When They Mourn My Death

More Foolsgold.

In Chapter 10 Susan says, "Involvement with Poets in the Schools transformed my life." I reflect on what one event in my life "transformed it" and what comes to me is the tenacious decision I made to live polyamorously. I was steeped in the monogamous fantasy of finding "my one true love and living happily ever" after just like the rest of us. I made a conscious choice to feel my fear and do it anyway. Susan quotes Joseph Campbell who says:

I have found that you have only to take that one step step toward the gods, and they will then take ten steps toward you. That step, the heroic first step of the journey, is out of , or over the edge of , your boundaries, and it often must be taken before you know that you will be supported.

Polyamory has been a personal revolution, as well as evolution for me. It's transformed me spiritually and sexually. I think differently. I love differently. And although the effects are actually more internal than external, they are far reaching. The gods have taken many steps toward me and I feel their presence. I know I am supported.

This chapter is titled on asking and Susan says, "We want to make our asking as large and world-opening as possible." and shares what visionary activist Caroline Casey advises--"that we ask with the words I wonder."

I wonder what it would be like to have enough money to pay off my debts and travel around the world, visiting every yoga studio, dharma center, health spa and Enlightenment Intensive that I could find?

I wonder what it would feel like to publish a book?

I wonder what having two or three or more committed polyamorous lovers would be like?

I wonder what it would feel like to know that I was really supporting each one of my children in the ways they most want to be supported?

I wonder what feelings will be triggered in me when my back porch and secret garden patio area are rearranged with love and attention?

I wonder who will be the next guest who will stay over in our extra bedroom and grace our home with their presence?

I wonder who will be the next lover who will share mine and Jerry's bed?

I wonder what I'm going to do on my 53rd birthday?

I wonder what it will feel like when my body finally allows me to drop this extra weight I've been carrying around?

When I read D.H. Lawrence's words in chapter 11...

Go deeper than love, for the soul has greater depths, love is like the grass, but the heart is deep wild rock molten, yet dense and permanent.

I felt love as a powerful driving force, a wave I had caught a ride on and it was carrying me to the heart source of all, and then it gently spilled me over into the crystal waters that spiraled down, deep into the center of existence. I wonder if this is were Susan's poppa went when he died, returning to the heart source? Mahadeviyakka says:

...the infinite rests concealed in the heart.

In Chapter 13 Susan muses over her poppa's gathering of beautiful things and thinks he would have "agreed with Einstein and Kepler that the rightness of an idea might not be seen first in its correctness, but in its beauty. " This reminds me a John Keats quote:

If something is not beautiful, it is probably not true.

Susan encourages me to question my collections and to decipher their meaning and consider letting some things go in order to make room for the new. I feel trapped by my clutter. What is this need I have to hang on to so much? Once, in the midst of a life coaching session with my friend Ren, I found myself telling her I had so much junk in my life that all my precious treasures were so hidden inside the mess that I couldn't fine them. There is a feng shui practice that has you focus on each one of your possessions and if you find that you don't love it, (or if it doesn't provide a necessary function that adds to the quality of your life, such as a stove to cook your food on) to give it away. Susan suggests "capturing their essence" on film or in words that take up less space. I like this idea and I think I will pull my camera out and pack another box for goodwill.

Nikos Kazantzakis from chapter 14:

By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is what we have not sufficiently desired.

From this chapter I learn that a minyan is more than ten and although this is a word I'm familiar with, I wouldn't have known how to use it appropriately. I look it up in the dictionary and find that in Jewish tradition, it is the minimum number of persons who must be present to conduct a communal religious ritual. Sometimes tradition is so comforting. Susan's home fills with a minyan of gypsy queens, come to help her mourn her poppa's death with dance and prayers.

Rituals channel our life energy toward the light--Lao Tzu

In chapter 15 I cry as I read Susan's daughter's words as she mourns...

When I think of Grandpa Julian...I think of the smell of wool and fresh air. I think of bushy eyebrows, warm hand, marbles, garage door openers, slightly rotten fruit, hummingbirds, corn shucking, my loose teeth, and shy good-nights from the doorway.

I think of my own beloved grandfather, long gone, and wonder what my grandchildren will think of when they mourn my death.