"transitions and leaving..."

"You're lovely
even with your scars;
lovely just the way you are.

So open up your lovely heart,
don't try so hard..."

Sometimes, I can read something that touches a nerve so deep it drives me to my knees -- or to laying my head in my arms and just weeping.

My friend - and much-admired women's historian - Sally Roesch Wagner, posted a piece at the end of the summer about "leaving the lake" in which she writes:

“You must be leaving soon,” my daughter observed. “Yes, why do you say that?” “Because you just picked a fight with me.”

It was one of those golden moments when intimacy mirrors deep truths about yourself. I pick fights when I leave. “I don’t love you anymore,” “You suck,” “I don’t even like you.”

I’m in a fight with the lake right now. Stupid lake. It’s overcast and cold and gloomy and I’m mad at it. Because tomorrow morning I will leave it for another year.

Recognizing my pattern, owning it, the dam bursts and I am crying sad because I will miss this lake I love with all the 72 years my body has known her.
 

That is me. Or at least it has been me for most of my life. A family member once said, "It's not worth coming to visit you unless I can stay for 10 days. It takes you 3 days to open up, and three days to prepare for my leaving. You pick fights or look for ways to isolate yourself days before I have to depart."

She was right. I know this about myself. God bless my husband for knowing that "comings and goings" are hard for me. Whether I am going away, or he is, he knows enough to carve out space in our home for those transitions -- from being together, to being alone, to being together again.  He gives me space to grieve.  And for some reason, it is a grieving for me -- and  I have to process it each time.

So, obviously these feelings are not new for me. But seeing someone that I admire so much, willing to actually own that pattern of emotional fragility herself, was somehow heart-fissuring for me. I wasn't alone. Something of the brittleness in me -- about how I see myself -- started to yield its hardness. I could look at myself through the lens of self-compassion.

I love that God brings those wiser guides into our lives to help us through the labyrinth of self-acceptance. Sally's insight about her own sorrow when "leaving the lake," gave me permission to begin to look more deeply at my own grief about transitions.

Sometimes, I try too hard. I don't "do" some things -- like entering a crowded room -- with ease. I tend to need a job, a role, a name badge that says, "hi, I am Cate and I am here in this role..." to navigate those situations. Just walking in and finding my "tribe," is terrifying for me. But knowing that I am not alone, and that there just might be someone else in the "room" -- or in the world -- that is feeling just as awkward, takes my focus off of my own awkwardness.  It makes me look for her (or him) when I enter that room, so that I can try and make it easier for them too.

Amy Grant's "Don't Try So Hard," is like a friend looking me in the eye and saying -- "you've got this." Sally's post about "leaving the lake" will now join Amy's song like a big sister who puts her arm through mine and guides me forward, saying -- all the way, "I'm here, we can do this - together."  We can do this, because we have a God who loves us and has sent us into each other's lives as angels of mercy and compassion. Whether it's in a song, a moment of self-reflection shared with a reader, or just a smile across a crowded room.

If there is some way I can "be there" for you -- please let me know.

This blog is here to remind us all that, "we are not alone."

offered with Love,

Kate

"I'm hanging by a moment here with you..."

"...I'm desperate for changing,
I'm starving for truth,
I'm closer to where I started,
I'm chasing after you.
I'm falling even more in love with you.
Letting go of all I've held on to.
I'm standing here until you make me move.
I'm hanging by a moment here with you...
I'm living for the only thing I know..."
- Lifehouse

A friend's posting of some favorite Lifehouse songs on Facebook, reminded me of this piece written soon after I first heard, "Hanging by a Moment," while sitting alone in our house, in the middle of the night, not so very long ago:

This house feels so quiet.  So empty and alone, but I have never felt so held.  So completely loved. 

My children are either at their dads, or in their own apartments.  My husband is working in a far away city, with no plans for a visit home or an end date to his assignment there. My mother, sisters, and brothers all live in distant states, and although I know a few people here, there is no one I feel like I could call in the middle of the night.   But I have never felt so safe, so sure, so loved...so secure. 

It is all about You.  It is all about You, my beloved Father-Mother God.  It is all about feeling Your encompassing love, trusting Your plan in my life, patiently waiting for Your direction, guidance, purpose in us all.

