Day Forty: support

Word of the Day: support

Image of the Day: Pookie on his day-bed

Token of the Day: two badges - love and free

Day Forty - the last day in this particular journey. We are at Samye Ling and i am sitting on the wall surrounding Green Tara. It is late afternoon and the sound of birds fills the air. There are blackbirds, robins, chaffinches, sparrows, pheasants, peacocks, crows and moorhens. Occasionally a buzzard mews as it glides on the high thermals. The air is so soft. A gentle breeze keeps prayer flags at work sending blessings and yearnings on their way. The sun still has warmth in it - we are in t-shirts and i'm wearing sunglasses!

support - physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual, financial, academic.

Supporting others through prayer, listening, advice, holding, giving (of food, shelter, money, clothes).

God is our support, the cornerstone, pillar of strength, protector, guide...but what does that mean? Sometimes i can feel an angelic presence, usually behind me with arms coming round me, wings outstretched to protect, or wrapping round to embrace. I often see an angel standing over someone during healing. The angel-light creates a glow over the body, warmth and love pulses gently. I have also experienced Jesus kneeling at my feet. The support is less of a holding-me-up-and-helping-me-on-my-way and more of a simple holding me while i rest, loving me as i doubt, ministering to me humbly. It has taken me a long time to accept this blessing. These are occasional experiences but they leave lasting impressions.

The rest of the time i experience God supporting me through people. As Teresa of Avila put it:

Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks compassion on this world
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

We need to be as Christ to one another. Support is not necessarily solving problems. It might be accompanying someone during their time of problem-solving, creating space for them, providing food or shelter, hugs, a listening ear.

Often i get support and the giver is unaware of their act. A smile, a nod of acceptance, a thank-you can each give me the support i need to continue on my path. Permission to stop and rest might be given by example - i mirror a behaviour i see modelled which resonates with me.

I am so grateful for these forty days of challenge, reflection, discovery. I have learnt much, journeyed far, and have known the company of angels throughout.

For Pookie to reappear on Day Forty is wondrous - i am sure he has no idea how much he supports me!

Heartfelt thanks go again to Gail for the inspiration, creativity and generosity she shows me. I thank God for bringing us together and i thank God that we are companions on the way.

Day Thirty-Nine: Understanding

Word of the Day: understanding

Image of the Day: snow angel at the labyrinth

Token of the Day: little notebook with pink flower on cover; also another mini-tile

Day 39's entry was written on Day 40 on Fairy Hill, Samye Ling Tibetan Buddhist Monastery

it is sitting on an old tree stump
knowing one has arrived
there is a sense of coming home
understanding because one is understood

there is knowledge, comprehension
yes
but
more
there is that familiarity,
empathy,
trust

so, as i sit on this old tree stump
i become the tree
i feel my roots bedding down
in the moss
and the pine needles
and i sense my heart
warming, opening
to the hearth of,
no the very fire of
the wonder of understanding.

So it turns out that understanding comes not from books, learned people, years of academic study but from finding that place of knowing that is within one's own being. It has elements of trust and intuition, not simply head knowledge. The "educated heart" is the key.

Gail found the snow angel on one of her regular visits and walks at the labyrinth - a place and a practice that she finds very helpful as a spiritual practice. Gail has taught me that all the parts that make up my self are actually acceptable (see entry on acceptance!), to be embraced and understood. I am starting to understand myself better by finding what resonates with my soul - and Fairy Hill is a very good place to begin!

Day Thirty-Eight: tears (typed up on Day 39)

Word of the Day: tears

Image of the Day: blue Buddha head at our front door

Token of the Day: coaster with a tear-shaped/fish/eyes pattern in
green-blue

tears
of sorrow, joy
pain, liberation
cleansing, scalding
i cry easily, often
tears of long ago
uncried, unsoothed
making up for lost time - blocked tear ducts
over-sensitive? over-emotional?
hyper-aware, hyper-vigilant,
grieving, angry, sad, lost.

Crocodile tears
laughter of hyenas
doleful donkey
bear-hugs.

Gail brought me two boxes of tissues for my journey of tears. Pooh, Eeyore and Tigger bounce happily on the sides of the boxes. Last night i shed tears of laughter. Cathartic, energising. So many days i cry tears of pain, sorrow, confusion, old fears, and i am left exhausted, sometimes beweildered, sometimes wondering if it will ever end, if one day i will only have left the tears that belong to the present and have laid to rest these echoes, the sound and still-raw emotion of my younger self.

Jesus wept. The shortest sentence in the Bible, one used by many as a curse, a simple exclamation of surprise, blasphemous. If the Christ cried and it is recorded for us to read and contemplate why is it so difficult for us to cry, to be seen crying, or to observe someone else crying?

Is it similar to our discomfort around laughter? Are we simply ill-at-ease with emotion? Do we fear its power, what it might reveal, how it might influence? The fact that i cry is not a demand for the "observer" to give in to me, to forgive me, or whatever yet so often i find i need to explain this. we associate crying with being either a child or with being unhinged. The first is allowed in society, the second is tolerated but not particularly accepted...

When i cry in a meeting, an encounter, or a situation i am being authentic, feeling my feelings. Sometimes my tears are a form of expressing anger but very often they are simply tears of sorrow. And this makes people uncomfortable. The only place where i regularly encounter people shedding tears in a group context is at church. It would be a rare event for an entire service to go by with nobody crying. Usually it isn't me doing the crying but when i have done it has felt fine (so long as i have enough tissues to hand!). I have felt supported, held, accepted. Crying is biblical (697 references for verses associated with crying (weep, cry, tears)...) Perhaps it should be a spiritual practice!

How many accounts are there of statues, usually of Mary, crying?

The most famous in Europe was in 1953 when a small statue of Mother Mary kept weeping profusely. Scientists even took samples of the tears and announced that they could not differentiate it from human tears. The Catholic Church took it as a miracle and the statue is still housed in a shrine specially built for it, and receives worshippers and visitors every year...

A final quote:

An organization called Grief Recovery shares some intriguing advice to those who walk with those who grieve. What are your thoughts about what is written? “We must still ask, what purpose or value, if any, does crying have in recovery from loss. Let us say that crying can represent a physical demonstration of emotional energy attached to a reminder of someone or something that has some significance for you. We encourage someone who is crying to ‘talk while you cry.’ The emotions are contained in the words the griever speaks, not in the tears that they cry.”- www.grief-recovery.com