Goldfinches

Goldfinches are flocking to the new finch feeder in my garden daily prompting me to contemplate their nickname, their current presence in my life and their connection to Donna Tartt’s 2014 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Goldfinch, centering on the 1654 Dutch painting by Carel Fabritius, originally titled Het Puttertje.

According to Wikipedia, source of all true knowledge in the world, goldfinches were popular pets in the 17th century because they could be trained to draw water from a bowl with a miniature bucket or thimble-sized cup. The Dutch title of the painting refers to the bird's nickname, puttertje, literally “little weller,” derived from the verb putten, “to draw water from a well.”

It seems to me that it is what Donna Tartt didn’t put into writing that garnered the Pulitzer Prize rather than what she did. Like the pet songbirds drawing up their own water, it is up to the reader to draw up the meaning in the book just as it is up to us to draw up the meaning in our daily lives.

Last year, when The Goldfinch was a monthly selection for our book club, opinion varied greatly, from “It was too long,” (that’s it – the reader’s entire statement of insight and opinion after reading its 771 pages), to an iconoclastic and symbolic metaphysical interpretation of its numinous view of life, art and the universe.

In the book, Tartt explains the significance of Fabritius’ contribution to painting. His revolutionary style represented a transition from his master, Rembrandt, to his pupil, Johannes Vermeer, who further improved the skill of painting shadows. I still thrill at the memory of reading her description of how a close examination of The Goldfinch painting reveals the transfomation of the artist’s brush strokes into a living bird’s feathers. The artist is literally creating life, bringing it into form out of the void, out of nothing, just as we do. Tartt draws a parallel between the artist’s interaction with the painting during the creative process and the viewer’s interaction with the completed work of art centuries later. Both include an encounter with the numinous as the painting and the viewing come into form. So too with our lives. All involve drawing from the well.

The painting itself depicts a small goldfinch secured to a perch on its feed box by a fine chain, a metaphor for the myriad ways the book’s characters chain themselves to their grief, their loss, their addictions, their trauma, their relationships, their possessions, their money, their thoughts, their beliefs… The author’s unwritten invitation to the reader is to examine their own life to determine how and to what they have chained themselves, opening up an opportunity for self-redemption.

More than a year after reading the book, I find it still speaking to me as goldfinches frequent my garden. Why? Hmmmm…..

The finch feeder is a new addition to my garden this year. After looking at all the different makes and models at Lowe’s, Home Depot and Wal*Mart, I was attracted to one with a black metal mesh column to hold the nyjer, or thistle, seed. It has a yellow lid and tray, which doubles as a perch and a catch for seed husks. The directions advised patience as it might take some time for finches to find the feeder. They have. It’s not unusual to see several clinging to it at a time. AHA! After several weeks of welcoming mostly goldfinches, I finally realized the feeder is the same colors they are. OH!

Only after several weeks more did I understand the connection between my wild goldfinch neighbors in the bosque (river forest) and me. Two months ago, I completed writing the narrative of !Ultreya! A Caregiver’s Journey, a book about the spiritual transformation my son Grant and I experienced while facing his life-threatening illness and death, but I could not bring myself to work on and finish the minimal rewriting and editing that remain. Instead, I have been doing a lot of emotional healing and forgiveness work through acupuncture, therapeutic massage, a twelve-step writing group and Family Constellation work. 

Recently I realized that, subconsciously, I felt finishing the book would be like losing Grant again. Two wise friends helped me reframe this chaining thought. One said, “Grant will live on through the book and its readers.” Another said, “Terranda, you are going to lose Grant over and over again.” When I recognized the truth in what they both said, I unchained myself from the perch and set myself free to write. Two nature poems, one about Canada Geese, and one about the finch feeder, came through me, appropriately, on Mother’s Day. Gifts from Grant.

Next I realized the goldfinches in my garden were unchained – wild and free – coming and going at will. I accept their symbolic meaning for me. As I do my own inner healing work and attend to my spiritual growth, I am freeing myself from chains that bind me. 

