The Decline of My So-called life - a meandering...

The other day I got up as usual and did the usual morning routine
with my sister - I'm her caregiver...

I went upstairs to post a blog post - and needed to prepare
several photos for posting.

I sat in front of the computer, just staring at the screen,
not knowing what to do...

I had totally forgotten how to prepare a photo -
what the steps were.

I sat several minutes, blank, until I started to *try* to
 figure it out again...

I couldn't make my mind work!

I tried different things on the computer
until I began to recognize the steps...

It was a shock to me that my mind could do this! -
could go totally blank on something I've done
for 15 years!

I'll be honest, no amount of "spiritual practice" can

prepare you for the sudden, startling awareness of
your mind's (and body's ) decline -
"spirituality" will not save you
from the natural order of life and death...

It starts off slowly - forgetting this or that,
a memory here, a word or name there;
where you put this or that thing, finding it
eventually, but not in its usual place...

Nothing can prepare you for the frustration of
your decline...

When your legs don't want to work-
and you stumble and bumble across the floor;
Thoughts of wheelchair enter your mind -
or having to move to a one level home -
even worse - assisted living...

My once "got it all together", 
"I'm on top of things" life
is falling apart,
a little at a time -
has been for several years.

Then suddenly there's a cliff - and
Humpty Dumpty starts falling off the wall.
What's worse is I'm aware of it - and know

that: all the king's horses and all the king's men
will not be able to put "me" together again...

And so I breathe,
and try to remember 
that there is a Deeper Reality
beyond my experience,
and try to rest there...

But I wonder if I will forget that too...

Mystic Meandering
Dec. 8, 2024

At least I can still write -
writing is my "therapy"
when falling apart :)
although the poetry
doesn't emerge 
like it used to...

 

Free The Body - Gabrielle Roth

We are born into bodies that are fluid and free.
Yet for most of us, this state of grace is sadly short lived.
Judgement, emotional wounds, fear and loss become
stored deep inside our muscles and bones, leaving us
with shoulders that sag, hips that are locked, arms that
can't reach out, hearts that beat behind a stone wall.  When
we move our bodies we shake up firmly rooted systems of
thought, old patterns of behavior and emotional responses
that just don't work anymore.  Rhythm, breath, music and
movement become tools for seeing, then freeing, the habits
that hold us back.  When we free the body, the heart begins
to open.  When the body and the heart taste freedom, the
mind won't be far behind.  And when we put the psyche
into motion, it will start to heal itself.

Gabrielle Roth

with thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
rock balance

 

The Essence - a meandering

The Essence of our own Being is felt - not understood...
An animating life energy inherent in

the body system itself...

originating from within;
an innate aliveness
 that lives this body...

A mystery, The Mystery...

And also my felt experience...

And then of course the mind tries to put words
to it, to explain it, interpret it...  :)

Once I recognized it internally, it "awakened", or 
"came alive" in the body, although already there -
but made itself known , as my very own Being
 - embodied - in and through my
recognition of it.

Again, a mystery that I try with words to explain...

Although its movement is now deeply felt within,
nothing actually changes in my
human experience.

I did not become a different "person."
The "ego" didn't suddenly disappear.
Old habits of conditioning still remain -
and yet - there is this recognition of the Source
energy that mysteriously inhabits and animates this body.
Not conceptually known, but a felt movement of Being in 
the body - embodiment...

It's not even the feeling of "love" - as we know love...

It's a tangible felt sense of openness, of 
total acceptance of what is...
of whatever is unfolding in the life experience...

And what is "love" really but
the total acceptance of everything...

The Essence of Being...

_/\_

Namaste

Mystic Meandering
Jan 20, 2022

 

The Time Is Ripe - Ajahn Chah

Now you too must learn to be satisfied with the many years
you've already depended on your body.  You should feel that
it's enough.

You can compare it to household utensils that you've had for
a long time - your cups, saucers, plates and so on.  When you
first had them they were clean and shining, but now after using
them for so long, they're starting to wear out. Some are already
broken, some have disappeared, and those that are left are
deteriorating: they have no stable form, and it's their nature
to be like that.  Your body is the same way.  It has been
continually changing right from the day you were born,
through childhood and youth, until now it has reached old age.

Allow the mind to let go of its attachments.  The time is ripe.

Even if your house flooded or burnt to the ground, whatever
the danger that threatens it, let it concern only the house.  If
there's a flood, don't let it flood your mind.  If there's a fire,
don't let it burn your heart.  Let it be merely the house, that
which is external to you, that is flooded and burned.  Allow
the mind to let go of its attachments.
The time is ripe.

It is the same with your wealth, your possessions, and your
family -  they are all yours only in name; they don't really 
belong to you, they belong to nature.

It's like the water of a river.  It naturally flows down the
gradient; it never flows against it, that is its nature.  If a
person were to go and stand on a river bank and, seeing the
water flowing  swiftly down its course, foolishly want it to
flow back up the gradient, he would suffer.  Whatever he was
doing, his wrong thinking would allow him no peace of mind.
He would be unhappy because of his wrong view, thinking
against the stream.

