When You Take Your Own Advice

A journey piece on grief | Part one

This last month has been a few years long.

Note to your Creative Self: Normally, when I write, I already have been visited by a bird of inspiration. She drops a seed she has gathered and it blooms rather quickly. But some stories, some take a longer time to reveal themselves. I had wanted to wait for the reveal, but…As I tell so many clients, if you don’t know what to write — set a timer and show up. Sometimes the reveal comes in the doing even when you aren’t sure where exactly the words are leading you.

I sipped my morning coffee and looked at my late night, emphatic scribble of purple crayon: Write the Grief Piece. As if making it a listed item would shrink its weight.

Photo by Bruce Jastrow on Unsplash

It’s almost a month to the day that I have posted and in that time two, brilliant servants of community, friends have walked on. Both shocks. Both quick. Both from very different places in my life and sphere.

What to say that is relevant to you dear reader?

For our first step I’ll share this poem-esque snippet written by Shannon Thompson,

“Death came and stayed in my family’s house. By the time the Guest departed, there were many more empty chairs, no shoulder left untouched. After a rather spicy flirtation with me, leaving me here on bed rest the greater part of winter, I too have been shapeshifted by looking mortality in the eyes and discovering that they were my eyes looking back! Clarity! Humor! a complete overhaul of who shows up when there are no rewards

no accolades

only endless days of care taking, meals, waiting and watching. Death came and reminded me I will not be staying.”

Shannon Thompson and I met outside the Church of the Pacific after a writing workshop over a decade ago. She sauntered up and true to what I would learn of her ways, decided we would be friends based on our mutual love of truth, life and words.

I lived on Kauai at the time and she visited frequently from San Diego, where she had founded Shakti Rising, a social change organization she founded in 1999. Her life’s work, which she intuitively closed a year before her own transformation from this life to the next.

Real life unveiling: In writing this piece for you dear creative One, and wanting to credit Shannon’s life work, I diligently searched for Shakti, and link the page for you.

Would you like to know the song that lives on that website that I am listening to for the very first time because I choose to Sit & Write and listen to my own advice for conscious creatives. The song that she had posted for the ending of Shakti Rising, here it is Creative One:

Go ahead, push play.

Had I avoided the purple crayoned mandate, I would have missed Shannon’s hint: I’ve lived a damn good life are you?

I’ve noticed that in the advent of change it seems that the new normal is offering us “time-savers” and scads of ways to make things easier and bigger, or sexier or whatever “er” is the next Chat-GPT’ed phrase, however I ask you: Is that what constitutes one hell of a life? Is that what brings a smile of contented pride when you are sitting, as it were, alone.

Last night, with the golden sun shining over the trees, and finally feeling like Spring, my 6 year old and I walked over to the field to play some baseball, practice for game day.

I pitched; he swung.

Then the ice cream truck sounded. He looked off into the distance, “We aren’t getting ice cream, today.” he offered.

“Right. You had some 2 days ago.”

“Right,” he shuffled his bat. “We don’t need it again.”

I noticed his face.

I pitched; he swung.

I pitched; three middle school girls ran past us screaming about ice cream.

I pitched; he swung and missed.

“It’s really had to concentrate with that truck,” he said. I realized that this was one of those moments. I normally and proudly am pretty intentional about his sugar intake, and the quality of the food that builds his being, his body. But, on the cusp of so much loss, I thought about what we had a chance to gain.

“I bet,” I said. “Well, let’s do a few more.”

He hit a few, keeping his focus, but his gaze wandered to find where that notorious ice-cream song was.

“You know,” I start, and his eyes quickly land on mine. “We’d have to run home, and get money and call off batting practice.”

“I can be quick!” he had his cleats off, and helmet in his baseball bag with lightening speed. “You ready, Mom?” he asked about a nanosecond later.

I took a picture, with my heart, of the golden-lit face that would be little for only so long, and the gleam in his eyes. “Yeah,” I bellowed and we took off running down the gravel road for home. Once there, he threw the baseball bag in the garage, and I grabbed some money, and we tore back out the door.

We ran down the street and up, out of breath, where the truck had parked. As he walked up, we saw it was a true-old school Mister Softy with ice cream (not prepackaged wrappers.)

“MOM!” he squealed eyes wide, hands flailing in explanation, that they had both chocolate and vanilla, with rainbow sprinkles as an option.

“It’s a miracle,” he said to me, gifting me one of my favorite words. My not so secret attempt to imbue his world with wonder and reverence for life’s ability to grant us favor, to acknowledge that the Divine can surprise us when we least expect it, in the most unsuspecting ways.

“It’s your miracle ice cream,” I smile at him.

He tore into his cone. He would have gobbled it in 5 bites, but I softly intervened, “Would you do me a favor and slow down, so it lasts longer. Let’s sit.”

I was only half talking about the cone.

We sat on the curb as he ate joy.

The truck drove past us, towards our street, as I suspected it would.

“Hey bud, I think the truck is going past our house now.”

He kept eating.

“Sorry, I guess we didn’t have to run for it.”

“Running made it more fun though,” he stated plainly and decided to offer me a bite. “But get both chocolate and vanilla.”

Miracle Ice Cream with Sprinkles

“Now is the time to free the heart,

Let all intentions and worries stop,

Free the joy inside the self,

Awaken to the wonder of your life.

Open your eyes and see the friends

Whose heart recognizes your face as kin,

Those whose kindness watchful and near,

Encourages you to live everything here.

See the gifts the years have given,

Things your effort could never earn,

The health to enjoy who you want to be

And the mind to mirror the mystery.”

- John O’Donohue, a mystic who spent his time giving us words to wonder, to grieve, to live and to love by

Here is a song from another mystical man and friend, David Newman.

One of the gifts of the dying is the unavoidableness that we shall do the same. We are granted an awareness that is always available to us, should we slow down to see it, should we lean ourselves into the effort and the living of it, not just rapidly and thoughtless consuming our days, and our life — you know, how an hour can get lost in the scroll.

The dying remind us that one day this will go; have you lived it?

Did you create things that will last longer than you, like memories of ice cream cones, and summer fireflies, or fishing poles at the bay. Did you call the friend? Make the mistakes that would ultimately grow your being?

Did you remember to choose love?

Writing Prompt:

• What caught you in this post? What tugged at the corners of your heart, write about that.

• What makes you mad about death and dying, write about that.

• Were you bummed this was a piece about death? Write about that.

• When death comes, and you see, as Shannon did, the essence…what does that bring up? And if that feels like too much, if that is too big, then what small thing can you do to celebrate the wonders of the life you have now, the breath that still inspires you now as you read? Do that today. Big things happen with little kindness.

Thank you for everyone who emails me from the posts. I encourage you today to let your thoughts and words be witnessed and share them in the comments below!

Thank you!

More soon,

Kate