ADVENT

I watch you, redbreast, perched at sunrise

on thinnest branch—atop the birch

wavering in the brightening breeze.

Again and again you take flight

a short distance

a fool’s errand

an awful sound—the thumping

against my window.

Back to lime-leafed safety you wing.

Then once more 

lift off into your reflection. 

Is it mate or nesting place you seek?

It’s spring—all must be readied,

shreds of dried grass, tinsel bits and twigs

woven into high-hung homes

sheltering pale blue eggs.

Soon, you will find mate, build cradle,

settle into your creation

waiting through tender nights.

A quiet advent

I know not where it will be—or when

tiny fissure first, then downy chicks

reaching up, beaks open in soft chirps

all hidden from our eyes.

But it will be—this spring

one of many hallowed births 

through meadow and wood.

And all must be readied.

DARK MOON

Through our time on the planet, we develop perspectives on life from our experiences, and from our thought and feeling lives. Some of having more fully informed perspectives; others more dimly sensed; some able to articulate their perspective, others not. Whether on the surface or buried within, it seems of crisis or turmoil, we review, re-imagine, reshape and transform our outlook—and may make changes, based on that review. Our perspectives, lighter or darker in mood and meaning bring comfort or pain, bind us together, inspire us, or may isolate  or haunt us.

In adolescence we begin to form our perspective on life, to create our “map of the world.” As we continue to observe and learn about the world and ourselves, the topography shifts, expanding or circumscribing boundaries. We begin to look fondly on a happy childhood,  recalling those carefree, innocent years. We may remember a garden where roses grew the summer long, and begin to realize how unaware we were then of threats of thorn, blight, or how quickly they fade. We may have not such wonderful recollections of our youthful years. Nevertheless, when we begin to consider our "map", it’s the things we don’t see that may be the most important. If there has been trauma in our early years, we may be in denial about it and our memories bring only confusion, pain and/or shame, often eclipsing the normally-anticipated joys of coming of age and our adjustment to adulthood.

Whether joyful or mournful, memories come unbidden, their moods and meanings woven into life's tapestry, beautifully formed or misshapen, brilliant glimmers or dark shadows. At times of crisis or great change, we may reflect on our perspective whether imagined as a map or tapestry. In doing so, we then may decide to just live in the present and imagine the future. 

     The year 2020 brought a time of uncertainty, of precautions and restrictions to quell the spread of the Covid pandemic. There was confusion and changing information almost daily. There was fear and then doubt with a president and others who minimized the dangers and/or denied in some cases that there really was a pandemic at all,  ignoring the science and smearing the experts with lifelong experience and expertise in epidemiology.  Thousands filled hospitals and thousands were dying each day, challenging to the max doctors and healthcare workers. Often ill loved ones were not able to have family around in the hospital or at their burials. While many people were able to work from home, other essential service workers risked, and sometimes lost their lives to remain at their jobs, and school children began learning remotely, at disadvantage socially and academically. 

    We were at a standstill in our ability to meet and gather with others for social, cultural events and activites, or other “normal” situations. Life as we knew it had stopped short, and we found ourselves isolated in place with neither any sense of when, how, nor if it would end and what lay beyond. Some of us experienced situational depression and anxiety (or existing conditions were exacerbated). All we could do was hope and pray that family and friends would remain well. There was gratitude for selfless service of health care, and other essential workers, and inspiration from many acts of kindness and compassion. We were saddened to hear tributes about family member lost, and of the grief of their suviving family, as the death rate climbed into the hundreds of thousands at home and millions worldwide. Those unaffected phyically were gratful to escape Covid itself, and the for the variety of ways were able to remain in touch during our isolation. Virtual human warmth on Zoom, FaceTime or texts, our methods of communicating to expressing common concerns and experiences with friends and family.

     Almost as soon as we became aware of the national emergency came that doubt and  denials, resistance to precautions to prevent further Covid cases. It was one thing to have the uncertainty and confusion at the beginning, but quite another to have the U.S. President deny that it was a problem at all or worese yet an invented hoax to further divide an already divided nation, saying it would go away, "just like that." Well, we are still dealing with Covid in less intense and isolating ways, but it has not gone away.  There was an obvious and harmful failure of national leadership to address the pandemic in any coherent, consistent wayu to affirm and follow the guidance based on data, research from those most knowledgable about disease and global pandemics. 

    Instead, we were asked to trust and believe a president who mentioned many times that he makes decisions on his gut feelings. Later we found from a video taped interview that he knew the danger and purposely played it down (saying it doesn't exist or over before it had taken its toll. But that is another story.

