Linda’s Angel by Tammy Vitale.

1. The Angels/are not like the Saints.///They do not discriminate/but come to everyone./Their eyes burn green fire/but their kisses are icy.//They can play rough when we get caught/in the heavy crosswinds that swirl about their wings.//They are not above artifice/and sometimes appear in disguise://a mask of smeared lipstick, gypsey/bangles, or an old man’s coat.//Now and again they carelessly give us gifts;/an unexpected hobbyhorse, a day’s free babysitting,//a poke in the eye with a sticks,/or sudden slant of light on water.//And we are grateful, once we figure out how/to move within their state of complex blessings.//They work within great wheels and circles,/turning light to dark and back again.//They do not obey the laws of gravity/but laugh a lot and arise at will//to hover like vast hummingbirds/when we require attention.//What they want of us is the mysterious secret/ we unravel and reweave//down to dark and back again. Judith Roche in Face to Face: Women Writers on Faith, Mysticism, and Awakening. Linda Hogan and Brenda Peterson.

I rediscovered the above poem last week while collecting pieces for “366 Wyldish Thoughts.”  This work will be available to folks via subscription in the (hopefully near) future because I have had so many comments on my “Thoughts for the day” over the years that I have been blogging.

Anyways, I rediscovered this poem, which speaks deeply to me of life and how it works – especially the “poke in the eye” – because so often in the midst of crisis and chaos we simply cannot see the meaning and purpose of what is happening to us or those around us.

Then Christine Kane’s  latest ezine arrived.  In it she talks about her early years as a bulemic:  

In my late teens and early 20’s I was bulimic. And when I began the long process of recovery, I was furious that I couldn’t just give up food. I hated food. It was the cause (so I thought) of all my problems. I reasoned that an alcoholic had it “easier” because at least the offending substance could be removed from his life. A bulimic has to keep eating – while recovering from exactly what she was eating. I wished I could just give up food! That seemed so logical!

I didn’t realize then that the very thing I was angry about would also be the very thing that would teach me how to approach everything in my life. Precisely because I could not remove the “offending substance” from my world, I was forced to heal and renew my relationship with food and with my body. I had to make friends with food. I had to make friends with and listen to my body. I had to learn to use my ATTENTION, not just my logic.

This learning process taught me how to do everything else in my life, too – from songwriting to money to pets to marriage, and yes, to business. I do none of these things perfectly, of course. But I’ve learned how to hear my own inner wisdom when I go deeply enough to build a relationship with the thing I’m working on or with.

It has been many years since I left a battering marriage.  At the time I was 34 and had spent half my life with my husband (with a brief divorce then remarriage to him – classic battered woman syndrome for all the classic reasons, but that’s another post), the father of my two children.  As a practicing Catholic I believed that marriage was forever.  As a human I realized that if I didn’t do something soon, forever would be short and not very sweet.  Then it dawned on me that I was modeling for my daughter and my son what marriage is like.  I’d like to say I got brave and left, but I didn’t.  I left because I didn’t want my son to be a batterer or my daughter to be battered herself thinking “oh, that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

As it turns out, like Christine, the lesson was in the process of working myself out of that relationship and understanding why I was in it in the first place – not only in it, but repeated it by the remarriage.  Some women repeat it with a different man but same situation.  What I learned was that until we understand our choices, and take the time to understand what is driving our choices (i.e., the stories we are telling ourselves), we will repeat and repeat and repeat the same situation.  I believe that is our angels – not quite all sweetness and light – sending us what we need along our path.

Like Christine, this particular growth process has enlightened and informed everything I have done since.  I learned about true empowerment:  it cannot be done for you.  You must do it yourself.  What others can (but don’t always) do is provide a safe space for you to discover your stories, reweave them, take the steps that will lead you on your true path.  This isn’t just about marriage.  It’s also about our life’s calling:  how we believe we can’t because (fill in the blank); how we learn we can.  That’s empowerment.  Our learning.  It’s why no one else can do it for us.  If we don’t do the work ourselves, we don’t get the result.  We get some limp almost-but-not-quite or not-at-all that leaves us yearning still and wondering why oh why things can’t simply work themselves out.

And learning, we will always forget.  Which is why we have angels.

Who or what situations have been angels in your life?  What changes happened as a result?  I would love to hear your stories!

thought for the day: Before enlightenment:  chop wood, carry water.  After enlightenment:  chop wood, carry water.  Zen saying

Nearly anything can proivde the opening or initial impetus for setting out on the spiritual journey.  Fileds, et al, eds of New Age Journal

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