Before we get on to the main topic, I’d like to share a lucid dream my daughter, Michelle, had a few nights ago. For some reason these dreams aways involve her going upstairs and this one was no different. She was headed up the first short flight of stairs and saw Erik standing next to the art niche on the small landing right where the next flight of stairs takes off to the left. He was wearing a white t-shirt and shorts. She couldn’t see his feet. His eyes were the brightest green she had ever seen and the entire scene looked like it was in high definition. He wore a wide grin on his face. Michelle called out his name and ran to him. They gave each other a long, warm embrace. Apparently I was sitting on the sofa in the den downstairs, but before Michelle could call me to come up and see him, Erik dove over the banister and did a face plant on the floor below. Then he jumped to his feet, arms outstretched, and said, “Ta da! See, I can’t get hurt!” Michelle fussed at him for scaring her, but then let out a big laugh. Then Erik cradled his arm and feigned an injury, “Ow, my arm, my arm!” Michelle went to get me, but when we both returned and looked over the banister, all that remained was a pair of red sneakers. Later that day, a family friend hurt his arm in a motorcycle mishap. Hm.
Michelle and Erik, Always the Crazy Duo
And now here is a message from blog member Paul Hampton Crockett in response to the post, Borderline Personality Disorder, the Soapbox Version. He describes the effect that the Channeling Erik blog has had on his life. I also LOVE LOVE LOVE what he said about our dear Jamie. His writing flows not from the pen but from the heart. His art, like him, is truly a gift to this world.
Hey, Elisa: What a great post. A simple and miraculous observation took shape even as I read it that I wanted to share with you. First, I thought, “How I love that woman,” meaning you. (Yet the same would be true also for Jamie, who must be one of the most gifted “translators” ever. She not only has gifts, she is a gift. What she knows about the art of making all feel welcome and co-equals “at the table,” cannot be taught. I also adore that quality of honesty so much a part of her. When she is momentarily clueless and says so, and then proceeds to explore and discover, we are all then given an opportunity to learn, along with her. She is something else!)
What I wanted to tell you, Elisa, is that scarcely a day of my life goes by that you are not a part of, because you are so in my heart. I think of you so often it surprises me, and with greatest warmth. I feel like you know that, as I am in your heart (and it feels so GOOD to me!), but I still wanted to just say it. Because it’s the most real thing I know. Just as you are. Here’s one of my favorite ee cummings quote-lettes, which might as well have been written for you, as consolation and encouragement, but mostly in a spirit of celebration:
“To be nobody but yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else — means to fight hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.”
But I digress, I suppose, because I haven’t yet gotten to the observation mentioned in the first sentence above, that led me to sit down and write! And it really is quite simple. As I was reading, an awareness dawned on me about that son of yours. I thought, “He’s so real to me.” And in fact, he is part of my life in a most enriching and unusual way. He’s like a good friend (which is, to me, the most sacred thing): non-dramatic, fully present, and steadily nutritious. He is in my life. And yet he’s dead.
And that is the heart of the miracle I wanted to stretch on out to Texas from Florida tonight, and just share with you. That truth resonated with me in a special way, because after Scott’s death, one of my most deeply sorrowful, personal, and heartfelt of lamentations was that “For the rest of my life, none of the people I will meet will ever have a chance to know him, or experience how very beautiful a soul he was.” The idea was just so sad. At the time, you see, I mistook that notion for knowledge. I know better now, but there has been something of an intense learning curve.
Back then, the mournful thought, “self-evident,” just kept arising. Each time, it felt as sharply painful (or dully and deeply throbbing), as the first. It seemed the recurring chorus in the primal song of grief that had become my life, the crystallization of my pain. Diminishment and sorrow seemed the inescapable bookends of my destiny. Such was the cost of love, and surviving its loss.
With the passage of time, I came to understand that Scott had by no means left anything but his body. In fact, many have come to know him quite well in the years since his death (notably including you, and Erik). Also, I have settled in to the comforting awareness that he abides in me, in much more than a merely poetic sense. And it’s probably also true, vice versa. That whole realm of experience remains hugely mysterious. The hour’s grown late, and I won’t even try to speak to that one, at the moment.
Maybe what I am trying to say is beyond words; I’m not sure. But it has to do with the truest and most pure essence of miracle, and offers a promise of hope for those who feel broken wide open even as the winds blow, or who stagger through their endless days in a flame of sorrow that lacks the grace to consume, or who otherwise suffer unimaginable tortures with the loss of those they have so loved. What I finally learned was that death did not mean what I had thought it did, at all. If the love I held for him in my heart still overflowed in is fullness (for it is he that had taught me the lessons of Love greatest and most true); if my living Love for him had not died with him, then that was for a reason, and it was not cruel.
So let me say, Elisa, Thank you for keeping Love alive. Thank you for being a light in the world. And may the Spirit settle gently upon us where it is most needed. May all of us find comfort according to our need, and find rest in the assurance that it is love that got us into this mess, it is love that has brought all of us together, to where we now stand, and it is somehow, some way, together that we will at last find our way Home. This damnably convincing illusion of separation shall pass away at last as a cloud, having served its purpose, and there will be celebration not even now given us to imagine, and we will feel in heart’s center, sure as we now breathe, a spirit of enduring joy. Not a single one of us shall be left “outside of the circle.” None shall be left behind.
And, since in the realm of Spirit there is no time, perhaps it is now that we may feel the touch. Not in the poetry of some promise of future prophecy, but now. In this hour of our greatest need. Maybe we can all, each in our way yet joined in common purpose, just take a moment, be still, and breathe.
So in that moment, right here and now, and exactly as we are, maybe beaten and bruised in our endless daily struggles, hope reduced only to a single tiny flickering flame, and far from certain, with dark despair as close upon us as our shadows, then, and even so, a Greater River continues to flow, of which we are all a part, and We are known, We are loved, far beyond reason or comprehension, and we are never, ever alone.
Amen.
Not only is Paul a talented writer and lawyer, he’s also an incredible artist who paints from the soul. Check out his masterpieces:
http://growingintothemystery.
Here’s one example:
