Sharing MY Stuff. . .

This may be a bit different from my usual posts, in that today I am sharing my own grief and stress with you.  When I shared this in my hospice team's meeting this morning, someone said "I somehow thought you were above being sad, like you didn't feel things like this."  THIS let me know that I need to share more of my pain - it is important to me to make sure it is clear to each of you, my readers, friends and foe:
I AM AS HUMAN AS THE REST OF US. I AM ONE OF YOU. We are all on this journey of Earthwalk together.  I think that what makes us human - what breeds humanity within us - is our ability to know one another's pain - and we cannot do that if we have had none of our own.  So, here is a small spot of mine.

Today.

To do what I do, I must be open – I open my body (exercises for this), I open my heart (I practice intentionally sharing vulnerably), I open my mind (I try daily to listen deeply to someone with opinions dramatically opposed to my own), I open my Spirit (pray, dance, intend) – I have practices for all these.  My openness as a minister is what allows me to receive another unconditionally. My openness as an artist is what allows me to vision, to embody a character on stage, to risk sharing with others.  It is what allows me to hear messages from plants, animals, earth and the beyond.  It is what allows creativity to pour forth, ideas and passion and ENERGY to flow to and through me.
 
But it is also what makes me FEEL SO DEEPLY.  I have very good boundary making skills.  Yet being the thing I am, I cannot NOT feel.  For me, all things are connected, of one source. What makes me “me”, also makes me “you”. And all of “them”.
 
And so it is that I find myself, heart wide open to the world of which I am made, lately with tears streaming all the time. Whether for the moments of grace and gratitude for some witnessed kindness, or, now almost all the time, for the pain we humans inflict upon one another.
 
We in hospice see suffering every day.  We spend our time, our careers, our hearts on LESSENING that suffering.  And yet we now live in an OCEAN of pain, disillusionment, fear, terror actually, despair, rage, grief beyond belief, - a sea of physical/emotional/mental and spiritual suffering the likes of which we have not seen in some time. . . Even if we turn off our devices (which most of us cannot bring ourselves to do), even if we manage to sleep – we exist in the world - a world we cannot (and should not) Un-KNOW the suffering of. 
 
I am, on paper and by career choice, a hospice Spiritual Advisor.  Soothing, healing, transforming struggle is my daily job. Yet there are times when I do not think that to soothe ourselves is necessarily correct, nor even possible.  Sometimes I feel what is to be done is to fall to our knees.
 
I am on my knees today. I am beladen with the  heaviness of the world. I am at a loss. I am not a voice of mending today – today I can only offer a voice of solidarity with your struggle.

So, today, whether your struggle -  like mine – stems from global woes and the failings of humanity, or whether yours may be something closer to home, perhaps WITHIN your home, or even your own heart – I do not come to fix or heal. I come to share my own grief and despair. I come to you on my knees. 
 
Today, on my knees, I call out this prayer – for the world, for you each, for my own heavy heart.
 
The prayer is by Black Elk, Oglala Lakota/Sioux, who witnessed the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, where Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse defeated General Custer. Black Elk was present at the massacre of more than 200 Sioux at Wounded Knee Creek in late 1890.
 

Earth Prayer

Grandfather/Grandmother, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice.
You lived first, and you are older than all need, older than all prayer.
All things belong to you -- the two-legged, the four-legged, the wings of the air, and all green things that live.
You have set the powers of the four quarters of the earth to cross each other.
You have made me cross the good road and road of difficulties, and where they cross, the place is holy.
Day in, day out, forevermore, you are the life of things.
Hey! Lean to hear my feeble voice.
At the center of the sacred hoop
You have said that I should make the tree to bloom.
With tears running, O Great Spirit, my Grandfather/my Grandmother,
With running eyes I must say
The tree has never bloomed
Here I stand, and the tree is withered.
Again, I recall the great vision you gave me.
It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives.
Nourish it then
That it may leaf
And bloom
And fill with singing birds!
Hear me, that the people may once again
Find the good road
And the shielding tree.

To learn more about Black Elk and Lakota history and spiritual traditions, read John Neihardt's classic;  Black Elk Speaks (1932).
 

And here are a few links (of the many out there) on Black Elk:
https://blackhillsvisitor.com/learn/black-elk-holy-man-of-the-oglala/
https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/black-elk

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