English: An underwater shot looking up at a palm tree and clouds distorted by the ripples on the surface. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ripples, a chain reaction,

dominoes tripping design in relief,

a smile, a frown,

someone’s joy, someone’s grief.

Turn right, turn left,

move straight ahead,

journeys far-flung from each other,

you’re there, I’m here instead.

A single shift of the eyes,

a sideways glance,

I missed something, saw another,

changed the fortunes of chance.

@Janet Mitchell, January 2013

English: Red sunrise over Oostende, Belgium (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So much to-do, lately, about the “apocalypse”:  proclamations of the “end times”, the “end of the world”, the “devastation of everything”, the “total destruction of life as we know it”.  All things full of fear.

So I decided to do some digging.  I looked at the definitions of “apocalypse”, and without boring you to tears with all of them, I’ll sum up my interpretation of what I found:

APOCALYPSE:  An unveiling

I see that as quite promising, don’t you?  Each moment is an “unveiling”, in my little mind.  Nothing that ends anything, except the moment that has just passed.  Nothing that hints at devastation or destruction.  Only an opening up, and yes, an unveiling of the new moment.

Comforting, really.

© Janet Mitchell, August 2012

You are the only people in the world who’ve known me since the moment I took my first breath.

You gave me life.

You committed your lives to making certain that I was safe, fed, clothed and sheltered.

You taught me what you knew about this world.

You gave me pearls of wisdom, borne from a life lived in your shoes:   Sometimes I liked it, sometimes I didn’t.  But you loved me enough to share those pearls with me, anyway.

When I skinned my knees, you comforted me.

When I fell, you lifted me up, then taught me how to do it myself.

You took on this job of raising me, knowing that the end goal was to teach me well enough that I would be able to stand alone and let you go someday.

You always did the very best you could, with what you knew at the time:  Never less.  Often more.

At suppertime, you ate the chicken wings and necks:  I didn’t know then that it was so I could have the meatier pieces.

You loved me so much that you were willing to risk losing my affection when you disciplined me:  Being loved was secondary to you.  Teaching me what I needed to know was paramount.

When I was grown, you watched me as I headed for the cliff’s edge, with love and hope and fear and a giant prayer in your heart:  Some things, you knew, I had to learn for myself.  The days of kissing boo-boos away were past.  That must have been harder than hard.

When I succeeded, you cheered me on.  When I failed, you cheered me on:  You never stopped believing in me.

I’m so lucky to still have you both in my life.

Now, it’s my chance to give back to you just a tiny fraction of what you’ve given to me:  Some people never have that chance.  I’m glad I do.

© Janet Mitchell, August 2012

English: There is no fear, until we make it up. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Age has allowed me to back up, to view through a widened lens, to appreciate the chaos of my youth, and to make unnecessary the clarification of the present.   Age has emboldened me not to be fearless, but to embrace fear for what it is.  What a surprise that fear, then, loses its power and transforms into acceptance and peace. 

©Janet Mitchell,  August 2012

Anahata chakra symbolizes the consciousness of love, empathy, selflessness and devotion. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Love and empathy, manifested through our lives, are more precious and rare than diamonds and gold.

Sometimes, we must mine deeply for them.  But if we dig far enough, we will find them, waiting to be discovered and realized and shared.

Love and empathy, forces more powerful than any other in the universe. 

No force can stop or destroy love and empathy. 

Even death, itself, cannot obliterate love and empathy: when a person dies, the love and empathy felt and realized and shared by that person lives on in the lives of those who were gifted those most precious of all riches. 

And so on, and so on, and so on, and it never ends. . .

©Janet Mitchell, August 2012

Angela Burrows believed in a hereafter.  She thought that was a good way to go out, believing there was something else waiting there.  Angela said her body was done.  All worn out.  She told her family, her friends, her hospice nurse that she would go away on June 25th.  She told them she’d seen quite a few people who were already where she was headed.  They were waiting for her.  They wanted her to come, now.  She told them she’d come when she was ready.  On June 25th.

So Angela planned a memorial service for herself.  She spent hours with her daughter pouring over details of who, what, where and how that should happen.   It was to be in her own backyard, which was filled with hydrangeas, massive decorative cherry trees, a couple of plum and crabapple trees, and little park benches scattered here and there.  There was to be no casket.  Angela was to be cremated, because she said she wouldn’t be needing her body after she died, and she couldn’t see the sense in taking up all that ground space to bury something that wasn’t even useful anymore.  And, she thought a burial plot, casket, funeral and all the fuss surrounding that was a huge waste of money.  A simple urn would suffice just fine.  She told her daughter that she didn’t much care what was done with the ashes and the urn.  Because she’d be somewhere else, anyway.

Angela and her daughter and her friends cried together and laughed together, as they planned this one, last celebration of Angela.  Some of her friends thought it rather morbid to be planning such a thing, so they chose not to participate.  Some found no humor in any of it.  But, Angela said she suspected the joke was on everyone.  Because she’d be somewhere, no matter what everyone else did now.  Angela found happiness and sadness, humor and grief in moving through this whole process.  And if she could find humor in planning her own memorial service, well, it was not her problem if others couldn’t.

