Everything Will Be Alright : Derek Mahon

Thought it may be timely to share this poem again today.. Hope it gives some brightness to your Wednesday.. ❤

Emerging From The Dark Night

The following poem is a poem prescribed as a cure for the feeling of need for assurance when life is most dark and things seem like they will never come right. It comes from an inspiring collection compiled by William Sieghart, The Poetry Pharmacy ; Tried and True Prescriptions for the Heart and Mind and Soul.

I am sharing it as I really need this today and so may some readers.

How should I be glad to contemplate

the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window

and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?

There will be dying, there will be dying,

but there is no need to go into that.

The poems flow from the hand unbidden

and the hidden source is the watchful heart.

The sun rises in spite of everything

and the far cities are beautiful and bright.

I lie here in a riot of sunlight

watching the…

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Deep deep grief

The past few afternoons have been particularly intense around the time of my accident trauma.. I have felt like my head would burst off with the feelings, there has been rage and anger and fury about certain things and then when that breaks me open an avalanche of tears and grief that feels far bigger than my own body. I am only lately sensing it is collective or ancestral in some way.

I am trying to move through some old resentments about family members unconscious treatment of me.. As an addict in recovery I carry a lot of wounds and as a scapegoat identified individual whose will got deactivated and rechannelled through addictions while deeper longings and terrors were hidden I find we can easily become the targets.. We may seem to, in some way, carry the suffering of the collective.. And today I had an incident with the gardener who was very rude to me and all because he had not been honest with me before, after he walked away I had a terrible attack. I got a text apology this afternoon but my sense was he had made me a target for some of his own unspoken frustrations.

My sister kindly invited me around for afternoon tea this afternoon, but I was anxious before hand… she had some of Mum’s jewellery still to give me and in a little box was a badge with my father’s initial and surname J. Willemsen, when I asked her she said she thought it was Dad’s Rotary membership badge.. well did this start such a breakdown and so much grief, I really didn’t think my body was going to hold it.. and it occurred to me that the incident with the gardener earlier had triggered my father wound. he didn’t think it was worth his while just to come to my place for under an hour even though I was willing to pay him and I found myself almost pleading with him for the help….

I just felt I could not rely on my father. I could not make my needs known to him, I could not make him see me, I suffered so much at his hands and that was what hurt so much the wound and the longing for him to see and connect with me which explains at core why social distancing triggers me so much lately….

I just drove home with Jasper listening to Seal and crying so much, I thought of how easter being close, how much Jesus suffered at the hands of humanity and how much deep pain he must have endured on the cross, I don’t believe the Jesus died for my sins I believe he was put to death by unconscious forces and that is why on the cross he had to ask God to forgive those ‘who know not what they do.” Often we are on the receiving end of harsh treatment or judgement or misunderstanding we do not deserve… and when we reach out for help to be made to feel like a burden hurts…

I cannot really give a name or meaning to the pain of grief that has been opening up inside of me these past evenings, I can only associate it to Easter in some way… I think of my sister a lot, I think of her husband who struggled in the aftermath of the trauma she endured, I think of her sons who got exiled and were treated so harshly at the hands of the woman my brother in law abandoned my sister to be with.. I think of how the second boy went cap in hand to my brother asking for help a few short years before my sister died (not a hand out, just a job, some help) only to be told by his wife he would ‘have to start at the bottom.” I think of how my father would have turned in his grave to see his only son not helping the people who needed it.. If this sounds judgemental may be it is, I don’t know who knows what the purpose of it all was.. I just wish my sister could have, for at least those last years had at least one son and his wife and young family close.. but no : emotional/social distancing then prevented that… my brother’s wife having treated my broken sister as though she had leprosy…

Maybe I need to vent this stuff I carry right now, so if you have stuck with this post so far, I do thank you….. I know its not all mine to carry but sometimes my head and heart and body feels it will explode with the suffering and injustice I have at times seen in life.. and maybe only love will allow it all a place, after posting and re reading this I see it is my pain body taking me out of the moment… so maybe I am releasing, it who knows?. I just know something massive is afoot in the lead up to this Easter period and pray that a breakthrough comes as I know it so often does when I find the strength to bear with and release the pain and feelings that need to leave me.. Lately I never wanted more to feel the love that lies hidden in the heart of this.. to not find that would not be endurable for me in any possible way.. Love = forgiveness even at times through enduring lots of pain.. Maybe this at heart is the message of Easter that we can find rebirth through patience, forbearance and forgiveness.

