The Breath of Love
Until I can connect with my Muse again and develop a New York City aesthetic that connects with Spirit I rely on revising old writing and photographs…
I awaken to moonlight– it is at that particular slant that lights up the front yard at 3 AM. What really has awakened me is my husband’s breathing. It is labored like he has just run up a flight of stairs. At times I awaken because I do not hear his breath and some alarm goes off in my head to check him. And if I can not hear him breathing I put my hand lightly on his chest so as not to wake him to see if I can feel the his heart beating. Feeling it pulsing in my hand I am reassured once more. I am not alone in this. My sister-in-law confides in me that she wakes up at night to listen to my brother to see if he is still breathing. My first-grade friend says much the same. She does a breathing check on her husband. Our husbands are relatively well. They have diabetes, heavy smoking and drinking, a delicate frame among them, but they are not on death’s door so far as we know. And yet we are plagued by morbid fears.
In the wee hours of morning fears loom large. My husband’s heartbeat, a mere flutter, seems so delicate. I am reassured that it is beating just as I am reassured that he is breathing. But the breath itself is so fragile. It scares me awe-fully– the fragility of the breath, the fine line between breathing and cessation of breath.
I prowl the house. Through the skylight the stars beam brightly along with a shining half moon. A clear day tomorrow. But it is already tomorrow. It is so still my ears hum. My husband, who knows so many interesting things, tells me the humming I hear is the sound of the nervous system. Our bodies hold such mystery.
I look out the window, now hearing my neighbor’s dogs barking quietly. I look for coyote thinking that is what they are barking at, but see nothing. The moonlit grass on the lawn is whitish silver, looking almost as if it had snowed, and the water in the marsh sparkles in the moonlight. The deep woods behind are pitch dark, the home of many a creature. Nothing stirs. It is too early for the birds. The house across the way is always dark; it is up for sale. And in the other direction, at this hour, no lights shine in the driveway of the house down the road.
I am reminded of a line from a poem by Tagore “Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.” I am at my most faithless at 3 AM.
Along with the supreme beauty of Tagore’s thoughts, a frivolous line from an old song runs through my head: “There ought to be a moonlight savings time…” and the line continues so there would be more time for loving. But moonlight in the middle of the night also brings with it intense dreads.
Now chilled I finally go back to bed. An owl hoots in the distance– a reassuring sound. My husband is breathing freely now. His body is warm in the bed and I am filled with love for him as he lays in a heap, so trustingly in the arms of sleep. Our marriage a wonder. Unexpected. An endless source of ever increasing love brimming not only with joy but also the dread of loss. Perhaps all wives check their husbands for breathing. Perhaps there is an army of women out there prowling the wee hours of the night, at times by moonlight, checking on their husbands, their children, their animals to see that they all have that breath of life flowing.
“There is one way of breathing that is shameful and constricted. Then, there’s another way: a breath of love that takes you all the way to infinity.” Rumi said that. And it is breath of love that I must master.
It’s been a long, hard time since I wrote. But unlike the bird above I was not alone, thank the Lord. Beloved husband was at my side. I have thought of many of you and wondered how you’re doing, if you’re still blogging. Kit, Running Elk, Bert, Paul, Michael, Sue, Palestine Rose, Joshi, Ashley, Didi, Val and so many others. I check my hundreds of blog emails unread and see you are. Have not only not been blogging but not reading the blogs either. Been sick, selling our barn, moving and withdrawing from a major benzodiazepine, Klonopin, a “benzo” as they are called. My doctor got me addicted to it. And, while selling the house I took extra because it was so stressful and I had to function no matter how sick I was. Now I am paying the price. Withdrawal is at a snail’s pace and fraught with physical and psychological symptoms. It seems futile to be angry with my doctor. He didn’t force it down my throat but he did dispense a very dangerous drug. This is one of the seldom talked about pitfalls of being mentally ill.
The house is finally sold and all the headaches with it. We will miss the nature and our home in the depths of it. I have lost my inspiration. My muse. Pictures were everywhere. Now in New York City there is so much stimulation I cannot even see images to capture. But in many ways it is good to be here. Although I remain sick and sick at heart with what is happening to our country, even so, my husband and I are blessed to have each other. But today, with the March for Our Lives, I finally have new hope. Perhaps the new generation can succeed at peace where we have failed. Perhaps the world can stop destroying itself.
And finally now, at last, I can find time now to look within. I continue to follow Sadhguru and his Inner Engineering. That is my priority now. So I don’t know if I can go back to blogging as I used to. Inspiration is at zero. But at least I hope to visit sites now and again. Let me take this opportunity to say hello and happy Spring to all of you!
Whispers of Spring
Spring green and faint yellow
Sap flowing amid stone and evergreens
A burst of red
Cows heading past lone bare tree
The hide-out of the Spring Peepers
Layers of Spring texture
Greening grass at end of day
Dying, Lying Croci
This year the Croci
may die cause they told a lie
saying it was Spring
what they said don’t mean a thing
for Spring arrives on Friday
and what the weathermen say
this year the winter just won’t go
and they’re forecasting snow
Phantasmagoric Love
come butterflies
Out of your nose
arises the scent of roses
And your embrace
of a crisp Spring day
Whilst stars fly
from your eyes
Your hair
the silky fur
of rabbit
As your heart
beats out
a symphony
enveloped in
the aura of
scintillating sunlight
on a calm sparkling lake
I surrender to
your arms
in an eternal embrace
I am yours
in the land of forever
The Magic of Moonlight
I miss the soft siren call
of the slinky moonlight,
the velvety voice of the moon
as she beckons to me
in the middle of the night
with her hypnotic magic
wielded in the wee hours.
I miss her enticing ways
calling forth
the howling of coyotes
echoing over the hills.
I miss the shadows
of the moonlight
as she luminates
the dark and empty road
and leaves behind a trail of shadows.
Cooped up in the city
nothing calls to me at 3AM
save little lights on
in the cubby holes
of the apartment house
across the street.
No slinky siren song sings
nor misty magic.
No coyotes howling here,
just the loud voices of drunks
stumbling home
in the harsh glare of streetlights.
“In the Hebrides of Scotland, it was common practice well into the nineteenth century for men to take off their caps to greet the morning sun and for women to bend their knee in reverence to the moon at night. These were the lights of God. They moved in an ancient harmony that spoke of the relationship of all things. And they witnessed also to the eternal rhythm between the masculine energies and the feminine energies that commingle deep in the body of the universe. The Celts were familiar also with the practice of being guided by the creatures. The birds of the air, the fish of the sea, the animals of the earth had not lost their senses. They were viewed as still being alive to the deepest rhythms of creation and to the interrelationship between all things.” (“Christ of the Celts” by J. Philip Newell)
Being in Winter
How higher they be
than me
for they know how
to just Be
always
in the present
in the Silence
so profound in winter
but in the forever now
I look fearfully ahead
towards a future of endings
and losses
of attachments
acquired over the years
none more strong
than our love
I used to know
how to just be
like a tree
spontaneously
when very young
now I seek to Be
as I was in youth
in rapture
not just in nature
but always
as the sheep
in the deep
of winter.
Follow the Yellow-Lined Road
My husband recounts a story of being a little boy riding in the backseat of his parents car and blowing kisses to the telephone polls because they looked so lonely.
