Boundless and Belonging
To see all the Boundless Mobile iterations and configurations please visit Boundless Mobile Project.
Each morning, before all of my pieces and parts have awakened fully, I have this moment when I think today will be different. It won’t be so hard. I can get through the day without so many tears.
But then, the still sleeping parts shake loose from the remnants of hypnopompia and come fully online, and so does the knowing of the long day ahead. Today, it happened when I walked the dogs early, before coffee. After reaching the end of our road, the dogs and I turned back toward the house to see that Edmond was not standing there in the golden morning light playfully waving his arms in the air to excite Ruby and Bayou, our huskies. Ruby and Bayou did not pull and tug on their leashes like the sled dogs they are to get to him as fast as they could. They did not do all their husky talking and whining letting him know they were ready for all the kisses and pets. Instead, the three of us walked slowly back home. That is when all of me knows, again, he is gone. And, so the long day begins.
After coffee, I asked him and said again, “Why aren’t you here? I want to understand.” I pleaded with him, “Please, let me feel you and know that you are by my side in some way.” And, because last night he wasn’t, I asked him, “Why didn’t you come see me in my dreams? I was with our kids all day. We swam, and I took them bowling. We did chores. We ate together. I watched a movie with them. I wanted some time with you, just the two of us, at the end of the day, the time you held so sacred for us. Why didn’t you show up? Was I distracted, did I miss you? I am so sorry if I did.”
Later this morning, after a meditation when I felt him near me, I watched the Boundless mobile in the window. It was the first one I made, and it used to hang over our bathtub. When my studio/office was completed last fall, I moved it upstairs to my new space, and its new home in the east facing window next to the door. I watched the mobile parts balancing and dancing, gently moving and slowly spinning. I can see the system of belonging between all the pendant pieces in harmony with one another and their environment. The mobile was filled with potentiality of kinetic energy, all things possible.
The mobile represents our boundless nature. We are simultaneously held in our interconnection to one another and free to move uniquely in the world. I created these moving sculptures to demonstrate my experience of the work of both Akhter Ahsen, the father of Eidetic Imagery, and A.H. Almaas’ Diamond Approach Theory. At the time, the mobile sculpture was part of a graduate paper and project, and I had no idea the life these mobiles would have, and their meaning and purpose.
The mobiles have become transition objects, a ritual of motion, memory, and presence for the loved ones and the person being born or dying. I long to bring one to the life coming in, the transition between the Otherworld and moment of grabbing hold of this world’s tethers that we grip when we are born. So far, I have only brought them to those leaving.
I usually have this urge to begin gathering gemstones and wire, making the mobile in a frenzy and furry without knowing for whom or what. Then, my phone rings and I know someone who is dying or someone whose person is dying. I bring the mobile, and hang it in the room of the one who is letting go of this life.
Boundless Mobile
I once met a woman for the first time on her deathbed. My friend called asking me if I could support this being who was dying, friend to many and a mother. Cancer was prevailing, and she was beginning the transition, preparing to leave this realm. When I arrived and with her permission, I stood on her bed and hung the mobile from the chandelier overhead. This was our first meeting, and I felt deeply connected to her powerful mother spirit and creative light. I could see this beautiful, steady woman who was still cognizant and vibrant, humorous and compassionate, and whose body was failing fast. She was gorgeously middle aged, and, understandably, caught between what she knew was inevitable and wanting to stay a little longer.
Not very long ago, when a friend of mine was dying, I thought I was going to make her a mobile. But, I had a dream. In the dream, I came upon her outside of her house standing on a ladder where she was making her own mobile out of white, limestone heart-shaped rocks. She was a spit-fire of a woman, and she told me in the dream in all her certainty and clarity, “I do not need you to make me a mobile. I am making my own fucking mobile.”
