Letter to My Daughter

A Sunflower for the Strong Women in My Life

This is an open letter to the regrets, rejections and longings that roam out in the world of the imagination. It is especially aimed at those regrets rising from decisions to turn away from someone you have loved... and later regretted.

For all of those that have ignored the hard and joyful paths that the heart has called from, to all those that have turned away from a love instead of claiming their inheritance as a human being, to all those that have listened more to their fears instead of their wonder, I write this letter. 

On a personal side I write this letter to someone I let go of, someone I turned away from so many years ago. Yet my heart never hardened in that fateful choice. I write to someone I miss and have never known. I hope this letter reaches you dear one of mine. This is the only way I have to get it to you.

I also hope that this inspires other readers to view and transmute their regrets before this precious time on Earth is done. Not just to wallow in the "what ifs" or to feel sad or to be self-critical. No! These modes of not dealing with regret serve no one very well. Talk to the missing and the rejected, even if only in your mind-heart. Just let the words flow. Perhaps there is wisdom within the sadness. Perhaps the regret can be transformed and become a flame in the heart, allowing you to live in service, humility and freedom.

My Letter:

Hello Daughter,

All these years. All the passing years without you. You are twenty-two years old now. Are you out there? Sweet woman-child, I wish I would have reached out and cared for you, took you in, been your father. Daughter of mine, are you gone forever? What sadness to never have known your smile, the curve of your fingers, the stars in your tears. Are there are so many tears between us?

Sometimes, in the dead of night, I hear a young woman’s voice whispering my name. Sometimes I see tracks in the snow outside my window that were not there before. Sometimes, when I am waking, the house tells me that you have just woken and are in the other room, with a beam of sun shining through your curtain. But then I get up and the house is empty.

In as many years as you have been here on Earth, I will be leaving or gone. Will I meet you in the other world? In this world, I wanted to tell you about my life: the life that courses in your veins too. I wanted to listen to your voice and to know you. But there is silence. Are you there?

How do I live my life to honor you, to rectify my inattention, to be a friend to someone sad or hungry? How do I be kind and real to everyone I meet? Who knows, I may pass you on the street. I may see hair and eyes like my grandmother’s. I may wonder and muse as you slip right on by.

I don’t have much wisdom to say. Most of the wisdom I’ve learned is hard won and drilled deep into the fiber of my bones. I “know” so little compared to the time when you first fell into this world.

All I can say is that most of the stuff you fear is not worth the energy of fearing. You will probably regret what you did not do more than what you did. Like I regretted not claiming you when I had the chance. In my ideals I feel that life is meant to be free in. Even if you are poor or lost or confused there is a place within you that is safe and joyful. You are Creator’s beautiful art, always. Don’t listen to the naysayers, the ones who have bought into hunkering down in their caves. And more than that, let go of the naysayers in your own head. I listened to those mumbling voices inside of me once, and lost you.

Daughter of mine, do you hear my voice, so far away, yet near?

Love,

Rick

Thanks for reading.
RS

(c) Copyright on Image and Words, Richard Sievers,  February 2014, All Rights Reserved.

My Child, I Love Thee

"What is grace?" I asked God

And He said:

"All that happens."

St. John of the Cross*

 

This is a transcript from my journal from August of 2013. This was a private conversation which I thought was meant for me alone. Yesterday, as I looked back on last year’s highlights, I became aware that I can share this with you. Perhaps there is someone in this cold winter that can benefit from the sweet mysterious conversation I had during the peak of summer. I don’t mean for this to be ultimate truth. It was my truth at the time. I hope that the loving wisdom I experienced can inspire you to have your own conversations with what/whom you call sacred.