Whales Don't Have Lips

 2.2.15     Aboard the Vanguard  in the Santa Barbara Channel 

“Whales don’t have any lips,” the marine wildlife naturalist aboard Island Packers’ Vanguard explains to eighteen of us cruising the Santa Barbara Channel. This bright sunny day is perfect for tracking migrating whales as they swim slowly north on the one-year anniversary of Grant’s death. “They don’t have any nipples either, so how do the mothers nurse their calves on the 6,000-mile return trip to the Arctic from the birthing grounds in Mexico?” Prepared with illustrations and a plastic model of the California Gray Whale, she tells us the 1500-pound babies gain 100 pounds a day drinking 100 gallons of milk as thick as yogurt produced by their mothers. As the mother whale streams the milk through the water, her calf “catches” it. I love it. Grant would have loved it too.

     Grant and I chose shared experiences to mark special occasions like his birthday or Mother’s Day. We both felt we had enough stuff and preferred quality time together having fun to more tangible gifts. On his last birthday, in June, he chose whale watching in the channel, and we got up close and personal with humpbacks when they dove beneath our boat so close we felt we could touch them. Literally thousands of dolphins surfed the waves that day competing for attention with whitecaps. Four years earlier, we went fishing on the half-day boat for his 34^th birthday just after his melanoma was diagnosed and while it metastasized into the tumor surgically removed at UCLA.

     I know immediately I want to spend this day the same way Grant and I spent those birthdays - with him, on a boat in the channel where his ashes are scattered. I know I want to go without friends, free from distraction and conversation, mindfully present with the day, the moment, the experience and my son. It isn’t sad. It is wonderful. When the boat returns to the harbor after four hours spent with 800 dolphins and 11 gray whales teasing us with their spouts and tails, I feel peaceful, relaxed, infused with bliss.*

What? How can a mother whale nurse her calf when whales don’t have nipples or lips? Like so many things in life, it doesn’t seem possible at first glance, yet there is a way. We may not know the way, but there is a way. Nor do we have to know. Life supports itself. The mother whale has clear intentions – to nourish her calf, have it thrive, have it survive. She knows what she wants. The baby whale has clear intentions too – to eat, to grow, to thrive, to survive. It knows what it wants. The rest of the process is organic. It unfolds. What a beautiful metaphor for us in our lives.

So many times on the journey with Grant, I had no idea how something could happen, but it did. I had never before been present with anyone while they died, let alone my beloved son. How could I do that? How could I ever encourage him, send him on his way as his spirit left his body, with my final words, “Yes. Yes. Yes.” And yet I did. I didn’t have to know how. I had clear intentions – to love him, to support him, to honor his soul’s journey even if that meant his leaving me behind. It was organic.

Spiritual master teacher Edwene Gaines has taught me, “Your job is what. What do you want? The how is up to God.” Trust. Trust that there is a way even when I don’t see the way. Perhaps, especially, when I don’t see the way. Thinking and feeling there is a way, trusting I don’t have to know the way opens up a space that allows the way to appear. It lifts a weight off me. It lets me breathe. It’s so easy to stop the manifestation of a dream, to get stuck at how thinking there must not be a way because I don’t see what it is. I need to return again and again to the spiritual practice of asking myself, “What do I want?” Then let go, reminding myself, “God’s job is how.” That’s how I was able to send Grant out into the universe in a peaceful, loving way.

*Excerpted from

¡Ultreya! A Caregiver’s Journey of Spiritual Transformation

©2015 Terranda King

¡Ultreya!

¡Ultreya! villagers living along El Camino (Sp. the way, the road, the journey) shout to pilgrims walking the route across northwestern Spain on their way to the shrine of the apostle St. James. The 1,000-year-old pilgrimage is made by over 100,000 people each year from points all over Europe and other parts of the world to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, where tradition has it that the remains of the saint are buried. It is an ancient, and allegedly enchanted, pilgrimage. People from St. Francis of Assisi, Charlemagne, Ferdinand and Isabella to Dante and Chaucer have taken the journey, which comprises a nearly 500-mile trek across highways, mountains and valleys, cities and towns, and fields. Books and movies chronicle the journey. Shirley MacLaine described her transformational experience in the book, The Camino: A Journey of the Spirit.