  Many of us may have formed the perspective that life is too often a “rock and hard place.” We are not in control as we sometimes believe or wish ourselves to be. Although we continue to responsibly prioritize and plan anyway, all the while we must be prepared that ultimately our plans may be thwarted by any number of reasons and realities. Now we are living that truth as never before, more or less affected based on various factors: our age, experience, frame of reference, predisposition, attitude and personality, anxiety and fear, or complete denial.  We see at least unified in the common experience of uncertainty and falling away of norms of all kinds.  Surprisingly, some of us “sheltering at home” to avoid the spread of the virus, to “flatten the curve,"  have become aware that, at least, this slowed, more manageable pace of life is not at all bad in and of itself.

We have time and opportunity to reflect, sort out our perspective, take out our worn out map and review where we were, where we are and where we would like to/need to be when we when/if we finally emerge. Whether or not we like it, we cannot help sensing our inner thoughts, feelings and memories more than ever, which can also induce anxiety, if we have been skimming the surface of life, distracted by overbooked, whirlwind days; pushing down thoughts and feelings, reacting to circumstances--rather than initiating them (which is probably most of us).

Now is the time to reflect: “If a man does not master his circumstances, then he is bound to be mastered by them” (Towles , A Gentlemen in Moscow).

I find myself more active in both thinking and feeling these days, more nostalgic, more thoughtful, more emotional—floods of memories, sadness, gratitude all a blurry mix. The memories are not of times long past, rather within a year's when I was making plans to travel, have friends over, go to dinner with my husband, participate in our granddaughter’s second birthday and enjoy a visit from our son and family on Easter and so much more! 
     I am not alone—ordinary, everyday lives everywhere were crammed brimful with the bustle of living.  Although not long ago, it all seems very far away, in between worry that we may lose family or friends to this deadly virus.  
     Even if I, or no one I know personally is brought down by the virus, there is still the sad knowledge that everyone is vulnerable, as millions have been ill worldwide and probably millions will or have died of the Covid19 pandemic. There is a feeling of connection to others throughout the world, so that even in isolation there is no separation.

     Everything has changed!

Thinking about the past, present, and imagining the “after” of this crisis, seems to me to have extraordinary, almost super-sensible aspects, and I wonder what it means—not only for me and my family, but also for America and the world. Is the global spread of this illness and death another Noah’s arc? A purge—not as punishment, but an outer manifestation of humanity’s inner “soul state”? Is it a moment of grace for some in the midst of a tragedy for many? Is it a wake up call to care for an ailing earth as well as for one another? Do we need to deeply consider and fully realize things will never be the same—more importantly, that things have to be different? We have already seen that the absence of traffic, travel and business has essentially cleansed the environment of noise and air pollution and thereby reduced symptoms of respiratory illness, and stress levels on Mother Earth and on humans (probably on all living things). How is it that there can be a redistribution of resources for health and welfare in this crisis, but those who have suffered in desperate situations prior to this can be ignored, turned away, caged and forgotten? What are we learning and will we apply it?  How do we redraw our individual, as well as a national/world map to portray life as it could be beyond the crisis? Can we, should we, will we ever “go back” to how things were? Will we master our circumstances or will we allow them to master us?

It seems a principle, both individually and historically that once we leave one condition behind, or it is interrupted for whatever reason, there is no “going back.” Even if that were possible, it seems to me a seismic shift like a pandemic demands reflection and creative choices from all and in all directions of life? “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference (Frost “The Road Not Taken”).

     Since we must go forward, wouldn’t it be wise and wonderful to go toward something new, something better, or at least different, based on what has been experienced, learned and long-wished for and/or much needed? We are left to imagine what we will do and how, and to consider that when we individuals make changes, even in small ways, everything around us also changes. When the old falls away—from war, natural disaster, social turmoil, or in our personal lives from the weight and ware of our illusions (in this case, a pandemic) something new can come into being.

We have only to look to the rhythms of nature: the seasons and the heavens: Each month the moon wanes to a sliver of silver light fading to dark new moon…then waxes to a brilliant full rising. So it is in all of life! Will we as individuals, and more widely, as towns, states, and nations (since there is no separation): rethink, reimagine and transform our maps into something more healthful for mind, body and soul, more human, more beautiful and able to sustain our common needs, our rights, and our planet?

Life is defined not by what we let go, but what we let in….

(Call the Midwife Season 9, Episode 2)

EQUINOX

Finally—

the sun warm and golden

new leaves tender on greening branches

the cold winter in my bones ached

the coming of darkness every evening closed my heart

then endless rain, more cold

                       Why?

And I said I wouldn’t complain.

I wonder less often what purpose my life serves

as I move more slowly—even in the warmth.

becoming the dullness of winter

the fullness of summer.

How vain and small such musings seem to me now!

Two things keep me from sadness:

the small pink, perfect cherry blossoms

each year they appear

fragrant and pure

            and

the sun’s arc moving toward a mid-summer sky.

