Peace, Love, Grief

August 20, 2023 / Hermionejh

There have been better days lately. I’ve been doing my best to fill up the friend-shaped space she once occupied.

We don’t know what, if anything, awaits us after this world, so it’s a crapshoot if we’ll ever meet again. We won’t have eyes to see one another, mouths to talk and share a laugh, or arms to give a hug, but we will recognize each other if we retain consciousness outside our body.

I saw another old friend today that I haven’t seen in years. He was part of our large mutual friend group when we were teens, and I’m grateful he hasn’t radically changed since then. Matured, yes, but still true to his essential self.

After we parted I was hit with a wave of loneliness or sadness that seemed outsized for the situation, but later realized that it was about belonging – and about loss, because my friend who died in May also belonged in our friend group.

It’s kind of silly that I wanted to cling to him emotionally, as if his presence would resurrect our friend, but she’s gone, and no one can bring her back.

We both had places to be, so we left, and I walked myself through the mental patch of grief left in his wake that he really had nothing to do with.

The starkness of grief can trigger my leftover childhood neglect trauma. It feels like standing alone in the midst of a crowd.

My inner peace comes from the center of my heart, because I have no peace without love, but it’s very hard to find the love without peace. Thankfully, it’s still possible, even if it’s only moments.

I’m still in my life. I have things to do and places to go. It’s ok to still be here. It will also be ok when I’m no longer here.

I wondered earlier today if the experiences we have and the knowledge we gain are not ours alone, but are directly feeding or enriching the spirit world.

It might be that that is not how any of this works, but it made me feel like I’m possibly contributing something worthwhile to the whole.

Who knows?

A Kind Of Immortality

August 8, 2023August 8, 2023 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

Books speak to me – especially if they’re an audio book. (bah-da-bump, tss)

The town library in Dennis, Massachusetts is a bright and lovely building to spend a rainy afternoon in.

I’m not sure what attracts me to the Cape. It’s certainly not the traffic or the folks who drive way under the speed limit as though they prefer just driving above all else. I am glad if they are having the time of their life. The 50 cars behind them are not.

I realized that it’s the coast that I love, the ocean, the lighthouses, and the history. The trails in every town take us out of the sitting and waiting and into the doing and enjoying.

We knew rain was forecast today, so we decided to visit a library rather than a museum. On the way, we found the Captain Baker Donut Shop in West Dennis. It was raining so hard we could barely see 10 feet in front of us, so stopping there was an excellent spur-of-the-moment decision. I only regret the calories. The donuts are amazing! – definitely worth the side trip.

The rain became less torrential once we got to the library, but it’s been pouring with off and on ferocity since we got here. The time for the tornado warning we got on our phones has passed, but the severe thunderstorm warning continues for the next several hours.

The rain drumming on the roof is pleasing as I write, but it’s the books that win my heart every time.

The mixture of smells from new and old paper bring me back to childhood, and the treasures I found at our school library which spurred me on to visit more libraries to see what they had.

My favorite discoveries at 11 years old were from Thornton Burgess, who grew up in Sandwich, Mass, on the Cape, I just learned.

His Mother West Wind, and his many animal stories captivated me. I also found The Wind In The Willows, by Kenneth Grahame, along with several other books that I have forgotten the titles of but nevertheless found new worlds to lose myself in.

I thought that teaching would be a good career because I loved reading and I wanted to share those stories (and maybe instill the love of reading in others), but teaching, I learned, was more about managing behavior. I had also hoped to write children’s literature, but the stories that live in my head don’t want to come out on paper – or I haven’t been able to coax them out so far.

Books represent a kind of safety for me. Knowledge isn’t just power, but escape as well. I imagine alternate paths or endings when I read books now, and I often grieve the end of a captivating book.

How I loved those characters! They took me on their journey (or journeys), and let me in on their secrets, their fears, their hopes and their dreams – whether or not they were able to realize or accomplish what it was they thought they wanted to do, or be, or have.

The best characters to me are those who fail, but don’t give up. I get to discover the outcome along with them, and makes me wonder about the outcome of my own life.

