Tag Archives: depression

RITUALS AND HABITS

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This morning the sky is overcast, but the leaves are still the greenest green and I am a shade paler than blue.  I have been caught unaware by ‘forces’ and inattention.  I have allowed myself be invaded by energies of not my liking.  Perhaps I am talking too much, revealing too much.  I am being vulnerable.

So what?  I am, after all, just a mortal being.  And if I have all these feelings and experiences, there must be other people going through similar things.  And if no one talks and shares, we will be isolated like islands in the stream- with no Dolly Parton to sail away with.

I am working hard to bring myself back to center.  I am paying attention and setting intentions.  It is those rituals and habits that save the day.  One of my favourite phrase from Regina Brett is:  Get up, dress up and show up.  I remember that on mornings when getting up is hard to do.  You see things in different perspective when you’re up and standing tall.  So when I remember, I change my point of view…like changing my walk route with Sheba.  I do get lost sometimes by going in a different direction.

Getting lost is not a bad thing.  Getting lost makes you slow down and get your bearing.  You focus, you think, you observe, you see.  I see that I don’t have to rush and find the answer right away.  I see that I have time to breathe, to look around, to find my directions, to find me.

So this morning I got up, dressed up and showed up.  I made my cup of tea and did my qigong exercises, throwing out my stagnant chi.  I focused and felt my energy field.  I set my intentions.  I breathed.  Everything is copacetic.

SUMMER TIME

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IMG_5235It is summer time and I am looking out the window at the greenest green.  It is ironic that I am feeling my bluest blue.  Beneath the blue I can feel my red anger bubbling through at the Power that made me this way.  But I suppose that HE has a reason.  That is what Caroline Myss says.  There are no accidents.  There is a plan, a story, a drama to be played out.  I will wait and see.

I will sit and stay with my feelings and not run away.  If I expect Sheba to listen to me, I have to listen to myself first.  Sit and stay.  Nothing will hurt me…. even when the clouds cast a shadow over me,  I feel my skin crawl and someone is walking over my grave.  Sit and stay.  Everything is copacetic…A okay!

I sit and count my blessings.  I sit and feel my discomfort, my pain.  I sit and do my breath counts. I sit and plan my projects, the books I will write…on my life and times as a child in China, as an immigrant in a small town, as a nurse, as a…… I breathe in and out, counting the cross stitches on my Jesus picture.  I see the loaves of bread and the potato biscuits I made yesterday.  I sit and see the joy running in Sheba and I know that there is a higher power and purpose and know that this, too, shall pass.

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And now, it is time to get up and MOVE…and do all those ordinary little things that add up to a life.

THE PARK AND THE OTHER THING

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I have always love Richard Harris’ rendition of MacArthur’s Park even though he is really not a singer and the lyrics are sappy.  I guess it’s a love song.  Can it be a love song if it’s about a breakup of a love affair?  Just listen to the chorus.

MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don’t think that I can take it
‘Cause it took so long to bake it
And I’ll never have that recipe again, oh no

Sometimes I feel like I’m the cake in the rain, my icing melting in the dark.  Sometimes I don’t think I can put myself back together again.  Recipes are hard to come by, you know.  You always think you are the only one, but experience has taught me that I don’t have exclusive claims to all the misery.  I have plenty of company.  A lot of us are in the park with our dogs, melting in the rain, or freezing our buns in the cold.  We provide good company for each other.

I’ve been done with misery for quite awhile now.  I still get my blues now and then and you all know I can get real cranky like a little Chihuahua.    But I have met people there with real misery.  They look very ordinary, just like you and me.  Most of them are full of energy and joy.  They have to keep up with their dogs, right?  Then you hear their stories.

One woman lost her husband to suicide.  He hung himself.  They were going through a divorce.  Another told me she just got diagnosed with cancer.  A fair number of us just got plain old depression, Winston’s Churchill’s black dog.

So it’s not bad company.  We walk and talk.  Sometimes we fall down, tripping over our dogs playing too close.  But we get up, dust ourselves off and continue on.  That’s how you live…fall down and get up.  Richard Harris sings it better.

There will be another song for me
For I will sing it
There will be another dream for me
Someone will bring it
I will drink the wine while it is warm
And never let you catch me looking at the sun
And after all the loves of my life
After all the loves of my life, you’ll still be the one

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