COVES

The coves quiet in the cold
A few gulls sweep the blue air
The wild sea flows from the horizon

It does not matter now-- 
the chaos we have wrought--
losses suffered, changes to come
cannot touch, taint the heart of things:
the quiet, the blue, the flow, the deep

EVERYTHING AND NOTHING

Excerpt from The Harvard Crimson on Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1996):

The essence of life and the universe to Borges is an inexplicable maze, a labyrinth: "I have only my perplexities to offer you. I am nearing seventy, I have given the major part of my life to literature, and I can only offer you--doubts." He values the innumerable philosophies that he knows, not as solutions to the enigma--for it is not solvable--but as esthetically enjoyable constructs.....No man has a fixed identity.... In the parable, "Everything and Nothing," Borges describes Shakespeare exhausting all the guises of reality, unable to perceive any "fundamental identity of existing." The last paragraph imagines the playwright's final awareness. (Davis 1967)

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1967/12/2/jorge-luis-borges-pthe-borges-magic/

Everything and Nothing 

by Jorge Luis Borges

There was no one inside him, nothing but a trace of chill, a dream dreamt by no one else behind the face that looks like no other face (even in the bad paintings of the period) and the abundant, whimsical, impassioned words. He started out assuming that everyone was just like him; the puzzlement of a friend to whom he had confided a little of his emptiness revealed his error and left him with the lasting impression that the individual should not diverge from the species. At one time he thought he could find a cure for his ailment in books and accordingly learned the "small Latin and less Greek" to which a contemporary later referred. He next decided that what he was looking for might be found in the practice of one of humanity's more elemental rituals: he allowed Anne Hathaway to initiate him over the course of a long June afternoon. In his twenties he went to London. 

     He had become instinctively adept at pretending to be somebody, so that no one would suspect he was in fact nobody. In London he discovered the profession for which he was destined, that of the actor who stands on a stage and pretends to be someone else in front of a group of people who pretend to take him for that other person. 

     Theatrical work brought him rare happiness, possibly the first he had ever known–but when the last line had been applauded and the last corpse removed from the stage, the odious shadow of unreality fell over him again: he ceased being Ferrex or Tamburlaine and went back to being nobody. Hard pressed, he took to making up other heroes, other tragic tales. While his body fulfilled its bodily destiny in the taverns and brothels of London, the soul inside it belonged to Caesar who paid no heed to the oracle's warnings and Juliet who hated skylarks and Macbeth in conversation, on the heath, with witches who were also the Fates.

     No one was as many men as this man: like the Egyptian Proteus, he used up the forms of all creatures. Every now and then he would tuck a confession into some hidden corner of his work, certain that no one would spot it. Richard states that he plays many roles in one, and Iago makes the odd claim: "I am not what I am." The fundamental identity of existing, dreaming, and acting inspired him to write famous lines.

      For twenty years he kept up this controlled delirium. Then one morning he was overcome by the tedium and horror of being all those kings who died by the sword and all those thwarted lovers who came together and broke apart and melodiously suffered. That very day he decided to sell his troupe. Before the week was out he had returned to his hometown: there he reclaimed the trees and the river of his youth without tying them to the other selves that his muse had sung, decked out in mythological allusion and latinate words. He had to be somebody, and so he became a retired impresario who dabbled in money-lending, lawsuits, and petty usury. 

     It was as this character that he wrote the rather dry last will and testament with which we are familiar, having purposefully expunged from it every trace of emotion and every literary flourish. When friends visited him from London, he went back to playing the role of poet for their benefit.

      The story goes that shortly before or after his death, when he found himself in the presence of God, he said: "I who have been so many men in vain want to be one man only, myself." The voice of God answered him out of a whirlwind: "Neither am I what I am. I dreamed the world the way you dreamt your plays, dear Shakespeare. You are one of the shapes of my dreams: like me, you are everything and nothing."

EPIGRAPH

Epigraph in Time and Tide: a collection of tales

Parts of me are missing

I don’t know what they are

or where to look for them

I only sense the gaps

that keep me from wholeness

Standing under the stars that night

tide coming in, wind blowing--restless

preferring the familiarity of my small room

I was reminded of what I can not name

I fold the laundry

wash out the green glass

sweep the leaves from my doorway

put everything in its place

Except fragments of my Self

out there somewhere

in time and tide

or within—so near

deeper than I can reach

EMPTY BOTTLES

In a closet rarely opened—

            bottles—

found on a dark back shelf

Waiting among a vase, a tin, a basket

to be used for… something, sometime

soon to be held again... 

by someone, somewhere

Looking at empty bottles

filling them with questions

about time and memories .

