There’s this blue that I see in the morning, when the sun is rising.

Close to the earth its starting to lighten. As my gaze rise’s, the blue shades into black.

This reminds me of the colour of grieving. Coming from that black place into the light.

I start in a black hopeless abyss. As the pain works through my heart, as the tears roll down my face, it lightens a little with the passage of time.

I find the darker shades of blue, impregnated with black, the most poignant.

When the sorrow is still full, but I am beginning to see the purpose of life again.

While I travel into the light, surfacing from the pool of darkness that has gripped me.

I move through the light of Love, and there is beauty in the grieving.

I am Peter. I am the son of Heinz and Ida. I have a brother and sister, Michael and Lisa. I work with some people.

I am learning to love some people. I cant say that I love everybody. I love myself enough today to go through the pain of finding out who I am. Its not all that much fun, but the rewards have been amazing.

I still slip back into the me that was, and still is to some degree. Over the last 3 days I have been in charge of making and serving almost 5,000 meals, on time. I did a good job with 2 other untrained, unmotivated staff. I have a lot to be proud of. What I remember the most though is that I forgot to open some cartons of eggs, and put them in a mixing bowl for the person that was working the next shift.

Why do I remember that the most, you might ask. Well as a child I was taught that I am what I do with a disproportionate amount of emphasize on doing things right. So what I did well was negated by the one small thing that I did not remember to do.

I woke up this morning realizing that my self image is tied to a carton of eggs.

A simplistic way of viewing myself, I agree. I have been taught that I am what I forget to do, don’t do, do badly, or should have done. This came mostly from my Father. My Mother had checked out by then. For as long as I can remember she has had her nose in a book. So that’s what I did too.

These are 2 different ways of being. I was caught in a conflict of interest. I could never please both of my parents.

I chose escape. I ran with the reading, drugs, eating, exercising and sex. I guess that is why I feel closer to my Mother, and its also why I hate her more. You see I did what she did and I still wasn’t good enough. I could understand my Father more. I didn’t do what he wanted me to do, in the way he wanted me to do it, so I must be flawed. I just took it farther than you, Mom. I fell into a deeper hole.

my Father was a carpenter. When my brother and I were little we started to go on job sites. I often wonder if that was how my Father viewed us, as little workers that he had to train. I think that is how he viewed his self worth. Well, one day I was measuring the sub floor on a house he was building. I was about eight or nine. I had a tape measure hooked onto the side of the floor, and was walking backwards to the other side.

Needless to say I fell through the stairwell hole onto the concrete pad below. That was the first time I have ever had the wind knocked out of me. Fortunately that was the only injury that I sustained. What I do know is that my Father raced to get a ladder, come down, pick me up, and ask me if I was all right.

I have been falling down holes all my life looking for that Father. The only Father I have found, since then, is the one that tells me to toughen up, and not make so many mistakes.

I am getting better at seeing my beauty. Seeing the beauty around me, and seeing the beauty in you. I am even getting to the point where I see the beauty in the pain. I usually don’t change if I don’t have the pain to motivate me, but sometimes I am still that unopened carton of eggs.

It has been gray for the last 5 days. The smoke has descended into my mind.
I sit here in the middle of the night, the dark all around. I cant see the smoke, but I know that it is there.
I want to get in my car and drive, till I hit blue sky. I know the light is still there, but I can’t see it.
I see the light of love in others, but I cant look up and feel connected to the sky.
I feel only this unremmitting pall. Oh, why love, has though forsaken me.

I stand on the earth, feet firmly planted, my neck tilted to encompass the sky.

I feel the flow going through me, rooting me to the earth,  my head in the blue.

The duality of drawing space in, yet expanding into it.

I am everywhere, yet so far inside.

I used to feel so insignificant, alone and alienated.

No connection at all.

Now my pores ooze the Light of Love. I stand in my world, a giant that can grasp the word, and powerful enough to absorb what you have to offer.

Your own beauty. The Light of your Love.

Please let it shine.

I live on the prairies of Alberta, one of the three provinces, in Canada, that comprise an area called the bread basket of the world.In the summer it is a land of fields of wheat, yellow canola, purple flax and stunning green. In the winter it also has beauty, although for a barren heart the fields are often indicative of the flat, unchanging, landscape of emotions.
For many years I was ruled by a heart like this. I had such a large blockage in my heart that not much got in, and certainly the Light of Love never had the chance to emerge. This was due to a combination of upbringing, life experiences, and trauma. My heart acted as a tightly screwed lid. This meant that I saw those fields as a place of loneliness and aching despair. I moved across the fields in an endless search for succour, never stopping long enough to grasp, or absorb that.
After many years I went to a place where they placed a bomb in my heart. This bomb was made up of people, concepts, and Love.
It blew the lid right off my heart. I have been presented with a heart that can now encompass the fields that I live in. Not only that, it can drink in the sky above.
The most extraordinary thing though is that it can now fathom the wide open spaces of your heart.