No matter how desperate I feel sometimes...desperate for a strategy to unfold, hungry for a change of course, grasping wildly for the next chapter to begin...I know that it is only in this space of "hanging by a moment here with you" that I will find real peace and happiness.  And it won't be when you make me move.  It won't be when You bring him home, or they walk back through the door, or she returns from far away, when he is doing something different, or we are in this place or that...I know that the only true living is living in this moment here with You. 

In the darkness or the light, in the sorrow or joy, in love or walking through the garden of Gethsemane, in poverty or plenty...You are there...You are here.  And I am never, ever, doing anything more wonderful or on purpose than "hanging in this moment here with You."

I am falling even more in love with you.  But it isn't happening because you have made all of my dreams come true, or because you have even met all my "needs" or the hopes and dreams of the people I love.  I love you...because you first loved me. 

I love you because when I go back to where I started...there was You.  I have always known You.  You have always been there...here, within me.  I have always sought out your touch...Love.  I have always reached for your beauty...Soul.  I have always danced with your joy...Spirit.  I have always listened for your voice...Truth. My every breath draws you in...Life.  You set the rhythm of my heart...Principle.  I wake each morning filled with your thoughts...Mind.  I have always, always, always...wanted You.  You have filled me with the knowledge of my birthright...my family name...my native language...your face is the one I seek in the mirror to remind me that I am...well, that I am...that I am Yours...and you are mine.  My Father, Mother, Creator, Husband, Counselor, King...my great Love. 

I am not waiting for something to change so that I can feel at peace and finally settle into a spiritual practice that allows me to seek you.  It is because I am..right here, and right now... "hanging in this moment here with you" that I am at peace...waiting for you to make me move....dance, sing, pray, rest in your love.

There is nothing more for me to do...I'm falling even more in love with you.

"...Forgetting all I'm lacking
Completely incomplete
I'll take your invitation
You take all of me..

"There's nothing else to lose
There's nothing else to find
There's nothing in the world
That could change my mind..."

No, there's nothing else to lose, there's nothing else to find, there's nothing in this world that could ever change my mind....I'm falling even more in love with You.

Yours,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[within this post there are links to three different versions of this song]

"...I know that it's time for a cool change.."

"If there's one thing in my life that's missing
It's the time I spend alone
Sailing on the cool and bright clear waters
There's lots of those friendly people
Showin' me ways to go
And I never want to lose their inspiration

But, it's time for
a cool change...
I know that it's time
for a cool change
Now that my life
is so pre-arranged
I know that it's time
for a cool change..."
"Cool Change"
- The Bellamy Brothers
(click on the title above to hear the song)

Changes are in the air...and they are cool...and wonderful.  Graduations, weddings, new jobs, promotions, babies, travel.  Cool changes. 

Someone recently asked me, "If you could give only one gift, the same one to each person making a life transition this month, what would it be?"

It was easy.  The space to be alone, to be still, and to listen in that silence for the voice of the Divine, God, Allah, Jah, Supreme Being...or whatever you call Her.

This is the most valuable part of any day for me.  It is the "one thing" I cannot live without.  I can do without food, water (for a time), conversation, friends, books (this one is hard...but not impossible), the company of my loved ones (even harder)...but I cannot live without the space to commune with God.

It is a change of direction that I seek throughout my days when everything points towards tasks, deadlines, timetables, and schedules...outcomes and accomplishments, to stop and turn away from that momentum and be still.

It is a cool change.  It is refreshing, invigorating, soothing, and inspiring.  It feeds me and cleanses my palate all at the same time.  It is wonderfully simple and deeply complex.  It is richly sumptuous and pure light coincidentally.  It is what gives me the kind of joy that none can take away.

Whether it is your wedding day or your first day of work at the most wonderful new job you could imagine...the birth of your first child or the launching of your catamaran out to sea after retiring from a long illustrous career...it will never be more glorious than hearing the voice of God in the silence of your own heart...inspiring you, giving you encouragement, direction, guidance, solace.

It has taken me many years to more fully develop a practice of silence and deep listening that sustains me.  And the more I practice it, the more I hunger for it.  And that silence doesn't require a closet, a church, or a sanctuary...boat alone on the sea, or a chapel in the woods.  It can be practiced in the midst of a concentration camp (as proven in the lives of thought luminaries like Corrie TanBoom and "Jeremy"), a prison cell (think of Paul, Ghandi, Mandela), a war-torn desert, a large family, a high school cafeteria, a wedding reception, or even a rock concert.  As the word practice implies, it takes practice...but that's the fun of it. 

Start out with silent places (church, your bedroom, a garden) and work up to carving out silence spaces...within yourself...in the midst of more stimulating places -- it .  

I wish I could give each of you one hour a day alone within the sanctuary of your own consciousness...the province governed by the divine.  But this is not a gift anyone can give you...it is a gift you must give yourself.  But it is not a selfish gift.  It is a gift that, when practiced, can't help but bless others in ever-widening circles of love and inner peace.

When you walk away from a confrontation, an event...even a joyous one, the demands of a busy schedule, and re-calibrate yourself in alignment with the Source of your divine nature and purpose, everyone is blessed and benefited.

Imagine you are in the middle of your wedding reception and you step away for a moment or two...into the garden, in the stairwell, behind the curtain...to center your heart on God's hand in your life, your new marriage, your purpose, to give thanks, to ask, "How can I most serve You in this moment?" and then listen for the answer.  Imagine the look of peace that you will radiate from your entire being when you return to the festivities.  Imagine the tone you will set...much like a tuning fork sets the perfect pitch in tuning a piano.

A few weeks ago I had the privilege and joy of attending a James Taylor concert in a small concert hall with a generous friend.  Time and again during the concert (an event I had waited since 1970 to experience...JT up close and personal...oh my goodness!!!) I was called away by my phone for a conversation and then to pray...or to pray during the conversation.  It was my favorite part of the night...to realize that as much as I loved JT's voice, his songs, his lyrics...I loved the voice of God even more!!  I never once felt "interrupted" by a call, but it felt as if the calls were making the concert more wonderful, more rich, more sacred.  Each call was a reminder that God's voice was my favorite voice. 

So, as we all enter this season of cool changes, I pray that we each love ourselves enough to give the bride...the new mom, the recent graduate, the concert-goer, the healer...within ourselves, the gift of silent spaces with God. 

"...If there's one thing in my life that's missing
It's the time that I spend alone
Sailing on the cool and bright clear waters
It's kind of a special feeling
When you're out on the sea alone
Staring at the full moon like a lover

Time for
a cool change...
I know that it's time
for a cool change
Now that my life is so prearranged
I know that it's time
for a cool change..."

dearest love...hopes, and dreams fulfilled...to each of you,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"after all, you're still you..."

"...Time changes everything
One truth always stays the same
You're still you
After all
You're still you..."
Josh Groban
"You're Still You"

I was talking to a friend the other day about a butterfly's journey from caterpillar to winged beauty.  I shared with her that the caterpillar sheds her entire skin four times before she finally enters the chrysalis. Four complete surrenderings of all she knows of herself and still the real transformation hasn't even begun to happen.  

 I have been thinking about this -- alot.  Each time she loses every inch of her outward being.

And each time she must think, "Whew, this was BIG!!  I am brand new -- I am in a completely new skin."  

 But what she doesn't realize is, that this shedding of her entire outer layer is nothing compared to what will happen once she enters the chrysalis of her own making.  That's the real metamorphosis -- the dissolution of her entire being into a black soupy liquid from which will emerge as a butterfly. 

But she has no known frame-of-reference for this "becoming." 

She doesn't just go from being a fuzzy caterpillar to a skinnier, sleeker caterpillar that sprouts beautiful diaphanous wings. She completely dissolves. 

I shared with my friend that - of late - I had become a bit obsessed with the spiritual implications of this necessary "soup" stage in the butterfly's metamorphosis.  I couldn't stop thinking: What was still present during this soup stage?  What is left of the original?  

 And what did that original being know - or think - during this time of "soup"?  Was she even aware that there was nothing left of the old form?  Or was she oblivious of the changes to her form - in light of the "sanctuary space" she was occupying? 

