The harmony overcame me before
I understood where I was going…
Before I understood that I was falling…
I just can’t think when we sing together.
Your eyes, aquamarine, cause me to spin
toward a distant universe,
where we are in synch… in harmony.
Here I just come apart,
the harmonies, more than I can bare.
And I bare much with my song
because it fills my soul
with longing, and opens me to my core.
I will never reach for you…
except through a song,
sung gently through a heart aching to open.

Deanna Joseph
© July 6, 2009

© Deanna Joseph 2009

Unlike many of my Facebook friends, it took me a long time to start reconnecting with some old friends I haven’t seen in many, many, years.  Why?  Because I thought if we were meant to remain friends, we would have remained friends. 

We all change and grow.  I reconnected (briefly) with my old best friend from high school 13 years after graduation.  She was so different, and I was probably just that different too.  I found myself face to face with a girl I once shared all my secrets, joys and tears with, and all I could think of was how uncomfortable I was now simply being in her presence.   I was actually having dinner with a total stranger, and there was no common ground between us.  She was not someone I would EVER choose to be friends with now.

I always thought it would be easy to be friends again… but it’s not.

How is it that we can once care so deeply for someone, then it’s just gone?

I would guess that my old best friend and I were always very different from each other, but back then it didn’t matter.

Maybe lasting friendships are about looking past the expectations, and just seeing into the heart of each other.

Magic Tree photo by Ivan Trombley

As I walked down the forest path,
A path I’d never seen before,
I heard a song, so soft and sweet,
A song I’d never heard before,
I found a dream within a dream,
A dream I’d never had before,
Of smiling faces, brightly lit,
Of friends I’d never known before.
So walk ye gently, and keep kind heart
and know that those who’ve come before
are waiting with a hearth well lit,
for those who wander to their door.

(c) Deanna Joseph 2006

So, I had this dream, and he was sitting on the floor.  I could see him, but no one else could.  He told me he was stuck.  He’d been an atheist, but now that he was dead, he really needed to believe in something.  He tried to allow himself to cross over, but he just couldn’t quite manage it.  He was really afraid to let go.  So I hugged him, and then we talked for a bit.  Then I woke up.

But all morning I had the strangest feeling I wasn’t alone.  I could sense a presence around me, and it seemed so frustrated.  So finally I said “look, you’re dead.  You have no body now, right?  There is obviously something after the physical body dies or you would have already ceased to exist, right?”

There was no reply.  I hadn’t expected one.

I let myself see him in my mind’s eye.

I tried asking him how he’d died, and he pointed to his heart.  “Was it a heart attack?”  he shook his head.  “Was it a stroke?”  He shook his head and held his heart.

I wish I was better at this.

Sometimes our beliefs don’t match our experiences.  It’s okay to change our minds.

I think Craig is doing okay with his change of mind.

Things have been peaceful around here.

Deanna Joseph © July 21, 2010

The dress rehearsal has ended…
It’s time to begin, for real this time.
No looking back,
No wishing for something better,
No waiting for something to be perfect.
No props… no script…  no mood lighting.
The only time to live my life is…   now.
And so it begins.

© Deanna Joseph July 21, 2010

Generations

I vow to never put your children in danger because I’m driving and texting.  I vow to be present and aware while driving.  While I am driving, I will never expect you to look out for me because I’m so self centered that I think my text or cell phone call is more important than your safety.  I vow to drive with compassion, patience and presence.  I vow to see every life as infinitely more valuable and precious than my cell phone.  If you, too, take this vow, please share….

You are a point of light…

“She kept a stir in tower and trench,
That brawling, boisterous Scottish wench,
Came I early, came I late
I found Agnes at the gate.”

She was called “Black Agnes” because of her dark hair and complexion, though she could have just as easily received the nickname because of her fierce determination to protect her home, Castle Dunbar in Scotland, from invasion by the English.

In 1338 Lady Agnes Randolph, the Countess of Moray, was left in charge of Castle Dunbar, Scotland, as her husband, Patrick, the Lord and Earl of Dunbar and March, was out with his soldiers fighting the English in Northern Scotland.

As it happened, the Earl of Salisbury, William Montague (known to be one of the best commanders of his time), decided that with nearby Berwick taken by the English and with Patrick and his soldiers away and the Lady in charge, Castle Dunbar would be easy pickings for his English troops.

On January 13, 1338, The Earl of Salisbury marched on Castle Dunbar and demanded that Lady Agnes surrender to the English. However the Lady surprised the Earl by refusing to surrender to his troops and proudly proclaimed:

”Of Scotland’s King I haud my house, He pays me meat and fee,
And I will keep my gude and house, While my house will keep me.”