Imagining letting go

BETRAYAL

I want to write about betrayal. What of it? What is it? How do we live with it? In Dante's "Inferno," it is the greatest sin relegated to the lowest level of hell, where Lucifer is trapped in ice for all eternity. He flaps his wings to free himself, which traps him even more firmly. In his mouth he eternally gnaws on Judas Iscariot, Brutus and Cassius--others who betrayed their masters.
    Obviously, Dante considered betrayal a"sin." Though "sin" has religious associations, it can be understood as essentially a transgression which crosses what was thought of as an inviolable boundary. Betrayal can be thought of as the greatest degree of transgression, for no matter how justified, when all is said and done, there is always collateral damage which can reverberate for the betrayed—sometimes for the rest of their lives. One can feel betrayal only if there was love and trust, and a stated or perceived commitment involved. Betrayal breaks that trust and retracts the commitment.
    It has been said that the only thing a betrayer ultimately betrays is his conscience (Joseph Conrad). That is assuming the betrayer has a conscience—sometimes yes, sometimes no. The betrayer may feel there is no other choice, circumstances have changed and he will become what has imagined only if he casts aside a vow or the one person who has trusted and loved him to the point of being vulnerable. Loving is vulnerability. Nevertheless, betrayal is a kind death, perhaps to both the betrayer and the betrayed, but for the betrayed it is the death of trust and of hope, that “thing with feathers, that perches on the soul” (Emily Dickinson). For the betrayed it may feel like and can be a death of the soul or the ability to trust anyone and anything again.
    Looking from another perspective, Barbara Kingsolver notes that "Every betrayal contains a perfect moment, a coin stamped heads or tails with salvation on the other side."  Salvation for the betrayer and maybe even for the betrayed--a paradox. The betrayer may feel he had no choice but to do the thing he had to do, while the betrayed may come to see what the reality had been all along, or what part he may have played in the inevitable--enabling or giving power to another, and that the answers to “why?” and “how?” were there all along. The betrayed's trust might have been misplaced with a person ultimately incapable of commitment, loyalty or sacrifice? And who of us can say for certain that, under certain circumstances, we might also find ourselves incapable?
    And who truly knows the nature and implications of betrayal? Except in one case—one of the most well-known betrayals which Dante included in his Divine Comedy-- that of Judas Iscariot (for a few silver coins). Here the paradoxical circumstances are clear: a predestined fate for both. Judas Iscariot was an unknowing instrument in betrayal, setting into motion the foretold and inevitable deed, sentencing his friend and teacher to death. On the other side of Judas’s betrayal was said to be salvation for humanity and redemption for the original sin of disobedience in the Garden of Eden, as the story goes. Of course, the rebellion of Lucifer after creation is also a well-known in Judaeo-Christian story, also an analogy to human compromises we make for control and independence, as Lucifer states in Milton's Paradise Lost. "Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven." Both Judas/Christ and the God/Lucifer betrayals are paradoxes, and perhaps most betrayals are.
    Unfortunately, or fortunately (and maybe also foretold and inevitable) in our own mortal stories, neither betrayer nor betrayed sees or fully understands the nature of the betrayal, neither the paradoxes nor the consequences which may, in the end, be "for the best" bringing about some greater good and further the purpose of being human: consciousness.
    Nevertheless, the betrayed must endure the pain and suffering of i and sometimes other experiences its collateral damage of the betrayal
The real question is, will the betrayed also be able to say, as Christ did on the cross of his betrayers, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do."

ESSAY: TO THE LIGHTHOUSE?

Inspired by a line in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse

2019 first place award winner at Studio B's Annual Literary/Art Exhibit, Boyertown, PA

“Bowed down she was with weariness.” When she read those lines in the book, it was as if an arrow had pierced through the comfort and small pleasures of the morning: spring burgeoning at the window, white blossoms on greening branches, birdsong at sunrise, and Earth spinning in its orbit. 
     Who should complain? 
     She was not poor or wanting. She had a room of her own, a small income and friends. Still, the arrow hit its mark precisely, undeniably, bowed down she herself was with weariness.

Outside, a train whistle, church bells chimed five times, the sound of lobster boats setting out in the harbor to raise up the traps. By the sea she was, but it was raining; ”drizzle” she called it. She liked the sound of the word “drizzle,” and of other words, like “plaintive” and “mournful.” The sounds of this morning had distracted her from the weariness of the moment, pain and the passing of time--until she read those lines.
     Memories came to her of another time, a time when she believed, “there would be time enough.” There never was, for then was the time— the present— but there was always the looking ahead; that’s what one did— to a dinner with friends, a child’s birthday, a Christmas celebration with family. Looking back, she saw that pleasure and treasure had been all about her then, but she did not see, for there was tomorrow to look toward--"tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow."

