As Above, So Below

Time continues to be both precious and daunting. I still have not eaten the figs, but a really kind man who I hired to help me with our land cleared the garden of leaves and debris. He does the tasks and jobs Edmond would have done, and some of which I would have done along side him, but no longer care to or have capacity to do. After clearing the roof and gutters of leaves, and tending a garden that had been neglected for four months, he said to me, so easily, that now that the leaves and weeds are cleared out, the plants that still live in the garden just need a little water. He is right. I can do that. When given a simple task without the overwhelm of barriers or complications (like dead leaves and limbs), I can do those things. The garden in its less cluttered state almost invites me in, almost. I might water some of the barely green mostly brown herbs, non-blooming butterfly bush, and shriveling fig tree this evening. I hope I do. 

I miss planting and planning our garden together. We missed our opportunity entirely this spring. We both missed out on it together. It feels better to share that loss with you, E, instead of believing it is my loss alone to bear. I love you. I miss you. 

My energy waxes and wanes, like the moon except it does not ever seem to be entirely full or entirely new, just moving between nearly empty and almost filled. I am not sure I will ever be at the capacity I once was. I am not sure I want to be in a form that doesn’t remember Edmond. The space, the lack, the not: all represent the love I still have for him. 

Grieving teaches me to know my limit before I am empty, to reach the finish line (usually my home or my bed) before I am a puddle on the floor of a public place. Sometimes I don’t make it. If I do make it to my pile of pillows and blankets, I can fall apart slowly, gently, without falling to pieces or going to panic. I can let go of enough, and then find the things that are meaningless so I am not left feeling so raw, isolated, and abandoned. I can watch the television show that is just enough but not too much. I can play Words With Friends2 (my oldest daughter suggested it about a month ago) and feel like I can put some letters in order in a world that is utter chaos.

Doing mundane things is a way through; it is part of the comfort and tolerance for the intolerable. It is the humanity while experiencing the inhumane. 

These knowings are an important milestone in this loss. Intense grief is intense, and it has waves, currents, and a path uncharted. It does have patterns that begin to form. Some continue, and some dissipate. It is an experiment in living at a time when I must live.

I am staying here without you. I feel you and sometimes hear you or see signs of your presence. But it is not the same. This new way of being in relationship with you is another moment that is an ending and beginning at the same time. I know you miss the old us too, and in this grief and loss I am not alone. The only other being who understands this pain and struggle to find footing in this strange land is you. 

Comfort is my best device, my best friend. Comfortable people, places, things, smells, sounds, sights, textures catch me. Knowing what is a comfort, and being able to get to that comfort matters. 

Tending the body, feeling the emotional and physical pain, and the energy drain or arrive are the critical parts of grieving I must do. It is the work of the griever. 

I just wrote this recently to friends about one thing, but must have said it about at least three other things the same day: I’m not afraid. Our fearlessness will be contagious. It is the difference we offer.

I am not afraid to feel. It is what I do as a human being. I am not afraid to love or be loved even though it means I will lose who and what I love. They will die, or I will, or it will decay or break. I know that it is a risk to speak so vulnerably, so transparently, and it is a bigger risk not to step fully into my authenticity, especially now. I mean, what what the fuck do I have to lose?  

Of course there are private things, things that are just between Edmond and me, that I do not share with anyone else. There are things that are just between me and myself. Keeping secrets with myself —the beauty or tragedy of things I notice and do not share immediately or at all, ever—ensures that I will protect what is most precious. Though, what is shareable, what is true, and what is kind (even if some are terribly offended or quite uncomfortable) calls me into my place of belonging and community. Perhaps, my shared experience witnessed will invite others to love extravagantly vulnerably, more fiercely, and entirely authentically. Maybe we will all be more present. We all feel what we feel, and it is not the same. Sharing it, having it witnessed, might bridge this gap that holds us apart. It might save us one day. It might save us now. 

I’m not afraid. Our fearlessness will be contagious. It is the difference we offer.

Sometimes we have to jump into the deep end, not worry about slowly helping everyone see that it is okay, water is fine, not too deep or too cold or too hot. We don’t even get to promise it will be fine. It might not. Sometimes we have to make that leap and know that some will jump, take the risk, and some will not. I do not have time to convince anyone of anything. I know I can be charming and persuasive, and I have not intentionally used that part of me to harm or hurt. But. And. I don’t have time or energy right now to ask that part of me to sweetly ask anyone to do anything they aren’t already curious about. I am 50. I have five children. I have endured enough loss to know what I know. I have just had a terrible, tragic loss. The love of my life, my soul-mate, my partner died.   

“As above, so below. As without, so within.”—Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus

This shortened and modern version of the original phrasing written around 200-800 CE comes from an ancient text that was composed over the course of centuries by many writers. The intriguing and wise words are attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, a mythical figure that blends Hermes, the Greek god, and Thoth, the Egyptian god. 

