Week One – Lesson One – Taking Stock

Week One –Taking Stock

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Prelude – The Event

And then there was that life-changing event.  We all experience them. I had just returned from a business trip. Donna asked if I was open to a picnic in the mountains of West Virginia, about an hour’s drive from our home in Northern Virginia. Almost as an afterthought, she said that a real estate agent was going to show us some property that had just been opened for sale. We viewed a thirty-two acre tract at the top of the mountain and were so attracted to the 360-degree panorama that we purchased the land on the spot.

Not long thereafter, I accepted the position of academic department chair for an online university in Charles Town, West Virginia—some fifteen miles from the top of our mountain. Our plans to build a home on the property accelerated and almost before we realized it, we had sold our home of twenty-five years in Northern Virginia, purchased an interim home in West Virginia, close to the building site, and enrolled our son in a private elementary school in the area. Donna devoted her energy and talent to the design of our future mountain abode.

Heavy equipment was moved onto the mountain to clear the property and four days before the work was to commence, Donna was killed as she walked with our son in a crosswalk to church where he was to prepare for his First Holy Communion. The driver of the vehicle was looking to the right instead of to the left where they both were crossing the street that he was entering.

So there in 260 words is my life changing event. No single experience has had the impact on me than that sudden and severe loss.

Spend a moment and write in a journal reserved for this course to record your own life changing event, and as we progress also take a moment to respond to the questions asked as well as to note thoughts that might arise. (Take time to pause throughout this course to reflect upon the questions asked and to write a few words in your journal.  (Note: There is no rush to complete the lessons.)

Part One – Where You Found Yourself

Have you ever considered how you reach the really important, life-changing decisions quickly with a confidence of a yes or no – absent any equivocation?

I was at a stop-sign with Donna on our first date in Spokane, Washington – I was to propose marriage a week later and marry within two months – when she asked if I wanted her to attend art classes at the University of Washington in Seattle for which she already registered. I hardly knew her name, yet I said “No.”

A couple of other examples of quick decisions occurred years later in India. Donna informed me that on her visit to Mother Theresa’s orphanage she learned that the little girl that she had told me about from previous visits was desperately ill. She asked what I thought about taking her to the U.S. Embassy doctor for help. I said, “Yes.”

More significantly, following the visit to the doctor, on the twenty minute drive back to the orphanage in north Delhi, we discussed the possibility of adopting the little girl, and our hearts responded, “Yes.”

Then one day, in the summer of our lives, Donna asked, “How about going on a picnic in West Virginia?”  And I said, “Yes.”

Consider some of your own decisions and identify instances when intuition, perhaps described as in inner presence, influenced your spontaneity.

What purpose is served by this reflection, you might ask? 

Well, let’s suppose that there is an interconnectedness revealed in the events and experiences – where there are no coincidences; where all your experiences, even the ones you would seek to avoid – like ones that represent deep loss and desperate grief – hold the promise of healing beyond anything you could have imagined.

This is where we are headed in these next weeks. 

Let me say that when I awoke to the realization that Donna was gone – gone in a tragic accident – it was as if I found myself in a dark forest. 

Take time to read slowly the following opening lines from Dante’s Divine Comedy, as translated by David Whyte, the Welch poet that captured the despair and loneliness I felt in the days following her death:

In the middle of the road of my life

I awoke in a dark wood

Where the true way was wholly lost.

Here’s a question for you – are you now or have you recently found yourself in your own dark wood? Describe this dark wood. It might be a listlessness, a disinterest in what formerly excited you, a loss of passion.

Do you, or did you, feel that you had lost your path – that comfortable routine in life disrupted without warning – even in the case of losing someone terminally ill since all such departure s are so final?

Part Two – The Matrix

You see on the following pages  is a list of 52 selected emotional responses – some welcome, some not so welcome, none of them bad or for that matter good. Feelings just are.

Select those that are appropriate to your present situation and create a matrix on a large piece of paper – perhaps graph paper – that you can secure in your journal.

List the emotional responses that you recognize in a column at the left side of the page.

Across the top, write today’s date, followed by 7 consecutive weeks – the length of this course.

Later, you can continue to gauge the depth of your healing, perhaps at intervals of a month or so.

