One morning I photographed an amazing web wet with the morning dew. Later that evening, I mentioned the web while at dinner with friends. My one friend grimaced, said she hated spiders, and since dinner was in the home of our mutual friend, who was also desirous for our dear friend’s fears to be gone, I launched into the process of doing a Fast Phobia Cure. The process ended with a significant statement by my friend, “I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to spend my evening feeling anxious. I want to enjoy our time together.”
“Nature’s Ways” is the name of my October Beyond Mastery Newsletter article, and it extols the skills of spiders as metaphor for life. I also have a previously post about spider’s and karma, so I won’t go into that now. But I have been reflecting this week on my desire to help my friend overcome the phobia of spiders.
Oops…. I made a mistake. I wanted something she did not want. It was not respectful to push. We often walk the tangled web of desiring for another something the other is not desirous of. The following morning, I wrote this poem:
Remembrance
Dew wet the grass
then the rains came
will the sun come again?
This dance of despair
familiar like an old pair of shoes
but far from pleasant!
One more time
I recall that you may not remember
the years of faithful tending.
Tending the garden
removing weeds of sorrow
so buds could grow again.
Pulling the deep roots
of delusion
exposing healthy bulbs below.
New sprouts of hopefulness
peeking out from the soil
rich, pungent, ready for life.
Once I was caught in the underbrush
too fearful to let go
yet not willing to open to the light.
Like a seed
fear must be buried
before reemerging transformed.
Perhaps I can remember
for you too
as new life comes into view.
09-03-2019
Tangled webs are woven of fear. My feelings of sadness hanging in the air were tangled webs. My feelings of remorse were more tangled webs. My mulling over and over thinking and wishing things could have or should have been different—tangled webs.
On June 17, 1999, I wrote An Ode to Letting Go.
An Ode to Letting Go
I will not look back at our time together and see it all as bad. I will have the courage to call it all good – our coming together and our coming apart. I will honor your memory by remembering the growth that our relationship inspired. I will not insult either of us by insisting that it could have, should have, or would have been different. It was as it was. I will use this experience to affirm the beliefs I wish to guide my life by; All things work together for good. You are free. I am free. Be with your life lightly as I am with my own. Take not from here a false belief that you or I are less than what you are: a child of the universe, whole, holy, and loveable. Be tender with yourself as you make this adjustment, just as you would be tender with a body part as it heals. Look into the mirror often and recall the truth – I once loved you deeply. Though the feelings have waned as the moon – your worthiness (as my own) has neither diminished nor dissipated. I will always honor your memory. I will always cherish your soul. Go in peace. Live, grow, heal, and continue on your journey. For this time of our being together has ended but the ties that bind our hearts in love continue – even as the love at the center of all of life continues to hold us and guide us and heal us. Amen.
I cannot even recall now what the 1999 trigger for this writing was, but today, I know that what I am letting go is the weaving of tangled webs….
