Transcendence

This post has been coming for awhile now, but I've learned since starting this whole blogging experience not to force it.  My voice will come in due time.  And tonight is no exception. 

For mother's day this year we all gathered at my mom's house.  I've felt uncomfortable about this for the past few years as Mother's day has fallen on the same weekend as a big music/arts festival that we've enjoyed going to.  But, we want to see mom anyway, and she graciously hosts us on this day to celebrate her even though we show up un-bathed and tired from the weekend long festivities.

This day was also the day to celebrate my aunt's 60th birthday which she had passed a few days earlier.  I love this story about her...she was born May 5th, 1950.  On May 5th, 1955 she turned 5 and was 55 pounds!  Talk about a lucky number! 

Anyway, we all had plans to gather at my parent's house to celebrate mother's day and Patty's birthday.  A week before this Patty wrote and asked if it would be okay if she invited a man with our same surname who is somehow related to us in generations past.  Grandpa had been in touch with him years back as they were both interested in genealogy.   But Patty had reunited with him on facebook! 

Of course we all said a boisterous yes as we love meeting new people, especially ones named Bralley who could have the same quirks as ourselves. 

As so it came to be, this man who shared our name came to dinner and we absolutely adored him.  He is an eccentric soul, an old soul, and seemed so clearly a Bralley even though we are so far removed from each other.  It is amazing to me how those genes hold true!!!

So I left that night feeling happy to celebrate women in my life who I love so much, and also to have met a new family member of sorts. 

Fast-forward weeks later and I think I mentioned something on facebook that let on that I was a cancer survivor.  This sweet new-found relative of mine wrote to me and asked to confirm his suspicions.  We hadn't gotten to that conversation over dinner that night.  I said yes, and within days he posted the most beautiful, heartfelt painting and poem I could have ever received at that moment in time.  And within days of that I had it in hard copy in my own hands.  This man, whom I have only met once, spent time creating this beautiful piece for me, and I felt the love.  Deeply.

Come spirit
Come charm
Come days that are warm
Come magical spell
Help Evie get well.

I fell in love with this piece and he told me more about it:  Well, there's seven chakras, and high energy flow and cells moving and realigning and channels coming and going and combat of the fierce king and victory of the greatest kind. And healing of the permanent kind.

And YES!  it is true.  The seven chakras. The high energy flow.  We need all of these open and working for them to flow in health.

This is what I've been working with in my women's circle--and have been off and on for years now.  I've always felt like these lower chakras resonate easier with my psyche.  They dominate me in fact.  I love the grounding of the first chakra.  I am a "nester" and cherish my home and community.  I feel the fluidity and emotion and connection of the second chakra, the third is power and will, which I can manifest.  And of course the fourth chakra...the heart...I breathe and bleed here.  But once we start talking the upper chakras I am at a lack.   My energy flow is blocked. 

My cancer started just above my heart, and spread thorughout my chest and neck..

I am a worrier, I am tense, I cannot seem to find peace in meditation, I often cannot find my voice.  And transcendence...something that is talked about freely in my family...is such an abstract term that I can't even begin to realize its meaning. 

I have had mystical experiences enough in my life to know that there is something greater than what I can begin to describe.  Yet in the day to day my mind can get wrapped up in the nuances of the human experience. 

There is a photograph of me when I was less than a year old. My father was holding me and I was as stiff as a board.  Why was I so tense, even then?  And now, I still find myself wrapped in emotion at times, full of worry.  I often wonder if I got sick because I haven't learned to let things go and breathe easier..to transcend...to let myself experience those upper chakras and their gifts. 

This is a really round-a-bout post...

But the drive for me to write this was sparked by my comment tonight on facebook. I mentioned that I was "just in from a stroll through the garden at twilight...I love June in GA--lightening bugs, owls, bats, moist, dense air and that mystic presence that fills my senses."

And this sweet new friend/family of mine mentioned Pan and how he draws us in. I replied that I would stay out there forever if it weren't for the mosquitoes. And he said---transcend baby doll, you know how.

And that statement alone took..my..breath..away.

Do I know how? I have never thought so. I wish I could transcend. Do I know how? Signs are pointing at an increasing pace the fact that now is the time to embrace this. Patty just wrote me today and reminded me about Byron Katie and her Work. And posted on my blog this statement "Are you beginning to understand that it’s not reality that changes, it’s what you believe that changes reality?"

So here it is late, and I am rambling. But I am thinking too...about how my mind can transcend and tickle those upper chakras and let the healing energies flow. 

Thank you Russ and thank you Patty. I am so lucky to be able to call you family.