My friends who have died have lost their chance to create or progress, and I am doing what I can to take action so I’ll have less regret.

Libraries are full of dreams realized, work completed, and an offering given to all who wish to enter.

The most loved authors have reached a kind of immortality – until access to their works are lost forever.

While I cannot recall all of the books I’ve read (some of which I’m glad to have forgotten), there are those few whose lines still come into my consciousness at times and encourage me to continue on.

Good Grief

July 26, 2023 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

Time has been a strange concept for me. Sometimes I feel like my life has been one long day, and other times it feels like I’ve lived several lives since I was born.

I have clung to people in my past that didn’t cling back, even though we seemed so close at the time. I am lucky to still have a few people in my life that have been my friends through a lot if not most of the journey so far.

I try practicing the Buddhist idea of non-attachment, and try as I might, I still have attachments. I have put time, love and energy into people who seemed to feel the same, but have detached, or our connection didn’t mean to them what it meant to me.

We change. Our desires or our focus shifts and we either fall into, or choose, new groups of friends or acquaintances that give us more of what we’re looking for, maybe?

It’s about acceptance too. I keep hearing the lyric: “If you can’t be with the one you love, honey, love the one you’re with,” from Love The One You’re With by Stephen Stills.

I naively assumed that the people that were with me then experienced our connection the same way – that it mattered as much to them as it did to me.

It’s not bad or good, it just is. The challenge is to accept that. It’s not like I hadn’t been living my life anyway, but I have to incorporate it differently in my mind, and not interpret it like there is something wrong with me. There is nothing wrong with me – or at least nothing that the right pharmaceutical can’t dampen. (Kidding – sort of). I’m still waiting to get into a therapeutic psychedelics treatment.

Honestly, losing my mother, one of my best friends, and two other very good friends in the space of three years has been really hard. I miss my mom so much lately. It’s more the idea of her, I think – like my longing for someone to make my pain less raw. It’s more archetypal than actual because my mother wouldn’t have won any parenting awards. I think I did better, but guaranteed I still fucked up my kid no matter how hard I tried not to.

This has felt so convoluted, but it’s not, it’s grief. Grief is weird and distorting. It feels never ending and frightening to me – like if I feel it deeply I will dive into the darkness and never resurface – but that’s just not true.

Amnesia seems like it would be an ideal solution, but that would just cause other problems. Balance will return, but it will take a lot longer if I keep stuffing this grief under every internal couch cushion I can find, or shoving it way into my psyche’s back closet.

To Everything…

April 23, 2023May 10, 2023 / Hermionejh / 6 Comments

All morning the rain has fallen, soaking the greening ground in my northeastern town. The growing season is here – the birds trill out their morning song most days, but not today.

The birds are sheltering in while the hard rain falls. Only the deer venture out from the woods to eat the fresh tender shoots.

Spring mornings feel gentle, though I know strenuous work has been (and continues) happening to break new buds open, to push up the snow drops, crocuses, daffodils and tulips from the hard, cold earth in rapid succession.

So many trees and flowers are gorgeous with their blooms, but standing out are the yellows of daffodils, dandelions and forsythia blooms that are now bursting out along their stems.

I once learned at a Chinese medicine workshop that spring is the season of anger, and yellow is its color. That anger offers the force needed to push through the semi-frozen, hard-packed soil of my mind.

It’s a losing proposition to try to regulate my emotions well, and lately The Byrds’ version of Turn, Turn, Turn plays in my mind several times a day as I keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Pete Seeger arranged passages from the biblical book of Ecclesiastes:

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time for every purpose, under Heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together…

Death is as close as life, but I act as though I will be here forever so endings always feel too soon.

I know it’s fear. I shouldn’t fear the ‘unknown’ because I once knew it, if I were somewhere before I was here – and the conservation of energy tells me that I was because energy is neither created nor destroyed. Energy can only be transformed or transmuted. While that could be comforting, it does not comfort or console.

I don’t know what it was like before this time. I don’t know if I had any senses to determine anything. It appears that this is a unique experience.

Do we report back somewhere? If I am taken to account will I quiver in a dark corner for eternity?