When all the planning was done, Angela gave her daughter one, last, stern warning: “Do this like we’ve planned it, because I’ll be somewhere, watching.  I will know if you screw this one up.”

So June 25th came, and Angela Burrows breathed her last breath.  Her daughter was shocked, but not surprised.  Death is always shocking, the way everything keeps going along, as though nothing really significant has happened.  The sun comes up, traffic lights keep working, the wind blows the boughs of trees, children run and play, work goes on, and the moon rises again in the sky.  But for Angela’s daughter, her mother’s death was shocking, and time froze.

Despite the frozen time, Angela’s daughter carried out her mother’s wishes.  The memorial came and went, just as Angela had planned.  And though Angela’s daughter was pretty sure it wasn’t possible, she wondered if her mother had also had a hand in planning the perfectly blue, cloudless sky and the faint breeze that made the cherry and plum and crabapple blossoms gently waft, spreading a sweet scent of summer across Angela Burrows’ back yard.

 —————————————————–

The hospice nurse went to her mailbox and retrieved a curious manila envelope.  She didn’t recognize the return address.  She carefully teased the flap open with a fingernail.  Inside was a large photograph, with a note attached:

Look at the image in the upper-right hand corner,

just next to the plum-tree.

The note was signed, simply: “Angela Burrows’ daughter”.

The nurse immediately recognized the back yard as that of Angela Burrows.  In the upper-right corner, just next to the plum-tree, floated a shining image, slightly opaque.  It was clearly Angela Burrows, doing just as she had said she would do.  She was there, watching, just to make sure that this one didn’t get screwed up.

(The hospice nurse still has this photo .  . .)

©Janet Mitchell, July 2012.                                                                                                                                                                                              Any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.  All characters have been fictionalized.

Image of Wounded Man (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At what point do the wounded ones become the ones who wound?

At what point do we stop asking ourselves how we can help the wounded, and start thinking we must punish them for the wounds that they inflict?

At what point do we decide it’s time to stop helping to heal the wounded? 

At what point do we stop asking ourselves what role we had to play in the wounding?

At what point do we decide we are no longer accountable, in any way?

At what point do we give up?

At what point do we ex-communicate?

At what point do we decide the wounded one has become a throw-away?

©Janet Mitchell, July 2012

I always thought,

naively so,

you’d always be there,

Never occurred to me

so blind,

that someday you’d go.

So familiar,

your presence:

you brew the morning coffee,

at seven, a good-bye kiss,

but lingering behind,

ever your essence.

Leaving was always

a temporary thing,

off to work, then home,

never doubted your return,

until that one,  piercing,

unexpected ring.

Wrong number, wrong person,

you’ve always come home,

You were just here,

plans for dinner at eight,

you said you’d never leave,

I’d never be alone.

Oh, I forgot,

there was something I had to say

I meant to ask you,

will you pick up some milk?

Your key in the lock, anytime, now:

you’d never go today.

Can I reel back the time?

Can I put the clocks on hold?

Can I tell the phone not to ring?

Hold that one last morning kiss?

We haven’t had our chance, yet,

To grow old.

© Janet Mitchell, July 2012

Tracking the light of consciousness… (Photo credit: esomangraphics)

I wonder how many books and articles have been written about “success”?  Probably enough to carpet the earth.  And, if I did a survey and asked one hundred people to give their definition of success, my guess is that I would get one hundred different definitions.

Same goes for “failure”.

I asked myself to define success and failure.  Here’s what I came up with:

Success usually means I’ve arrived at one, of two or three possible, expected outcomes (future based).

Failure usually means that I’ve arrived somewhere else (future based).

So, I started thinking about how much I limit myself with those definitions.  And that led me to wondering why it is that I feel disappointed when I haven’t arrived at one of those possible, expected outcomes.

It didn’t take long for me to figure out that disappointment has to do with forgetting to live in the moment, with becoming so invested in the future, that I’ve overlooked the golden opportunities that are right in front of me.

Take passion for an example.  Passion requires presence.  Passion isn’t something that happens yesterday or tomorrow.  It’s something that happens in the present moment.  Passion is its own reward.  Passion is independent of outcome.  It’s about being present, now.

So, I’ve changed my definitions of success and failure.  If I can ask myself one question, and the answer is “yes”, then I’m living in the present moment.  That question is: Would I be doing this if there was no guarantee of any particular outcome?  If the answer is “no”, then I’m not truly present in the moment.

Now, that feels better.

©Janet Mitchell, July 2012

home is where the heart is (Photo credit: alltagskunst)

It feels like I’m goin’ home again,

that place in my heart

where I’ve always been.

Not so much a place,

but more a state of mind,

I feel like I’m goin’ home again.

Far from being lost in a foreign land,

there’s that place in my heart,

and I’m goin’ back again.

Feelin’ the dirt beneath my feet,

smells like my heart’s land

that place I’ve always been:

comfort wrapped around me,

a well-worn robe:

conformed to my body through wear.

softened like my soul,

and always there,

from way back when,

way back from when I first began:

I feel like I’m goin’  home again.

©Janet Mitchell, July 2012