So many mornings she awoke, if she slept at all for more than a fitful hour at a time, to the things there were to do. She imagined getting into a skiff and rowing until everything was accomplished. First the practical: make the bed, wash the glass left in the sink with lipstick smudge and squeezed out lime slice, pay the bills, answer emails—business first, then social. Next, the things she wished to do: return a call to her sister, visit a friend, polish her nails, send a thank you card. Those things too must be done, but after the practical ones.  
     Only then would there be time enough to read, to write, to think—to think with risk of realizations, regrets and remembrances of loss, as those lines in the book had brought into focus: “bowed down she was with weariness.”

What did one expect? What did one want or need from oneself and from others—children, husband, friends?  Warmth, appreciation, understanding, and what did one give? Treading softly or going around, so as not to make the tiniest fracture in another’s ego, so it would be clear what she wished to create, even if unaware herself, what she valued most: freedom, harmony and peace. Surely others would see that she was there to help, to support, to encourage. 
     Weary from all that, it must be—seeing that it was not so—when warmth may be felt as fire to avoid, support as constraint from freedom, and encouragement as low sentiment from a lower sensibility. Too many uncertainties, questions, false expectations and misunderstandings. So it was—such was life, bowed down at last.

Had it all come to naught? 
     Being Promethean—striving, planning, prioritizing, advocating—where did it get one to be champion of freedom and humankind? Unforeseen consequences—chained to a rock—and she too. For what?

It must be the pain, she told herself. If it were not for its darkness, the ache of bone on bone, she would see in the brighter light of reason and not in the shadows of self-pity. But just now, the window of perception was wiped clean and clear, and she saw all the way through: it was all for naught.

Bowed down with weariness—stranded on the hard rock of her own making, a rushing tide coming in—caught up in a torrent, a deluge to drown in, and she going down with falling rain, lobster traps, spring blossoms and mournful memories of a past she had never felt as the present.

The rain has stopped and no birds sing, and from the bell tower—seven chimes, as she wonders, Where will I lay my head? Where will I leave my heart? What will I leave behind, and where will I row my little boat lost in the darkness?

2019 ~ GOOD INTENTIONS: HEAVEN OR HELL

The New Year 

The new year was coming on—a time when resolutions and good intentions abound, as well as the cliché about them: “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” Depending on what the resolutions are and the intentions—maybe/maybe not. In my younger years my resolutions would have been practical and outwardly focused, such as losing weight, eating more healthfully, getting regular exercise. They had a definite goal and outcome I could quantify. Sometimes I achieved them (for a while), sometimes not.
    This year I had to ponder a less practical intention, one much less attainable, as my resolution would require more than physical discipline and a time commitment. If I lived my intention, it would lead more toward the heavenly rather than in the other direction. It was qualitative—inward and could not be accomplished or measured each day. It would be a process over time through a daily practice and consciousness of the intention. There might be a feeling that I was doing better on some days than others, not in judgement or blame, but as a guide on “The Way,” to what lay ahead for me.
    My resolution was “to submit,” which probably does not come easily for anyone and certainly not for me, but, when there is an inevitability—the unavoidable, like Hamlet we must either decide to “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” or “take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them.” In my case it seemed like I had to do both, endure and take arms. Physical suffering was a certainty, and preparing mentally/emotionally was a must. I wanted to submit to what was ahead, to give over to calm acceptance in a conscious way. This was my resolution as the year of 2019 began, which I had hoped would be better than the one ending. It began as one of the worst times of my life, but I may come to think of it differently in time.

