4.6.16 Seismic

     We each have this experience, of living into some aspect of the future that either we anticipated , or that somehow and inexorably was moving down the road toward us. 
     To appear on our doorstep as a new destination. 
     A new arrived set of circumstance . Us moving into our future, as you would step into a thick fog, or a sodden stream.
     And then it seems so sudden, it does. 
     Turning 18. 
     Living on your own and deciphering the complexity of bill schedules and budget. 
     That baby being born , that lover moving in. 
     Those dogs accumulating and setting up shop in your heart, so that it was full to bursting.
     Though what is on my mind is when a Serious Condition has been circling, whether you consciously know it or not, and on one particular day, it comes home to roost. And everything changes.

      And if you thought that you'd had that experience, of everything changing, before , you slowly realize you were wrong .
     Because life changing conditions , or life threatening illnesses, are a whole different nest of eggs.
     So I've been thinking this over, because anniversaries are helpful. And over here, we're having one.
     Anniversaries help us climb up to the top of the range, where there's such a magnificence of broad view. 
     Where there's some perspective between the significant and insignificant . Between then, and today, and what the expanse between has so far held. 
     How we, as inexorably as great Oaks, have struggled and managed and grown. New tentative limbs of strength, with a new try at endurance , despite the sometimes grave difficulties .
     In the past, the idea of persisting was a mere concept, whereas today it is a reality . 
     It is the cells you are growing to regenerate your strong back and arms and legs , day after day after day.
     That are somehow, you're not sure how , lifting and holding and arranging and managing it all. In the face of the life changing stuffs. 
     So like many others, I have been doing this for a year now. Doing something I long imagined might come , to me or my beloved or another loved one . 
     Because these things happen . They just do. 
     Serious conditions fraught with uncertainty .
     Seismic shifts in the often already untenable undercarriage of our day to day lives.
     And much like the ant and the bear and the Oak, for the most part we keep on keeping on. 
     All those years ago, of having a practice, I was a shepherd, accompanying those clients on their journeys. They were all ages and all sorts of health challenges, and some of all ages then were dying, and then died. While I accompanied them into that final time of being here. 
     Nothing brings home the sharp beauty of this- of this being part of being here , for each of us, than being present for the very real of birth and illness and dying and death to move through our pores and with our breath, until those things become real to us , finally , and not something that occurs behind closed doors far way, or that we read about in an article .
     When these things visit and come home and by the osmosis of loving we realize and embrace them as being part of the whole of our being, it's not like anything gets easier .
     It is that we see and feel and sing and breathe and embrace what we have been part of, all along .