciously .I know I would not live if not for her tenacity for this essence. Often my child is a boy. My boy has led me next to the water being the fearless one in many a dream. I feel I need to accept my gift of being born of a place of essence. The first gift!