Find your real home...

Ajahn Chah

With thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Essence of who you are simply exists - Rosacker

The body is a bio-organic sensing vehicle that *you*
are experiencing. It's designed to feel feelings and
have thoughts and experience emotions and have
experiences; all of which are temporary.

Everything in the physical dimension has a 
beginning, a duration, and a completion.

It is temporary...

The Essence of Being is not temporary...

There is This that you are,
that is non-physical, that remains as it is
unaltered and unharmed;
will always be eternal existing Presence.

The Essence of who you are simply exists...

You have always been This -
the continuum of existence is you,
not limited to a body.

Excerpts from "Living Practice"
a guided meditation
by Mitch Rosacker
of Self Discovery Studio

~

Photo Mystic Meandering

 

Heaven's Wrinkle - Susan Tweit

 Looking at the heavens places me in time and space - and beyond
them.  Gazing at the stars, I look through heaven's wrinkle; the
light I see now represents their past, having traveled many years
across space to reach my eyes here on earth; the light they are
emitting now will be visible only in some future, years away.

I and all the other lives on Earth are connected to the stars, held
together by gravity, the invisible glue that defines our universe,
and bound elementally by a common material: stardust.  This
atomic grit of interstellar space paints dark clouds on the Milky
Way, condenses itself into swirls of gravity-bound suns and 
planets, and provides the minerals bounded by the push and pull
of electrical charges into the molecules that form our cells.  Like
stardust and other materials of life itself, we are in constant
motion, changing shape as we pass through our lives, and after
the makings of our bodies break down and are recycled,
rearranged into other forms of life.  The stars remind me of
where I come from and who I am.

Susan J. Tweit
from -Walking Nature Home

with thanks to Beyond the Fields We Know
for post and incredible photo!

Doors through which we pass - Thich Nhat Hanh

 This body is not me.
"I" am not limited by this body.
"I" am life without boundaries.
"I" have never been born,
and I have never died.

Look at the ocean and the sky filled with stars,
manifestations from my wondrous true mind.

Since before time, I have been free.
Birth and death are only doors through which we pass,
sacred thresholds on our journey.
Birth and death are a game of hide-and-seek.

So laugh with me,

hold my hand,
let us say good-bye,
say good-bye,
to meet again soon.

We meet today.
We will meet again tomorrow.
We will meet at the source...
We meet each other in all forms of life.

Thich Nhat Hanh

via - Death Deconstructed

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

The Winter of Life...

You know, I discovered recently that time has a way of
catching us unaware...

Even though spiritually speaking "time" is only a construct,
the body lives in a time-bound reality, subject to "time"
and deterioration...

I meandered into my 70's last October,
eyesight diminished, and hard of hearing -
What?  Are you talkin' to me?
Guess that means hearing aids...
Are you kidding me!? - resistance set in...

But here it is...  The Winter of my life has arrived,
catching me a little off guard.  I don't know why,
I see it in my hands...

It was as if some switch went off (or on) in my body
 when I turned 70 that whispered -  "body - old."

I could feel it in my body.  Actually, I felt my body
beginning to wind down years ago, but 70 was more
distinct, more of a palpable - "click" - as if time
started counting down - in earnest.

And then there was a fall in November,
a stumble that laid me up for a month!
And then some kind of respiratory "flu" in
December - the cough lasting 6 weeks!
All taking its toll on the body.
Even though I know "I" am not my body -
still...  it's wearing out;
this vehicle that has carried me this far...

Others have told me aging is all in your head.
meaning the mind.
But, the mind is going too!  Acuity left when
I wasn't looking, and memory is fogged in.
Maybe I'll forget that I'm getting old. :)
That's the biggest shocker - feeling old,
and not remembering things...

Scary

The furniture seems a little lower than it was;
harder to get up... toilet too.
It's harder to get around - stiffness has replaced
what fluidity I knew.  The grey hair has set in
around the edges.  And I see where I'm headed in
the faces of other "older women" now...

I wonder - will this "aging" affect my sense of
"knowing" the "Spirit" that animates this body?
"The Mystery", the Ineffable, Pure Awareness,
Consciousness, The Silence, "God", the Self;
however one calls IT.

Will I forget it all - that I've tried so hard to
remember...

That's my biggest "anxiety" -
If I "lose" my mind
will I remember Who "I" Really Am -
the Essence of "me"...

Do I even know that now...

Mystic Meandering
Jan. 24, 2020

~

There is a touching innocence in
the mystery of the human self.
Even after thousands of years of
experience and reflection,
we still remain a mystery to ourselves.
There is something deeply unpredictable
and unfathomable.
...Even when you approach yourself tenderly
with the candle of receptive and reverential
seeing, all you achieve is a glimpse...

John O'Donohue
from - Eternal Echoes

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Pneumonia...