Home now in New Mexico after seven months in California taking care of my son Grant, being with him when he died, dealing with his estate and taking care of myself, I tell myself inwardly, ¡Ultreya!  “Keep going.” I’m not sure where the path will lead or how to find my way. A gift from a friend in my patio garden, a large, grey river rock etched with the word ultreya, reminds me I don’t have to know the way to keep going.

Grant and I lived an experience of ultreya three years ago when we couldn’t find the path. Keep going. We were on our way to the studio of a well-known photographer, Will Bertz,* who donated portrait sittings to a nonprofit fundraiser. I purchased one. “The last professional photo I have of you is your senior picture. And that was taken seventeen years ago!” I lamented to Grant. “That’s what I want for Christmas – a photo of the two of us. Will you go?” Reluctant agreement followed.

Will lives on an avocado ranch in the rural farmlands of Carpinteria, south of Santa Barbara, CA. Directions were something like, “Turn off on the dirt road past the polo fields toward the mountains. Drive over the bump, turn left at the tree, go past the three cows, turn in at the first stone pillar and follow the driveway past the four garages and around the barn. The studio is on the ocean side of the house.”

Grant was driving. My navigation consisted of “Keep going. Keep going…” But we couldn’t find a path past the four garages and around the barn. We tried the house next door. That wasn’t it. We returned to try again. So many vehicles were parked on the concrete apron, we couldn’t see the dirt path past the garages and barn. Only when we kept going while there seemed to be no way, was the dirt path revealed. We found the studio. Grant and I relaxed outside while Will set up the lights and equipment. Playing with the family border collie and enjoying the calming ocean views, avocado grove and trickling creek on a fresh, clear day prepared us for the sitting. Will, a commercial filmmaker for many years with a long list of Fortune 500 clients, sold his company to Industrial Light & Magic. Warm, personable and attractive, he was really good with people, working his magic in a relaxed and playful way to capture the unique essence of each subject and the relationship between them. Our Christmas portrait was wonderful, the experience memorable.

Driving past the stone pillars as we left, Grant said, “You know, Mom, this was really a good lesson for me. ‘Keep going – the path will be revealed.’ ” “It’s a good lesson for me too,” I replied. Grant’s melanoma was in remission after his first round of treatments. Once we merged onto the northbound freeway, I said, “You know, Grant, Will is recovering from a malignant brain tumor. He had lung cancer several years ago.” I was so glad Grant had the opportunity, which he actually seemed to enjoy, to see a great role model at work – a happy, successful man earning a good living doing what he loved through creative self-expression. Perhaps it would inspire the artist in Grant.

On New Year’s Day my cell phone rang. It was Will. He said he had to call after reading our family Christmas letter several times and learning Grant’s cancer returned. His call was a call of encouragement. ¡Ultreya! I shared the story of how we found his studio. He urged me to continue writing, telling me how much the Christmas letter touched him. He supported Grant’s healing. His kind, thoughtful gift of love, the phone call, was not his only gift. The call revealed the book title for Grant’s and my journey together: Keep Going – the Path Will Be Revealed: A Caregiver’s Journey Supporting An Adult Child with Cancer.

At Serenity House, the beautiful hospice building overlooking the entire city of Santa Barbara where Grant spent his last four days, the subtle presence of ultreya infused the experience of facing the unknown. “I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to do,” Grant said to me, aware he had little time left. “You just do what you do,” I answered. Grant’s friend Chris, who gifted him with an L. A. Kings’ hockey jersey signed by the team, shared their interaction at Grant’s Celebration of Life service. Chris said to Grant, “I don’t know what to say.” Grant replied, “I don’t either. This is the first time I’ve been told I have a week to live.” “I guess we just do what we always do,” Chris said. “Yeah,” Grant answered, and they continued their conversation. When the time came, and Grant was breathing his last few breaths, I could tell his spirit was leaving his body. “Yes. Yes. Yes,” I said. Keep going. The path will be revealed.

*changed for privacy                                                                                                                                    

Behold. . . .with Rapt Attention!

