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The Girl in the Gray Sweater

Written by: Jana Moon
Published on: May 9, 2023

[an “egg” from February 14, 2014]

 

Today I rose up. I danced. I held the hands of my sisters as we gathered in revolution to put an end to violence against women and call for social justice. We danced as one without fear.

We could. We were in Dallas at One Arts Square.

But in hundreds of thousands of places on this planet on this day, many women are too afraid to step out. Women are changing that. Collectively all over the planet (last year it happened in over 200 countries) we are One Billion Rising in a global movement for justice and an end to violence against women. It’s a dance revolution of women (and good men and sweet children) rising in love. I felt grateful for this movement, for change, and for lion-hearted women.

I am also grateful for someone I’ll call the girl in the grey sweater.

After we danced the One Billion Rising, we were loosely gathered  listening to music, dancing, talking. Someone on the mic was talking about the importance of creating change so women can escape from violence. The girl in the grey sweater jumped up and shouted happily “I escaped this weekend!”

People heard her, but so much was going on there was not a response to her personal celebration. Women glanced her way, but did not respond to her jubilant proclamation. They stayed in the excitement of the event. They missed the opportunity to realize the meaning of it was standing there – right there – in a grey sweater.

She stepped a few feet a way. I could feel her sort of shrinking – not completely – just a loss of that rush of joy. I walked to her and asked what she escaped from.

She showed me the bruises on her arms.

We hugged. I cried a few tears of heartbreak and joy for her tenderness and bravery. She embodied the need for this movement. She also embodied the fearlessness a woman’s heart is capable of.

Blessings on the girl in the grey sweater. She ran on foot all the way from work some blocks away when she heard about the event. Bless her future. Bless her children.

I’m glad I met her. She’s a reminder to me not to let the “show” distract me from the meaning. It’s the personal that counts. It’s the person. Each one.

It’s not about the display.

 

Categories: Shaded Woods

Bath After Illness

Written by: Jana Moon
Published on: May 9, 2023

Laid to rest

my body floats.

Awareness arises between cells whose actions seem suspended.

There’s a finger;

oh, and a palm.

Yes, they are attached.

Too difficult to travel the arm.

Let go of details.

This body once strong has lost its power.

Floating as a warrior awaiting fiery arrows that will turn the vessel to ash,

release my soul.

Peacefully I relinquish.

Faint memories of a warrior’s body flow into dreams.

Categories: Shaded Woods

The Smallest Things

Written by: Jana Moon
Published on: August 4, 2022

“Little drops of water and little grains of sand make the mighty ocean and the pleasant land.” – Madeleine L’Engle from The Irrational Season

Her grandmother used to tell this to little Madeleine. It’s a reflection upon the smallest of things counting towards creating something larger. Making peace begins with a small kindness and grows. Making a home begins with a dream and some small item to give a sense of place; a certain coat hung in the closet, a piece of art, a living plant. 

And I think this also counsels us in the value of remembering that it’s the tiny steps, the small progressions that lead us forth into the expansion and blossoming of our lives. And into that expansion even when life seems to contract. When some important piece has changed like a livelihood lost or a loved one passed on. 

The little drops of water might be tears which, when poured out, cleanse us of our pain. And they might be small joys experienced or kindnesses offered which bathe us, revive us, quench our parched souls.

And the little grains of sand might be the agents of friction when we are drug unwillingly into another situation, painfully and slowly. And they might be tiny morsels of solidness to which we cling for safety until we find ourselves, finally, standing comfortably and capably on the ever-changing sands of life.

I think it’s well worth sitting with the statement. I find it creates a small and growing sense of joy within as I consider it. It’s encouraging while not demanding. It calls us to awareness of a truth: The smallest things matter.

This idea sustains me when I’m exhausted. I hope it does you too.

It’s important for the bees. The littlest drop of water can sustain a bee for quite some time, and it’s that tiny bee who in a vast ecosystem becomes the little grain of sand upon which much of our food supply is built.

The BeeKeeper and I are building a house in the North Texas Hill Country, and doing a fair portion of the work ourselves. I was on our roof last weekend helping to fill nail holes in the clerestory with putty in preparation for paint. The Texas heat has made the work all the more challenging. But with each little thing we complete, the house is becoming more whole. We do a bit of work to prepare for skilled craftsmen, they do their work and it’s so exciting to see it all coming together. Little drops of water.

And my family lost our patriarch in June. Daddy was 96. He was full of life and love and had many plans still to complete, but his body just wasn’t able to hold up any longer. He was hugging us and happy one day and a couple days later he left us. As the family was gathered at the hospital, my dear niece began to sing Amazing Grace. We all joined in. The hospital staff stopped outside the door and listened as we spread ourselves out in love toward Daddy, toward one another, and toward the staff who so gently walked with us in surrender to the moment and to our faith that all is well and will be. Little grains of sand.

