It’s Complicated

You're the trouble in my blood Trouble in my blood

My father died Thanksgiving Day. He was 97. Today is Winter Solstice. Tomorrow morning we leave for Texas to join a daughter and grandchildren for the holiday. My mother died three years ago, making me, officially, an orphan.

chasm

/ˈkazəm/

noun

1. a deep fissure in the earth, rock, or another surface.
   "a chasm a mile long"

2. a profound difference between people, viewpoints, feelings, etc

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The word chasm was the first to surface in my mind as I began processing my father’s death—a word that propelled me to write this essay and search for its meaning. In doing so, I found myself reflecting back to 2012 and The Great Divergence, an event that some astrologers and new-age spiritualists had eagerly predicted. At the time, the concept carried an aura of transcendence. Some envisioned it as the dawn of a new consciousness, even an ascension of sorts—the righteous, the conscious, and the awakened rising to a higher plane.

Yet the divergence that unfolded over the following years feels far less lofty. It has indeed been a great awakening, but also a profound fragmentation. Polarization, on all levels, defines our world today: the stark divides in our nation, our communities, and our families. Estrangement has become a common language.

The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. ~ Luke 12:53

Carl Jung is often misquoted as saying, "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.” What he actually said was:

"The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.”

This speaks to a profound truth: by avoiding the conscious journey of reconciliation within ourselves, we externalize that inner division, projecting it onto the world around us. A.H. Almaas elaborates, describing this split as “…the great chasm separating our experience in the conventional dimension of experience from the fundamental ground of the soul.”

First, it is ourselves to which we don’t belong. This is the essence of alienation—from ourselves and, consequently, from others. My own experience with this alienation began early in my childhood. Much of what I write here is rooted in the work of healing that split, in the process of aligning with and restoring my true Self—my true nature. It has been a journey of deconstructing childhood conditioning, unearthing my authentic identity, and arriving at a simple yet life-changing epiphany: There’s nothing wrong with me (and there never was).

As I prepare for a road trip and the holidays, I find myself still processing my father’s death, and this missive, of necessity, will be incomplete, as were we. Long ago, I came to terms with his emotional abandonment and rejection. I released him. I realized I no longer needed his rejection, distance, or narcissistic power plays as a means to justify hating myself. He was no longer the measure of my worthiness. I left my father’s house.

I walked through a wall of fire
Left behind the only life I knew
No way back, no place to hide
When a voice came through

Worthy, worthy, what a thing to claim
Worthy, worthy ashes into flame
Worthy

~ Mary Gauthier

The second word that came to me after his death was belonging.

I was born and raised in a cult, a place built on the illusion of belonging. Cults thrive on this false promise, offering a sense of inclusion to those who feel its absence within themselves.

Having chosen exile from the cult that promised belonging based on exclusivity - and carrying my role as the family scapegoat - I am a misfit, an outsider. Sometimes the ache of that feels immense. Yet, paradoxically it is far more vast and painful when I am in their proximity.

In the absence of self-realization, a chasm forms between our essential nature and the identity we construct for ourselves. Beneath the roles, the conflict, and the shadow of family dynamics, I hold a secret—one I first glimpsed during a near-death experience at nineteen, when I had an anaphylactic reaction to penicillin. The secret? I know I belong, and nothing can ever change that. No rejection, scapegoating, criticism, or shaming can take away this birthright. At the deepest level of my being, at the foundation of my soul, I am home. I belong. Even if others, trapped in their own inner chasm, cannot recognize it.

My father could not read music. He played the fiddle, the piano, the guitar, and the harmonica by ear. As a child, his music soothed me. There was little to no affection, no human touch, in our family. When I heard the first tuning twang of a violin or guitar string, the touch of a piano key, my nervous system regulated, and my heart opened. I rested in the notes and the melody. The sound held me as though in a cradle.

Sometimes all anybody needs is a human touch. ~ Jackson Brown

On Sunday afternoons during the first eight years of my life, we traveled to my grandparents’ farm for dinner and a music jam. I would sit at the feet of my father’s mother as she strummed her guitar and sang ballads. My father and grandfather accompanied her on the fiddle, my aunt played the piano, and other relatives joined in on a ukulele—or even spoons. In those moments, I was home. That was love.

