Browsed by
Tag: Mysticism. poetry

I Choose You!

I Choose You!

 

 

The past month has been quite the roller coaster requiring me to pull from deep wells of patience and resilience. Becoming camp hosts on the beach, adjusting to a new drive to work, living in the RV again, horrible fires, the strongest Santa Ana’s I have ever felt and minor damage to our home on wheels from this weather. Dylan and I are happy but exhausted.

 

Fatigue aside, Dylan had gifted me tickets to the Sara Bareilles concert for my birthday. Come hell or high water and Dylan’s persistent fever from a shingles vaccination, we were going to make it to the concert. A night out seemed like a good idea to step away from all that had been weighing on us.

 

Well… we are both still on a high from an evening that left me crying on and off for the past few days. Tears of happiness and tears of recognition for all the wonderful synchronicity in life. I cannot say why, but I am moved to write a letter to Sara thanking her for sharing her gift with a world moving far too quickly to stop and appreciate our connectivity. Sara has earned a place in my village that consists of a number of other strong, honest and loving women who have gently encouraged and escorted me through this evolution. Here is my letter to you Sara and a video of another ethereal moment at the concert.

(My favorite part is Dylan at the end!)

 

Dear Sara,

 

As the woman who got engaged at your Hollywood Bowl show, I offer my deepest apology for the ruckus the proposal caused. Dylan and I never expected our moment to become interactive but were pleasantly surprised by all the support and well wishes, especially from you! As card carrying members of AARP, we must seem like an unlikely couple to be finding such a meaningful love at this stage in our life. Well, find it we did and in the most glorious of ways!

 

Some back story might help explain why Dylan choose your concert for his proposal. Your music has been woven into the tapestry of my life in ways that are difficult to articulate. When going through a horrible divorce, your album Kaleidoscope Heart was my saving grace. Listening to the songs over and over walked me through crippling sadness and into the loving light of authentic self after suffering years of emotional abuse. Your music empowered me to believe I could return to school, earn a Master’s degree and become financially independent. Thereby creating a way to extricate myself from a painful and toxic relationship.

 

Finally on my feet once again, it was not long before the next shoe dropped and I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. This was a very dark time shaded with lingering emotions from a wounded heart. Every time I had an MRI of my brain and spine, the technician would ask what music I wanted to listen to in order to drown out the magnets of the machine and the anxiety of what they might find. The answer was always Sara Bareilles.  Having moved through divorced, debt and now disease, your music once again sustained me.

 

Five years after my divorce my daughter, seeing me paralyzed by my relationship fears, encouraged me to sign up for online dating. In fact, she signed me up and was swiping potential candidates before I could even protest. After many first and last dates and resigned to spending my remaining years alone, doing puzzles and reading my beloved books, I meet Dylan Mattina.

 

He too had his own personal story of grief and one that echoed mine. Infidelity is a bitter pill to swallow and can leave one in pieces, unable to trust again. Dylan helped gather all the broken pieces of my heart and lovingly began to put them back together.  As if conjured by magic and the age old dance between the sun and moon, we slowly began to open up to one another, sharing our pain and setting it free.

 

 Dylan is the most gentle-hearted and loving person I have ever known and he understands and accepts my need to be introspective and quite at times. My constant undercurrents of melancholy do not seem to bother him rather, they intrigue him.  It was only after meeting Dylan in the most serendipitous of ways,  that I returned to my lifelong passion of writing poetry. During my divorce I had blogged, creating a space to muse as if my own personal diary. Doubting anyone would read my posts and not really caring, I decided what mattered most was putting words to the many emotions bubbling inside.

 

A tea kettle about to blow, I could no longer hold in my feelings and now believe that by doing so all those years, I created a catalyst for sickness. Writing allowed release from the self-inflicted chains of self doubt. A desire to fly freely once more was growing, just as I had as a young girl . This unfolding was a pathway to meeting my soul for the first time and this pathway was illuminated with your songs.

 

Dylan understands what your music and writing means to me and picked this most precious moment to express his eternal love for me. To find love at this stage in our lives is truly a gift and one that we do not take lightly. Looking back, we both were wandering this crazy world, alone and in pain, waiting for our paths to collide in the most spectacular of ways. We never really understood the enormity of this combustion and how special it would be until now.

 

Please accept this book as a token of my appreciation for your artistry and vulnerability each time you share yourself with the world. Somehow, I think you will understand the words more than most. You are an angel sent from above and I am incredibly thankful for you.

 

All my best,

Lavinia

I do not know if she will ever read this, but as a believer in putting things out into the universe, I hope she can feel the love and appreciation I have for her as an artist. Thank you Sara, many times over, for being apart of our special moment even if inadvertently. Dylan and I are feeling the love!

 

As the Ruin Falls

As the Ruin Falls

CS Lewis Humility

 

 

As the Ruin Falls

by C. S. Lewis

“All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.

I never had a selfless thought since I was born.

I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:

I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,

I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:

I talk of love –a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek–

But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.

I see the chasm. And everything you are was making

My heart into a bridge by which I might get back

From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains

You give me are more precious than all other gains.

 

C.S. Lewis was a beautiful writer that had a firm grasp on the mystical nature of a questioning spirit. He was a Christian mystic and a well-spoken one at that.  The poem As the Ruin Falls is moving when read with a measure of humility. It is a window into the inner struggle that many face when asking the deeper questions of life.

 

I believe C.S. Lewis was pointing out that we all have a cross to bear and are “broken” in some way simply by living.  I liken humans to the walking wounded. No one escapes pain, sadness, hurt or disillusionment in this life. Similarly, it is also evident that many find themselves self-consumed and self absorbed.  This is a constant danger for one reflecting more intently on the meaning of our existence.  When self-introspection becomes more important than the needs of others, the entire concept of selflessness is lost.

 

I hesitate to offer my interpretation of specific lines of poetry, as poetry by its very nature is individual. That being said, the lines “I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin: I talk of love –a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek–But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin” are so powerful. I humbly suggest that C.S. Lewis is speaking to the consequences of believing that one knows the answers when in fact this is farthest from the truth. Have you experienced, when speaking with someone and venturing into spiritual territory,  that you are now being lectured?  In their excitement, some feel the need to spread the word forgetting that no one person can do the work of another. The Greek definition of Mysticism means, “to conceal” or  “initiate”. I have never met another student of mysticism that wears the practice on their sleeve.  In most cases they are quiet about it until asked, never trying to push ideas on another.

 

Education and personal study cannot independently provide the intimate and personal experience with the Divine that many seek. Surrender to the unknown is required and for that, one needs to step outside of all ideas of self and find humility. This is a tough pill to swallow for most. My truth is that I do not know what I think I know. I suspect that at the end of this lifetime, I will still be questioning what I thought I understood, but did not.  C.S Lewis ends his poem with “For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains You give me are more precious than all other gains.” Let your ruins fall. Stop trying to figure everything out. Live in the unknown and enjoy the mystery of it all. It is after all in the mystery that we are truly alive.