Autumn Sonnet (may Sarton)

Wow--comments from only 3 months ago.Being here after such a total time away is really interesting. I can see how very important this time here was in my life. It was a tremendous time of transformation and the need to meet with other very real and very aware humans was crucial.



I blog now and continue to have a dynamic 'online life' in addition to my 3-dimensional one, but I can see---just in dipping in here for a visit--how this overall anonymous community offers something that nothing else can touch. I don't think I ever really considered the whole idea of anonymity before my E.P. days. And truly I think it was/is a brilliant idea! Of course, folks can reveal as much (or as little) of themselves here as they want, but the basic premise that we are all here without the usual identifiers that we depend upon--its truly wise. It allowed me to wade into waters I'd longed for all my life.



So hello to all of you. I guess I have disappeared for the most part. But I still do return from time to time. I just dropped in today to find something here I remember reading related to the journey 'between zones' and what a delight to arrive and see Dee, Trailguide and bcj, from the old days. May you all be well and discover your deepest dreams. I do get emails when you leave comments but I didn't see these for some reason... thanks for stopping by. If I get nudges from this world, I do return to play for awhile...



warmly, swan

Hi Lady Swan



This is so very good and as always, very deep.



Are we still engaging on the poem or have you "binned" it?



Love and peace

Oooo... tg, I have chills :)

I am amazed that this was here all along but i never saw it until just right now, as i feel am being called out to let go and just trust. Oh and how all of this speaks to me ..the poem, this conversation, go straight to the heart. Thank you for this.

beautiful...

Thanks for commenting, liquidamber, as I needed to see this again... :)

This speaks to me of real love-unconditional and not possesive.

It is a beautiful poem and one I have not read before.Thank you for sharing it.



We all have to let go of our loved ones to allow them to learn,to travel their own journey, but deep down they need to know we are with them and loving them from a distance.

Yes, amsthegreat, its the last line that does it for me too.



Its strange to return here after being away for a long while now, and find hese old unread notes from dear friends. I know that both of you, Dee and Winding Path--like me--have continued to spiral round the central axis of our journeys. Its nice to be here again and wonder how everyone I met at a time of searching--is doing now?!



Best to all...

"Love will endure -- if I can let you go."



This last line is just so beautiful. I think I need more time to fully absorb this poem, but this last line just grips the heart.

Have any of you read Don Miguel Ruiz's books - starting with The Four Agreements? I highly recommend these books to anyone, especially when you are seeking the "path to freedom and peace". Look him up - he has a website and his books are marvelous.

I just came to a similar conclusion, SF.. that it is me that is causing so much confusion, heartache, lonliness in my life. I am getting in my own way. So does that mean the flip side is true.. that I am also the cause of my own happiness, joy, clarity? Of course, the answer seems to be a resounding, YES! But I get stuck in the cycle of back and forth between these two opposites. The path to freedom and peace, I have heard, is to find the space in between. I can find that space at times, but it can be difficult staying there. I keep getting in the way.

I feel like I should say more, but I don't know how to end this (my own mini rant). I've always had the most problems with endings.. The problem with endings is that they feel so definitive.. and I don't like this, I like things to stay open. Which is why I often end my comments with "..."

Hmmm... just thinking about my own words.. "I" keep getting in my own way... The thought of "I", a separate me, is what is holding me back...

Yes, WindingPath, tough love is the hardest thing of all to be faced with--from both sides. I'm sort of awed by the ways pain has been a powerful teacher in my own life and in the life of others whom I care about.



Reading your words was enough to scratch the surface of all the feelings I CONTINUE to have just under my skin. Its like I've slipped into a cauldron that I can't get out of. The frog-phenomena (of slowly adapting to the increasing water temperature until happily, obliviously, cooked) seems to have take hold of me, in that I can go about normal life, appear fine, even fool myself into thinking its 'gone now'.



But then the slightest thing (the empty space in my closet where his clothes were before he left or just walking into the market where I shopped for a big refrig full of provisions full of anticipation before his last visit) these unexpected undertows reduce me to a quivering mess.



I am a recovering 'sentimental nostalgia addict'. It is a red flag for me now, whenever such indulgent emotions arise--which they rarely do anymore. So, I'm paying attention to LIFE's messages because this dynamic really seems to want my attention right now.



I find myself reciting May's poem aloud, over and over again throughout my days, right now. It never seems to wear out! I wish all three of you well in your adjustment with the ongoing journey together. I know how not-easy it is.