Loss

    In March of 2018 my challenges began and took me in many directions. I lost my next door neighbor and good friend, Renee, to an unexpected and fast-moving illness. When I last saw her on her death bed, she said she was anointing me into a “sisterhood,” suggesting that we indeed were connected, even more than I had imagined. I never had such a neighbor, living as I had in an impersonal suburb in Pennsylvania, where often people don’t connect or even talk to each other. Her level of consciousness of “the other," (me in this case) even as she lay dying confirmed that she was a remarkable woman, taking every moment to continue to connect. At age 85 she was very active, both mentally and physically; creative; quirky; warm and generous. I felt she had, if not extra-sensory perception, at least an acute awareness and understanding of others, of herself and of her life.
    After Renee’s death another friend described her as a “practical mystic.” I agreed. I felt honored and fortunate to have had a close neighbor with whom to share ideas, and a few glasses of wine from time to time. She genuinely cared about and for me, as I did for her. I am grieving still.
    Then followed six months of chronic pain. I found that I had to have a hip replacement, which I thought would get me back to my normally healthy and active self. I struggled through those months, as my husband and I bought a condo and moved. I also kept working at a part time job and continued to fulfill my other commitments in Massachusetts, despite my lack of focus and motivation. I returned to Pennsylvania for the surgery in October of 2018. Toward the end of December, however, I was not feeling much better energy wise and began to have trouble breathing. I found I had pneumonia. Not only my physical condition and discomfort, but other situations as well were creating an extremely emotional response in me.
    My husband’s Parkinson’s disease was affecting his ability to do many of the things I had always counted on him for, and for which he felt the loss of as well, but never complained. The thought that his condition would only get worse over time was and is an ever-present concern. Also, our older son, Rob and his wife were going their separate ways after 12 years of marriage and two children. I could see and hear that he was devastated. Yet, he remained committed, determined to be the anchor to hold things together, hoping that there would be a saved marriage so the family might avoid that kind of break, but that was not to be. His sadness and anxiety throughout, and then his final acceptance of what was to be (leaving the home they had created for their family, not being with his children every day) was also unbearable for me. Of course, it was his/their lives and  their destiny, not mine, but I felt and saw how it shattered him. As his mother and grandmother to the two children ages 10 and 7 at the time, it was hard to bear how life had changed in such a short time for all of us.
    How would it be now, with no family gathering at Christmas that year--the house full of preparations, gifts, warmth and laughter: Things as they had been came to an unexpected and abrupt end. Not only holidays, but everything would be different from now on. My husband and I would be alone in the empty nest this holiday season, and how would we manage family vacations spent together, as we had in years past. 
    My husband and I decided that we would not put up a Christmas tree—just us, for the first time since before our first child was born \. It was a sad, but quiet, warm time in its own way—a drive on Christmas Eve into hills and orchard country to the restaurant where our younger son, Seth, is a chef. On Christmas Day we went to his house for dinner and spent the afternoon with his family and our newest grandchild, Lilly. Then we came home to the stillness of our house, lit oil lamps and drank a toast to whatever would be in the unforeseen coming year.
    In early January, another medical issue emerged. I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure due to a dysfunctional mitral valve, and I would need open heart surgery to repair it. All of it overwhelming--this news, my already psychological dysfunctional state--prone to tears many times a day for all of the above unhappy happenings. I cried at at everything and anything, most of all at "remembrance of things past," even the joyful memories, but, the prospect of the heart surgery was going to be biggest and most unexpected challenge in my adult life.
    My cardiologist and surgeon, though admitting that it would be major surgery, seemed to also consider it rather routine in that, statistically, it has highly successful outcomes. I was terrified, and like Hamlet, I wished, “that this too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.” I wanted only to know the basics of it, and did not research information or videos about the surgery. My being an anxious person in general and an over-thinker is not a good combination to prepare for such an event.
    I had complete confidence in my chosen surgeon, a well-known and skilled one, Dr. Vallabhajosyula (Dr. V. for short) at the University of Pennsylania hospital. He seemed a compassionate and gentle soul, inspiring confidence that all would be well.
    It was hard to digest it all though, and beside the actual physical cause for my condition, I kept thinking (if I didn’t know better) that the heartache, heartbreak from the condition of my husband and the situation of my son and his family were reasons enough for the heart failure that I was starting to experience before the new year.

On "The Way"

I realized though if I were to come through in good physical, as well as emotional shape, I would have to push everything to the periphery in the circle of my life and place myself at the center in order to carry out my New Year’s resolution to submit. I had to cease the habitual “going out” to the periphery for everyone and everything—which I had done all my life, as woman, mother, wife, sister, friend, teacher and colleague. Now I had to focus on my “self,” so as not to dissipate or compromise the forces I must garner for the experience ahead. I had to relegate everything to the periphery: current political climate replete with mean-spiritedness; name-calling, lies and vulgarity (making daily life surreal and more stressful), and certainly my son’s situation, my husband’s diminishing condition. But, how? How would I achieve a calm acceptance and submit to what had to be, what would be?
    I imagined I was on “The Way,” a pilgrim—following a path that leads to a hiterto unseen destination. The love, concern, and encouragement from friends and family was abundant and most welcomed, but I had to travel the way alone. I gained perspective from all the support on how I stood in relation to so many people in my life. I was and will be forever grateful, but I had to find the right relationship to "self,” and what I was and would be experiencing.
    I did not think I would die, although there is always that risk with surgery. My intuition became more real to me with a wise and dear friend's consolation: I must think of the whole ordeal as "bringing death into life," an esoteric concept that is part of the raised consciousness of our human condition--coming to terms with unwanted transitions and losses along the way. I sensed my life in some ways would never be the same--a detaching from what was, but also perhaps a more enriched sense of life ahead.
    I knew I had to prepare for the trauma of all that lay ahead. How would I keep focus on myself? How would I submit to calm and acceptance in the darkness of winter.

Here is what I did
    I woke each morning at 6:00 am and lit candles. I looked out to the fields beyond to the opening in the trees where the sky would become all light and color at sunrise. I wrote poetry and other thoughts I found relevant in my Book of Pain.

