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All Saints Day, the Book of Hours and Julian of Norwich

Posted on Nov 1st, 2009 by Nicole : wakingdreamer Nicole
Waterfall


My friend Hal blogged about Rilke's Book of Hours in 

Moments of Beholding

and this morning as I happily prepare to celebrate All Saints Day at church with the choir and congregants, I found this poem from the Book of Hours that is so right for me in this exciting, eventful and changeful time of my life, with my Robert:

Ich lebe mein leben im wachsenden Ringen,
die sich über die Dingen ziehen.
Ich werde den letzen vielleicht nicht volbringen,
aber versuchen will ich ihn.

Ich kreise um Gott, um den uralten Turm,
und ich kreise jahrtausendelang;
und ich weiß nocht nicht: bin ich ein Falke, ein Sturm
oder ein großer Gesang.

I live my life in growing rings
which move out over the things around me.
Perhaps I'll never complete the last,
but that's what I mean to try.

I'm circling around God, around the ancient tower,
and I've been circling thousands years;
and I still don't know: am I a falcon, a storm
or a great song.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Robert and I have also been reveling lately in Julian of Norwich, a medieval solitary who inspired Eliot's Little Gidding part V that I always quote and wish to have as my epitaph:

And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one. 
 
There is a wonderful website on Julian:


Here is Julian on God our Mother:

"It is a lofty understanding inwardly to see and to know that God, who is our maker, dwells in our soul, and it is a still loftier and greater understanding inwardly to see and to know that our soul, which is created, dwells in God's substance. From this substance we are what we are, by God.

I saw no difference between God and our substance, but saw it as if it were all God. And yet my understanding accepted the fact that our substance is in God; that is to say that God is God and our substance is a creature in God. For the Almighty Truth of the Trinity is our Father, for he made us and preserves us in himself; the deep wisdom of the Trinity is our mother, in whom we are enclosed; the lofty goodness of the Trinity is our Lord, and in him we are enclosed and he in us.

We are enclosed in the Father, we are enclosed in the Son, and we are enclosed in the Holy Spirit. The Father is enclosed in us - All-power, All-wisdom, and All-goodness: one God, one Lord." (pages 179-180)

"God, the blessed Trinity, who is everlasting Being, just as he is endless from without beginning, so it was in his endless purpose to make man. This fair nature was first prepared for his own Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, and when he willed it with the full agreement of the whole Trinity, he made us all at once.

In our making he first knitted us and joined us to himself. By this joining we are kept as clean and as noble as we created to be. By virtue of that same previous joining, we love our maker and become like him, praise him and thank him, and endlessly rejoice in him. And this is the work that is wrought continuously in every soul that shall be saved. This is the 'goodly will' I mentioned before.

And thus in our creation God Almighty is our natural father, and God all-wisdom is our natural mother, with the love and goodness of the Holy Spirit. These are all one God, one Lord. In the knitting and joining he is our real, true spouse and we are his loved wife and his fair maiden. ….

In our Father Almighty we have our preservation and our bliss, as far as our natural substance, which we have from our creation without beginning, is concerned. In the Second Person we have our preservation, in wit and wisdom, as far as our sensuality, our restoring and our saving are concerned. For he is our mother, brother and saviour. And in our good Lord the Holy Spirit we have our rewarding and our harvest for our living and our bitter labour, endlessly surpassing all that we desire in his marvellous courtesy from his lofty, plenteous grace.

All our life is in three modes. In the first is our being. In the second we have our increasing. And in the third we have our fulfilling.

The first is nature. The second is mercy. The third is grace....

here for more

 




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Tagged with: All Saints Day, The Book of Hours, Rilke, Julian of Norwich, Robert, all manner of thing shall be well

Weekends with my beloved

Posted on Nov 10th, 2009 by Nicole : wakingdreamer Nicole
white black dove

Many of you have been burning with curiosity about my weekends with Robert, this past one in Hamilton and the one before that in Montreal. You are all very polite about it, though, and tend to drop by casually to ask in the least pressing way how things went. I love my friends!

Well, I don't know if this blog will satisfy, but I have decided to talk about some of the amazing happenings and ways that my life has been changed through spending time in person with Robert.

(There are many other inspiring ways my life has been changed through our phone conversations, but I am trying to make this a reasonably short blog, ok? lol)

The second time we met was on Friday, October 16. We were very excited of course. We couldn't wait to see each other, so spent most of the time he was on the train on the phone to each other. In fact, even before he got on the train, we were in touch. 

(Oh, did I say I wasn't going to get into phone calls? Oh well, too bad. :) This is an important part of the story, so be patient, gentle reader.)

