Refuge / The capacity to love arising from savasana (the corpse pose)

(Source for the above quote)

This morning I woke up at 2 a.m. feeling some grief and PTSD-related emotional distress and then chose to enter into what turned out to be a three-hour meditation, mostly positioned in variations of the yoga pose named savasana, with some drifting back into sleep as well as trying to stay with body sensations and mental imagery, not the thoughts that had disturbed my sleep and stirred up my emotions. There were shifts in and out of distress, some tears, some moments of joy. Whenever I would become aware that I was thinking, I would focus my attention on body sensations and the imagery that arises from them. I found refuge in the capacity to love that arose from the savasana practice.

At 5 a.m. as I got up from the savasana meditation I noticed my copy of Gentle Wilderness: Sierra Nevada where it leans with its book cover facing my bed, on the bookshelf next to my bed.

I remembered sitting side-by-side on a couch with Richard, looking through his brother's copy of the book, page by page, reading John Muir's words and looking at the splendid photos. It was not long after he had returned from Vietnam. Richard had brought me to his brother and sister-in-law's apartment to look at that book. Richard had said, "I know you will love this book, too. You are a poet and an artist."

I remembered driving from Modesto to Yosemite with Richard on my 52nd birthday, after not having seen him since 1986, the year before my recovery from bulimia and anorexia began. It was the day before his 52nd birthday. He was not feeling well but wanted to drive up to Yosemite in the Sierra Nevada. As we approached the gates of Yosemite on Highway 120, Richard quietly said, "Amanda, I have suffered enough today. Let's go back to Modesto."

I remembered driving alone from Manteca to Yosemite on my birthday in 2008, a little more than five months after I had spent four days with Richard in the ICU at the Palo Alto VA Hospital during the week before he died. As I passed through the gates of Yosemite on Highway 120, I knew that this delayed and long-awaited experience would be an ongoing gift from Richard, and it has been just that. As I took in the landscape that John Muir and so many before and after him have loved, I experienced the capacity to love that I had first felt at the ocean, even before I met Richard. It was no coincidence that I met Richard while walking next to the ocean when we were both 17 years old. It was no coincidence that I felt love as I entered Yosemite that clear sunny day in October 2008.

It is always my hope that sharing my experience by telling these stories can benefit others.

I've been in the studio for about three hours today working on this post, grateful for the renewal of creative energy that comes with blogging and the recent desire to do other art work as well.

"You will always, for the rest of your life, feel some grief over this death. It will no longer dominate your life, but it will always be there, in the background, reminding you of the love you had for the person who died."
(Alan D. Wolfelt, from Understanding Your Grief)

RANGE OF LIGHT

The term “Range of Light” was coined in the following passage by John Muir. “After ten years spent in the heart of it, rejoicing and wondering, bathing in its glorious floods of light, seeing the sunbursts of morning among its icy peaks, the noonday radiance on the trees and rocks and snow, the flush of alpenglow, and a thousand dashing waterfalls with their marvelous abundance of irised spray, it still seems to above all others the Range of Light.”

Am in a quiet mood this morning, thinking about my friend who is recovering from a stroke, remembering that my friend is the one who introduced me to the writing of John Muir in 1970, remembering our trip to the gates of Yosemite on the first day of October in 2001, remembering that day and feeling grateful to all who have sent kind thoughts and prayers to my friend who is presently in the VA Hospital in Palo Alto, California. As I mentioned before, he is unable to speak but is able to write. I have not heard from him yet. I hope to talk with a chaplain at the VA Hospital this morning.

When I look at this photo, John Muir's face reminds me of my friend's face when we were still in our 30s. I remember that time we were facing each other while sitting in rocking chairs on the deck of a house overlooking the Pacific Ocean, a house where he was doing carpentry work. We talked about art and our separate but connected lives.

On Tuesday morning, I made a decision to drop the Anatomy and Physiology course I had started and to add an Art History class, to let go of the idea of becoming a Massage Therapist and commit to finding a way to make a living using my natural inclination toward art. The Art History class is decidedly more demanding than the Anatomy and Physiology class, but I know I made a good decision to study 15th to 18th Century Art in the context of a Visual Communications program that will lead me to being able to earn a living in the field of graphic design in the years before I am able to retire.