Union

Union
Lynda Allen

A piano is simply wood and wire,
ivory and ebony,
pedals and legs,
until a soul lit with song allows music to flow through them.
Then heart and fingers, join with keys and chords
and a melody is born of their union.

A human life is simply flesh and blood,
bones and muscles,
thought and feeling,
until a soul lit with Spirit allows light to flow through them.
Then joy and love join with heart and mind
and Grace is born of their union.

Sanctuary

This is another exploration prompted by something someone wrote in the Hospice writers' group that struck a chord with me. The phrase was, "be home to those who come into your life." When she read that part my brain stopped listening for a moment and said, "write that down, pay attention." So I did. 

I then wrote about it during the group and I wrote about it again this morning beside Mother River. The results are below. I am including the whole writing process because it was interesting to me to see how I got from one place to another through the words. The theme is the same throughout.

Be home to those who come into your life. Be a place of peace and rest, a safe place to simply be, without worry or maybe even a safe place to go ahead and worry. Be home to those who come into your life. Welcome them as family and friends; feed them as my Italian mother would, let them find shelter within the walls of your heart.

Hold each visitor, each guest in your life with compassion.  You don’t know the steps of their journey. What if this was their last step? Would you want that footfall to find a loving place to land and feel supported? What if it is your last step? Would you want it to be taken walking a path of compassion and love? Be home to all those who come into your life.

Be home to those who come into your life. Not be a home, but be home. Be the energy of home. A safe place of comfort, a place where you are known and loved. A place to which you can always return, a place of origin. Be heaven to all who come into your life. Welcome them within the walls of your heart, the sanctuary of your heart.

Sanctuary

Throw wide the doors and windows. Let the light and love within shine forth without restraint. Let the light within outshine even the sun. Scrub down the walls and floors. Cushion the seats and make ready the wine and food. Then welcome all into the sanctuary. Let them feel safe and warm. Let them feel comforted and loved. Let them feel they are known and honored there. Let them feel the returning to home where they are always welcome. Let them walk without hesitation within the sanctuary of your heart.

Sanctuary

Let my heart be a sanctuary.

Let all feel safe within its walls.

Let each feel welcome there as if returning home.

Let each feel loved and known,

comforted and seen.

Let all find peace and abiding joy,

a well of love unending.

Let all touch heaven within the sanctuary of my heart.

If Everything Can Disappear

This was inspired by a writing prompt from a Hospice writers' group that I am volunteering with. The prompt was, if everything can disappear. It came in a very stream of consciousness way and I like the natural rhythm it came with. 

If Everything Can Disappear

by Lynda Allen

If everything can disappear in a moment, in the blink of an eye, without knowing it’s coming, without saying goodbye, without warning, without.

Then what is there to hold on to? If I hold you tightly enough can I keep you here, eternally, not going without goodbye, but together always?

If everything can disappear without explanation, without rhyme or reason, then how do I reason, how do I make sense of it, of anything?

Why cling to life or you or anyone, if it can disappear as if it never existed, as if you never existed, leaving only the wispy threads of memory?

If everything can disappear then clinging, grasping serves no purpose, you can only hold water in your hands for so long before it drips away.

Yet, as I hold the water I can feel its coolness on my palms, I can touch my lips to it and drink, I can see my own reflection on its smooth surface.

If everything can disappear first it must appear, appear in all its glory, in all its beauty, in all its joy and sorrow and love and grief.

So I will drink from the waters of life as they pass through my fingers, celebrate them, feel their joy and grief and love and look for my reflection in you.

If everything can disappear.

September 6, 2013

A country song for Sherlock fans....

I'm not really a song writer by trade, more of a poet, but I'm a Sherlock fan and these words just came to me one day. I dedicate it to all you Sherlock fans out there who have left your loved ones behind just to see what he and Watson would do next. :)

No Shit Sherlock
by Lynda Allen

It happened one night

‘Long round nine o’clock

He turned me away saying,

Sorry darlin’ it’s time for Sherlock.

That’s when I knew

Though I didn’t want it to be true

That’s when I knew Holmes

Had ruined our happy home.

I couldn’t believe

He would turn me away

Just to hear what freaking Watson

Had to say

That’s when I knew

Though I didn’t want it to be true

That’s when I knew Holmes

Had ruined our happy home.

Sadly, I went to our room

Our once happy love nest

I packed everything that was mine

And left all the rest.

The light of the TV

Lit his damn face

And I called out,

"I’m finally leaving this place."

That’s when I knew

Though I didn’t want it to be true

That’s when I knew Holmes

Had ruined our happy home.

With my hand on the door

Finally he looked up in shock,

"You’re walking out and leaving me?"

I just smiled and said, "No shit Sherlock."

©2012 Lynda Allen

The Colors of Grief

There has been much sadness for me of late. During the month of July three people I know have passed away. One was not unexpected I guess, though always a miracle is hoped for, and the other two were unexpected. Neither way lessens the sadness.

I have been working with a concept for a while now about grief, which the butterfly taught me; mourn the caterpillar but celebrate the butterfly. So in my heart there is, in part, celebration for the transformation and return to pure Spirit that these souls have undergone. Yet, there is also the part that is grieving. That is the part of my heart that I listened to tonight.

The Colors of Grief
Lynda Allen

What is the color of grief?
What hue the hole in a heart?
What shade emptiness?

Tradition would have it be black,
somber and dark.
Music might have it be blue,
mournful and sad.
But what of light?
What color light would grief be?

The essence you brought was a light,
a beacon.
Perhaps then, this mortal form
is but a way to transform light,
a prism.
Shining from the spirit
through the body,
into life as the limitless colors of you.

Each expression and action had its own shimmering shade.
Each smile a slightly different red.
Each raised eyebrow a kind of blue.
Each laugh a vibrant, iridescent violet.
Each beat of your loving heart an orange I had never before seen.
Each compassionate word a unique and gentle yellow.
Each caring touch wrapped in a bouquet of greens.
Each song you sang brought a burst of indigo.

My grief therefore, cannot be limited to one color,
like you, it is a brilliant rainbow,
painful for the eyes to linger upon
and yet too beautiful to look away.

Reverently, I take up a life’s great brush with both hands,
and paint a portrait of you
using all the colors of grief.


In honor of Sibylle Borger, Lisa Rakoczy and Ralph Davis

A Wish on a Shooting Star

The tradition is to make a wish on a shooting star. Well I do have a wish to make, but not on your traditional shooting star from the heavens. It’s more related to the kind of shooting star referenced in the Bad Company song by the same name. The lyrics keep running through my head, Don’t you know that you are a shooting star – And all the world will love you just as long – As long as you are – A shooting star.

I don’t really get into the whole celebrity culture thing, though admittedly I did when I was younger with posters of U2 and Sting in my room.  And there aren’t a whole lot of TV shows I get hooked on anymore. However, my daughters did get me to start watching Glee a few years ago. For me it’s kind of like the Breakfast Club in TV form, where all the misfits (even the popular ones) find a place to be themselves and feel accepted.  Only in Glee, they sing about everything.  It’s a fun show that we like to watch together.

As you probably already know, one of the “stars” of Glee, Cory Monteith, recently died due to a combination of drugs and alcohol. He was 31 years old. For me it also brought to mind the death of River Phoenix, an incredibly talented actor who also died young. I remember feeling so sad at his death.

It set me to wondering about these shooting stars. Of course we will never know exactly what drove them to the choices they made and I know that no one forced them to do the things that they did, but I do wonder about this celebrity culture we have created and where our responsibility lies. I believe it’s worth thinking about. I also wonder about the loved ones they left behind.  

So here’s the wish (wishes really) I would make on Cory’s shooting star. I wish for a culture where we don’t put you on a pedestal. I wish for a world where just because you are a well-known actor, we don’t make you out to be more than just the human being with normal human feelings that you are. I wish we didn’t make it so easy for you to have access to the things you can take that will hurt you. Because I’m willing to bet that our overcrowded prisons are not overcrowded with the people who sell drugs to celebrities or with the doctors who give them prescriptions for things they might not really need. I wish we had a justice system that actually held you accountable for your actions, rather than letting you off easy the first 50 times. I wish that we held ourselves accountable for the pedestals we put you on, and for the way we treat you in public, as if you owed us something just for being famous. Most of all Cory, I wish we didn’t overvalue you and your beautiful self, so that you could come to know how much value your life has all on your own. Perhaps then, you might still be with us today to continue shining that bright light of yours. Finally, I wish I never have to make this wish again.

Negative Space

Just last week I completed my training as a volunteer at Mary Washington Hospice. I sat in on a writing group that is available to those who are grieving. Little did I know that this week one of the writing topics for the group would become so personal.

It’s not so much an empty chair, as an empty spot in the circle. It’s not really even a circle anymore, because there is a hole where she used to sit.

Now I truly understand what they mean by negative space in art. Wikipedia defines it as, “the space around and between the subject(s) of an image. Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, and not the subject itself, forms an interesting or artistically relevant shape, and such space is occasionally used to artistic effect as the "real" subject of an image.”

In this case, that hole in the circle, that negative space truly is the “real” subject of the image in my mind. It is an image of a school room lit by sunlight with a carpet at one end for sitting upon when it’s time to gather and share, or for sitting upon when it’s time to work.  It is an image of a safe space where children are the focus and where teachers are friends and guides, partners in learning. It is an image that includes my young daughter’s face either intense with concentration or filled with the excitement of having learned something new that she wants to show me. It is an image of a peaceful place of learning. Before this week, in that image there was a dedicated woman, a dedicated teacher offering the gift of a lifetime of joy in learning. The unexpected and tragic loss of her life is what now creates the negative space in the image of that circle in my mind.

Due to the sadness I feel, I’m tempted to label the space negative in the sense that negative is bad. However, I can’t label the space that way due to the woman that used to sit there. What she left behind is much too positive for that. She was gentle and giving, patient and kind. In truth that space where she used to sit isn’t empty at all. It is filled with the love she gave, it is filled with the lessons she taught, it is filled with the laughter of children, the excitement of learning to read, the joy of friendship. That space is positive because it still radiates the love she offered to so many children, it still radiates the joy of learning that she instilled. The circle is complete after all, despite the ache I feel.

For Miss Sibylle

July 3, 2013