I stand and watch as the crow flies past, over me. I think to myself that I can use that black spot in the sky, above me, as a door to somewhere. A place that I know deep down in me.

I heard of a place where there are 20,000,000 crows that roost at night. I can’t imagine what that must be like.

To me a crow is a thing of beauty and solidity. Charcoal black and raucous. Smart and brazen. Not the most gracious of flyers, but with a certain substance.

I would like to be with a crow, as it flies about its day. You might think that I would fly with another bird up in the sky. Hovering above all. That would be like my old addictive patterns. A crow always seems to be in the midst of things. That is my life today. I mix in with life. I get dirty, and have to muck it about some times. The feelings that overwhelm me at times need to be dealt with, acknowledged, and felt.

Its a dichotomy. Since I have come back I have bathed in the Light. I have developed a fascination with the light absorbing crow. I think it is because of that. Crows are absorbing so much light that they are the culmination of light. I have read that God is so bright that he appears black.

I don’t know if that is true, bit I find comfort in crows. They remind me of the blackness  inside my self. I feel that it is still there, but I have learned to interpret, and live with it. I see that God is in all. God loves me even if I feel dark. God is Love, Dark, Light. Without the dark I would not know light. Without my disease I would not have recovery. I have ridden a crow through 50 plus years into the light.

I love crows. The Light of Love.

Here I am

Here I was

I stand on the dock, listening to the waves, rolling through the years.

We are de constructing ourselves, taking out chunks, as we carry out memories

The memories are attached to chairs, pictures, plates, life jackets. They hang from the walls, they creak underfoot. The doors that won’t close. The sounds in the night. The rhapsody of the birds in the air.

This place that has raised, and nurtured three generations. Suffered and shone. Lifted and challenged. Babbling voices. Laughter rising, settling, to rest dripping from the pines. It has seen the vagaries of weather. Echoed with the call of the Loon. Heard the gentle slapping of the paddle.

I am reminded of the sizzle of the BBQ. The clatter of dishes. The bark of dogs. The chasing of bikes through the trees The silence of a long walk

The things go away  to the dump, the thrift store.  The memories are packed into my mind to be revived when I feel the pull.

Here I was.

Here I am.

Here I will ever be.

I am so lonely. I stand here, my soul a scoured place. Slowly eroded by years of wind. A barren and destitute place. The wind howls through, it has taken the topsoil, the layer underneath, and it is starting to abrade the bedrock.

I tried for many years to build up walls to stop the blowing, to no avail. these walls felt substantial, and seemed impressive, but they were always eroded under the lashing of the wind. The emptiness at the core of my heart, a constant force.

I was given a seed. The seed of love, and I started to water it with my tears. Not much happened at first, but I continued to cradle that spindly shoot on the bedrock. It spread its roots and such was its power that the rock cracked, eroded, and became soil again.

I tend my garden today. That first seed has grown into a mighty Sequoia. Around it are saplings of all the people that I have invited into my life. You see, I don’t need to build walls any more. I don’t need to keep out the wind. The trees are strong enough to bend with the wind, and even if it knocks some of them down, there are others growing to take their place. Growing in the soil that is nourished with their love.

The mighty Sequoia standing in the middle protected, and nourished by the trees around it. It is fed by hope, compassion, self sacrifice, service, creativity, and persistence. The wind will always blow. Some days more than others. Stand with me, lean into my branches, as we get jostled about. Look to me for support, as I lean into you.

At times I still feel the loneliness. My heart still pines for my Father, but I realize that he has fed me in some ways. He has contributed to my soil, he is part of me, even if that part is just the bedrock.  At those times I am leaning on you.

Its time to go planting.

I am standing in a dark room. I turn, flailing with my arms, looking to connect. occasionally I hit something. More often than not it is hard, sharp and painful.” you will never be anything if you keep reading, big boys don’t cry, toughen up ”

Sometimes I touch something soft, like the time he taught me to ride my bike, and the last days when he reached out to grab my hand, after I had said ” I love you “, or when he made a slight move to embrace me.

As I flail though, with increasing urgency, I am touching less, and less. Ever since he died I feel him slipping away. He wasn’t much in my life anyway, an apparition named Father, but now he is slipping through the fingers of my mind like the ghost he always was.

I started to parent myself just over 2 years ago. Now I don’t have to try and grasp that tenuous form any more.  It used to be semi solid, but now I can see through it. Soon it will be a blank spot. It will always be there though, an absence, an empty space. A void to fill.

I never believed in ghosts, but now I see the attraction. To have something to fill the empty spaces in life, the places where a life has been torn asunder. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. I say absence leaves a bewildered heart asking why, why, why.

I am going for a walk now. I will stop to hug a solid tree, and later tonight I will also get a chance to hold you in my arms. I will talk, look, listen, and squeeze you to make sure you are really there.

Breathe, breathe in the pain. Breathe, do it again.

I sit at his bedside, as he breathes a few breaths and then stops for 30 seconds. Each time I hope it is the last time he starts again.

Touch, touch his shrivelled hand. Touch, do it again.

Why do I sit here telling him I love him ? He was like a mirror. If I could love him, maybe he could love me.