“Miracles are commonly defined as rare and extraordinary events that defy the laws of nature. . . sometimes described as acts of God or. . . divine intervention that only a few of us will ever experience,” says Dr. Deepak Chopra on Day One of his “Miraculous Relationships” CD set. Chopra believes miracles happen every day, not just in far-off villages or holy sites across the world, but here in our own lives. He thinks miracles only seem extraordinary because we are not paying attention to their presence in our lives.

The word miracle comes from the Latin root mirari, “to behold with rapt attention.” In Spanish, the verb mirar means to look. Look! Pay rapt attention. When we are really present, paying attention, “We begin to notice the miracles in our lives, the everyday acts of grace that guide us on the most evolutionary path.” Grace is unearned love. The universe is loving us through people we meet and experiences we have. We need do nothing to earn it. It just is. It just is the nature of the universe to love.

Renewing her California real estate broker’s license this week, the Spiritual Adventuress was immersed in grace, bathed in love, marinated in miracles. Driving south from Ventura to Los Angeles can be a seamless experience. Who knew? Internet directions guided the car from the Ventura Freeway to the Hollywood Freeway to the Harbor Freeway right into the heart of Los Angeles, one block from Pershing Square, to the State of California’s Junipero Serra Building, formerly a Broadway department store. Parking, at $2 per 10 minutes with a $13 maximum, is available on the corner where live attendants shoehorn your car into the lot (and out, if you’re lucky. I was!) In the lobby, a “homeland security” airport experience is recreated by uniformed guards with grey plastic trays and a walkthrough scanner. “We don’t make you take off your shoes,” one says. I’m only going to the third floor.

Behind a glass service window, Apollo Uban, whose blonde, shoulder-length dreads remind me of light rays emanating from his sun-god namesake, asks how he can help. “I need help renewing my license. I received some forms I don’t understand. They seem to indicate you cannot have a California real estate license if you live in another state. Is that true? I’ve had a license for 35 years. I have a license in New Mexico, where I live now, but my son is being treated for cancer here. I may need to move back, to make a living. I want to keep my California license.” “I bet you came in today because you think you have three days left to renew it.” “I did.” “You have two years, not just one.” “Oh, thank God, but I’d like to take care of it now.” Apollo says, “Before I can let this conversation go any further, I need to know your son’s name.” 

One page needs to be notarized. “Do you have a notary here?” “No,” Apollo says as his work computer blocks his search for the nearest one. “I’ll just use my personal i-pad,” he says. “I see why you received the Caring Service Award,” I tell him, acknowledging his certificate of Commitment to Service too. After speaking with his co-worker, Angel, he tells me, “A notary is on the way. She’ll be here shortly. You can wait in the lobby.” “Angel,” I emphatically repeat her name, acknowledging her assistance. I have the distinct impression the notary is another department employee whose job does not include notarizing documents.

The notary efficiently completes her job. Her fee is $10. Expressing my appreciation, I hand her a $20 bill, saying, “I don’t need change.” Protesting her protests I say, “You could just say yes. You have made my life immeasurably easier today, and I really appreciate it. I want you to have it. Travel,” I say, referring to her journey from the back office to the lobby. “Well, if you insist.” “I do insist,” I say. “Would you like a receipt?” “I would. You can just make it for $10.” While writing it out, she says, “I’ll be honest,” noting the $10 notary fee and $10 travel expense. Placing her mobile notary service business card in the case with my reading glasses, I tell her, “I’m going to keep that!” And I am. Her last name is Easter, the name of a dear, long-term friend in Ventura. Every time I open the case I will remember the resurrection of my expiring real estate license with the assistance of Apollo, Angel and Ms. Easter. I will know the universe is a place of grace, of unearned, unconditional love where I experience its miracles.

“In the infinite, unbounded realm within us, sometimes referred to as Spirit, Source, God, the Higher Self or the Divine, anything and everything is possible, including miraculous relationships,” says Deepak Chopra. “As you tune in to Spirit and pay attention to the presence of miracles, your life will be transformed into a dazzling experience more wondrous and exciting than you can even imagine.”

“Love and spirit are forever conspiring to create miracles in our lives.”

“Today I am open to the presence of miracles.”