Questions, questions, questions -- thank goodness I am most at home in the space of the question, eh!  

 Since that earlier conversation, my friend had also begun pondering these concepts and she said that Josh Groban's song "You're Still You"  had come to mind as inspiration.   Wow!  

It was a perfectly wonderful answer for me, too. 

No matter what transformational shifts we seem to go through in our lives, we are never less that who we are, who always have been, and ever will be.  Our spiritual essence -- the radiant Soul "soup" of our identity as the reflection of the Great I AM -- a child of God, the All-in-allness of God expressed as individual humanity. This, I believe, is the fundamental substance of our being that never changes. 

 It all leaves me speechless with wonder and in awe of His majesty.

These are concepts I have been thinking about for a very long time. And I don't think I am anywhere near the end of mining the butterfly's metamorphosis for spiritual lessons.  

But, I am finding that just the title of Groban's "You're Still You" brings me great peace.  It is inciting an even deeper stirring within.  I wonder if it doesn't give us a glimpse into what is.   Perhaps even a deeper spiritual centering.  A clearer lens on our indwelling core identity -- one that is untouched by changes in form, surroundings, or self-referencing points.  Self-stories that make us feel safe and securely hooked into a familiar reality.

The following is a poem I have been writing for some time. I was finally led to put it down on paper during a recent workshop I participated in with some extraordinary spiritual thinkers.  It continues to morph, and evolve, as insights unfold.   

 I offer it with a profound love for the butterfly, and her willingness to enter the chrysalis of faith.  I am humbled by her as she yields to the hand of her Maker -- an Artist who paints diaphanous wings of beauty -- from soup.  I simply love this God of ours!!

"You're still you...after all...You're still you"

Does it hurt...
     this becoming?

four times
she sheds a past she'd come to own
    
does she wonder
     "will it ever end?"

if she knew of the
dissolving that would follow...
the melting of the only
          "ego" she had ever known

would she plead
"take this cup"
and then surrender all to...
               "Thy will be done..."
         
do butterflies
     weep
when wings burst  from soup
       that was once
          tight skin she thought defined her

Does the call
     to fly
terrify one
     who, until the moment of her release
          had only crawled with
     all feet firmly planted on
          what...to her...was solid ground
         
hanging in
     the dark chrysalis
          does she realize
     that her
          becoming
     shakes leaves and branch and stem
    
the entire world of ants living on the edge
     busy with their scurried gathering

I asked her once
     she said,
          "I can't remember
               when I was not a butterfly..."

Mary Baker Eddy must have lived in the space of the butterfly, for her to understand the faith it takes to be able to yield to the dissolution of the ego -- for the promise of wings.  I love that she wrote:

"Faith is higher and more spiritual than belief. It is a chrysalis state of human thought, in which spiritual evidence, contradicting the testimony of material sense, begins to appear, and Truth, the ever-present, is becoming understood."

The Truth of who we are is ever-present.  The butterfly must have great faith in this promise of eternal self-awareness to be able to surrender all outward evidence of her identity to the spiritual evidence of conscious being.  There is still so much to learn from her.  I sit at the butterfly's feet waiting for the next lesson...
Kate

Addendum:

A frequent reader and long-time follower of this blog reminded me that I had posted a butterfly poem three years ago.  Here is the link to it: "Chrysalis Surrender" I had forgotten how long this fascination with butteryfly consciousness had been inhabiting my heart. 

with Love,
Kate

postscript:

two of my dear friends have posts on their blogs that are directly related to this discussion...Travis Thomas and Duncan Wilder...click on their names to go to these posts...with Love,
Kate

"Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes..."

"Ch-ch-Changes
Don't tell them to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes..."

Every night when I turn on CNN, MSNBC or BBC on PBS, I find myself staring at video from the day's Obama rallies.  Navy blue signs emblazoned with the word "Change" in white across them bounce and sway behind the candidate in the hands of his supporters.  And before I know it, the first thing that pops into my head is, "Ch-ch-ch-changes…"   Now, I've always liked David Bowie, but I would not call myself a Bowie fan.  I thought he was an innovative performance artist, but I don't think I ever purchased a David Bowie album and I know I never tried to learn a Bowie song on the guitar.  But like most of my peers, I don't think any of us could have made it through the 70s without having "Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…" etched on our mental time capsule. 