She was like that, and I loved her for it. So, instead, I sat with her weekly. I happened to be there the day the sheets finished drying. The sheets were new and for the recently delivered hospital bed. When the dryer buzzed, I retrieved the freshly laundered sheets. I began making the bed, her deathbed. Except for the white noise of the television chatter, it was silent in the room where we were . She was in her bed, watching me make up the hospital bed. I went slowly, knowing this was my offering to her, smoothing every wrinkle, tucking in all the corners. It was a space I could hold for her and a way to love her.
Because his death was so unexpected, Edmond did not get a mobile either. There was no time to consider our family system without him. Our mobile is currently at its amplitude, furthest away from its equilibrium and point of rest. Our system is lopsided, crooked, cockeyed, tangled, dysfunctional, and missing a major part.
At least three variations of this mobile have evolved through my work in grief and loss. The various incarnations of these mobile sculptures continue to offer ritual and representation of the work I do with clients around grief and loss. Our systems of belonging are most often reflected the nine-piece mobile where each dangling member of the mobile moves in counter-balance to the others when the structure is disturbed. Each pendant that hangs is a unique polished and colorful stone. The stones are the hard things we do, our transformation that becomes the gemstone we offer ourselves and world. When we see this in ourselves and others, it allows us to experience our greatest sense of belonging. It is when we are at our very best within the systems we serve and that serve us.
The support we seek during transition and loss is more akin to the tightly woven wires of the Womb of Support mobile. This version of the mobile does not move in counter-balance, but allows and holds the space around whatever emotions and heartache arise. The Womb of Support does not push back or try to convince the griever of a silver lining to the despair that comes with great loss. Instead, it holds and witnesses gently and compassionately with loving care while the depths of pain are released.
Womb of Support Boundless Mobile
I need a womb of support to hold my deep despair as I witness our family system in distress. We wobble and spin, oscillating as we try to find balance in this world after losing Edmond, our critically important father-member. Waves of concern come regularly about how to help William find his way into man-hood without our Man. He was the role model for us all, showing us what it means to be a man in this world. He was a protector and provider, steady, powerful, gentle, compassionate, and wild. Who will lead William like Edmond did? Probably no-one and many. I know it will not be me.
Yesterday, as Ellie and I swam, and William sat in a chair at the edge of the water, he told us about a fact he found. He said that from birth to the age of 18, we spend 90% of all the time we will ever spend over our lifetime with our parents. He calculated, and he is good at math so I trust him, that he got to spend approximately 65% of the possible 90% with his dad before Edmond died. I posited that for some people 90% is a lot of time, but for others who may not see their parents regularly throughout childhood, that 90% is much less actual time. The three of us discussed our thoughts about time spent with their dad.
The 65%, or 90%, even though it was crammed into 13 years of William’s life, was a lot of time with his dad. Edmond spent a lot of intentional time with our children hunting, playing baseball, playing games, camping, reading, traveling, hiking, swimming, and being. They spent a good part of every day with him. He made them breakfast every morning. His presence in their lives was remarkable and penetrated their daily existence. I know they got a lot of their dad while he was here, and that his influence is baked into who they are and who they are becoming. His death and untimely departure are also baked into their journey.
How do we physically represent this Light Being Father/Husband/Friend into our topsy-turvy family system mobile? If he is not in a physical form, how does he show up in our system of belonging? If his part does not counter-balance our weighted presence, how do we know he is there?
Perhaps, he is the light in-between that shows us the way and allows our gemstones to sparkle and shine. Maybe he is now the air that we breathe and that gives our system movement and motion so we don’t get stuck in any one place for too long.
I long for boundlessness and belonging. I suppose we all do. When I have experienced those ethereal moments of being both connected and free, it is momentary, only a glimpse and a taste of something too large to fully see or ingest. I long for boundlessness and belonging in a way that again includes Edmond. I long to know his part of this system I am in that feels out of balance and empty in places he used to fill. I wait. I pray, and I cling to any glimpse, taste, whisper, scent, or tingle that might be his boundlessness brining me into belonging.