                       - Deepak Chopra, “Miraculous Relationships” CD

Ageless and Timeless

Hummingbirds are gone. The feeders are down, washed, dried, stored, hanging in the pantry. The metal birdbath dish is removed from its pedestal, scrubbed clean, winterized, leaning against the enclosed adobe patio wall, no longer welcoming yellow-breasted gatherings on its rim to drink fresh, sweet garden water. A whimsical image of birds on ice skates gliding over its frozen surface makes me laugh. New Mexico nights in the thirties are here. For the first time this season, the Spiritual Adventuress donned her microfiber bathrobe and sheepskin slippers to meditate in the dark. Fall arrived yesterday. Wednesday, she flies to California for her son Grant’s antibody therapy. A milestone birthday arrives Saturday, but gifts are already here. Today’s Perfect Health meditation was on being ageless and timeless as things change.

Hiking the ditches, drains and acequias for ninety minutes with the “Walking Albuquerque” class yesterday made seasonal changes even more apparent. Muddy floodwaters from the 100-year rains coursed through the channels on their way to farm fields and the Rio Grande. Giant cottonwood trees along the Paseo del Bosque (Forest Walk) leaned out over the ditch banks, their downed branches, no match for 90-mile-an-hour monsoon winds, part of a natural obstacle course on narrow paths. Duck families took flight, horses whinnied from their corrals when we passed. I spotted my first “V” of honking Canada geese, but no Sandhill Cranes yet. As Henry David Thoreau said, “An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.”

In addition to the natural beauty, another gift presented itself – the awareness of how much easier it was for me this year to keep the pace set by the two Joyces, our quick-walking leaders. Last year I had the pink rose cane from my hip surgery with me just in case I needed it on the uneven terrain. This year, I walked in the first third of the group behind our trim leaders, who, to my everlasting enjoyment, were sweating. Being twenty pounds lighter from a year’s worth of aquacise didn’t hurt me either.

A few residual aches and pains from yesterday’s walk remind me I will soon be present with my son’s pain. I will have an opportunity to practice surrender – surrender to what is, surrender to my own pain, the pain of a mother being with her child’s pain, the pain of being with another’s pain. It’s human nature to want to avoid or distract ourselves from pain. We are in good company. The American Academy of Pain Medicine website reports that pain costs our society at least $560-$635 billion annually, an amount equal to about $2,000.00 for everyone living in the country. Grant’s stomach pain has progressed to the point where he has surrendered to prescription medication assistance to manage it, just as I did prior to my hip surgery when I personally experienced the debilitating effects of chronic pain for the first time in my life. But it's different “helplessly” watching your child suffer. I can cut myself and dispassionately see myself bleed, but when I see my son bleed, a visceral, squeamish feeling takes up residence in my stomach and migrates throughout my body.

“Embrace the pain,” one of my spiritual teachers said. How counterintuitive is that? Everything inside is screaming, “Run from it. Stop it. Avoid it. Deny it.” We medicate it with sex, drugs, rock ‘n roll (alcohol, food, shopping, gambling, relationships, television, video games, recreational drugs. . .) So, that is the spiritual practice. As in “do-it-over-and-over-until-you-master-it” practice. Don’t run. Stand still. Look pain in the eye. Be present without attachment. Easier said than done, as the saying goes. Grant pain being. Hmmm….what an interesting expression. Let it be. Be with it. I actually listened to the spiritual teacher and put what he said to the test.

One holiday season, I invited 35 people to my home for an exquisite, candlelight dinner of white wine scallop lasagna in appreciation for their volunteer work in an organization to which we belonged. I had bronchitis at the time. My ribs felt separated from my chest wall after coughing for six weeks, yet I did everything myself – from cleaning and decorating the house, putting up a tree inside and lights outside, covering the round, rented tables with white, linen tablecloths, setting the tables, purchasing and cooking the food. There was a complicated, multi-step recipe to follow on each of several main-dish casseroles. When time ran out, I had to hire my son and his friend at $20 apiece to finish the salad while I dressed. When the final guest left, my body started convulsing. I lay down on the sofa racked with pain. My thoughts led me to principles of truth and the teacher’s statement of “Embrace the pain.” At that point, I felt I had nothing to lose, so I did. Gradually, the pain began to ease. Then it stopped. I was amazed. It had transformed. I later realized I had stopped resisting, stopped believing in duality, stopped thinking there was something outside myself - something other than the one universe that could cause me pain.