A note about the name: “God”. I offer this as a name that I have used for what is holy to me. I’m tired of the dogmatic and religious who have hijacked God’s name in the name of being right. I want to use this name respectfully and inclusively. Use what name you will, or none at all. Also a note about the word “thee”. I know this sounds antiquated and dramatic. But it’s what I heard. The word feels akin to the word “beloved” when I use it in my journals. The parentheses are my interpretation.

~~~

August 26th, 2013 7:32 AM

I woke up this morning feeling worried, even anticipating the next door neighbor’s dog barking. “I’m going to have to deepen my practice now.” I said to myself. “I want to be deepening my view instead of making up phantoms and disturbances.” So I came to the writing desk. I sat still and quiet on the outside. Yet on the inside the dog was still barking again and again. Then I tried to cover up the fears with planning my day, conniving my schedule, organizing the uncontrollable wending ways of life.

Then I prayed.

Words came.

And I listened the best I could listen.

“My child, I love thee. I love the rambling voices in our head. I love your stillness at the desk. I will love you all the way home. Now I will offer you the power to soothe your fears. I will help you to: listen but not heed, desire but not need.”

And God spoke deeper and deeper within me. Or should I say that my awareness dove deeper and deeper within me. I heard what is always there. Here are fragments of what came forward:

“How long will you travel this road, small one? Are you willing to grow up and become all that you are and always have been?”

I answer, “Yes, papa, God, Father, Mother. I will pray with you. You are my rock.”

And S/He replied in a thousand whispering voices all at once, like the ocean, like the wind:

“Child, I will love you in your universe. Though I stand apart from all your worries and fetching ideas, I hear all that you say. Pray or ramble… it makes no difference. I esteem thee as my own, my beloved, my small voice chattering, praying, and living in the dark. I see all. I will share the awareness of my senses beyond sense, so that you won’t have to make up a world of pretend.”

“As it is on Earth, so it is in Heaven.

As you love your inner one (child) living in the dream dark, so I will love thee.

Love is perfect in my grace.”

All (beings, things, manifestations) are voices in the dark.

I am the body of the Universe.

Integrate and see through my eyes.

Touch through my hands.

You no longer have to make up a world to feel secure.

And when it is time of no time, you will awaken, and (you will see that) all that you are will have been Me all along.”

“My chatterer, I love thee.

I Love Thee.

I Love Thee.

Continue your talking. I will listen.

I have no choice but to listen, because you live in me. You are becoming me.”

 ~~~

I mused to myself during this time at my desk. Perhaps I am a voice in God’s head, or perhaps in other parts of his/her/its body. If God can love me unconditionally and guide my foolish ways toward perfection, then I can do the same for the voices within me… no matter how afraid or controlling or trivial. As I grow I can learn to love the other voices and beings, in this world, who dream of eternity while thinking they are separate.

Aho, such mysterious wondrous wisdom, Great One. Thank You.

~~~

And the Great Mystery answered:

“As you learn to love yourself, you will learn deeper and deeper secrets of my love for you. And you will awaken to loving all of me (creation) with purer and purer compassion.”

“As you move through the fear inside of you, you will grow fearless in your countenance and discover the peace that is your spirit.”

~~~

The trinity hovered above the desk.

The first said: “Now be me.”

The second said: “Now fly with(in) me.”

The third said: “Now sing my song.”

Love,

Rick

* John wrote this after he'd been imprisoned and tortured by his brothers in the church.

 

© Richard Sievers, January 2014, All Rights Reserved

Ordinary Wonder

The mist lies upon the land, a blanket of grace and quietude. I am listening to a haunting song of essraj and harp*. The coffee is silken warmth. My journal is spread out like the field outside the widow. I write. Whatever comes, I write. Happy. Free.

Then I’m called out of the room. Just for a moment. A change.

Coming back. Sitting down. Same coffee. Same music. Same scrim of fog outside. But a new moment. The old is gone. The old inspiration, the old story being carefully scribed, the old way of thinking, the sense of flow, Gone. And I sit, blank. Blank as the grey of winter. A little befuddled. What can I expect? Everything changes. The old reverie morphs into new questions. After five decades I am learning to be open over and over again.

Yet.

I long for how it was. Long for the coffee and the music to soothe like it did before coming home to a new moment. Long for the flood upon the page. Long for the happiness of a sad song. Then I let go and open my eyes to what Is.

Over and over again, our experience is never the same.

Looking toward my short horizon, I see the field again. In and out, the mist comes slinking and snaking through the forest. The window frames greys and greens in a deep shadow with no sun. Soon enough the sun will come. Someday the forest will fall and rise or burn. The field will awaken and then be harvested. Or some other calamity of ordinary wonder will arrive. 

We are guests, passing through this life. We are passing through these mists and occasional clarities.

Moment by moment, what remains?

Who is experiencing this grace of being alive?

What would life be if we could answer these two seemingly simple questions?

Perhaps we’d be free to roam through time.

Perhaps we’d be free of the leaving everything behind as the next moment comes.

Perhaps we’d be free to peer through the fog.

The answers must remain as mysteries. For now, I simply try to reach out to you. Through the electrons and the weavings of space and time. Satellite to Earth and back again. Through the cable filled with light and into your flickering screen. Now, this moment shared with you is not ordinary anymore.

Thanks for reading this and for taking time to experience a small part of this morning with me. I pray that you find happiness today in the moments shared with those you love.

Rick

*A wonderful album: Within by Benji Wertheimer and David Michael

(c) Copyright Rick Sievers, December 2013, All Rights Reserved

Lessons Learned

The Rune Wunjo, The Joy of Perfection, Fulfillment and Light

I found an old journal from 2009 with a list of lessons learned. I was going through a rough patch personally. I'm not ashamed to say that I heartily sought therapy back then. I'm grateful to have had the opportunity of a witness and guide in my spirals of healing. I learned a few things on the way. I hope at least some of these ideas are helpful for you.