Excerpt from “In Dark Times”

In a dark time, the eye begins to see,

I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;

…I live between the heron and the wren,

Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

What’s madness but nobility of soul

At odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire!

I know the purity of pure despair,

My shadow pinned against a sweating wall

That place among the rocks—is it a cave,

Or winding path? ~ Theodore Roethke

    I wanted it to be a winding path to the other side--wherever and whatever it would lead to. I read Man is Not Alone by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and from Marcus Aurelius. I wrote in what I called my "book of pain," and read the art book, Vincent.
From Heschel
It is the sense of the sublime that we have to regard as the root of man’s creative activities in art, thought and noble living.

From Aurelius
What we cannot bear removes us from life; what remains can be borne.
Receive without conceit; release without struggle

Morning Prayer

Black branches feathery leaves

edging against pale blue sky

bright opening among the tangles

where the sun—Oh Sun!

will rise and color the light

To live in its grandeur this day

sun and soul-blessed

rising above dark sorrow

May it be so!

 Hope

Soul light

soul shadow

heart threads

heart breaths

fragrant thoughts

starlight

green rain

sky blue

new year—no fear

leave tears—so near

comprehension convention

association relation

separation apprehension

“I find thee apt”

Submit

Heart Mudra

    Each morning I also I practiced the apana vaya mudra, a hand gesture said to support the heart for strength and healing and for relief of    emotional stress--letting go. I needed both. I wasn't entirely sure the mudra would help, but it is an ancient practice which I respect, and, certainly, there is a mind/body connection. It couldn’t hurt, as a mind over matter effort, its quiet discipline and its intention. My mantra was: "I will be strong—I will be healed—I will be new."

                                           More Thoughts
    My thinking tends toward analogy and metaphor, and I often must articulate my experience with an “It is like.” I wrote: ”When I awoke this morning, I felt anxious. I felt it was like being in my own Garden of Gethsemane, not with the same spiritual significance for the world as the Biblical event, of course, but, nevertheless, my knowing that inevitable suffering lay ahead—that the cup could not, would not be passed. I must go it alone, but also believing there would be new life ahead and peace of mind, if all went well.

                                           

                                        Reading Vincent

    I began reading the voluminous art book, Vincent. My husband had bought it 50 years ago in Australia when he was on R &R from Vietnam. I had paged through it many times over the years, but now it became part of my meditations to really “see” and "feel" the color, light and passion of Van Gogh. I poured over his biography taking in every word and image. There were photos of the places he had lived and worked: among the coal miners in the Boranage, the Hague, Paris and Arles, and of the asylums he was in toward the end of this life.
    The book was published in 1969 when there were still people alive who had seen and known Vincent, to whom the author gave voice. I had known only a little of Van Gogh’s life; now I learned much more in this beautifully and sensitively written work--in great detail, including many excerpts of the letters exchanged between Vincent and his brother Theo.
    It was heartwarming and calming, but I had to pace myself and guard against the impact of empathy as I read, for there was much sorrow, loneliness and suffering in his life. The later episodes of madness and suicide, I saved for when I would be home again after the surgery.
    Vincent was misunderstood. He was an enigma; some who knew him or lived around him often became wary and avoided him, even mocked him for his strange behavior and dress. He was never recognized in his lifetime for the extraordinary and unique expressions of his vision in form, color and light. At times though, there were those who saw his passion and were open and kind to him. Some took him in, experienced his goodness and devotion to his work, and to the welfare of others. One of his landlords remarked after he had moved away that the townspeople “thought he was a madman, but he was really a saint.” Certainly his work was divine.
    Through these preparations and practices, I came to the acceptance and submission of what would be. I felt calm and tranquil when it was time to leave for the hospital on the morning of surgery, early on February 14, 2019, Valentine’s Day--how fitting!
    Both of my sons, Rob and Seth, accompanied me to the University of Pennsylvania hospital in Philadelphia. They were supportive and loving, my younger son clearly more emotional and attentive, my older son more practical, positive and reassuring. I needed both. 

    My husband Bob stayed behind, as it would have been too overwhelming for him: the drive, the frenetic pace of the city’s congestion, the hospital itself and the long day of waiting. His love and concern for me was better left at home waiting to hear how things went.
    I had achieved my New Year's resolution, remaining perfectly calm up to the moment I was taken into the OR. I held my hands in the heart mudra position before I went under, with thoughts and names of all those whose love, support and concern I had received in wishes, emails and cards. I felt surrounded in love and healing thoughts—washing over the shore of my heart.
    My sons stayed at the hospital all day into early evening until I was in the ICU, although I was unaware of their presence and visit to my room. I became conscious only later that evening. I had no choice now but to submit to all the rest that lay ahead. The physical ordeal I just went though unconsiously in surgery was going into another stage of healing and recovery which in some ways I was not prepared for, but too weak and vulnerable to not submit
    When I awoke gradually, I was in the ICU in critical, but stable condition, pale with loss of blood,  a ventilator, which had feared to wake up to had been removed as I was able to breathe on their own, before I was fully conscious. Over the next four days, I was given a blood transfusion, experienced atrial fibrillation several times so the heart had to be brought back into rhythm with cardioversion, all of these responses and procedures not uncommon. 