The surprised Earl set about having his soldiers hurl rocks and lead at the castle with catapults. However, when the assault was finished, Lady Agnes had her maids (who were dressed in their Sunday finest) dusting and sweeping the mess the English had made, and giving the impression that the Earl had done nothing more than simply annoy them.

At that point the Earl brought out his secret weapon, a giant battering ram, which he rolled right up to the front gate. However the Lady also had a secret weapon – she’d been saving some of the giant boulders that the Earl had hurled earlier, and she had her men drop them over the side of the castle and destroy the battering ram.

At this point the Earl decided that he needed to be a bit more clever, as this was no meek maiden he was dealing with. He decided to bribe one of the Lady’s guardsmen to let he and his men into the castle. However, after taking the payment, the guardsman immediately went to Lady Agnes and told her of his encounter with the Earl.

Later on the Earl and his soldiers, believing they were going to be sneaking into the castle, arrived at the opened gate. Believing that the Earl would the first to enter, the guardsman dropped the gate after the first solder had entered the castle. As the once again defeated Earl made his way back to his camp, the Lady Agnes shouted down to him from the castle walls;

“Fare thee well Montague, I meant that you should have supped with us and support us in upholding the castle from the English!”

Months and months passed, and the Earl decided that he would starve the brilliant Scotswoman and her small brigade out of their castle.

However, Castle Dunbar had a rocky beach to one side, and could not be completely surrounded by the Earl’s men. In the dark of the night, the locals would bring food and supplies to Castle Dunbar by way of the sea, and enter the castle through a secret door that was partially underwater!

As it was, the Earl and his own troops were running low on supplies, so you can imagine the Earl’s surprise when Lady Agnes sent out fresh bread and a bottle of wine.

Understandably at his wit’s end, the Earl commanded that John Randolph, the Earl of Moray and brother to Lady Agnes, be brought before him. The English commander demanded that John shout up to his sister that if she didn’t immediately surrender that he would be put to death.

Lady Agnes, however, pointed out that this was folly. If John were put to death, all his holdings would go to her as he had no children to pass them on to, and she would become the next Earl of Moray.

Montague recognized the error of this tactic and let her brother go.

On June 10, 1338, the Earl of Salisbury gave up and marched home.

Lady Agnes, who was in her early thirties, defeated the English army, and saved Castle Dunbar for Scotland.

From “Tithonus” by Lord Alfred Tennyson

The Roman goddess, Aurora, who blinded the stars with her radiance is the unattainable love in Tennyson’s poem, “Tithonus.”

Aurora is the goddess of the dawn, and to the Greeks she was known as Eos. Every morning she awakens, renewed and vibrant, to set a blanket of reds, oranges and pinks across the wakening sky; opening the gates of heaven so her brother Helios, the sun, can ride in his golden chariot across the sky.

The goddess had many lovers, and bore the winds and stars with the god Astraios. She deeply loved Orion, yet Orion was also loved by the goddess Artemis, who was tricked into killing him by her brother Apollo.

Some say that the goddess Aphrodite placed a curse upon Aurora which caused her to be rather free when giving of herself to men. Aurora eventually kidnapped four men, Cephalus, Clitus, Ganymede and Tithonus, to be her lovers. Ganymede was later stolen from her by Zeus to be his cup bearer and Cephalus longed to return to his mortal wife, so Aurora released him.

Tithonus, the prince of Troy, was her greatest lover. Her love for him was so strong that she asked Zeus, the king of the gods and goddesses, if he would grant her lover immortality so that they could be together for all time. Zeus, in a rather cruel gesture, granted immortality, but not youth, so Tithonus, though immortal, continued to age. His body eventually became so old and decayed that she laid him to rest in a room with shining doors where he remained until he shriveled up into a grasshopper.

Aurora and Tithonus had two children together, Memnon and Emathion. Memnon grew to be a great king, but was eventually killed by the mighty Greek warrior, Achilles, in the Trojan war. To this day Aurora is so distraught over the death of her son that her tears cover the earth as dew, as she flies across the skies every morning.

Moving can be like loosing a loved one.  Our energy lived in this space, and formed an attachment.

When we go, a piece of us will remain here until we call it back to us.

When we go, we are letting go of a piece of our lives to move forward into something new.

My friend Jennifer wrote something the other day… she said life is a series of rebirths and renewals.

I believe this as I look around the home that will soon be a memory.  We let go so we can move forward.

We cannot be in two places at once.