Medicinalmeadows

THE PLACE WITHIN


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The Sacred No

Do you remember a time when you were absolutely raging. Like you completed hit boiling point and a full on deluge poured and a bit of spit came out of your mouth?

Now imagine that boiling point in front of the folk that your Mam knows, the neighbours and family of all ages, including your peers from work and your friends next door. Imagine that amount of visibility.

There’s a  passage written that speaks to that amount of breaking. Here I wish to speak into that description, of that scene, but with volume. I want you to imagine the sound. Imagine the inner crumbling of the contained composure in a very public, the most public place possible, the sacred place within the heart, the mind and the entire shaking and trembling body parts. The heart would be pounding, sight distorted, and sweat would be stinking over the back, as well as pouring over the face to further intoxicate, from the top of the head to the feet below. The outer world would be ablaze with a piercing din. The atmospheric pitch would be ringing throughout the place from the shattering volume of pottery and metal smashing on the stone floor.  The high ringing would ricochet off the walls and back and forth disorientating the inner ears time after time after time, in a never ending dissonance and then the roar from the people in disarray. Human voices adding into the overwhelm of discord, aggression and shock of what is a crucial breakdown of order, and decorum.

My thoughts here are to provide a description of the noise, the internal and external breaking open to bring forth a sacred No. When boundaries have been crossed into the personal, the sacred inner temple of ones heart, when Love has been trampled on, repeatedly, we have this internal roar that can not be melted away but is brought forth to crack us open. This sacred moment, is as ugly and sullied as it sounds. It brings a clear and creative moment that unblocks the clenching emotions to the ignorant to reform the imposed and repressed moment.

Sometimes the thundering clatter of a Holy No is necessary. Because the edge of our being can not be crossed over and over to the detriment of our hearts, our minds, spirit and biology, yes our biology!

When I consider my boundaries are just like the cells inside of me, the membrane that has the most wonderful, discernible boundary that is at work day and night, I remember my physiology is the most sacred thing I can have here on earth. My humanness is showing me since the day I was conceived, my boundaries are charged with a sacred no and a sacred yes. This inner working has the most helpful insights. When I say yes and when I exercise a worthy No, my body responds, my mind responds, if the boundary is broken, repeatedly, the most sacred act I can do for myself is to sound louder and louder until it is heard.

Until I Am Heard.


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The Prayers that Walk us through the Darkest Winter

Memories of last years snowy visits to my Fathers bedside are arising. This time of year is a reminiscing of those dark nights in heavy white snowflakes and the determination to get to him no matter what.

The car got left at the roadside at the foot of a hill too slippy to climb. We had our faces dipped down and hoods tightly pulled in.

The ground was fresh and crisp and cars that normally litter the carpark where nowhere to be seen. Just clean inches of snowfall outside the hospital entrance.

I sat that night too worried to hold his hand with my freezing fingers. Instead I kept them wrapped around the rosary beads. Pattering through the Pater beads and stringing along my Hail full of Grace. The beads are still in my bag from last year and maybe it is time to give them a new purpose, with winter walks. Once upon a time I wouldn’t have dared to walk about with the prayers pacing aloud but now it feels more necessary. These prayers bring me to the awareness of the nature around me and to my Father. His love of the Robin tweeting, the leaves still orange and the pink skies a 4pm.

For me it also reminds me of the support and nurturing around me. Of the prayers offer to me in my hour of need by a circle of friendship. That night as I said the prayers I knew my friends, they call them rosebuds, where saying them also and thinking of me. Prayers hold us up, set us down and hear our grief even in our silence.

My prayers this year are allowing me to release these body shivers and somatic sparks of electricity as I remember Him. I still sit in circle with those who held me so near from so far across the globe. Our prayers transverse continents and encircle us when we need it the most.

Thank you Rosebuds. You are always in my heart and in my walks of prayers.

#wayoftherose #sevensorrows


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A year of passing

It has been a long time since I wrote about my 50 something life. This last year I have been navigating the loss of a parent and the grief that arrives and stays as the other parent tries to pick up pieces of the day to day after 60 years in a partnership. Their companion has departed and the one left behind is struggling with night time anxiety.  As well as days to fill in a quiet house once filled with noise in abundance.

The year has passed me by with scheduling and rescheduling of appointments and it feels like there has been no space between the loss of a loved one, no silent  breath, no pause to reflect.

Today I am sitting waiting for the instalation of an emergency call device while I am greatly aware of the first year anniversary of the death of my Father. All this feels like pivotal moment but it is more like watching leaves fall to the ground. I have sense of time passing and grief that does not change but everything has change from last years fall.

I wonder moment by moment as I try to remain unnerved but my body remembers my state of anxiousness. I wonder if a tree remembers the leaves from last year or if the release is complete each year?

Will I be able to release my grief entirely to the ground this fall. Maybe winter is teaching me to go bare into the darkness and let it all go….