Post script.. resolved things with the gardener by seeing things from his P.O.V this was obviously a trigger for older stuff… Feeling more at peace right now.

An open heart

Tears fell today

As I opened my heart to yours

As I did

A river of love flowed through

And as it hit the sore places

I felt the sting of salt

And yet this remedy too

Has relief

Hidden deep inside of it

Bitterness is the price we pay

For those wounds

That never seem to go away

Being triggered by an unfeeling world

That never seems to see

Too deeply

Into the heart of us

And so barriers of mistrust

Get set up

And how our hearts ache

To be truly known

So now

It amazes me to recognise

How over all of this time

All you have ever shown me

Was tenderness and understanding

And now

When I open my heart to yours

The angels sing

As all around

Nature rejoices

For an open heart allows the flow

That heals all the scars

That stung us

Deep inside

All of those hurting places

That were suffering

Burned before

Healed through love

Thoughts of love

Are those that bring a gladdening to this heart

Reminding me of the soothing fall

Of gentle summer rain

That has the power to regenerate life

Even amidst

Places of pain

So when the ache of lovelessness

Seeks to extract despair

Destroying our hold on peace

Put up your love shield

Warrior of the light

There are those who may seek to drag us down

Into the dark

And sometimes the enemy of oneself

Is simply our thoughts

So this is when we must pray

For the strength to love

Even as those voices around us seek

With all their will

To summon up hate

For hatred may show

What makes the soul ache

But that ache

Will only ever be truly healed

Through love

Unknown : Unknowingly

Hold onto the faith.

The Soul's Journey

There seems to be great fear. Fear for loved ones. Fear for oneself. Fear of this virus. Fear of death. Fear of not being able to pay the bills. We can either give power and energy to this fear or we can give power and energy to our Faith in our Goddess, God, Guru. There is no third alternative. Either we succumb to this fear or soar with Faith. If we have ever had love for our Master then this is a good time to prove our love with the pillars of Faith. Faith that S(H)e Knows Best. No matter what shall happen our Master knows what is best for us. If we are calm, we shall go through these turbulent times, peacefully and gracefully. If we react and give fuel to the dark thoughts, then we shall prove that we are not walking the path of Faith. The greater…

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All in this together

I find many of the posts written by Benny K of The Written Addiction very moving.. His latest is really about the subject familiar to many in recovery of ‘self will run riot.?’

Voices From The Fallen: The “Know-It-All” Dilemma

It really got me thinking about maturity and humility.. Sometimes we like to believe we have the answers for questions when really we only know what has worked or not worked for us, this is the basis of a lot of 12 step recovery in that we don’t preach we simply share what has worked for us, our experience, strength and hope and possibly our mistakes as well.. I certainly noticed my own past (and even present) willful rebellious self in some of what Benny writes about in his post.. I like to think along the way in my recovery I have began to face and understand instead of hide from my vulnerabilities and insecurities and become more aware of my emotions as well as some of the behaviours generated by my own wounds, the most painful one which was so often my fear of abandonment.. I don’t believe I am as driven by it any more.. I know my strengths and good qualities more now that I no longer allow my vulnerable side to be negated and I can sit with that wounded child part and be there for it, without her having to act out as much any more…

Sadly, in the world I grew up in toughness, bravdo and ‘front’ was what was honoured…not gentleness and I do believe there is strength in gentleness when it comes out of a grounded knowing of our true selves and all the ways in which we can be both strong and weak. My own mother hid a lot of her own insecurities under scary behaviour and she once told me “each of my children carry a part of me, you carry all of my insecurity.”

