Another Dance Around the Sun
Thank you all so much for your well wishes, love, flowers, thoughtful gifts, phone calls and messages on my birthday (Tuesday, September 24th, 2019)… I am so appreciative, and received your wave of love with a soft, grateful heart.
I became very ill with a mysterious virus on the Saturday preceding my birthday and ended up in emergency room on Sunday with high fever, where I proceeded to pass out in the waiting room ~ most likely from dehydration…I felt like I was fading away... I am just now beginning to venture out a bit, and am still taking it very slow in resuming my normal activity… Thank you all who came to my aid; my angel helper Mackenzy, my precious son and his beloved (who postponed their return cross country adventure to make sure I was out of the woods)… Thank you: Holly for arranging my getting to the ER, the gentle, caring and capable medical staff at Pequot, Grace Z for the chicken soup, Tiffany for the grocery run, Pam & Cathy for the flowers, Maria and Sandy for your enduring sister love… so many of you ~ for your love and nurturing presence…. It means so much.
I had a slight reprieve on my birthday, and asked my young helper to take me out to Ender’s Island, where every year I perform a simple gratitude ritual by the chapel on the water; I give thanks for the precious gift of this life and deeply connect with that which calls me as its own… I receive the sacred salty waters on my body, sing the Gayatri Mantra over the ocean, and recommit to listening even deeper to the whisper of my dharma thread’s calling…that I may be an instrument of love and awakening… It was unseasonably warm when we went in the early evening, making it possible for me to be there in comfort. I am so happy that I had this tiny window in which I could get myself, with assistance, to this sacred spot, for this anchoring and experience of remembering…
The very next day, the virus turned into a severe head and chest cold, which I am just getting slowly over now…
This is the beauty I would like to share:
As I lay in bed day after day, feeling so pulled out of life; cocooning deep within as my body dealt with the virus ~ my son and his beloved were on their cross country adventure CT to Los Angeles… So, all through my fevers and chills and altered states of mind, they wove a thread of beauty, connection, and their love of their adventure… They face-timed me from Memphis, where I asked them to stop and write on the wall at Graceland for me (an infinity symbol with my name ~ for Elvis)… Then they took me into a blues club on Beale Street, he sweetest vintage trailer Air BNB in El Paso, happy, glowing polaroids and snapshots of their fast moving trip along the way, the wide open desert, the magic of White Sands, and a video of them dancing to my favorite country song (Amarillo by Morning, by George Straight) at a rodeo in Arizona…
I could surrender more deeply, as I felt so held by this loving, steadfast connection...
So, through their love and adventurous spirits, LIFE was woven through my time of illness; anchoring me in their love and zest for life… It was the most magnificent medicine I could ever hope to receive and I am unfathomably grateful…
As I lay like a wilted flower, they watered me with their love; for me, for each other, for freedom, life and a grand adventure…
Life is so mysterious and beautiful… I feel so grateful to be here, alive in this gift of a body; ready to start this new year of living…
Thank you all for holding the ground beneath my feet.
I bow to the medicine of love in all forms.
image: photo of me at the end of my 62nd birth day ritual at Ender's Island, taken by Mackenzy on September 24, 2019