    Then gradually there was the removal of the monitoring and diagnostic tubes in the abdomen and neck, and stitches put in the places where they had been; so many shots and intravenous drugs were administered; taking of vitals and blood draws; and X-rays and EKG’s every day. completely vulnerable but given over to the care by a skilled and compassionate medical team and hospital staff. It was all still part of my “submission condition" into the hands of caretakers (angels all).     

    It was a comfort and deeply and inspiring that in my vulnerability, everything was being done to ensure my full recovery with kindness and expertise.

New Life?

    I was discharged from the hospital on the eighth day. Going out into the cold and bright sunlight in the busy city, and settling into the car's back seat for the ride home with a heart pillow held to my chest. I felt I was emerging into a new and seemingly strange place--tentative with weakness and pain, but I was going home. My husband welcomed me, as we silently held each other in recognition of all that had been and was ahead. A dear friend had come from Boston to stay with me for a week. Saint Stacey anticipated my every need, kept me company, offered encouragement, made me laugh and got me into a routine. Another gift of love--my eternal gratitude to her.
    On my post-op visit 4 weeks later, I received the surgeon's report, which prompted me to do some research. I found the anesthesia induces a long period of coma. I knew the flesh was sliced, the sternum sawed apart and the heart exposed, opened for repair. I did not know the body is brought into hypothermia to 64 degrees. There is no pulse, no blood pressure, no brain activity and the lungs function with mechanics. For all intents and purposes the patient’s state is almost indistinguishable from death. The repair is made to close the hole in the heart with the skillful hands of the surgeon. Then the heart is tested and restarted with electric shock (cardioversion).

    Where was the “I” that I am through that whole experience? I still wonder. Did I or would I ever fully incarnate?

    The rest of the journey will still take patience and time, especially considering that disconnection of those vital body functions during surgery and various potent medications taken in. Before the surgey I had been on no medication, but now the list was long, and I still had almost a year ahead of appointments, some of the medications and monitoring to ensure that all was healing as expected.
        I sense that I am different and somehow feel life will never be the same--not that I will not recover, just that I am on the other side of where I was, but still on “The Way,” as we all are. First, I must build back strength and stamina. I do not think I can simply "go back" to my old life with the same concerns and activities. I will go forward thoughtfully and decide what I will and will not do on this other side of my journey--which was not long ago, but seemingly very far away. It is like coming down off the proverbial mountain Martin Luther King spoke of, or out of Plato's cave into the sunlight.
    Not to be too grand, maybe it is more like Dickens' Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas morning after a review of his life—though I was not as animated:
    I don’t know what to do! I am as light as a feather; I am as happy as an angel… A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo! I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. (A Christmas Carol)

   I am not only in a new year, but in a new, unfamiliar place—mostly the present moment with a functioning heart, practicing patience to live face to face with myself—which is hard, as there are not so many distractions from my true “self.” With a new perspective, I am observing and turning from the dark winter to the longer days and soon the greening branches and the warmth of spring. I am holding an eternal vision of what the heart truly and humanly is—not a mechanical organ, but a sacred abode.

From The Upanishads

The "space of the heart” is an abode, a small lotus flower. Within that is a smaller space. What is within that space should be searched out; that, assuredly, is what one should desire to understand. "As far, verily, as this world-space extends, so far extends the space within the heart. Within it, indeed, are contained both heaven and earth, both fire and wind, both sun and moon, lightning and the stars, both what one possesses here and what one does not possess; everything here is contained within it.”

Addemdum/Update:  October 2022 (almost 4 years later). Three months after the surgery, in May, I again took up all of my previous commitments. Though always a bit depleted by midday and feeling the side effects of the new medications, I still had my habitual enthusiam and commitments from my "previous life," and I went back to Massachusetts, resumed my part-time job, served on a board of directors for Gloucester Writers Center and co-chaired the first writers' conference on Cape Ann in September of 2019, enormous undertakings all. 

    In April of this year, I found that the repair surgery I had has not held, and I still have severe regurgiation of the mitral valvel. I do not have symptons as of this writing, but they may emerge at any time, which would require another open heart surgery. So much for a new life and good health. I cannot even begin to imagine going through that again, but I will be monitored, and with any luck I can get through without symptoms (though improbable),Then I will have to really make a life/death decsion.