And so from these moments come the next. 

The BeeKeeper and I, and our cat, are happily ensconced with my mother while we finish our house build. Mom has us for company during a challenging time of adjustment. We have the comfort of her home while we finish the house (we had made arrangements to leave the house in Colleyville at the end of July). Our alternative was a form of unglamorous “glamping” at the build site. It’s been very good for us all. And I love having all the extra time to spend with my Mom. 

In case you’re wondering, Mama is 94 and in wonderful health and vitality. She clipped some bag worms from one of the pecan trees the other day with a very large pair of snippers. She misses Daddy, but is doing quite well. She said that she has more life to live or she wouldn’t still be here, so she intends to live it. Wise words, I think.

I hope this little note has not made you sad. It’s meant to uplift. You see, in all the challenges we face there are little drops of water and little grains of sand everywhere. Look for them. 

 

Categories: Shaded Woods, The BeeKeeper’s Wife

Empty Now

Written by: Jana Moon
Published on: April 6, 2022

Nothing inspired and nothing expressed

Time stops as a vacuum forms inside

It envelopes the universe

Breathing, I recall, creates movement

I notice I can’t move

Can’t return

Can’t go beyond

This stillness holds no memories

No future plans

Just now

This empty now

An electric fan whirring finds my ears 

Notes from the radio seem to drop

One

By

One

As unrelated events

I listen for lost heart songs 

Once made of memories and future plans

The fan again

It seems so loud just now

In this now

This empty, empty now

Categories: Shaded Woods, Sweet Words

I can’t take much more of this. Or, can I?

Written by: Jana Moon
Published on: April 5, 2022

[an “egg” from November 27, 2013]

 

Since the end of October, the 27th at 1:00am, my daddy (I’m Texan and that makes him a daddy, not a dad) has been in the hospital. And my family and I have run the gamut of emotions while caring for him and tending to his needs beyond what hospital staff can do or are doing because of overwork and poor communication. Fear, worry, sadness, hope, joy, relief, and anger are all a part of that. And stillness too. At least that’s where this is taking me; to that still quiet place of introspection that has long been the safe harbor in which I moor my tiny ship when seas are rough to make sure I’m navigating in a way that brings the most peace, health, effectiveness and joy. Sometimes seas need more harbors. And sometimes the absence of safety for a time teaches the ability to choose calm and continuation.

And then another harbor comes in time. It was in this last respite, one desperately clung to when I had reached my seeming end of coping with all the demands placed upon me by my heart wanting to care for Daddy, my work requiring my physical presence for income creation, and my social community in which I submerge myself for joy and comfort with friends and family that I found a new thought emerging. A still, small utterance within me . . . whispering a special story just for me; my truth regarding this experience:

Does the feeling “I can’t take much more of this” really define a limit? What does it really mean to feel oneself at the edge of capacity?

I was engulfed by the emotion, the awareness that I was dwelling on the edges of my capacity to continue in reasonable form; eating, drinking, sleeping, bathing, dressing, working, being present with the tragedy that was rising and filling all the spaces between the cells of my existence. It’s scary emotionally because you feel on the brink of collapse. It’s frightening physically because you get in touch with the primal drive toward survival that moves us forward in ways both egocentric and communal. When they are at odds, the psychological stress grows more intense.

So feeling that going on is not an option is an interesting experience when viewed from the back side. Once the stress dissipates – food is eaten along with the luxury of actually tasting it; sweet sleep restores the body and rested the spirit; space returns between the cells to breathe in and breathe out absent of the fight-or-flight response – that moment of knowing, really knowing, that continuing was simply not an option when recalled seems misunderstood.

That moment was not the end of capacity, though it seemed critically necessary to acknowledge it as such at the time. I have gone on, and I will continue. The limit that loomed like an executioner with axe was not truly the edge. It was the limit of capacity to function within the selected criteria (this much food, sleep, work, etc.), but not the limit to function in some way. That was found. And is found in moments of crisis. The “I can’t take much more of this” feeling is signpost marking the entrance to the land beyond the idea of what is necessary for sustaining the self. Beyond that border is continuation in another form. Or death.

I find it interesting how intensely the over-burdened central nervous system indicates that the border is the actual finish line; the end. It amazes me how perfectly attuned we are to our own survival and to how the survival of a communal member affects our own, creating a willingness to go beyond our borders to sustain one another; to walk up to that edge and squeeze just a few more feet or inches into the distance to our own decline.

I think that’s the critical piece. Part of what we call love. And part of that deep river of innate knowledge that in helping one another continue, we continue ourselves. The limits of life are held collectively within the cells and souls of each person.

