life cycles
Monday, October 20, 2008 at 9:14 AM I am home and something is stirring in me. I have been emptied this past week. I have poured myself out in an offering to others and I have allowed them to begin to fill me back up. It is a cycle of renewal. It is the beauty of birth-life-death and rebirth.
I never cease to be amazed at the touch of those I have chosen to surround myself with as well as the impact of strangers and others who have entered my life for only brief moments. This morning I read the post of a dear friend as she wove her experiences of grief, loss and life. I am reminded of my own losses. Some as profound as the loss of my beloved father when I was barely nineteen and the fast forward to losing my dear sweet, Curry. Other people and family members stir in my mind, but I am most profoundly struck this morning by the loss of people I knew for only a brief moment in time like the student who battled hard against me and then chose to walk away suddenly and silently. I still think of the man on the bus and another stranger in a small Oklahoma town who I knew for an hour and then we shared a prayer. Each touched me deeply by their presence and I can feel the loss of their absence along with the significant impact they made on my life.
Loss is indeed profound in our lives especially when we allow ourselves to acknowledge it and feel it. Feeling the loss leads to an emptying which then allows us to be filled with joy and other experiences of life. If we refuse to empty ourselves, the old stuff fills us to the brim and we find ourselves like an overstuffed turkey unable to move or a box filled to the brim just waiting to explode.
This past week, I unconsciously and deliberately chose to be emptied. And so I enter this day, this week, waiting to be filled. Not expecting anything. Just as I did not expect the beautiful filling I received when I read Christine’s post. There is something in accepting what we are offered each day. Not expecting grand results, but then looking back and seeing that we have been touched and filled (perhaps only a teaspoon full) simply because we allowed ourselves to really feel the emotion of a moment—perhaps our own or maybe that of another person.
Will you allow yourself to be impacted today? How will you empty yourself? What are the moments when you feel the inpouring of life? Consider grief. Consider joy. They each make room for the other ☺.
Grief, Journey, Reflections on Life
Reader Comments (8)
I am moved that my post inspired this beautiful offering dearest lucy. Like a wondrous dialogue, I will hold your images of emptying and filling and see which direction I am being invited to follow for now. much love, C
thank you, C. i, too, am deeply moved that conversations such as this can exist. they feel eternal and yet too often they are dialogues we choose not to have. xoxoxox
Preparing for a weekly study group tomorrow, I copied this statement from WINTER GRACE by Kathleen Fischer.....
"The emptying out which is usually a part of growing old makes room for God."
Your conscious choice to be emptied left room for the inpouring you describe. A wise choice:)
xoxox
Hi Lucy,
Good post. :)
This has definitely been a time for reflection for me with thoughts of loss, grief, hope and renewal.
I always feel filled up after I work a step. Meditation empties me out so I can be refilled. Death has been around me too this week,in an indirect sense( no one that I was really close to, but affecting some that are close to me) it gives me much more appreciation for my life, and the people in it as well as my time here on earth. Wanting to make the most of every day.
thank you, SS. your book sounds intriguing. i'd love to hear more :-)
HGF--hope your healing process is going well. i love the words you have combined here:
"loss, grief, hope and renewal."
patty--yes, each day & "step" is truly precious, huh?
When I reread you lovely post today, I thought of a meditation years ago. It stays with me. I thought of the Buddhist monks chanting sutras as they held their begging bowls outside Nara train station in Japan. Those bowls are daily filled and emptied, as are we. What they receive is gift and this they share. Takahatsu suru is the expression for begging in Japanese. It literally means to be dependent upon the bowl. We are all dependent on these cycles of filling and emptying, aren't we?
barbara--i am always so grateful when you share your wisdom with me. i,now, am reminded of a few months ago when i spent much time pondering myself as a vessel...it all is so interconnected, is it not? being "dependent upon the bowl"...the filling and emptying...life cycles...