Oh, We're Not Done Yet...

(click to enlarge if you have a hard time reading)

Ram Dass once said his relationship with his guru actually grew closer after Maharaj-ji left this life.

I understand how that could be true.

I know I said I wouldn't leave you hanging like so many other blogs that simply end but this just hasn't been a good time to be so immediately public with what has transpired for me since Michael passed. I'm still not prepared to say much in this format but I will tell you I have been well for those of you who may have worried, or simply wondered.

That is not to say that I have not had times of deep sadness and despair, for I certainly have had those. Sometimes they arise for reasons I can understand and sometimes I have been blasted right in the middle of the most mundane activities. Grief is a journey that seems to have a life of its own and I have certainly not been immune.

In all honesty those times of devastating sadness have not been the worst. The worst times have been the grey times. The times when I have just been stuck in space. Not sad. Not happy. Not anything. Just suspended in time, unable to achieve escape velocity from the psychic limbo I have been in. It hasn't been a physical limbo. I've been up and dressed every day. I've cooked. Entertained. Hiked. Reconnected with friends I haven't seen in years. But internally as soon as I am alone I too often just languish in nothingness.

It is frightening how easy it is to do that. How possible it would be to live like that for a long, long time.

But despite the grey and the black times I will tell you in all honesty that a part of me from the day Michael passed has felt that not all that much is really different. This was a point he stressed with me many times before he departed. He was in his body suit and leaving it was no different than taking off a shirt he would tell me. And anyone who was around him had to know, intuitively, that he was so much bigger than the body he was trapped in. Anyone who saw his body after he had departed it saw clear evidence that his spirit was absolutely magnificent in how it was able to animate a shell that was so, so battered and bruised by life. It was astounding to see his corpse. I'll never forget it. It was the clearest evidence of our spiritual nature that I have ever witnessed.

And it is scenes like the one depicted in the photo above that assure me that what Ram Dass said was not just plausible, but true. Michael has become an even more powerful teacher for me since he has been gone. Make of that what you will but whenever I do get myself out of my funk enough to get back to my practices he is there, his energy is there, sometimes in his words or notes, sometimes echoed in some crazy synchronicity or an uncanny occurence, sometimes in a thought that blasts me in a way that only he could do when he was here...so many different ways...the conversation he and I have been having for so many years has not ended. It isn't a work of my imagination, or reflection on the past, or my trying to hang on to what we had while he was here. I know he's dead, in terms of this physical plane. In every dream I have had with him in it, he is always dead. So is my Dad.

The continued "teaching" if you will that I am talking about is different. It's getting me into territory that Michael and I didn't really cover while he was here but that I can clearly see is an extension of points he was making to me, or things he predicted I might gain awareness of. It's a furthering of what was started, not a rehashing.

Again, I leave you to decide what you are going to think of that. I'm not interested in challenging your views of what does or doesn't happen after death. I telling you what my experience has been (is), not what I have believed or have hoped for or longed for. You may interpret what I share in whichever way you choose.

I love him no less, not one bit less than when he was here physically. He still makes me laugh and our humor is just a offbeat as it was (possibly moreso). He still corrects my course. He still shows me exactly what I need to see just when I need it.

It's good. It's not always been easy but that's only when I don't show up for class. When I show up ready to work I find myself smiling without even trying. In flashes of moments I even feel joy. And maybe with time and discipline the showing up will be easier and I'll spend less time in Funky Town and those flashes of joy won't be so brief.

So if I'm not here for a while it's just because it's a more internal time. And because I don't know exactly where this will lead me I'm not sure what the fate of this blog, in this form, will be.

Now, rumor has it the Blackhawks are playing...bye for now.

Comments

[Paul Macellari]

In the words of Kahil Gibran
" A friend who is away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand.Is not the mountain far more awe inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?"
While your growth comes with pain, smile at its presence. Master Gibran would also say that "your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding"

[Laura]

Amen. I was doing some reading last night in a similar vein and it hit this point on saying thank you and so I stopped and said (because I do talk outloud), "So I should say thank you for this grief?", and as soon as I said that outloud it was like something just shifted. I mean what a gift to have had someone in my life who could inspire this grief...and somehow be pointing the way through it at the same time. Martin Prechtel says grief is praise. I'm starting to really FEEL the truth of that, past trying to intellectually grasping it. Those are the flashes of joy...
(Nice to connect with you, by the way. And be careful, it's slippery out there this time of year...)

[Erin]

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding."

Thank you for that, Paul, and thank you for posting this, L.

[Kate]

Thanks, Laura.
...not even wondering, really. Just confident that all is well; you're where you are; we're all holding each other...

[J. Qautman]

This so reminds of the dark night of the soul the mystics write of. The problem with being a mystic these days is that one must be practical. I love your imagery of the grey days I have spent months in them. It is particularly easy in these grey midwestern seasons of winter. The sun, the light, and the love is there. Gad I am so glad that the tears and anguish have come remember Martin Prechtal "grief is praise".