It’s important to me to do my best in this world – whatever my best has looked like, and whatever it will continue to look like until I die.

Another biblical passage from I-don’t-care-where reads that ‘the wages of sin are death.’ Like a bulb flash the other day, I understood that the payment for being born (sin) is death. It’s as simple as that. It’s not a judgement, it’s a fact.

Another passage allegedly from Jesus, is that ‘those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life will keep it forever.’ To me that speaks to the ‘middle way.’ Don’t be overly attached, or despairing. This was always temporary.

That still doesn’t answer what the point of having a flesh body is, except that it is a singular experience, I guess.

Maybe we reincarnate and maybe we don’t. Maybe the physical world is like choosing an adventure package from the spirit realm. Maybe there are infinite worlds we can inhabit in different forms – or maybe we never have to leave home and can learn about it from others? I suppose that would make experiencing it for oneself attractive. (Suckers!)

(Maybe being in a flesh body is more like the carnival in Tom Sawyer where you pay your entrance fee, but there is nothing to see inside – you’ve been suckered – but you leave and tell those about to enter how great it is.)

I can ponder the unknowable all day and I will be right back where I am now, no closer to understanding a damn thing. The clue has always been right there in bold type: it’s UNKNOWABLE.

All I can do is focus on the moment.

What stones am I gathering? What should I cast away? Is that something I can know? I think I should cast away what hinders me – but with all the practice from all the therapy and knowledge I have gained throughout my life, I still haven’t cast much away!

I don’t want any of my people to leave this world while I’m here, but so many already have – and one day – sooner than I can imagine, I will too. I just really hope it doesn’t suck.

Burning Bright

March 28, 2023April 4, 2023 / Hermionejh / 3 Comments

She laughed and smiled, and went home planning to die.

She drank or drugged to feel different, and for several beautiful minutes she felt whole and worthy, but it was so brief, and it didn’t fill the gaping hole of worthlessness.

Justifying her existence became her job. Hiding became her daily pursuit. Hiding in plain sight.

She couldn’t afford to let you know her even though she was desperate to be known, to be loved, to be accepted – to matter.

Every failure confirmed her lack of value, and she told herself that everyone knew she was shit – it was a pheromone radiating off of her.

Shame was her cloak – its vile fabric wrapping its folds so tightly around her.

She didn’t even know she had fallen back into the pit. She had reopened all the old escape hatches, but they didn’t hide her anymore.

Until she remembered, and really understood that she had to change her self-beliefs – to love her unlovable self, and learn to act differently, nothing could change.

Living was becoming unendurable, but she was still too afraid to kill herself. In a fog of self-loathing, she was gifted the memory of once having worked hard to like herself – even reaching a sense of love and self-worth.

“No one provides worth or value,” came the small voice. “It is always self-derived. It was never fostered as a child – that shame belonged to others who failed their duties. But it’s still possible,” said the voice.

“Let the flicker become a brilliant blaze, and know that all fires go out if they are not fed. And a fire will burn whatever fuel its given – so feed it worthy fuel.”

Addendum: It’s also okay to borrow fuel from others if all you have is shit to burn.

Messages To The Future

January 17, 2023February 22, 2023 / Hermionejh / 3 Comments

Maybe so much of my depression has been because of all the false starts, or half-hearted attempts at completing creative projects. I hear my therapy sessions whispering that my procrastination was and is not laziness. (It’s the PTSD, stupid. It’s the trauma.)

I know the best way out is through, but how long is through? An entire lifetime? I feel like I’m missing out on life’s best moments while hitting all of life’s pitfalls. I guess I need to carry a ladder – but ladders are cumbersome aren’t they?

I know some would just say to avoid the pitfalls, but, for me, that’s like saying “just stop breathing.” So, until I figure out how to no longer need a ladder up and out of these setbacks, I will continue working on a lightweight, fold-able, unobtrusive ladder that works for me.

“Works for me” is the key phrase – for all of us. Maybe what I do is the absolute opposite of what you should do. Maybe the ladder you built, or found, or have always had and used with ease is not attainable for me. Maybe all the guru spewing, consciousness-raising, ego-deflating advice isn’t helpful.

The best I can say is that I hope I find what is important to a more creative life and way less struggle – but I’ll keep championing myself, and us, in the collective struggle, and challenges, and also revel in our victories.

On my doctor’s wall is a framed statement by Brené Brown:

What we don’t need in the midst of struggle is shame for being human.

She also has a sticker on her laptop that says “I love drug users,” so she’s a pretty cool doc. She’s working to address the opioid crisis, while acknowledging that the war on drugs has been a big fail.

The opposite of addiction is connection. Sometimes it’s connection to ourselves most of all.

The ability to choose something different, to hope – to persevere in spite of circumstances – takes self-love, and compassion. And it is creative, even if it’s the smallest speck of belief that I will rise, and that I will complete what’s important to me before my time comes.

There Was A Wedding

October 27, 2022December 22, 2022 / Hermionejh

My son and his lovely partner got married on October 1, 2022.

We do not have many rituals from childhood into adulthood in our collective culture in the United States of America. The Jewish religious tradition has bat and bar mitzvahs when their children reach age 13. A religious and ceremonial rite of passage relieves parents of responsibility for their child’s actions, which is transferred to those adolescents. Aboriginal males have, or had, a ritual of going into the wilderness on their own during their adolescence to transition from childhood into adulthood, to name two examples built into ones’ culture. The closest we have in the United States is getting a driver’s license – and then being able to go to war at age 18. Being legally able to drink alcohol is another dubious distinction of entering adulthood between age 18 to 21, depending on what state you live in.

But marriage seems like a larger ritual because the betrothed enters into an agreement of commitment to another person. The divorce rate belies the seriousness of that commitment, but the institution of marriage is still a serious one that you have to legally separate from if that time comes.

I remember hearing that marriage is for the other person in the relationship, not for yourself. It took me a while to understand what that meant, but now I see that if you’re not fully in it for your partner’s well-being, why are you getting married?

An unexpected passage happened to me. I have been aware of my entrance into older adulthood, but their marriage somehow cemented my position as “elder”. I know I already have been, but I don’t feel “old”. I feel like I’m still in my 20’s or 30’s most of the time, but this is different. This seems like a spiritual journey rather than physical. I have entered a new phase, just as they have. While they welcomed it, and rejoiced, it’s going to take more settling into this aspect for me. Maybe if I had a ritual for myself it would be easier to take?

My son and his partner did a handfasting ritual which was beautiful to see, and did this wicce’s heart proud.

I wished them enough of all that they need and want throughout their journey together, and I look forward to becoming a “Glamma” in the near future (a mom can dream).

“I look back on my life like a good day’s work; it was done and I feel satisfied with it. I was happy and contented. I knew nothing better and made the best out of what life offered. And life is what we make it, always has been – always will be.”
Anna Mary Robertson (Grandma Moses) 1860 – 1961

The Years Teach Much

May 19, 2022 / Hermionejh / 1 Comment

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote “The years teach much which the days never know,” and as time goes on I feel that much deeper.

I carry a weighty sadness for not being able to get out of my own way through the years, and I don’t know whether I was just lazy, or didn’t really want what I said I wanted, or what I said mattered, or if it truly was that most of the time getting through my day was a laudable accomplishment.

I have so many questions if this is not a random universe and my being is not an astounding stroke of luck in such a universe.

I don’t know what the difference is between someone who attains their goals and lives a fulfilled life and someone who doesn’t – even when they sincerely try – or believe they sincerely try.

It’s not like nothing happened. A whole life was lived and managed – for better or worse.

I grew up, procreated, and am coming into my declining years – kicking and screaming.

I am a writer. I am writing. I have been an actor, and I have been a singer – in a band even!

Those were the goals I had. The famous part eluded me. Maybe that’s a good thing.

I was a hurt, vulnerable person in a sick and suffering world, and likely would have been prey as I had been anyway – but maybe not. There is no control me to know for sure.

Maybe I would have had protection from the predators – or lots of dumb luck.