I wonder for myself if this is all just some delayed reaction to the 'empty nest syndrome'?? Partly, perhaps, but I also know in my bones that its a deeper opportunity--one that I'm unwilling to shirk from. I want to know what it holds for me. For everyone touched by my life.



I believe that nothing comes without value and that whatever stretches any of us...what enriches each one of us, in the long run, will ripple out toward everyone in our life. So what we do for ourself, we do for the shared SELF in everyone.



I can say for myself, that I've been through some epiphany moments about groking how MY PART in the dyamic with my son has contributed to our mutual dance. Really painful to see and such a relief to face at the same time (once the pain of facing it has passed its easy to feel gratitude).



LadywithaView said something here that strongly speaks to me at this juncture. "...It's not fear of the unknown..but the known. Not wanting to go through the pain, trying to skirt around it...pretend it is what it isn't..." This is exactly what I keep finding as I face what I'm feeling (or what I'm avoiding).



There is a place in me that knows exactly what I'm afraid of. I've been running from it all my life (in ways that don't LOOK like running so I could conveniently delude myself). Now its right there beneath my skin, inextricably interwoven with these feelings of impending loss and fear. When I surrender, when I just open to the dreaded thing that's chasing me, I'm finding that it has some pretty cool stuff to show me. Then I wonder why I resisted it so fiercely, for so long.



But I'm still INSIDE the churning cauldron. So, even what I'm saying right now is a sort of 'glimpse it, then it slips away' cycle. Thats a sign for me that its BIG.





Bottom line FOR ME with this vortex I'm caught in right now--I'm discovering over and over, how its NOT about others, or what they do or don't do. Its about me and the way I perceive, hold, and react to what occurs. Its my expectations. My attachments. My fears. Its the accumulated muck that has gone into the formation of my very belief systems, that trips me up repeatedly. I see how I've been a major player, contributing (causing, enabling or even instigating) the very problems that devastate me.





No wonder I didn't want to face this stuff!





Thank you all for being HERE and sharing your journeys. I think we all draw strength from the common human predicament. I know that the more I discover my own trips and the more I realize how hard it is for me to find my way thru the maze----the more compassion I have for others (particularly my son right now). All of us are going through this same sort of territory. We may look different, have different stories, different lifestyles, but we're all salmon swimming upstream.





Rant over. Gratitude to all. (don't go away! it helps so much to just know you are all there doing this in your lives too!)

Reading this post and comments brought a lump to my throat. My stepson (very dear to me) recently moved out and both his mother and I howled with pain because of the situation. We had to give him an ultimatum - he was doing something we could not condone - to choose to do the right thing or leave. He chose to leave and I still - as you say - go between the longing for connectedness and the ache of separation on a daily basis. I loved that poem.

Totally :)

"I'm glad it made sense, because I was wondering while I was writing it.. it just seemed to come out of nowhere, and "I" was only a casual observer in the process.. my fingers and thoughts were attached to some other place where I don't exist.. where we are ALL together."



That's AWARENESS being you. it is awesome, isn't it!

Exactly :) We need our friends to hold up that mirror to us.. I know I seem to need this constantly, sometimes! LOL I need to hear the same words, put in a different way, over and over before they really sink in deep enough to penetrate.



I'm glad it made sense, because I was wondering while I was writing it.. it just seemed to come out of nowhere, and "I" was only a casual observer in the process.. my fingers and thoughts were attached to some other place where I don't exist.. where we are ALL together. This happens to me from time to time.. it's so cool when that happens.



http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lm9kWQEgcQ

WOW. So true. Thanks. I'll try to trust this because I do agree with you completely. Great reminder. You speak of...



"...that place of peace, that place where love begins and ends at once. And once we are there we can start anew and know that love will never abandon us.. it's been there all along."



These are no longer just pretty words to me, Dee. You holding up that mirror to me right now is the best thing possible. It is really Ground Zero. In every possible way. It feels like you just opened the curtain so I could get a peek at the Truth with a capitol T. I will take some time right now to touch that place. And maybe it will begin to perfuse this entire situation.



where is that Stevie Wonder song "...that's what friends are for... good times & bad times... etc."

"...And call it seasonal, not harsh or strange

(For love itself may need a time of sleep),

And, treelike, stand unmoved before the change,

Lose what I lose to keep what I can keep,

The strong root still alive under the snow,

Love will endure -- if I can let you go."



