Catching Mystical Energy

Last night I listened to an interview on WNYC with Roseanne Cash. I have loved her voice and music for decades. She was talking about how important it is for her to continue to work on her music, to go deeper. And I think this is so true. There are things we each are here to do and to remember about ourselves and the evolving never stops. I like that aspect. Makes me feel ageless. Makes me want to drink water, exercise, stay alive and continue learning.






She talked about how mystical was her father. How he worked his problems out on stage. What a smart way to live, I thought. Stay in the present and work through the issue. She also talked about the morning after he was buried, and how she got up at 5 am, went to Starbucks, and waited for it to open. She purchased two cups of coffee  - one for her, one for Johnny - and went to the cemetery, watching the sun rise. She said it was a time travel experience and this song came to her.





She said she thinks of creating songs as catching them as they pass through the air. I love that idea and it reminds me of what Stephen King says about finding stories as fossils, partially submerged in the dirt and sand, requiring gentle recovery.  Roseanne said what she is trying to do is to catch the songs she is capable of catching.

I like that and am adopting that approach.

This past Christmas I bought two humble journals and filled the first few pages with handwritten poems for both of my daughters. They said that was the best present, ever. I sat there, feeling the warmth that comes from being in the present moment. I shall never forget it.

My nephew's birthday was yesterday and I made another journal for him and plan to do it for all my loved ones. It feels so good to know I shall do that. I am returning to poetry and taking it seriously. I keep making writing out to be harder than it must be. I have been trying to catch way over my head. Poetry comes to my glove and I thankfully accept it. I am reading - rereading Mary Oliver's Handbook on Poetry She is the best.

Roseanne spoke about her ten years of Jungian therapy and how Jung says there are five important dreams we have in our lifetime. She said she had one of those dreams and it was of her at a party and the host's name was "Art" and he turned his back on her, saying in essence, "We do not respect dilettantes."

She said it shook her, and told her not to coast, but to push deeper. In the interview she kept referring to love and energy. I listened, thanking Roseanne, the interviewer, WNYC, and  the magical, mystical, majesty of creativity. I thanked God -  there in the roses - in the petals and the thorns.

Yesterday I wrote to a few close friends from back home asking them to help a friend of my ex's who has a keen ability to read Tarot cards and could use some extra cash. Months ago, he had sent me a Tarot message from my ex husband who transitioned in 1999, and I read it, crying with happiness and sorrow. It was him, pure and simple. Yesterday, I reread his message from the earlier reading. I cried most of the afternoon. I knew it meant my ex was near. I always cried when I was near him after our divorce. We couldn't live together, but we loved each other and what stunning daughters we produced.

Yes, it was a mystical day yesterday. My nephew, Robert. was born 28 years ago and something inside me just was having a major time travel. I talked to my sister via text and wept through the hour long conversation. I was there when my nephew was born and each year at his birthday, I see the rainy evening and my father driving crazy to the hospital with me in the backseat and my sister holding on to the passenger door, both of us yelling at him to slow down before he kills us! I, too, was pregnant with my daughter and had her three months later. My nephew's birth started the parenthood procession in our family and I go back there with each of his birthdays, feeling the passion of birth and loss in my heart.  Last night everything meant something. The interview with Roseanne, my nephew's birthday, trying to help Ed's friend, rereading the Tarot reading. All of it.

I am so thankful. Today I made major headway with a book project and workbook. And both of my daughters are making remarkable progress in their professions. And I talked to an old friend who had lost her husband a few years ago and she has reconnected with someone and  she sounded so stunned and happy. This made me so happy. Yesterday's tears paved the way for today's sunshine. And I have my glove, ready to catch it all.