Tonight it replayed enough times, in light of the barrage of pre-Super Tuesday video bytes of rallies in Missouri, Massachusetts and California peppering the airwaves, that I became curious.  What were the rest of those lyrics.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered this verse buried in the middle of what I now think is a pretty cool 36 year old social protest song.

"...And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
Theyre quite aware of what theyre going through..."

Wow.  I'll say it again, "Wow..."
 
As I trolled Facebook tonight, I was quite impressed with the socio-political awareness of our "children".  Their fervor for reform is reminiscent of my generation's hunger for engagement in a process that promised us we mattered.  I think we did.  I believe that they do.  I have faith in, as Mary Baker Eddy, states:

"A great sanity, a mighty something buried in the depths of the unseen, has wrought a resurrection among you, and has leaped into living love.  What is this something, this phoenix fire, this pillar by day, kindling, guiding, and guarding your way?  It is unity , the bond of perfectness, the thousandfold expansion that will engirdle the world,--unity, which unfolds the thought most within us into the greater and better, the sum of all reality and good.
   This unity is reserved wisdom and strength.  It builds upon the rock, against which envy, enmity, or malice beat in vain.  Man lives, moves, and has his being in God, Love.  Then man must live, he cannot die; and Love must necessarily promote and pervade all his success. Of two things fate cannot rob us; namely, of choosing the best, and of helping others thus to choose. But in doing this the Master became the servant.  The grand must stoop to the menial.  There is scarcely an indignity which I have not endured for the cause of Christ, Truth, and I returned blessing for cursing.  The best help the worst; the righteous suffer for the unrighteous; and by this spirit man lives and thrives, and by it God governs."

As I read this passage again tonight I couldn't help but think of my young friends who have hope that their candidate will bring new direction and leadership to their deep desire to live lives of human compassion, environmental integrity, and global unity.  I will vote tomorrow not just for my candidate, but for a generation of voters I believe will make a difference.  I will vote for their right to lead my generation into greater community service, deeper moral courage, higher social responsibility. 

As I do, I will gratefully celebrate Eddy's profound definition of the term "Children" in the glossary of her primary work Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

CHILDREN.  The spiritual thoughts and representatives of Life, Truth, and Love…
God's thoughts, not in embryo, but in maturity; 

I hope and pray that we pay heed to these spiritually mature thought-leaders…and that we don't hesitate to follow their example of change…not change for change-sake, but for humanity's sake.
Kate

Do butterflies cry...

"Emerge gently from matter into Spirit."
- Mary Baker Eddy

The poem below, though written over a year ago still brings me to my knees in self-surrender...that drive across the Kansas prairie was just one segment in a spiritual journey so cloaked in darkness and isolation that I sometimes wondered if I would emerge in a form recognizable as me...even to me.  The transformation continues...I am starting to get used to the butterfly me.....

Chrysalis Surrender

Is this how it felt when
the earth shook
and the waters parted
and a man
          born blind
came seeing....

darkness

dissolution

shattering

uncertainty

release

surrender

i am not ready
     i cried out
alone and frightened
     car radio
playing one
     old Journey
          love song
after another
     as I drove through tears
          and rain
               and the sweet ache
                    of it all

          the darkness rushes
               past the window
                    as I fly through
               the silence
                    of a Kansas prairie
               the color of ravens
                         surrounding
                              my cocoon of
                         steel and song

          will I emerge from this chrysalis...
               this casing.... like a
                    butterfly
               transformed by
          a midnight journey through dark
               cornfields and sunflowers


take me in Your arms
wrap me in
Your promise
Father
hold me close to You and breathe
Your message of grace
into my heart...

i serve You
i love You
i long for You in my life

if You are at the core
of this
shattering
let me
yield to it
and
have the patience to
let You
and only You
put me back together
in Your way
according to
Your plan
full of
You

only You
can
eclose me from
this tight
swaddling
of
darkness and
despair, uncertainty
and doubt
into....

what...
I do
not yet
know


can prayer
really
look
like
a tear...
wept

do butterflies
cry






Kate