As a kid I didn’t like going to school, I was bit of a loner and a trifle insecure but my friend from high school thought highly of me and saw I had a funny side that sadly got lost as the multiple traumas that befell me and my family from the age of 17 began to exert a powerful hold. I lost a foundation in many ways from that age onwards to the point that after my sister’s aneurysm and my brother in laws abandonment of her and then my fathers abrupt death in 1985 I was flung out into the wilderness both overseas and then in Sydney where happily shortly after meeting my ex husband I finally got sober and started the long journey to find me and grow in self knowledge and maturity.. Along the way I like to think though that I haven’t lost my connection to my inner child who can gaze in wonder on the good things in the world and sometimes struggles to make sense of the tough stuff…

I look back now with the painful clarity of hindsight born of much personal suffering and feel that I have done far better than I so often give myself credit for.. Along the way I did make mistakes though and there are things I would have changed, but must now accept. At the moment I am fairly at peace after beginning to come to terms with this time of isolation, a friend of mine who must have read that I was struggling recently and got sober around the same time in Sydney sent me something today which said that those of us in recovery are used to isolation, we are used to turning to a higher power, and we are used to having to make the best of tough situations, so in this time of collective distancing we are well based to cope. That said my heart goes out to those still drinking and seeking recovery because now that face to face 12 step meetings are no longer an option, its going to be tougher to get sober.

I am going to check out some Zoom recovery online today.. I just lately felt I long for that connection back and to give something to those reaching out..Recovery has began to give me a maturity I lacked and an insight in to things.. I see the times my weakness makes me buy into anxiety and fear based thinking more lately and I feel a growing adult self that wants to take the fearful child in me by the hand, to support and en-courage her… I was moved to tears by the support and love shown to me recently.. I am actually meeting a friend today from my old dog park days for a catch up as she offered this to me via Facebook when I was struggling..

These kinds of gifts given for free show me a higher power works best through connections with others as well as being open and vulnerable.. Nature and my dog Jasper are still by go tos for comfort.. but its in the reaching out that I find my heart most fills with love… A shrunken disconnected space of self pity never gives me as much as I gain when I open my heart and suffering to join with the heart and soul and mind of another recognising everyone goes through the tough stuff. We truly are ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.

Which reality?

I just received the following guidance in meditation.

It is up to you which reality you wish to live inside.. the choice is all up to you and where you put your focus in this day.. You have the choice to live in fear, separation, anxiety and limitation or you have the choice to live feeling love, connection, peace and a sense of abundance.. You may say to me, but what if there are actual fears and threats in my environment, isn’t it just a case of denial to believe in a state of abundance? And I say to you, there is a choice as to how you view these challenges.. Today I instructed you to turn off the radio reports of Covid-19 and get your body out into the sun, when you thoughts turned to how you are alone much of the time I encouraged you to think of the growing connections that have been coming your way as you have opened your heart and difficulties, fears and vulnerabilities to others..And I have reminded you of the sea of love and ocean of peace which at any moment surrounds you when you go to places where you sense the healing power of nature and can gain an open view on life..

Lately on your walks you have been reminded of the time in October last year when the news came that you lovely friend Christine had died..you were so sad that day but in the midst of nature you felt Christine and remembered the associations of loss to your sister, born the same year… In those moments you reached deep within, you came home and wrote poems and in opening your heart fully to your sorrow you enabled it to move through you.. Now this loss is different to the loss of someone who someone spends every single day with, in that their presence is so deeply missed and yet the person still lives on in the memories and in the form of spiritual energy is always close… At this time you can draw comfort from the memories of connection you have and in opening your body to the sun and mind to thoughts of peace you can feel the power of love that at every moment surrounds you, just waiting for you to tap into its infinite reservoir. You can also be comforted by the knowing that as a soul amongst souls you can never be completely separated.. One day you will meet all those that you loved again, when they open their arms to receive you into the healing embrace of love.

To care is to be vulnerable.

Vul nerability is not a weakness

Emerging From The Dark Night

To care is to be vulnerable. According to the world its not cool to be vulnerable, its cool to be stoic, aloof, and unconcerned, because to emotionally inept people, this shows resilience, strength of character and the oh so admirable quality of being eternally unbothered. But this is all wrong, because to be constantly ‘unbothered’ is to be dead inside. For a lot of people, caring means losing. These are the people who invest all of their energy into performing instead of living because to appear unbothered all of the time, you must be in a constant state of pretence. Don’t aim to be like these people. They need more help than you think you do. But it is not your place to save them.

* * * * * * * * * *

I have made it my aim to stop trying to be likeable and instead just…

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We are vulnerable : allowing rest, letting go and letting God.