On Thursday, the stakes go up when I spend time with my son in the hospital as he receives intravenous treatment. I’m entering the Ph.D. pain management program. Am I up to it? I don’t know. But I do know that the universe is preparing me for the practice with this writing and in meditation. Although I am not Catholic, I follow the New Mexico tradition of reverence for the Virgin of Guadalupe by burning a columnar glass candle with her image on it in my home, sometimes all day. I have bought them at Walmart, Dollar General, a pharmacy and Smith’s grocery store where there are cases of them on the shelves. They vary in design, quality, color and price. The blue window trim and blue front doors on brown New Mexico adobes are a tribute to Guadalupe, who protects homes and those within. Blue is the color of her robes. This morning, during meditation time, I thought about her experience of being present with her son’s pain. I thought about her name, the Holy Mother. Metaphysically, your name is your nature. Her name reflects her Whole-y-ness, her ability to be present embracing it all. I will carry this awareness with me when I go. 

Tat Tvam Asi

TEXT:  I’m in for blood again at the hospital. Record low 6.2 

 

Since the average hemoglobin score for an adult male is 15, my son Grant's score is dangerously low. When we talk, he lets me know, “I’m angry. I’m angry the cancer is back. I’ve been staying home and not doing anything. I just figure, why bother?” “There are a lot of people who want you to bother,” I tell him. “I know,” he responds.

Our continuing discussion reveals Grant feels the extremely difficult treatment he underwent three years ago with interleukin-2, which has a long list of horrendous side effects and is so toxic it is rarely used, was pointlessly endured. Discussing the situation with his girlfriend, Natalia, brought clarity. The anger led to feeling “what’s the point,” which led to not taking care of himself, which led to low hemoglobin from blood loss due to his bleeding ulcer. Aren’t we complicated?

“I’d really like you and Natalia to get to know each other better,” Grant tells me. Change, change and more change. I met her in June and know she’s really important to him. He’s never said that about anyone before. Since there seems to be so much at stake in so many ways, I feel really vulnerable. I really want her to like and accept me and am fearful she might not.

“I need to be proactive and set up a schedule for receiving blood,” Grant says. I look in the mirror of my son and ask, “How will I be proactive in taking care of myself?” (See “Mirror, Mirror. . .” post on 8/19/13). I call a friend for support and coaching. Ask and receive.

The universe provides coaching and support throughout the day, first at my Sunday spiritual center. As I walk in the door, I hear the affirmation for the day: “I use my energy for constructive purposes.” Then we sing the meditation song:

I send my love over the mountains,

I send my love over the sea,

I send my love into the heavens, and it returns to me.

I send my love to Grant and Natalia. I know I must give what I want to receive. If all things are connected, I am giving to myself. The morning talk is about steps for improving mental well-being. The first step is connection, or relationships. “Relationships help us stay awake,” the speaker says. “We are all scared. We all want to be loved, liked, supported.” Suggestions follow for moving from scared to sacred. During hospitality time, I extend love and support to two friends facing health challenges. I leave feeling renewed. At a support group meeting later in the day, I share my concerns about my son’s health and his new relationship ending with “I don’t know what to do.” The reading for the week tells me exactly what to do: meditate, pray, intuition, trust, ask and receive. I leave feeling centered with a practical plan of action. Now, all I need to do is follow it. And, I do.

This morning, in meditation, it all comes together when I listen to the Oprah/Chopra “Perfect Health” CD. The centering thought for the day is “I cherish my every connection.” Ahhh. There it is. Ask and receive. Here is the guideline for creating the relationship I desire with Grant’s girlfriend. The mantra for the day is Tat Tvam Asi, “I see the other in myself and myself in others.” By practicing these principles until they are part of my consciousness, an integral part of my being, I can relax and trust I am creating the relationship I want. On the CD, Oprah says, “As social beings, which we all are, we need to feel deeply connected with others to thrive. Connection, in its many forms, is essential for our overall well-being.” She goes on to say that in all the years of the Oprah show, one of the things she learned was “the number one common denominator in the human experience” is “we all want to know that we are seen and heard.” Deepak Chopra adds when we socialize and connect with one another “. . .we are doing wonderful things for our brains and cardiovascular systems.”