A week of Pneumonia has brought me to my knees – only to find a grey emptiness and lifelessness, finding myself to be an empty shell of a woman.  Just a body in pain, discomfort and very aware of the absence of spirit.  I can’t even “spiritualize” it, or make it sound “spiritual.”  No words of wisdom rise to the surface.  I have never experienced anything like it before.  I am entirely focused on the body mechanism itself and my inability to function.  Just making it through each day.   I am unable to read or meditate, only pray…

Twice to the doctors this week.  Throwing up the antibiotics he prescribed, being told I may have to go to the hospital.  Loss of appetite – two days of bread and water.  Seemingly robbed of health and a sense of Divine Spirit that supposedly animates this body, that I have so come to rely on, yet can’t seem to locate.  Only grey emptiness…

To make matters worse B has been away for 4 days on a business trip.  He will thankfully be home tonight. 

Today I just sat and cried – thinking of all the people in the world who are truly suffering from illness and disease, especially in poverty stricken countries – with no one to truly love them, or care for them. Feeling a bit "abandoned" myself...  How they suffer for lack of love…

May we all know deep love in our lives – the love that heals, that sustains and gives us breath…  I've come to the conclusion that this is really the only thing that heals - Divine Love

Flattened

Last Weds evening this body was flattened by chemical exposure to a huge dose of liquid lawn fertilizer. No, not the rabbit, me. I was standing at the kitchen window, preparing dinner, as the lawn guy was waving his magic wand. I should have known better than to take that free offer for “Hydro Wet.” The wind was blowing directly at the house. As the strong smell of nitrogen wafted through the window I became nauseous, light-headed and vision blurred. We shut all windows and put the A/C on, but by that time the smell was in the house. I evidently got more than this body could handle and spent the next several days unable to function; not only physically, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually - as toxins coursed through this body. I was literally flattened on all levels.

It seems that *all* of our faculties (body, mind, sensing, and feeling) are involved in awareness, in knowing our Beingness. They’re all inseparable from the Whole - I know. But it was as if “Elvis had left the building.” I could not *feel* my Self embodied in this body. It was as if “I” had receded somewhere. But where did “I” go, I wondered as I lay there like a passenger on a ship rocking in a raging sea. It was like having an out-of-body experience that wasn’t “fun.” And all I could do was go through it – I’m still not all the way through. I wondered if that was what dying felt like - and hoped not. It took quite a bit of conscious awareness, and several days to *feel* *grounded* in the ground of Being again, through energy work and Rescue Remedy, lots of water, deep rest, and stillness. And “I” is still not “all in” let’s say. Body has definitely been shocked and is out of whack, energies warped, life rhythms wobbling, and unable to maintain harmony. Mental acuity is lessened – what’s left of it, as it has been waning anyway – but noticeably so… :) The body feels seriously compromised…

Throughout all this I felt “pressured” to “get better” because of family needs – and my mother’s innocent comment that “we need to get you better,” which didn’t help in the healing process, because I couldn’t relax and just be with it, just let it take its course. I kept telling myself, I need to get better - like I had any control over it. My disabled sister with severe back pain and elderly mother are 30 minutes away… Not good. I felt the full weight of the responsibility, but could not make the body function – of course – and no “miracles” were forthcoming… I thought, we definitely need to find some alternative, pragmatic solutions to “what is” – to the way life is at the moment, since none of us are functioning very well these days. This “care-giving” that my sister and I share, when she’s not flattened by her back issues, is fortunately not literal care-taking, but more taxi drivers for appointments, errand girls, grocery shoppers, kitty box scoopers, meal makers, trash taker outers, and just about anything that needs doing - being available – on call - for whatever is needed… I know many of you can relate to this too. But this body can’t keep going at this pace; and obviously neither can my sister’s. This body can’t be available all the time, as this is also what has weakened this body that is already compromised with health issues. “Getting better” is only a relative term for me. I know there are many who can relate…

During this “event” ego arose with its conditioning big time – which actually surprised me. “Ego”/me never really goes away, as some myths would have us believe. It is also inseparable from the Whole. But I was surprised that it could so easily regain control. It was as if I regressed to a former state. Personality traits that I hadn’t resorted to in years suddenly reared their ugly heads. I could blame it on the chemicals affecting my brain, liver, kidneys, etc., but I think there was a deeper “release” going on here.

Ego seemed to operate more in this state of body trauma, as this body mechanism struggled to rebalance itself. How easily that occurs when body feels threatened, I discovered. I went through denial, anger, pissyness, bitch queen, resistance, trying to create a different outcome, and finally a tiny surrender to the way things are – but not completely. I still felt pressured to “hurry up” and “get better” – for my family’s sake. I had a serious “One-on-One” conversation with the “One” that runs this body mechanism that I needed to be 100% “better” by Monday - the victimy, demanding bargaining stage. But I’m not in control here. That is obvious. The body and the “One” have their own ways.

I will say, it was seen again, at the window one night, that there *is* something here beyond the body mechanism that *wants* to live, to be Alive – that IS Alive here, and somehow sustains this body – so far…

~ ♥ ~