The truth of humans is that we are both strong and vulnerable.. I actually think at times I wish we could be more honest or aware of how vulnerable we actually are.. I just got a comment on a Facebook post this weekend telling me to stay strong, I get it, I do. but I also think there is a time to break down and break open.. I know we have to weather this latest crisis however the loss of life is very sad as is the situation of grieving a partner and best friend and have to stay in isolation and be unable to be comforted at all by anyone. this is an extremely harsh situation to endure for the elderly….that is a story I just heard about one woman and it is reality for many.

Like everyone I get out and get my focus off the current situation of Corona Virus as it is not the entirety of life, is just yet another dark passage that we are going through, but the fact is that it is a powerful trigger for those of us who may have a deeper link to collective tragedy.. I am getting to the point where I don’t give a s*&^ anymore about people telling me I am focusing on the negative or shouldn’t be getting up set or not feeling it so as not to suffer… Really???

I am in no doubt at all that this is a massive wake up call..I think there are shadows lingering inside it of past traumas.. lately I have been hearing programmes and reading blogs by those who have some association to ancestral trauma, there have been examinations of experiences like the the plague and the Spanish flu and the huge obliteration of nearly half of the population during the times of the Irish famine, which similarly saw an event of mass migration to other countries, including one that is being hardest hit at the moment by this current virus… the United States…

One of the first and most powerful lectures I heard was given back in the 1990s by English astrologer, Liz Greene, it concerned ‘the curse of the Kennedys’ and was an exposition, using astrology and archetypes of the tragedy that dogged Joe Kennedy’s offspring… in the wake of his push to escape the poverty of his past and ensure the continuation of his power…some of you may know that John F Kennedy suffered in his physical body most acutely from Addison’s disease, at times it hurt him to stand and he had to appear with his back braced by a harsh corset, as we all know, in time his idealism was shot through with holes as he was taken down…a modern day Icarus, he flew too close to the Sun fuelled by the ambitions of his father and got burned in the process…. subsequent traumas to befall the other Kennedy descendants are well known.

The current passage of Pluto through Capricorn the sign of reality, earthly limits, grounding, natural cycles and humility is causing a sense of outrage at the huge disparities of wealth which see a multi-millionaire posting images of his self isolation on a yacht he paid 590 million for being rapidly removed from social media.. We are waking up to the fact that the pursuit of heroic or materialistic objectives when backed by an anxiety about our power to survive that is not balanced with a regard for the metaphorical ‘body of the mother’ will no longer be sustainable..

It is most certainly not wrong for us to have ideals and hope to make a better future for ourselves but when we sacrifice the interconnectedness and grounded aspect of the feminine we are then truly in trouble…

It seems to me that in the midst of this latest crisis the times I feel most at peace are when I drop the worries and concerns and the striving and just allow myself to rest.. Yesterday later in the morning I had the inspiration just to put myself back to bed for a while.. normally when I do this in the middle of the day I find it hard to settle as going to bed is often a trigger set point for all of my PTSD symptoms…. but when I got into bed I prayed to God as a mother and to my angels to hold me and I just repeated the words… “you are safe, its fine to rest, you are allowed to rest, you are safe” in time I drifted off to sleep after some of the spasming I endure as part of my trauma/anxiety condition subsided.. I slept maybe only for an hour and a half, then got up, made lunch and took Jasper to the park…for those few hours I was in peace..

I have just read a wonderful post that talks about this need to try to tap into joy and love and to find the way to rest and disconnect from the trauma and anxiety…It has reminded me of something essential..sometimes as humans we feel we have to be busy ‘doing’ something to prove or justify our existence..ever since I stopped work I was often subjected to bemused enquiries from others as to what I ‘did’ all day…now I am realising the times of greatest peace were for me those when I could just be… removed from all the business of life and float in some peace… so for now the reminders of my vulnerability show me its okay to rest and that I can even find strength within the midst of it all when I just ‘Let Go and Let God’, so for now that is what is and will be my ongoing practice.

Truthful and honest.

My personal feeling is that people out there often appreciate it when you express your truth and raw, honest feelings.. a lot of the time we are taught to hide these or pretend we feel differently, we are told to ‘take life on the chin’ and cope with whatever life throws our way. Don’t get me wrong, in order to thrive we often have to adapt to harsh realities, to things we don’t like but that does not mean that we cannot have our feelings about what happens and that our hearts don’t ache when we witness certain things going down in life.