As the train drew nearer to where I impatiently waited in the station on the phone, I grew more excited. But he became thoughtful and quiet. I asked him why, and he couldn't really answer. Then he said, "Wait, something has happened, the train is slowing down." Then the train stopped and he began to laugh. I asked him why and he told me that he knew something would go wrong, preventing him from seeing me at the time we had hoped.

As it turned out, he couldn't have been more right. The train had struck and killed a person, probably a suicide though we do not know. The people on the train were told almost nothing for the entire nearly 4 hours the train was delayed, but at the station, I found out, and relayed to Robert to share with the others in the car, that they were waiting for the coroner to release the train. 

What the people in the station did not tell me, and what we have to infer from the announcement made minutes before the train finally departed, was that they were waiting for a release crew to arrive so that the three principals involved in the incident could leave the train for any further questioning and thence to return home. How traumatised they must have been.

We will never know why this happened but some of the results of the delay were this: the water in my town had just been contaminated as a result of a construction accident. Had Robert and I returned to my home at the expected time, he would likely have drunk liberally of the water from the tap and gotten very ill. Because of the delay, I went home alone to be greeted by my son who told me that he had just woken up and heard that the contamination was so severe that even boiling would not fix it. 

So I left to purchase large bottles of water. At the station I spoke to a pregnant woman who had not known about the contamination, and she and her mother were safe too.

When Robert finally arrived, we held each other tightly, gratefully, for a very long moment. I will never, ever forget that feeling, as long as I might live. It felt like my whole universe had been completely readjusted, realigned, as if anything that felt wrong about the past was all made right in the light of that pure joy.

That feeling of realignment of my personal world keeps happening over and over again as I contemplate his place in my life, with deep gratitude.

Our first weekend together, then, was many things. It was time beginning to get to know each other in a new way, as up till then we had only had the long hours on the phone to steer by. 

It was my two younger kids getting to know him and he them. We chatted together, went out to supper Saturday night at the Chinese restaurant and joked around, hung out watching Star Trek together. 

It was a long long walk in the woods called Terracotta, only a brief drive away from my house, with the autumn leaves in all their beauty around us, the rich smell of the earth, the children of the neighbours and dogs running and playing and calling to one other in abandon.

It was going to church together, he experiencing what church means to me and my joy in singing, getting to present him proudly to people, hearing his interesting take on the gospel reading and later being able to share it with the priest and see his delight.

It was spending long hours together learning joy.

I wasn't sad when his train was pulling away from the station Sunday afternoon. We were already on the phone :) and we continued to talk until his train got to Toronto and he made his way to the bus.

This past weekend was very different, in beautiful and unexpected ways.

I got to experience how he lives, just as he got to experience how I live and work by coming into my space. I felt welcomed immediately by his apartment. It is very much an extension of who he is and how he thinks and feels, and it felt like home to me. It is simply furnished, has lovely plants, lots of light and is clean and uncluttered.

From the window, you get an excellent view of the escarpment, or the mountain, a key geographical reality in the heart of Hamilton. I am very intrigued by this town. He took the time to show me around in a neighbourhood where we might be able to find a house both reasonable and convenient, and I was charmed by the houses. 

We did some shopping together, and I found that he wasn't kidding about loving shopping, and he found I wasn't kidding about hating shopping. In fact, I became very ill both times we went to big stores and he worried that shopping made me ill. Actually it was coincidental - the shopping trips were at the time that when I am ill I start to go downhill, around the middle of the afternoon. 

But we did find a great outfit for me for the dance in two weeks time, without too much fuss, thanks to our dear Amy who was at the other end of the phone when we asked at the last minute where to shop. "Shopper's World", she said without the least hesitation. When I told Rita Amy had directed us to a great mall, she knew it was Shopper's World too. It seems everyone knew about it but us :)

We had a wonderful time watching old episodes of Star Trek Enterprise together in the evening.

Most of the time, though, I watched Robert and learned so much about him as he worked on the computer on his blogs and comments, as he organised his space, as he prepared lunch for me when I was stressing horribly about the payroll and made sure that not only was it nutritious but that it also looked beautiful on the plate, with enticing slices of oranges that I ended up leaving because I was too much in a hurry.

He described to me how he would have handled the conversation I had had with the payroll representative and I marveled at his skill and mastery of human interaction, but confessed I was not at that level, not even close, and asked for his support and closeness instead at that time.

He fell in love with my Dougie Maclean CD Indigenous, so I left it with him as it has already been uploaded onto my computer.

His being a nurse means he has a very practical approach to illness. He kept a close eye on me without being over-solicitous or annoying, he was quick to get me something to eat or drink if I was tired, but did not wait on me hand and foot. It was perfect, and I was very grateful for his support, from helping me buy good symptom-relieving tablets, to good advice about taking them, to just being there completely for me. 