Or I could have died in a back alley somewhere, or become what was done to me.

I did none of that.

I did want to end me – sometimes still do – but it’s far less than it was (most of the time.)

Worries about facing consequences in a spiritual realm kept me from offing myself – that and my son.

I rose as much as I fell though. I battled my way back after every down turn. The problem is the cycle never ended. It was exhausting. It is exhausting.

I couldn’t find a medication that worked, or that I could tolerate. I know several people who have said that they would likely not be alive if they had not found the right medication. Why am I such an anomaly?

That’s rhetorical. I just am, is the answer. It’s not personal. It just sucks.

If I did choose this, why can’t I un-choose it? If karma is real, what the hell did I do (or what hell did I do)? Why don’t we remember how we screwed up before so we can avoid repeating it?

I look around at the world and it seems to be on a perpetual rinse and repeat doom cycle everywhere.

If there is a harmonious, functioning, peaceful society who won’t tolerate predators, they have hidden themselves well away from the rest of us. If there’s a secret handshake, or phrase, or code – I want to find it out and join them.

The Story So Far – A Pirate’s Tale

April 30, 2022May 1, 2022 / Hermionejh / 4 Comments

Did I ever tell you that I grew up on a pirate vessel?

There were eight total – a small pirate crew – nine if you counted the dog.

Yes, it is unusual to have a dog on a pirate ship.

She was a good dog though. The best.

She knew when storms were brewing, and the crew knew to heed her ears down and tail lowered.

The captain was like most pirate captains you read about – abusive, demanding, unpredictable.

The captain’s wife was part of the crew. Again – super unusual.

I would not have wanted to be first mate on this ship.

First mate is a misnomer, by the way, or at least it was on this ship.

The captain trusted no one to run the ship, but demanded more than was possible from the first mate – and second – and the whole crew. As you imagine, the crew was bone weary before the ship was very far out to sea.

But out to sea she went, that shitty old vessel.

The crew was constantly plugging leaks, and even though they did their best job (and also never signed up to be pirates), they were met with the captain’s insane demands for more and better.

The youngest of the crew had the misfortune to be incorrigible. Because he was so different, and the captain’s wife promised to keep him out of sight and doing the only thing he was good at, which was taking things apart (whether they needed to be or not), he was left mostly alone.

The captain drank – a lot – as many captains are rumored to do – and the more he drank, the more onerous his instructions and demands. Even the captain’s wife began imbibing as much as the captain, and their fighting became more and more ferocious until finally the captain challenged his wife to a duel.

Ok, there wasn’t actually a challenge, but the captain did tell his wife to walk the plank because he wanted to see how quickly the sharks would get her.

She did walk the plank with the captain’s musket trained on her – and she plunged into the murky depths.

The rest of the crew did not know what to do. And only three of them were on deck when the captain challenged her thus, and they got themselves below decks as fast as possible and started pushing barrels and crates, and all manner of objects to thwart the captain’s attempts at finding new targets.

Turns out, the captain’s wife jumped straight into a pod of humpback whales on their way to their breeding grounds, and they took pity on the strange creature they seemed to know was not of the sea (the lack of gills or fins was probably a giveaway).

The whales surrounded and buoyed her up to the stern where she was able to climb onboard unnoticed by the captain.

But the whales weren’t done.

The captain’s wife edged her way toward the ladder to reach the crew below decks and assess any damage in her absence while the captain screamed obscenities from the bow into the night air.

The captain was so enraged that he walked onto the plank, challenging Poseidon himself to a duel.

The whales took that very moment to ram the ship’s side, and the captain fell open-mouthed into the drink.

The first mate climbed up to the deck to see what had bashed into the ship, and he saw the captain flailing about in the sea.

He turned away and set a new course to the first harbor without a backward glance.

Most of the crew came back on deck to assess the damage for themselves, surprised and delighted to see a group of whales breaching nearby, spouting and gamboling through the deep.

Several crew mates watched as the whales surrounded the flailing captain before dragging him down to Davey Jones’ locker.

The captain’s wife, unaccustomed to freedom, decided to finish the barrel of rum left in the hold and was no good to anyone for the rest of the trip.