Watch, watch him before my eyes. Watch, do it again

His eyes half shut, staring blankly.I wonder where he is. I have always wondered where he was.

Look, look around at his family. Look, do it again

I see the pain and longing in our eyes. No return, only forward to the time of no breath. I listen to him breathe, stop, breathe, stop. I can reach out a hand and make it stop.

Remember, remember the last words, to me. Remember, do it again.

I got there and said ” Hi Dad “. At the beginning he still saw me. He struggled to say             ” Hello Peter “.  I saw my Father, clearly,  for the first time that day.

Wake, wake up its time. Wake, do it again.

Lisa says that he has died. Mike and I go to his side. I am afraid I will crash the car. We say our final goodbye, and kiss him on the cheek. We bury him. I have had time, and I start writing.

Breathe, breathe out the pain. Breathe, do it again

Two people

Coming together, colliding in uncertainty, reaching a truce, i’ll love you, please love me. Holding each other through the years of challenges, blessings, suffering, rewards, pain and growth.

Two people

25 years

I am sitting hear listening to my Father slowly drown to death. I keep expecting him to smell of death. I don’t know what that smell is, but that thought is in mind.

There is a lady who yells help, occasionally, the birds chirp away, obliviously, in the back ground, and there is an alarm that goes off, with regularity, when someone gets out of their bed.

I sit here wondering what to hope for. Do I pick death? Do I want to hold on to the shell that is left, lying there, painless, we hope.

I know this will stay with me for a long time. There goes the lady again, and I wonder, shouldn’t I be the one yelling for help?

My Father is a builder of physical structures. He has built beautiful houses in his adopted country. There are people still using his cabinets in Regina. Others live in houses that he built. There is a house in Strathmore where he built a set of stairs to the deck. Our old house. Whenever I go to BC I drive by the houses he has built, that I have lived in.

I have never lived in a home that my Father built. I don’t think that he new how to build those. He was a hard working man who did his job, came back to the house, and expected others to do theirs. He didn’t know how to express his feelings, he just shut down. I don’t build, but I know how to shut down.

Where ever I have lived I have never felt at home. I have lived for many years with out a home.  Just over 2 years ago it came to me that I have to become a builder, to build my own home, instead of pining for the one that I never had. I started to reach inside, to that homeless little boy, and  to others, to build my home. My home is in a house in Drumheller, where I live with a beautiful person named Cathy. In this house I now feel at home. I look around and I see not only familiar things, but a home.

I feel at home in meetings, where I reach out to invite others to come into my home, and they hold me, inviting me into theirs. I am at home in a Federal prison, where I work, and try to make a home for others who have no home.

I have discovered that a house is not a home. A home is in my mind. There is a palace in my mind, where I live with you and love. Come home Dad.

When I was young I felt alone,so I collected words. I used them to blanket me, shield, and pacify me. The words were building blocks of lives fully or extraordinarily lived. They described passion, danger and mystery. I felt through them that I could be, otherwise I lived as though nebulous. Like a thought half formed, never committed to paper. I often wondered why others around me seemed to have no problem being solid. I’ve existed in space that was limbo. A space where I was uncommitted to those around me, and worse yet I was uncommitted to myself.

Today I am like one of those cacti that only flower every 50 years or so. A rain has come to the desert that I grew in and I have bloomed. It is a glorious, shining bloom. The colour of love. I show this bloom to all that will look. I spout it. I transmit it with touch. I display it. I am committed to it. I let this light shine in my life, if you look you will see it in my words.

I have taken those words and shown myself to you. I put my thoughts on paper today. I use these words to solidify my life. to shine the light that I feel from that bloom. They are the light that I can give to you. when I say I love you I mean it

I stand under the sky. Letting the energy of the light pour into my eyes. Driving down the highway, through a ocean of white snow, I feel it. It’s all around me.

I used to absorb the darkness, it was in my soul. I saw the decay, hurt, and pain in life. There was always something putrid behind the beautiful. After awhile I was so afraid that I just closed off completely.

I have been able to find a way back from that place. A way back into the light. It has been hard. I look for the beauty, and even though I know that there is decay underneath, I rejoice in the process that turns rot into new life.

I can find this in my mistakes, they become platforms of renewal, when I don’t sink into the mire of self pity, and despair. The negative energy of self.

Today I can look around, and see the balance in life. how we are all of one Love. even if we don’t act that way. The energy of love is there, it just needs to be connected to the world around me.

I still slip into that place of self where I stand shivering with fear, and anger. Shut down from the energy of love, absorbed in my own, shut down, world.

I still feel the pull to that castle that I had built around me.Today I choose to open my heart to the energy that will surely make me whole, that will help me build a castle of light. Radiating out from me, the energy of Love.

When I look at you, I try and find that connection. If I look long enough I will find it, but I have to look. I have the energy. I know it when I stand gazing at the sky. I can feel it flow through me, I stand connected to life. The sky over me, and Gaia at my feet. A conduit of energy.

The light of Love can shine through me today. I am limitless. I am not afraid any more. When I take your hand I feel your light. I don’t want to be trapped again. I want to be near you, hold you, absorb your energy. When you see me, please do the same.