I was so tired.

I had been carrying this all my life. This pain, hate, and fear. I could tell you a thousand reasons and excuses. I could spin you a story that would have you nodding your head in agreement. ” How could people be so cruel “, ” You never got any breaks “, ” I don’t know how you survived ”

All of it may be true. My mind is an unreliable filter, at times. I viewed things through the patina of  abandonment, sorrow and suffering.  I can tell you that enough of it was true that I had to use many crutch’s to help me carry it.

It had filled my heart, and kept it closed for my entire life. How could I have room for you ? I knew it, I held it tight, it proved a buffer against getting hurt again.

There is one problem though, it had gotten so heavy I couldn’t find a crutch big enough to help me carry it. It was more dense than a black hole, and just as heavy. It swallowed all that was good in my life, all the light.

Everyday it was harder to carry, I started to spiral down into that black hole. When I thought that I had gone too far, and there was no hope, you reached in from the other side and pulled me out. You showed me that the light was all still there. I just had to make the effort to reach in and hold onto it.

I stand here today, and bask in the sunshine. The light isn’t always kind, and not always flattering, but it never lies. Now that I have put my burden down I look up into the blue and feel love flow through my open heart.

Please, lay down your burden, and walk with me, hand in hand, heart in heart, in the light of love.

I had a cat

My cat died

I don’t have a cat any more, but is that really true ? I still feel her. I still hear her. I still see her, and I still smell her. So is she really gone ?

I cried on her lifeless body. Her food dish is gone, and the litter box is not nearly as full now. Its funny how much that disturbed me, cleaning out the kitty litter !

I cry and I feel the loss so much, but what am I really mourning ? The future is what I am mourning. I still have the past. I don’t know what today or tomorrow would have brought.

A part of me wants to negate all that she gave me for a future that was and is uncertain.

I want more.

Is that fair to burden her with that expectation ? Do I have the right to ask her to comfort me, by still being here, even though she was so tired and sick.

I miss her so much, but I am going to let her go now. Rest easy my beloved friend.

The feeling is so heart numbingly intense. The beauty of the world is still there.  I can see it, but it is hard to feel it.

I make myself do things that need to be done, and it is good that i do these things. It saves me from falling into a morass of despair. I will keep walking, talking and loving.

The thing that gets me though is how much it hurts, hurts, hurts. She was only a cat.

I see her everywhere. I hear here everywhere. I think of her. I miss her so much.

The grief inside me has no where to go but out. my cup runneth over.

A little piece of me died today. I held a 15 year old cat in my arms for the very last time.

There was a cage, stainless steel table and a needle. This is all it takes to rip a chunk out of your soul.

As I watched the life slipped out of her body. With it the chance of more love and companionship from Spaleen.

I had so much, but it is really hard to let go, to believe that I can go on without her.

We don’t have children, what we had was unconditional love. She never said to me that I disappointed her in any way. She was mostly glad to see me. She would stand in the middle and referee, by howling, when Cathy and I would fight.

She daily brought us toy mice, up the stairs, from the basement. Accompanied by a triumphant howl.

When I was walking before going to the Vets I noticed some really beautiful horsetail clouds.

I think a lot about Spaleen right now, but I am sure that there will come a time when her memory will fade, but whenever I see a horsetail cloud I will think of her and I will be richer for her being in my life.

I stand in a field of stubble, stretching to the limits of my vision. I turn my head, as my feet are rooted to the earth.

The prairie sky above me hues of sullen grey, amorphous pink, and pale blue. The wind blows through me.

On the horizon comes a black shape, bobbing ever closer. As I watch with fascination I see others. Soon the sky is filled with crows.

I feel tremendous fear, but also relief. The time has arrived, I open my arms wide, beckoning to them. They descend upon me, the air pummelling me with the thunderous sound of beating, black wings.

I feel there beaks tearing away the trauma scars, welts, cuts, bruises of decades. they feast on the flesh of pain, ingesting it bit by bit.

The tears roll down my face as they tear away the façade, the twisted rationalizations, and defaults that I have existed all my life with. I see nothing, just feeling their beaks, and the pain.

As one, they lift, into a lustrous, shining black cloud, their feeding done. I look down expecting to see a skeleton.

What I see is light, the light of love. It was always there, just hidden by the pain. It is like a holy fire. No beginning, no end.