Surrender to Hope

Last night my nephew and his family were over because they are visiting from Atlanta. Yes, I was across the counter from a man that I knew as a baby all grown up now with a child around half the age of my son. Well that’s a history in and of itself.

Yet, that’s not what is on my mind. The world has grown so heavy, so violent, and frightening and well, I feel that it is coiling tighter on itself from one catastrophe after another and there is no place for all this grief to go. It can’t sit on your spirit because you won’t be able to breathe. It can’t be held in abeyance because you might forget about it and not do anything to heal it.

We have to practice self care, which means pausing in that interstitial between beauty and horror. Filling the spaces with silence, art, nature and love. This is not a call to stare unblinkingly at paintings in a museum or sit contemplating under a moss laden oak tree, it is a reminder that if we accept the unrelenting pummeling of senseless violence in this country as who we are, what we are, and where we are going, we will all perish.

Hope dies last.

The struggle is getting harder, the pain is intensifying, and it can push us further forward. All change comes with pain. We are moving out of one cycle and into another.

How many innocent people must die before we register a problem – we might be at our limit right now.

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2 Responses to “Surrender to Hope”

  1. MUDD Says:

    Hi Rachel!

    I may not be around much, these days, but I always read your posts. Not in a chatty mood, either, so this explains why I haven’t been leaving comments. Just want you to know that I “feel” your pain about what’s going on in the world… and especially what’s going on close to you, regarding the Black Lives who are destroyed on a regular basis. I ache for the mom in you and regularly light candles and keep you and Tin in my prayers.

    And YES, I agree, we must fill the space with beauty. I wish I could post a picture of the tray I bought last Wednesday. I was at the bookstore to pick up a book I had ordered and walked by a display — 50% Off! — and there it was, a big round tray, with a green border and a dark purple back. On the beige top, written in green letters: “let us lay in the sun and count every beautiful thing we can see.” It made me smile. It warmed my heart. Though it was only $15, I walked away, thinking I had already spent enough money on that book. But I quickly came back and grabbed it, because I knew it would bring a smile to my face and a warmth to my heart each time I set my eyes on it. I was right! I’m constantly going out of my way to look at it… and I say the words out loud throughout the day: “let us lay in the sun and count every beautiful thing we can see.” LOVE IT!

    The book I picked up is “Macrobiotics For Life — A Practical Guide to Healing for Body, Mind, and Heart,” by Simon Brown. I had previously borrowed it from the library and thought it was important to have my own personal copy as reference and as part of my Healing Tools. Two other books have been instrumental in helping me change my life radically over the past two months: “GUT. The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ,” by Giulia Enders, and most of all “Full Catastrophe Living — Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness,” by Jon Kabat-Zinn. That last one is my BIBLE!

    I knew deep down inside my soul that I could heal myself. I’ve always known. But stress and fear and constantly holding on to all sorts of beliefs and patterns and “wants” had taken away my *power*. After seeing many doctors over the past 3 years, after realizing they couldn’t do anything for me, I finally let go of the fear and the wants and started working on my body, my mind, my soul. It’s a full time job — discipline, routine, ritual, consistency — but MAN it’s such a blessing to see my body heal and, along with it, my crazy monkey mind! As for my soul, it’s rising from the tons of rubble I had buried it under over six decades… rising all rosy and happy to finally get to SHINE.

    This year has been and will continue to be focussed on healing — I want to build a solid foundation for the decades to come. Because hey… THE BEST is yet to come, and I intend to be in top shape, baby!

    Well now, this is quite the comment, eh?

    Again, as usual, I wish I could be close to you, to give you a great big hug… to laugh with you… and maybe even to DANCE with you!

    LOVE you. LOVE Tin.
    Happy Mudd 🙂
    XOX

  2. Rachel Says:

    Oh Mudd – you read my mind because I have been thinking about you and wondering where you are and how you are doing. And I love your tray – LET US LAY IN THE SUN AND COUNT EVERY BEAUTIFUL THING WE SEE – I think we need those little reminders every day because the world is too much with us too much of the time. What has gotten me through the last crisis has been a belief that focusing on gratitude would pull me away from focusing on my despair. I thoroughly believe that we can heal ourselves but sometimes for things that we are not getting right or we are not seeing the progress we want there are others who can help. Tin’s friend’s mother who became a personal trainer helped me get out of a rut I was in – I was doing a bunch of stuff but felt so tired all the time I could spit and she set me down a different path. Because she was just starting out, she didn’t charge me – better than a $15 price tag – no price! Then there was my therapist and then there was a healer that my friend gifted me and then there was a massage/spiritualist that another friend gifted me and then there my friend in Boston who sent money once and a beautiful book another time – so yes heal thyself woman, but ACCEPT GIFTS too!!! Love you, R

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