The crew managed the best they could until they found the nearest land.

The youngest crew member did not come above board after the captain was relieved of his command because he had been terrified by the captain’s screaming, and the whale’s blows against the ship, and convinced himself that rival pirates were about to come aboard and kill the whole crew.

He locked himself in the hold and ran in circles until he finally knocked himself out when he ran into a beam he mistook for a group of marauding pirates.

After the crew docked at Satan’s Den, the nearest harbor the first mate found, the crew disembarked, carrying the unconscious youngest crew member with them.

They found shelter above the village tavern.

The two oldest crew mates sold the pirate vessel for a more seaworthy ship, replenished their stores, and told the crew that they were setting out for the new world. The captain’s wife was sad to see them go, but she chose to stay ashore and kept the four other crew members with her.

Later, in relief at being liberated from the terrible captain, the captain’s wife went down to the tavern where there was laughter and drink, and she stayed all night.

The rest of the weary crew went up to their quarters and slept.

The next morning, the captain’s wife was nowhere to be found, so the four crew members talked about what they should do. They decided to set out from Satan’s Den to find a life away from the sea.

The youngest crew members missed the captain’s wife, and after tearful goodbyes with the next two oldest crew members, they turned back to Satan’s Den to wait for her return.

The captain’s wife did return several days later when the youngest crew members were about to give up hope, but she seemed annoyed at seeing them waiting for her.

She told them that a group of landlubbers she met at the tavern told her about a life she could never have imagined existed, and they wanted her to come with them. She reluctantly said the youngest two crew members could come with her.

They looked at each other, each deciding that their best chance at survival was following the captain’s wife.

Unfortunately, the youngest crew member only knew how to function out at sea, and even though the next oldest tried to help him learn the ways of being on land, he told her that dragons were surrounding them and wanted to burn them and eat them.

Even though the older crew member could not see the dragons, the youngest insisted they were there.

She didn’t know what to do, and the captain’s wife had started out without them.

The youngest was too afraid to live on the land or at sea, and even though she tried and tried, she could not help him.

She gave him all she knew how to give, and told him where she would be if he ever needed her.

And that’s the story so far.

Go Tell It On The Mountain

March 14, 2022 / Hermionejh

James Baldwin’s book: Go Tell It On The Mountain is a masterful work.

Set in three sections, the narrative weaves the struggle of a family and its individual components through their church lives, and their salvation or resistance to their salvation.

What happens around them and throughout their experience as black people, whether in the south or in the north, elevates the characters’ deep existence in God’s world. Their religious belief and expression is their answer to enduring senseless violence and unwarranted hatred threaded throughout their lives.

The themes of sin and redemption, or striving for redemption, of rage, and of being saved – yet still a sinner – is felt in each page, in each individual’s journey.

As the novel opens with the eldest son, John, recalling his family’s church rituals and ‘the sinners’ the family passes on their way to Sunday services, the reader peeks at the family’s life in Harlem through John’s eyes. John expresses embarrassment by the demeanor and characters of the ‘sinners’ they pass as the family walks the four blocks to their storefront church, where their father is a deacon. John’s brother Roy expresses amusement at the ‘sinners’ behavior he witnesses as they walk past, and he expresses an attraction to that life.

Snatches of gospel song and verse propel the narrative forward through the several main characters’ thoughts and experiences, while the women elders and other sisters of the church, hover in the background, or come forward in prayer for the characters’ collective and individual souls throughout.

Instances of the family’s reality in a white world are shown through several scenes, but do not overpower the narrative of these characters’ lives. The reader experiences the world of the various characters and their choices, but are left to make of it what they will as they are propelled through the pages in a sometimes raw and dreadful torment.

The narrative compels the reader to bear witness – to understand the requirements of God to these characters – a forsaken people and their cries into the wilderness. The reader is kept rooted in each character’s living reality outside of the church, while unfurling a deep sense of these lives, and in the lives of their community through their spiritual connections and disconnections, and knowledge that their nearness to God is their only succor inside or outside of the human world.