My father—my dad—is home now.

As with my mother, his death brought a gift, a miracle of healing. It revealed a truth: we can never be separated from our essential nature, no matter the barriers or all that hides it. It rests in the recognition that my father, my sisters and brother, my daughters and grandchildren, all that is, and you—yes, you, too…

…You are the rest of me.

We all belong. Even me.

HEAVY

By Mary Oliver

(Read by Kelly)

That time

I thought I could not

go any closer to grief

without dying

I went closer,

and I did not die.

Surely God

had his hand in this,

as well as friends.

Still, I was bent,

and my laughter,

as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.

Then said my friend Daniel,

(brave even among lions),

“It’s not the weight you carry

but how you carry it –

books, bricks, grief –

it’s all in the way

you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not,

put it down.”

So I went practicing.

Have you noticed?

Have you heard

the laughter

that comes, now and again,

out of my startled mouth?

How I linger

to admire, admire, admire

the things of this world

that are kind, and maybe

also troubled –

roses in the wind,

the sea geese on the steep waves,

a love

to which there is no reply?

~ Mary Oliver

Dad’s fiddle.

God’s Violin

by Julia Vinograd

(Read by Kelly)

Good and evil are only high and low

on one string of god’s violin.

There are other strings being played

stretching from our guts to the end of the world.

Telephone wires vibrate with what we meant to say,

explanations lost in black curved space

like socks lost under the bed.

Our silences wail under god’s fingers.

Our silences harmonize with

the implacable pastel rise of a department store

and its peacock tail of blind mannequin eyes

while the triumphal march of a snail

to the other end of its glossy leaf

plays counterpoint.

I dreamed of god’s violin.

The number of strings went on beyond

my eyes counting curve

and the length of the strings simply went on.

We miss so much.

Have you ever been driving alone at night

down a freeway fighting sleep

and chasing the white line?

Supposed you realized

no matter how long and fast you drove

you’d be stuck in one white mark on the white line

and never get past it.

Like that.

The Music of the Spheres.

The Fiddler on the Roof.

The Piper on the Hills.

The heart-tug behind tv commercials

before they start selling glop.

We don’t hear god’s violin because we’re part of it

the way construction workers don’t hear their own drills.

But sometimes, just for one or two notes

an echo sweeps us up like a tidal wave

scattering everything we clutch and fight for

out of our hands like spilled popcorn

and we stand in the ruins and laugh.

Afterwards we don’t remember.

Or we pretend we don’t remember,

putting everything wearily back the way it was

and going on

and that also goes into the music.

God’s violin doesn’t help anything,

the world’s wounds are part of the music

and anyway, it’s too big.

Like smashing a symphony hall complete with symphony

on top of a spoonful of cough medicine

for a sick child.

Maybe we’re not supposed to listen.

Maybe it’s not possible to really listen

and still be any use to our lives.

Like trying to touch a toolkit

with burnt, aching fingers.

But I’ve heard the roar of that fire in the strings

and reached for it

and couldn’t reach high enough

and that was worse.

God’s violin is for us,

what we are for

god only knows

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One Thing

By taking care of our less pleasant feelings, we can become aware of the many conditions of joy we have in the present moment. All feelings, pleasant or unpleasant, belong:

Brother Phap Linh Meditation

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On Repeat

Shout Out

“It took everything I had to leave. Leaving made me who I am.”

Don’t Make Me Stop This Car Reflections From A Girl Grown Up On The Road

You’ve gotta meet

Chris J. Rice

“I jumped off my family tree. There was no other way. The tree was falling. I’m a writer and visual artist who lives in California. My story doesn’t tie a pretty bow on it. To self actualize when you’ve been in the system isn’t easy going. Few former foster kids get advanced degrees. I have an MFA in Fine Arts and a Masters in Library and Information Science. A lot of friends and a very happy home. Still the past intrudes. The lack of family lingers. To read more of her story, subscribe:

Divide and Conquer

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