It's a new year. I celebrated it watching the documentary Young@Heart which is heartwrenchingly beautiful and moving. Tissues are a requirement. I cried my way through it. How utterly gorgeous to see these people in there 70s and 80s singing and living and loving there way through every song. Bob Cilman, you inspire me! Thanks for taking such a simple thing of getting 25 old men and women together and getting them to sing -- and then getting them to sing for people all over the world. What joy you all bring. Thank you for bursting my heart wide open.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Young @ Heart
It's a new year. I celebrated it watching the documentary Young@Heart which is heartwrenchingly beautiful and moving. Tissues are a requirement. I cried my way through it. How utterly gorgeous to see these people in there 70s and 80s singing and living and loving there way through every song. Bob Cilman, you inspire me! Thanks for taking such a simple thing of getting 25 old men and women together and getting them to sing -- and then getting them to sing for people all over the world. What joy you all bring. Thank you for bursting my heart wide open.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Snow Goddess
Standing By Each Other
The world is wonderful in how small it has become and how easy it is to reach out and be with others. An email communicating the very spirit of connection arrived in my mailbox from Jane Axelrod, a therapist in the Boston area who is the epitome of joy in connection.
Jane sent me this video of musicians around the world playing Stand by Me. I had to do my part and pass on the spirit of joy.
Thanks to all you who have stood by me through so many years. May we all stand together in creating a world of love, joy, and good health.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
The Guiding Arrow
Perhaps this life is about remembering who you really are. Walking like Hansel and Gretel into the dark forest, dropping bread crumbs to find your way home. What trauma does is send in the wolves to eat the bread crumbs so we can’t find them when we look for them. Yet, the path out of the darkness remains. The path has always been there, it has been obscured, hidden, gotten completely covered over. But it’s there.
My father had always wanted to walk the Camino de Compostela in Spain. He had learned about it in the 1950’s when he was living in France. The Camino is one of the oldest Christina pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
Ah, I digress from the main part of the story.
What I want is to create a resilient community of people who understand the dark and forboading world of trauma, who have lived the chaos but are willing to serve as helping hands, as guides along the way.
Friday, December 05, 2008
Change is coming
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Bringing Up Hope
Sunday, November 23, 2008
The Couple
How long has it been? I wondered to myself as I sat with this couple across from me. Probably a year and a half.
I knew something had changed when the wife sat on the couch with her husband - instead of on either chair across from him where she'd sat for most of our sessions. Today the wife glowed with her unique combination of light, grace, joy, innocence, and playfulness.
Flirting with her husband, reaching out, touching him the room was filled with this radiant warmth and sexuality. It fluttered around and settled on us all. There were no words. There really was nothing to say but to savor.
I told thim when I first me with them the same thing I say to every couple. I don't know if it's right for you to stay together. But whatever you decide, let's find a way to do it with love, respect, kindness.
Well, they certainly did. There were times when I thought, gosh, I don't know. They may not make it together. The strife, the unspoken and spoken upsets, the small but chronic rejections were there. Yet, they moved through the struggle, the anger, the despair, the ruptures, and somewhere in the middle of all that they each found their own self - and each other.
As the husband readied to leave into the cold November evening he said he wished I would write more in this blog.
This is for him, for his wife, for all of us who sink into the unknown hiding the secret hope that life can get better while doubting it at the same time.
How lucky am I to see through the layers of pain and suffering into the shining truth that love prevails. What a gift to journey with people through such muck and anger and come through to warmth, connection and radiant love.
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