Without fail, in this journey, you will notice recovery and healing that might have gone unnoticed as you continued to focus on certain emotional disturbances related to your loss, and had not engaged in measuring your overall emotional state.

Part Three – Creating a Matrix for Recovery

TRACKING COMMON REACTIONS TO GRIEF/LOSS
After you make your selections and construct your matrix, record with perhaps a number from 1-5 the intensity you are experiencing in those of the following form your matrix –

On the following page you will see an example of a matrix.

                                                                                                                Week
1              2              3              4              5              6              7              8

52. Spontaneity returning

1-5 = measures intensity, 5 being most intense

Part Four – Creativity and Healing

Early on I want to introduce the theme of creativity and its relationship to healing.  This is a theme we will return in future lessons.

You will discover that within your creative spark resides a boundless source of healing energy. Yes, I said your creative spark.

 For me it is especially in composing poetry. Weeks after Donna died, one of my daughters sent me a poem with a note in which she reminded me that in the past I regularly wrote poetry and perhaps it was time to resume.

This same daughter talked to me of the texture of our lives measured in responses to life’s joys and sufferings. I wrote I Sought Love, days later.

By way of background, before I met Donna, I spent many hours on the expansive waterways of Long Island Sound as a member of a rowing team for Fordham University and the New York Athletic Club. I can still hear so clearly the rap of the wooden chucks as the coxswain struck the gunnels to revive us in a close race, the oarlocks clicking against them as the sixteen-foot oars entered and exited the water, and the hiss of the whirlpool swirl formed by the strokes. Hear the cadence with each stroke.

Before you read the poem, view the link to a YouTube of two oarsmen rowing a pair without coxswain to give you a sense of the rhythm and cadence of a racing shell. (Note: This is the first of several links that you will discover throughout this course.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyIDMaPQ1VE

I Sought Love

I
Calm water
Crisp air
Early sun
Glow warm

Oars snap

Shell runs
Straight back
Breathe out

“Hear me.
I love You!”
“What is love?”
You ask.

II
Donna enters
Life churns
Vibrates
Excites
Connects

III
And as she passes on
In loneliness
I understand better
Love.

IV
Love is
Let go
Trust
Sacrifice
Trust
Steadiness
Trust
Compassion
Trust
Gentleness
Trust
Giving
Trust
Reaching out
Trust
Forgiveness
Trust
Confidence
Trust
Joy
Trust
Acceptance
Trust
Patience
Trust
Dream
Trust
Eternal
Trust

V
Calm water
Crisp air
Early sun
Glow warm
Oars snap
Shell runs
Straight back
Breathe out

“Hear me,
I love You!”
“I know.”

This poem and the creative impulse represented in composing it brought me to a place where I encountered for the first time the healing aspect of creativity.

Ask yourself what does creativity mean to you?

Looking back on your life how did you exhibit it in whatever pursuit that you recall? 

At the conclusion of each lesson I will suggest a creative exercise or activity to pursue during the week.

Part Five –

To Do For Next Week

Also, the following two exercises are provided for you to complete in the coming week.

As a child I used to adjust to the darkness by lying still and listening. Not a bad formula for an adult! What works for you?

Find a place to sit quietly in a darkened room where you will not be disturbed. Spend some time quietly clearing your mind of the events of the day.

When you are settled and your breathing is steady and relaxed, imagine that you are in a treasure chamber of dreams.

What do you “see” awaiting your touch?

Be sure to note what you observe when the lights go on.

In the second assignment, you embark on an eight-part Creative Journey.

How do you experience the creative process and with whom do you share the joy of creation? To overcome any resistance to writing poetry, how about trying haiku?
Haiku is a mode of Japanese poetry. The most common form for haiku is three short lines.
The first line usually contains five syllables, the second line seven syllables, and the third line five syllables.
Haiku doesn't rhyme, but paints an image in the reader's mind. This is the challenge of haiku—to put the poem's meaning and imagery in the reader's mind in seventeen syllables over just three lines of poetry!
Take out a piece of paper and write a draft haiku that you will later copy in your journal. Do not hesitate to write, as the spirit moves, a haikuto reflect daily routine.
Here is an example by the poet Basho, from Japanese classic literature.
Note the translation into English affects the syllabic order.

Monks’ feet clomping
Through icy dark,
Drawing sweet water.