I try not to watch heaps of news on the Corona Virus, but last night they showed a poignant image of a woman weeping close to where a hospital and morgue will be soon be set up for the dead bodies of victims…. in the commentary they spoke of how there was no one able or allowed to hug or comfort the woman…the next image showed grandchildren visiting their grandmother who was in another room separated by a pane of glass.. Wow did that image speak to me in such a profoundly sad way.

On one level I can see the wisdom and advantage of the global slow down we are being forced to endure in terms of a decrease in activity that may cause pollution and hopefully may lead to a reduction in useless running around to stay distracted as well as a growing recognition of how important emotiinal connectiin is. Also there is comfort in the fact that now families have time to spend together doing the simple normal things without all the pressures of work. On my walks lately I have noticed far more families out and about playing with their kids with scooters, bikes or kites or doing other togetherness activities…

I also think there is something far deeper going on here when I look to the astrology and consider that when Pluto was in the opposing sign of Cancer those born with that placement gave birth to the families and lives which began to fracture as a result of the Second World War.. those born with Pluto in Cancer lived through much tougher Plutonian times than these we are experiencing and there was a wave coming out of the aftermath of war in the late 1940s to early 1950s and 60s of mass migration away from the people’s countries of origin…..and an attempt by survivors of both depression and two world wars to make it materially in a way which would no longer keep their families vulnerable.

The thought that occurred to me was this… what if, along the way none of the feelings driving that push of materialism and individualism were actually experienced and released and we set this up as a kind of ideal of material.prosperity to strive for, an ideal which hid at the cemtre a hollow emotional or relational core. Unresolved feelings are iften just passed on to the family epigenetically as well as survival stress. And now are we in fact seeing a breaking down of ways of living and relating from the purely material and external or narcissistic plan deconstructing as nature and the threat of death give us a giant wake up call? This is just an insight I have been having over the past few days.

I ended up having a really powerful random conversation with a woman I met yesterday about her own mothering background, which is turns out, was entirely identical to my own.. Her own mother suffered from extreme anxiety and fear and pushed her kids to be perfect and keep everything functioning perfectly.. There was an OCD aspect to this woman’s young life and in the course of her life she had to confront this anxiety and suffered from a severe illness. Now she was sharing that it is actually her daughter who is carrying a lot of this anxiety and fear and she said she had, in exploring a lot of the science around it come to see how contagious fear actually is… So if we are around anxious, fearful people, we are just going to end up absorbing that if we don’t take steps to understand what is being passed down.

I think of the anxieties my own mother carried and how her often admired external appearance and material accomplishments hid a ravaged core in many ways of emotional neglect and lack of positive mothering and fathering and see how that wound got carried by all of us in some way.. My father, similarly had to escape his homeland at a time of collective fear, hardship and terror. I think of how hard my father worked and of his painful sudden end at the hands of cancer….

So if now, the distance and pain wound I feel in my own life resonates as it does in other lives maybe this is important. And maybe a confrontation with death and restrictions of blessings we took for granted may be teaching us the value of them.

Nature is still in its pristine balanced state here today in my home town. At the fruit and veggie market people are still circulating while keeping the required distance between them. I still feel sad today despite these gifts. I was reduced to tears last night after many friends teached ot to me on Facebook after I found the courage to say I was struggling and post one of my latest poems. That kindness touched me so deeply it hit a raw wound in me and made me realise that often feelings arent facts in that while feeling alone or unloved the truth is that love really is there when we reach out for it. Its close to my older sisters death anniversary today i always feel her as the cold nights set in and autumn leaves turn and think of how her pushing herself so hard led to her demise and deconstruction. My nephew called last night and I shared how I saw our families journey into deep trauma as reflective of the wider collective in some way. My own life fractured at 17 as I carried Mum and Dad’s unconscious. It never fully repaired. I had ongoing traumas from age 17 to 49. I share about my struggles and know I am not alone. Collectively we are going through a massive shift. Its time to reach inward to find what has true value as we come face to face with the god of death rebirth and transformation..as we do lets bear in mind the phoenix that in time rises from the ashes of what burns up in the process of enduring challenging times of deconstruction and change.