Spreading
On Saturday, my 8 1/2 year old rode his bike alone around the neighborhood for the first time. Big stuff in a small pond of a life.
He awoke and greeted us with the feel (and show) of heavy, sharp and hard in his body and Being. He grumbled about – discontent with his discontent in the world. After brushing his teeth and running down the stairs to find his two younger sisters playing with the dollhouse – something he definitely did not feel like doing – his body collapsed even further with a sigh of great gusto.
I looked at him and wondered silently, “Is there anything for me to do here? Or is this his?”
To which a soft voice from deep within whispered to me “Bike alone.”
uh… okay.
I turned to the husband and told him the idea. Got a nod. Turned back to the kid.
“John, would you like to go on a bike ride alone?”
“What? Really? You mean it?”
“Yup. Up to the stop sign.” I say.
“Like the one where we turn to pickup Nathaneal for carpool, right?”
“No, babe. The one at the top of the hill. Then you can go around the block if you’d like.”
“REALLY!?”
A supernova for this boy. You could see his brain BLOW with disbelief of the parenting shackles loosening. Off he went.
And I watched him leave. I watched his heavy and hard shapeshift in an instant to fast and light.
Right now, I feel a bit like how I perceived John to feel that morning… pre- bike ride.
I leave for Hawaii tomorrow. I attend a Compassionate Care in Death & Dying workshop over the weekend with teachers that I cannot see anywhere else. Because they don’t go anywhere else. I think this workshop could be just as appropriately titled,
As I’ve taken space to feel over the last month, I’ve seen many layers of this trip. In this very moment, here are a few from my rainbow.
I feel what it means to take this trip. To do this study. What has landed me here?
Thomas has died.
Those of us still here have (new?) cracks.
I am sad. I miss how things were.
I mourn for what was.
Dark. Heavy. Shadows.
And there is more.
After John returned from his two loops around the block, he was winded. He was also illuminated in the same vein of his beamingly proud pre-school pictures . He had skipped from one planet in his universe to another.
“How do you feel?” I asked him.
“Free!” he exclaimed without hesitation.
“What qualities do you feel in your body?” his yoga therapist mother inquired.
“Light! Open!”
I drank it in. His taste of a shift. Me seeing he would never know Light and Open without having known Dark and Closed. Me seeing his wings expand a titch further in this world. Me seeing his joy to discover more of Him.
“I kept looking back in case there was a car!” he exclaimed.
“Trust your ears,” I say. “You pay great attention. You’ll hear what you need. You’ll know if a car is coming.”
And I hear myself. Talking to him. Talking to me.
This is a trip of trust. Of Greg solo with our kiddos. Of my courage to be ever more alone in the hard stuff. Of a return to the islands that I last visited when my then babe niece and toddler nephew lived on Oahu with my sister and brother-in-law.
It is a trip of caring and loving for me. And for all the others that I touch. Family, friends, clients – so many known and infinitely more unknown. Coming and going. Now and next. Here and then.
Will it bring a taste of free once more for me? Will it weave the light and open into an ever more contrasted braid with the heavy and dark? This stepping out on my own as John did on his own? I believe it will. We shall see.
I know my shadows want me to see my fear. “Stay away! This is uncomfortable! This is BAD because it makes you feel bad!!!”
I appreciate you, Fear. The gift of protection that you wish to offer me. The gift of limited love that you have for me.
And I won’t be held down by you. I will feel you for your offerings. And I will also step forward into the Ever More.
Because I know what else there is too. Faith in this deeply felt choice. Trust. Love. My good attention.
And I will go to discover what awaits. Just like John.
I’m coming. Here today. There tomorrow.
Take good care,
Rachel