And he had a magical way of making me forget I was ill at all.

As I write, he is hopefully sleeping, as he had to work a twelve hour night shift. Yet I don't miss him at all. I feel more closely bonded to him than ever through this experience we shared.



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Tagged with: weekend, bliss, joy, love, beloved, beauty, truth

Saturday with Terrill and David

Posted on Nov 22nd, 2009 by Nicole : wakingdreamer Nicole
Yesterday I was privileged to spend the day on Mayne Island with Terrill and David.

I rose very early because of the time difference and began the day by chatting with my beloved on Skype, as is my wont. He needed his bike ride, so we continued to talk via text and email after he got back. 

I rested and about 5:30 am Pacific time I had my shower, dressed and began my long day's journey (my day ended up being about twenty one hours long).

I walked three blocks down Cambie to the Broadway-City Hall Canada Line station and took the Line to the bus that goes to the ferry at Tsawwassen. At the bus stop I had a long and happy chat with a couple from one of the islands who had just returned from a holiday in Hawaii. 

We got on the bus at just after 7 a.m. and it was still quite dark because overcast. As we drove toward the ferry, the sky began to lighten yellow.

We arrived at 7:40 a.m., bought our tickets for the ferry, and settled down to wait till the departure time of 8:35 a.m. I watched the water and the seagulls playing.

waiting for the ferry at Tsawwassen

On the ferry as I ate breakfast and listened to my music from my laptop, I sent this picture to Robert:

on the ferry

We stopped at Galiano Island on the way:

galiano island

beautiful houses on galiano

another ferry passing at galiano

(our ferry was called Queen of Nanaimo, the passing ferry Spirit of British Columbia)

I noted to Robert as I emailed him another picture how thickly wooded one of the islands we passed after Galiano was:

thickly wooded island

Soon we arrived on Mayne Island and upon debarking, I saw Terrill's beaming face and went to give her a big Gaia hug. She laughed that she had been looking out for a winter parka, which like any good Montreal I had dutifully worn, fake fur-lined hood and all :)

We walked up a very steep hill to her car talking all the while. When I reached the car I was badly winded and had to take some Ventolin to open up my lungs. I thanked Robert mentally for insisting that I take this along for such moments. It is a great blessing to be with a nurse! The cough has lingered two weeks now and sometimes I find the passages in my lungs too constricted to breathe comfortably.

The drive to Terrill's was very short. I had seen so many pictures of her home on her blogs, but it was quite something else to experience the glories of it in person. It is very welcoming with heated floors - ah! - and I settled gratefully into a window nook to chat as we whiled away the morning. But I just had to get up from there for a few minutes to walk to the bedroom window and take the following:

view from Terrill s window

outdoor fireplace as seen from window nook

It was amazing to see how well David had already recovered from the stroke. After we had chatted for about an hour, he retreated to his computer and allowed Terrill and I to continue to talk without him :)

We then had a delightful lunch, the three of us. Terrill and I went to the national park and walked around by the ocean. It was a very special time for me, as I always need to go to be by the ocean at least once a year. I explained to her how deeply I crave it.

After we returned to the house, we continued walking to see some interesting rock formations. All the walking around was fantastic exercise and of course all the while we talked deeply about many things.

golden leaves near the house

It was fascinating to see with rockfall some tree-rock fusions had occurred:

tree and rocks

The day flew by and too soon it was time to leave. I was deeply touched by Terrill giving me a signed copy of her book, Leading Raspberry Jam Visions: Women's Way

But the best gift of all was the gift of her time for the whole day, the beauty and peace of the island, and the opportunity to be away from it all for most of a Saturday.

When I arrived (late) back at Tsawwassen, the ferry having been delayed because of stormy waters, andrew was there to meet me and whisked me off to the Kumon 20th anniversary of the Vancouver office dinner at the Aquarium. It was wonderful to dine with the company of the playful belugas. The food was plentiful and delicious, speeches were mercifully short, and there was plenty of time for me to meet informally both with my colleagues and the head of Kumon Canada west, Tim Bateman. andrew was so patient, and had no complaints though we were the last to leave. He chatted with Tim as we walked back to the car.

Eventually we found a Waves and andrew kindly treated me to a hot apple cider, and we had some time to talk about Wilber and Cohen and things Integral before the cafe closed and it was time for me to be dropped back to my sister's.

I am very grateful for my Gaia friends, and thank you all for taking the time to join me on my journey.

Today will be the association meeting in Vancouver. It looks like it will be very well attended. Tim is looking forward to the notes :)

Love you all

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Tagged with: terrill, david, andrew, Gaian meetups, Aquarium, belugas, Mayne Island