Categories: Shaded Woods, Sweet Words

Letter to a Friend

Written by: Jana Moon
Published on: April 5, 2022

[and “egg” from May 26, 2014]

 

Until I learned to appreciate someone’s soul, and found myself willing, even grateful, to let them go though my heart was torn apart to do so; I didn’t really know anything about love. I wrote this letter to my friend, one of my true believers, after his passing in July of 1997. He was 33. I was 30 at the time. He taught me how to rise to the occasion of real love rather than fall, no matter what happens.

I like to think my friend read the letter over my shoulder from his new vantage point. I think he knew the time together in his last week mattered to me more than these words could possibly convey. He taught me how to honor the moments that really matter and to make sure people feel better having spent time with you even if you don’t do anything for them. That’s love. Love for all. He knew that, and I do too because I knew him.

Today is Memorial Day. He was not a military soldier, but he soldiered on through some difficult situations in his life. I’ve been thinking about putting this here for a while, and somehow the timing seems right. In honor of honor:

Dear Kent,

I know you remember all of this, but I want you to know that I too remember; often and well. Part of this story I didn’t witness, but you told it to me so tenderly that I could see you, a boy of 17, nursing your father. You watched him suffer from colon cancer. You felt him ache with the sorrow of having to leave you. Then one day you became a wise man in your seventeenth year. It was the first day of deer season; the day you and your dad always bought your hunting licenses together. You went to his room and saw him lying there, struggling to hold on to life, to you. I saw the image of you bending down to kiss your dad. I saw your beautiful blue eyes fill with tears that never were allowed to spill over and wet your lashes. You were brave. You told your dad that you would get the licenses for both of you that year and that you were leaving to do so. It was your tradition to go together every year. Then you did the most amazing thing for such a young man living alone with a father that you loved and cared for through the long painful days and nights of cancer. You leaned in and said to him, “Dad, I’m going to get our hunting licenses, and I don’t want you to be here when I get back.” You kissed him and left.

I’ve wondered about how you found the strength to give him permission to go. That must have been an agonizing drive to buy the licenses. I wish I could have been there to hold your hand when you went back into the house. You knew he’d be gone. Just as you knew he wouldn’t leave as long as he was worried about his boy. But a grown man could take care of getting a hunting license. And a grown man would be okay without his dad. You spoke the lovely language of allegory all the time I knew you. Teaching other people about themselves through story. Bless you, for that. And bless you for being so fine and strong for him. I know how much you needed your dad, a need that never left you until you saw your own time shorten. I suppose your need must’ve changed to anticipation.

I witnessed the rest of this story. You, of course, were there too, but I want to tell you how you changed me. Do you recall that last week when we spent time together? Maria called me to come three times that week; you were in a great deal of pain and the bodywork treatments eased that for you.

Monday we talked while I worked with you, offering therapy. I said how glad I was to be able to help you. You said you were mostly glad for the time spent. You showed me how the fluids were collecting in various places on your body and described in detail how having your intestines rerouted felt. We talked the nuts and bolts of your illness. I mourned for you that day and wished to be able to carry the cancer to the end of the earth and throw the demon into the abyss. I would have walked for years to do that. Then you told me about the things you’d been seeing. You knew your were letting go and looked forward to it, I think. You described that peaceful bedroom without windows. Three soft blankets, one blue, one oatmeal, and one mauve, were folded across the foot of the bed. A light in the room that came from nowhere. I knew then, you needed rest.

Wednesday, you said you were losing time. You couldn’t tell when moments passed or follow the flow of events. I didn’t understand, so you explained. I was at your left side massaging your shoulder. Then I walked around the bed to your right side. You said you knew when I was on your left and on your right, but your weren’t aware of my moving. In your awareness I was in one place and then appeared elsewhere in the same moment. Once you’d told me this, I watched you slip into that timeless place, and I followed your eyes as they watched things moving around the room above you. I saw your happy face and felt you relax as you saw whatever you saw. Later you told me about the spring green field and trees that were parted by a white gravel road. A white school bus came down the road toward you. A little girl dressed all in white got off the bus and waited. She must have been your angel.

On Friday, your mom and wife were very sad. I went in to give you treatment. You were not able to talk to me that day. I tried to help you, but you motioned as if to shoo me away. You tried to say something, but I don’t think you were talking to me. You seemed to be concentrating. I felt I was interrupting your conversation with someone else. I wondered if it was your little angel. I kissed your forehead and told you to rest.

On the drive home, I remembered the day you told me you were sick, and I cried. You said not to worry, death was just part of life. You saw the whole of life as a journey and the good, the bad, the happy and the hard was all just part of the trip. You relished the voyage more than anyone I’d ever met. You kept your mind open and your heart tender. You taught me the importance of looking off the cliff before you jump, so you don’t miss a thing on the way down. And if you crack up on the rocks, well, that’s just part of the journey. The most important thing is to keep your eyes open and enjoy the view.

I keep you with me in memory every day. I miss you dear friend, but don’t doubt that I’m enjoying the view from here.

Love much, always,

Jana

Categories: Shaded Woods, Sweet Words

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