For Thor - 87 - Soar

Good morning, Thor!

Gosh, I miss saying that to you and be rewarded with your sweet smile in return. It's Sunday, again, I was thinking of making chicken & dumplings for supper.

Last weekend, I took part in a beautiful and healing Yoga for Grief and Loss retreat with other women who have suffered traumatic losses in their lives. It was right here at Yogaville, so I didn't have to travel and got to sleep at home. I did, however, drive past the site of your wreck each day. On the first morning as I headed to the retreat house, I was compelled to stop there and sit, once again, on that ground; the last place on Earth where you were alive, and feel anything that came up. This pause in the forward momentum of the day was powerful, helping me surrender and open myself to feel the pain I carry around daily, wrapped and bound. I allowed myself to sink into my heart and to give voice to those waves of grief that crash and swell inside.

I picked chicory from the roadside and wove those tiny blue star-bursts into the wreath that adorns the tree that abruptly halted your flying truck and sent you into a new realm. It is a tragic and magic place, both. It is the sacred site where you slipped through and became a bigger version of yourself, leaving me here to figure it out. To walk on. Every single day of my life from now on is reframed with this knowledge: That which we love can be taken. Nothing is guaranteed. Change is the only thing that is certain. Love is the only constant that exists beyond this ever-changing-certainty.

A few days before the retreat started I received an email from a blog that I subscribe to, in it I was gifted a message that was timely, something to use as a new focus. Suzanne Giesemann offered this from the Sanaya Says collection of posts:

“I will grieve for the rest of my life.”

"If this is truly your belief, then for you it will be your truth. Do you wish to feel the deep sadness for the rest of your life, or do you wish to continue living and growing without that feeling as a constant companion? You will always be able to recreate that pain. You know the trigger points and you know how it feels to grieve, but hear us well: you can train yourself to become aware of when you feel that pain and transmute it with higher emotions. “Ah yes, I miss my loved one. I know this feeling, but now I choose in this moment to focus on the joy my loved one brought me and to be grateful for that experience.” From there you can allow your thoughts to drag you back to that place of pain or ask those you miss to remain in your heart as a pleasant, ever-present companion. What do they want for you now from their vantage point across the veil? Peace. This is the training ground. You control your thoughts."

Several ideas stuck out for me in that writing:

1. I can always recreate the pain of losing you. It's so true. I can ruminate upon that night and caress each terrible memory taking the stabbing pain like a masochistic and embracing it. My heart breaks and my emotional body responds with wracking sobs that stop my breath and buckle my knees. I can cut myself on the sharp edges where your death blasted through the fabric of my life and altered me forever. 
2. I can choose to do this. Or I can work toward a new awareness.
3. This is a training ground and that I am training to experience Peace. I can train myself to feel that pain and learn to transform it with love and joy. We had a lot of love and joy in our life together, Thor. It is not hard to remember the sweetness of being your mom.
4. We stand on this precipice together and with training, practice and no small dose of bravery, I can step out and trust that my heart will rise on the wings of love and lift joyfully to the open expanse of possibility. 

This is my work.

The first night of the retreat we go around the circle and talk of our departed loves and on the second time around the circle we are asked to set an intention for the retreat. At the retreat I did last October, my intention was much more focused on survival. This time I felt compelled to take a new direction, to move beyond survival, because that intention has been met. I'm here and my heart is still open. I smile and laugh and make plans for tomorrow. I didn’t give up, shut down, crawl in a hole and wither. I didn't will my heart to stop so I wouldn't feel that agony. I steeped myself in the pain when it needed to be felt and allowed it to breath through me and be released through tears, and hugs, and prayer -- and writing. Every time I write to you another piece of this experience is allowed to float away. My choice was to survive the devastation of losing you, my beloved son, so that I could learn to live again. This time when we went around the circle the second time I threw a handful of sage leaves on the flames and as they ignited and lifted white smoke to the sky I said, 

"My intention is to SOAR."

Easier said than done, for sure. And that's okay. I know where I’m going now, I charted a new course in this journey we're taking, Thor. We're going up! But like any journey, it's a process. I have to start from where I am and allow for the gentle unfolding and inevitable challenges and unforeseen beauty to be revealed. 

This is my work.

So I stopped at the tree each day of the retreat as I made my way from home to join my fellow travelers in grief. I went there to remember that fateful night and to begin to insert new emotional programming into that memory. I sat on the ground where you breathed your last and I thought to myself that the veil might be super thin right there in that spot. I closed my eyes and sent a huge wave of bright, yellow sun energy toward you. My heart song said, "Thank you! Thank you for letting me be your mom. Thank you for the love we share. Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for staying by my side, even now." Tears fell from my eyes, but they were not bitter, salty tears of anguish and suffering. They were bright and beautiful and as the light shone through them, they turned to rainbows.

Later that day, surrounded by the love and support of my new sisters in the sacred space we created together, I wrote a poem and created a mandala art piece that reflected this pivotal experience, Thor.

Rainbow filled teardrops fall
    to the earth
From the blood-red chambers of my heart
            to the earth
From my pinon-colored eyes
                   to the earth
Where flowers burst forth
                                 and bloom
Yellow tickseed bobs in a breeze

    Periwinkle chicory twinkles
        in the high-summer sun
            The color of your eyes
                 when they regarded me

                    Adoring and bright 

                        with the love we share
      My sunshine!

             My son shine!


So, here we go, Bubby. Soaring on the wings of love across a chicory-colored sky.

I love you, beyond words, beyond realms, baby boy!
Mom