A good-sized toad, hunkering down in the corner, between my front doormat and the wall, brings the lesson home. Its amphibious nature, or ability to live in two worlds, is symbolized by its position right at the threshold between the interior/exterior of my house (consciousness) and represents my physical/spiritual, human/divine aspects. In Animal Speak, author Ted Andrews says toads “. . . reflect a need to learn to use the emotional energies (water) constructively (land).” Laughing, I think that sounds vaguely familiar. Since Spirit is everywhere present, it can speak through a rock, a garden toad or hot air balloons overhead. The question is “Do I listen?” And, more than that, “Do I apply what I’ve heard?” “Do I continue to practice what I’ve learned until I integrate it and it becomes part of my being?” If not, I might as well have not heard it. Then I’m saying to the universe, to myself, “Why bother?” 

A Prayer for Protection

Plump, swimsuit-clad gummy ladies ride sugar seahorses across the blue icing pool on Andrew's goodbye cake this morning. Standing guard in camouflage at the corner of the cake is the soldier he will become. This is his final week as our aquacise instructor before he flies to Ft. Benning, GA, to become an Army Ranger. Two years of his four-year contract will be on active duty, two in reserve. Then his education will be paid for – if he lives, whispers the concerned mother’s voice within. The “seahorse” exercise involves half the class straddling a “noodle” and riding it to the end of the pool and back, first forward, then backward, while the rest of the class works out with Andrew then switches. It’s his signature exercise. I’m choosing to know he too will go there and back. Twenty of us surprise him with a potluck lunch including the cake, ice cream and a balloon-fiesta-gift-wrapped money box with a slot on top. He's so young to go in harm's way.

If I were Andrew’s mother, what would I want for him? What do I want for my own son, for every mother’s son? I want to know he is under the umbrella of the Prayer for Protection, so I write it on my small gift envelope:

The Light of God surrounds you.

The Love of God enfolds you.

The Power of God protects you.

The Presence of God watches over you.

Wherever you are, God is, and all is well.

The blessing goes with him as I let go, let God.

Being present and paying attention to common, everyday experiences reveal a universe at work beneath the surface of appearances, surrounding, loving, enfolding, protecting and watching over us. Deepening our faith and trust, these experiences become a reservoir of comfort, confirmation and peace, a resource we can later draw on in difficult times. At a recent Southwest Writers meeting, I was present, paid attention and had just such an opportunity to watch the universe at work.

Each month, a door-prize ticket is given to those in attendance. The drawing is for. . .what else. . .books. Some new, some used, some by writers who are members. I knew my ticket would win. It is the third one called, three for the trinity – Father, son, Holy Ghost, symbolic of Grant’s dad, Grant and Spirit. The digits of the ticket, #0032, add up to 5, the number that represents change. From more than twenty available selections, I choose Elizabeth Berg’s book, Home Safe. I heard her keynote address at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, resonated with what she said and wanted to read her work. Here it is. Handed to me. For free. Not only was I listening to the universe, it was listening to me and saying, “Your wish is my command.”

The story is about a woman writer whose husband dies, father dies, daughter grows up and moves away. “. . .it seems her life is beginning to change in ways  she is only beginning to understand.” Synchronistically, the protagonist and I have at least ten things in common. Both of us have been through deaths, losses and periods of not writing, both are facing unknowns, both have adult children entering relationships and starting new lives, both of us know it is time to grow and take on new responsibilities, do more letting go.

She “thinks of all she has lost and will lose. All she has had and will have. It seems to her that life is like gathering berries into an apron with a hole. Why do we keep on? Because the berries are beautiful and we must eat to survive. We catch what we can. We walk past what we lose for the promise of more, just ahead.” The experience of winning and reading the book, of watching the universe work, deepens my trust, my faith. It provides comfort, confirmation and peace to sustain me through difficult times. Through it all, we arrive, Home Safe, at home with spirit, our lives, ourselves. The universe is surrounding, loving, enfolding and watching over me. It speaks to me through a book this time.