Lessons Learned on the Therapist’s Couch

Perhaps:

‘Well Being’ is a phrase that trumps ‘happiness’.

Unfolding is what is occurring, not just a string of fortunate and unfortunate events.

The most correct ideal for service is when it benefits all beings, including myself.

Romanticism and drama and most forms of idealism no longer serve in the evolving life of solidity.

Compassion for myself is the basis for service and increased peace with others.

I will be disappointed or beset if I put my primary faith in a place or material lifestyle as my sanctuary.

There is something in me that’s reflected in the beautiful, dark, mean, joyful places out there.

I take refuge in The Compassionate Spirit, Community of Trusted Friends & my Work/Callings.

Contemplation and empathy are more helpful, stabilizing and healing than scrutiny.

A lot of power resides in Curiosity.

I’m grateful for All the tools I’ve used and the perseverance in which I sought healing.

There is suffering in the world, but more than that, there are joy and peace too!

I work better from places of passion & wisdom rather than from ecstasy & conniving.

Being solid is especially spiritual.

Firmness is not rigidity.

I can respect many ways of viewing the world while subscribing to my own.

Knowledge is fluid and evolving.

The ideas of Good and Bad are generally not helpful when seeking healing within my family.

Being nice is not always being kind.

Love something enough to risk doing it badly.

Vulnerability in a Safe Environment pays big dividends.

The so called 'spiritual person' can wield discernment as a powerful tool when deciding to either be open or private.

Pausing, praising, and seeking peace for only a minute changes the whole dialogue, experience within the day. In fact these can open up your eyes to see opportunities not even imagined before.

Love,

Rick

(c) Copyright, Text and Image, Richard Sievers, November 2013, All Rights Reserved

Clarity on the Way to the Wide Open Sea

Forgive me if I'm thrilled with the idea, but just now I thought that every poem I write ought to be called: "Happiness" 
By the late Raymond Carver, Found on a scrap of paper beside his typewriter.*

~~~~~

An excerpt from my journal while at Starbucks. These are moments of a sadness-happiness-wonder-loss all spun together, which was also bliss to me:

Just reading Raymond Carver (R.C.). Then writing whatever rises to my finger tips. An hour of not doing anything in particular, not paying much ado to the goings and comings of the cafe.  At a table in the middle of the swirl and swagger of so many people. I am an island. The people are the tides sliding past the shore.

I keep my head down, an odd bearded man, not really alone. Happy. Lonely for no one and no thing. Allowing the poems to read me. The words become sea songs. Right here, living a whole life as an Avalon for myself. A refugee called God (by some) lives on these shores, in these misty headlands. We sit together, praying to each other, heads bent, while the pearly storms make cloud faces that will disappear in the slanted rain.

I muse inwardly, wondering what my flying pen must signify to any that would care to notice. So much for a conscripted life. So much for normalcy in a reckless age of shattered reflections.

I hear you, island voice. My head tilted slightly. You whisper into my ear, a single word over and over again: "Home, Home...."

And I am, home.

You and me and R.C. Swirls of tide and storm buffet our sacred place. Across the straits, the peopled shore is so close and yet so far away.

~~~~~

This is my reflection to you. Forgive me if I'm being presumptuous or trite. But here is my unsolicited advice. Just be yourself. Don't allow anyone to tell you that one feeling is good and another is bad. Feel all that you can feel. Then discern what to do with it all. To me this is freedom.


What you resist, persists. If you stuff an experience down in your body, a sadness, a joy, a trauma, a revelation, it will get stuck there and fester and create all sorts of sideways havoc in life. Acknowledge what's true for you now, maybe just in a private space like a journal or on a dance floor, with a counselor or in a wood shop. Acknowledge the truth as it appears now, before it slips away and becomes something else.

One of my best teachers said that the meaning of life is just to experience stuff. Experience life events (internal and external) as fully as possible and then move on to the next experience. There's only one you in your one life. So be open to your own special experience and then let it pass through on the way to the wide open sea.

Love,
Rick

(c) Copyright Richard Sievers, November 2013, All Rights Reserved.

* From Appendix 2 in All of Us: Collected Poems by Raymond Carver and Edited by Tess Gallagher

Awe and What We Know

I just listened to a program on “The Dark Universe” via a Public Broadcasting Program called The Takeaway. The subject was dark matter and dark energy. My limited understanding is that these are real aspects of our universe(s) yet cannot currently be measured or really understood. I was intrigued with the discussion. Instead of a certainty or even smugness shown by many who profess a materialistic view of the universe the scientist involved had awe. In the program they explained that there is no accounting for what creates 85% of the gravity in the universe. There is an unseen, unexamined aspect of what we inhabit. Think about that. Isn’t that absolutely astounding?