Hermes is one of my guides. He escorts souls between worlds. He is a messenger. He is a boundary holder, a truth teller, a mischief maker. He walks with a foot in both worlds. He is the in-between, the liminal itself. I count on him. 

The notion that things in the celestial realm parallel things in the earthly one has always intrigued me, comforted and confounded me. I feel companionship knowing that God, Spirit, Myth lives in us, learns through us. Perhaps, there is not so much space or difference between the embodied ones and ethereal beings. Perhaps, our different forms provide us with various perspectives and sensibilities. Maybe we are meant to bridge the gap together. There is no veil but the one we put up to pretend we are one thing and they are another. 

We do this all the time. We other others all the time to claim our identity, our place, and our way as the right one. We do this so we feel secure and certain. 

Nothing is safe or certain. That is ridiculous. Stop telling yourself you KNOW the right god, religion, way, course, action, solution, or salve. It is all an experiment. It is an exchange, and we are all learning because of reciprocity. We are all here together, spirit disembodied and spirit embodied, trying it out, making our way, sharing and witnessing. 

Or, we are not. Some of us seclude ourselves, delude ourselves into thinking we are chosen and special and separate from the sufferers. We are better in the eyes of some god. We deserve more than the rest. We get prosperity and privilege. We wait for the almighty, all-knowing to save us.

This is not my way, experience, belief, or understanding. What if we are supposed to save ourselves together? What does saving ourselves even look like? What if saving is really connecting compassionately and living in mutuality with each other?

My way may not be your way. I am not presumptuous. I believe there are many ways through, and if we don’t witness and share, then someone will be left out. We will not open the gates of knowing for each and every one. 

As above, so below. As without, so within.

These are the kind of phrases that return, that I turn over in my mind trying to make sense of this time so that I can find a way in it.

I miss our hugs, I know you do too, E. When I feel the pain rise up doing some task you used to do with pride and concern, I know you feel that pain from your side of things also. When I feel joy and sadness at the same time, when tears stream down my smiling face because I see how beautiful and amazing each of our children are and you are not next to me to share the appreciation in the same way, I know you still see them, miss the way you used to embrace them. 

The pain of the loss of what was and will no longer ever be is mine, but it is his too. I am, as much as I possibly can, leaning into the pain that comes and the comfort that surrounds me that is him. We suffer together and comfort each other imperfectly as ever in this unfamiliar landscape. We are both grieving the loss of our life together as it was. We are both in a position to feel loss and reconnection. We are finding, very slowly, new ways to connect and communicate imperfectly like we did in the first part of our relationship. It is not the same, and I would rather muddle through whatever is beginning to form than have nothing. I would rather relate to this Light Being version of Edmond, than isolate, feel abandoned. I would rather miscommunicate and make mistakes as we figure this out together.

I am sure I will still both isolate and feel abandoned again at some point. It is part of being in the tangle ball of this liminal state of grieving. It is the learning curve when major change occurs in our most intimate relationships. Two steps forwards, ten steps back, or some number more or less forward and back. That is the dance. I will tread back and forth, wearing down the new path we are walking until it is familiar. I am a long way from that, so is he.

Believing that there is some perfect otherworld, some perfect heaven where all is well saving us from ourselves only upon death is disempowering. This vision of two worlds as separate only partitions me and the rest of us off from the spirit realm. That split does not sit well with me, nor does it offer me any real way to participate in my own healing and grieving. It asks me instead to turn over my power and to wait until I die to be reconnected with Edmond, God, and all those who have left their earthly, physical form. 

If the ancients knew that what was true above is true below, what was happening without also occurs within, then I suppose I will join them. It is all reciprocal, a mutual experience.

When the Kris Kristofferson song came on tonight on the drive home, and I started to tear up and a sob caught in my throat, I heard you say so gently, smiling, almost in a whisper, “You’re okay, you’re okay.” And I was. I feel you. I hear you. I miss you. I love you. 

William invited me to swim with him the other evening. Being in the water allows us both to let go, speak freely, and be in a flow. So, of course I said yes. How many more invitations like this will I get in this lifetime? He is thirteen, after all. 

From the pool, we could look up at the trees and sky. I noticed the clouds moving, three of them specifically. They gathered around an empty space of blue sky and formed a slightly tilted heart. I pointed it out, telling my beautiful boy who is becoming a beautiful young man, “Look what your dad did on the anniversary of our first date.”

He looked and saw and smiled. Then he started chuckling his mischievous Aries laugh. I asked what was so funny. He pointed to a cloud that formed the lower-left side of the heart, and noted that it looked like a butt. He was right. 

“Your dad did that for you,” I told him. We laughed. We have continued to laugh about this. It feels like a new family story that will come back around. This humorous, silly moment happened above and below.

I heard you laughing with us, throwing your head back laughing at our kid who saw your joke in the sky. I miss your laugh out loud. I love you.