Swanfether.. a mother's love may well be the most powerful enduring love there is for another. A mother would gladly give her life for her child. And so it is the most fierce of loves to try and let go of. We try with all our might to hold on, to keep our children close. We want the very best for them.



But with all love, we must learn that it's not ours to hold onto.. it does not truly 'belong' to us, we must let go. We must give it space, give it distance. Then it is free to come back to us of it's own accord. By letting it go, setting it free, it also sets us free, and allows us to see what is really going on. It allows us to find that place of peace, that place where love begins and ends at once. And once we are there we can start anew and know that love will never abandon us.. it's been there all along.

Dee, what you write here is a huge comfort to me and encouraging because I know that its true. And your understanding gives me permission to FEEL what I feel. I think on one level the POWER, the sheer VOLTAGE of the love I feel as a mother, is somehow tied up in this.



The feelings are so strong and I honestly don't understand what my son is going through. I have my ideas about the particulars and I certainly sense the nature of his moods or his reactions. But there is that way in which--altho no one can really totally understand another--he can hold himself at what seems a deliberate distance.



I guess this feels terrifying to me because of my own history and if I feel cut off where there has been deep connection it feels like death to me. I keep getting up to the edge of the pain and it just feels like I'm losing him. Really losing him in a way that I never quite felt before.



Maybe that's not such a bad thing. MP writes,



"...It may rise up again in the relationship, each time is a new opportunity ... just toss the whole mess into the garbage bin. Not to bury what you are feeling and thinking, but to completely let go, like dust in a breeze....Its a gift then from you, for you, and everyone. "



I find an immense relief when I can fully embrace this and I can well imagine that once I get 'past' this I'll see it exactly thus. What the poem in this post says is basicly the same thing.



But this is one of those times when the feelings are neither diminishing nor going away. I'm riding a wave that feels like labor pains and I'm just trying to keep on top of it.

Thanks for sharing this poem. It really spoke to me and touched me deeply I am going to print this up and read it often :)

Oh, swanfether ((((hugs)))).. you're gonna make me cry! I'm so sorry.. I know it's distressing when those we're close to have a hard time sharing their feelings with us. Sometimes we want this so badly. We want to connect with another human being so much. But as you say, there is always a part of us that we can't share. And when someone we love can't return to us the love we feel.. it hurts. Ok, so now I'm crying. I'm not doing a very good job of cheering you up, lol.



You do know, that your son loves you dearly. You are one of THE most important people in his life, if not THE most! It's difficult for some people, men in particular, to share their emotions. We just can't take this personally. We can give our love, and hold the other person in our heart, and trust that they love us back, in their own way. Close your eyes, hear the silence, and know this is true.



Give your son a call when he gets home, and let him know how much you love him. And know how much he loves you, too.



(((Hugs))) and much love,

Dee

Lost Lelia, Your words--coming back at a time when I really need to read them--are mirrors of the ripples of the ripples that go around and come around. I am glad you weighed in here. I'm caught in a warp-space right now. Between the ways in which we miss each other and the ways in which we all have a place that no one else can ever go. Between the loneliness and the oneness. Between the longing for connectedness and the ache of separation. I could go on. I won't.



Someone I care deeply about just drove away and we had a bit of a misunderstanding or an inability to see something thru each others eyes, immediately before he left. But its not just that. He has always resisted sharing his feelings of distress or pain with me. Since he was little. Comfort in the ways that it might be received (depending upon his age and lifestyle) has always been allowed by him. But definitely NOT a direct verbal conversation. This has never been allowed. What do we do with that gap which is impossible to breach? How do we face the moments where it is too much to bear?



What do we do with OUR Love when someone else's 'love' may need a time of sleep??????

Oh God. That's exactly what I needed to hear. I have to let go. Recognize my inability to control how things go, especially with others. My husband, my son, my parents. So much, I have to let go and trust. Get back to my roots, and trust in love, trust in life, trust in the people I care so much about. Thank you swanfether. You are a great teacher, a gem.

This speaks to me of the purity of love.. to let go, as you say, swanfether, so that the deeper more authentic love is allowed to shine.. a love without possessiveness, neediness, guilt or shame.. if we can shed these (the neediness etc) as a tree sheds its leaves, then this pure love can be found, deep in the roots. It reminds me of the Buddha, letting go of desire, and of nonattachment.. letting the object or subject of our love and desire go free.. and finding the purity of love beneath.