This makes me think about certainty. How so many of us “know” what is real because we can perceive it with our senses. Or on the opposite end of the spectrum how many spiritual people “know” that this world is just an illusion. One person knows there is no God. Another knows there is a loving entity that created everything. My question is: What do we really know? I am naturally suspicious of anyone on either end of the materialist spiritualist continuum. I’m suspicious even of my own understanding.

Not too long ago science said that what we saw is what was real. Then new wavelengths of light, outside our visual abilities, were discovered.  Until recent centuries many in the know understood that only one universe exists, that which we experience. Now string theory postulates that there are potentially innumerable expressions of “universe” in existence. Many religious people, even today, believe that the world is only 6,000 years old.  I challenge them to visit the Grand Canyon and say that’s true. I'd ask those canyon explorers not to just count the eons of sediment layers but to really soak in how small and wondrous we are.

Please forgive me if this analogy is simplistic and naive. Our species has only stepped from a closed little room, out into a wide sky shining on a field of green. And we’ve never seen colors before or smelled the grasses waving in the spring breeze. We once “knew” the world was this room. The investigation into dark matter end dark energy shows that we know very little. We will know more in time.  And then we’ll have even bigger questions. That’s the wonder of science. And perhaps we’ll have even more gratitude for our place in the universe. That’s the wonder of the spiritual life.

Listening to this program  brought a deeper sense of awe. It made me think in terms of questions and curiosity instead of certainty. It made me think, too, about the intersections of spirituality and science. Perhaps both start with a profound sense of awe and a humble need to question. Question everything.

I have been left me pondering. My particular experience of this world is that is layered with spirits and spiritual powers including the vital living energies of the elements. And I feel a song that permeates Everything. I experience benevolence even in the pain. Now, this is just my experience. It’s not erroneous or irrelevant. Nor should I expect it to be another person’s experience or even universal.  

The program made me think And feel. I question, but know very little:

What if the dark matter is the physical (?) aspect of the spirit world? 

What if dark energy is the song of the Universe? 

Or Not. 

 These are questions I don’t have the physical (brain) equipment to understand. Not yet anyway. But I want to.

In our world I suspect that people want to make religions out of just about any theory that they know is correct. Science, Christianity, consumerism, atheism, liberalism, gun rights,  etc. etc.:  these all take on aspects of religiosity when folks start to argue for their particular sides. 

Hasn’t our world had enough arguing? 

Haven’t enough people been emotionally wounded in the name of truth? 

Haven’t enough human and animal beings been slaughtered in the smug stupidity of knowing what is right? 

What about awe and curiosity? 

What about listening to one another about each one’s experience? 

What about the glimmerings about our Wonder-Full universe, found in each person’s particular way? 

Let the knowing rest while we investigate all the matter and energies that we can. Let that curiosity and awe create kindness and compassion for one another.

Peace in the Great Mystery to You, Dear Reader.

Rick

(c) Copyright Richard Sievers, November 2013, All Rights Reserved

Reflections in the Hall of Light

Sun in Unseen Wavelengths on the Computer Screen

Today I'm finishing the greenhouse project on our little farm. This is also the eve of leaving for a sojourn to reconnect with far flung friends and family. This morning I was caught by surprise by the memory of my father. I remember how a father's heart and eyes can reside in a child...even when that child is an adult.


I looked into the black screen and saw my father with sad wise eyes reflecting back. Is that who I am? An improvement by stealth and fire? What do I carry from him? What is truly my own?

Dad, 
I'm coming home. Right now you are probably sitting on your bluff above the wave wracked cove, so far away. Will you meet me there, one last time? Will you meet the eyes that cried the tears that you could not? Will you look at me with the look of a far away war that was never won?

Your eyes are like the sun to me, dad. Look at me one more time.

I remember you dad, how we built so many houses together. The day you left. The day I heard an echo of you, right here in the structure I built with my own two hands.

 ~~~~

The morning is calm. If the weather holds, I will arc the plastic roof over the greenhouse frame. I will make a translucent story board of heaven. The view that is nearly clear, but not quite. House of the sun. A shelter from the storms, yet gossamer thin. My hall to worship streaming light that came from millions of miles away.


Thanks for reading.
May you see and embrace the reflection in the dark mirror.
My you lift your eyes to that insubstantial boundary between here and heaven.
May you feel the warmth of the sun on this crisp autumn day.

Rick

Copyright (c) Richard Sievers, October 2013, All Rights Reserved.