Motivated By Spirit

  Respite a most wonderful word used to conjure magical places, peaceful settings and moments carrying memories to last a lifetime. I recently had a respite. I have been in hospice for about eight weeks now and while in their care, I've felt cared for and nurtured at the very least. Every staff member that interacted with me was an innate caregiver and i felt it. Thus, when I felt myself getting a little weak i could not figure out why. I said nothing to those around me. Then my nurse came for her weekly visit. She took one look at me, and you have declined, not you, you have to be around for Baseball's opening Day in the spring. Pulling up my pants which was beginning to slip, I replied without too much conviction," I'll be here in front of the television." She did not reply so i thought she'd let the matter go. She did her regular checkup, blood sugar, blood pressure, and temperature. Then she scribbled on her tablet, and all the other things she does on her...

    As I was sitting on the edge of my bed playing solitaire, listening to the commentary on the politics channel as white noise. I was not paying much attention. Then I sat up with a jerk as I heard the law professor lady say having a still birth is an abortion. What? I have always lived under the presumption that an abortion was an overt deliberate act, not something that happened during a natural physical condition. Yet from the lawyer lady's statement, my mother had one. This happened when I was about eight or nine, I cannot now remember the specific year. Mama had slowly gotten fatter, and everyone was talking about a baby coming. Mama started gathering items for the baby. I instinctively knew they were not for me, because they were laundered and folded in the top bureau drawer by themselves. Every time Aunt Kathleen came over, she and Mama would sit on the bed and examine the contents of that drawer and admire them before, refolding them and placing them back, after much...

( The poem honoring my brother also shared the cultural tradition in my community as a child that a boy was not declared a man until he was given long pants by his parents.)  My brother was in short pants then    Although he won't admit it To hear him tell He'd never been a boy always a man. We'd roam the hills to shoot at  birds With sling shots made from branches We'd catch at some To roast on sandy gully floors Over fire made from twigs. My brother was in short pants then. Come mango time we'd pick and eat And eat all we could hold Mama never said a word  She'd always let us do it He'd save the nuts from cashew trees In gallon kerosene tins The feast we had on roasting day Precluded eating dinner How he would scream And hit at me For eating and not saving. My brother was in short pants then. He'd fetch the wood to build the fire The fire for cooking dinner He'd make two bundles of the twigs One for him a smaller one for me We'd balance them up...

  Yesterday, my bubble of anticipation shrank a wee bit. My ride arrived on time, then drove me and the niece to the dentist's office without incident. I almost bounded into the office greeting all I saw with my now familiar toothless smile. What I was there for was the teeth to change that condition. The wonderful assistant came to the door guarding the inner parts of the practice and invited me to come in. I fumbled for a minute but grabbed my walking stick and followed her in. Sit down she invited me, I gladly did so. She opened the case sitting on the attachment of the chair and pulled out the bottom teeth with the pink gums glistening under pearly white even teeth on top of them. Open, she encouraged, I obeyed, and she inserted the longed-for lower denture. She reached in the case again and extracted the upper denture which I had given them on my previous visit and inserted that in my mouth. She then produced a small mirror held it up to my face and asked me to close my mouth ...

  There is a shift in my body. It is just past 1am and I am rearing to go. I have moved things around in the middle drawer of the small chest of drawers holding my folded clothes. I dug through all the drawers searching for a particular cap that I want to wear to the dentist tomorrow. The reason for wanting that particular cap is it present the look I wish to have when I take the selfie with my new dentures. I am reveling in the same sense of anticipation I get when preparing for a big event the next day. This is a forward looking feeling I have not had for the longest time. Truth is I can't remember feeling this energized since the second round with the cancer began. Instead, my prevailing mood for the longest time has been a low-grade malaise so familiar, I did not notice, nor acknowledge it for what it was. All during this stretch I would have bubbling moments of dancing energy, but never true anticipation. Because most of my focus has been on doctor's appointments and phone...

 I am becoming aware that I have been experiencing my physical body somewhat differently since going on Hospice. During the two years leading up to becoming a client of hospice I was experiencing the body through the rhythms of cancer medications, pet scans, MRIs, infusions and the effects those procedures had on and within the body. Then, towards the end of those cycles, severe pain.  Saturday night, that changed drastically and perhaps I did not handle with as much grace as I would like to boast about. It started with copious sweating, not the famous hot flashes women are supposed to get, but a drenching sweat which forbad sleep all night long. accompanying the sweating was a debilitating weakness, which asked nothing more than I lay down with my eyes close. This malaise followed me into Sunday. I called my wonderful nurse, and she comforted me and encouraged me to eat something when I confessed, I had not eaten for the past two days. Toward nightfall on Sunday a smidgen of ...

  Yes, I am here with so much to be thankful for. Top on the very extensive personal gratitude list is the controlling of pain I have been having, Though the pain is present, it is so controlled with the medication, it now stays in the background of my consciousness. Far away now is the sharp burning that triggers small groans and sometimes an occasional scream.  Today as you know Americans tend to indulge in the very American habit of excessive eating. So, although I did not go on the family excursion to house of my great nephew, arrangement was made for me to have my private indulgence. My niece's husband, who is a chef, came over and made me most of the traditional Thanksgiving foods. That deed of kindness further enhanced the growing feeling I have of being cared for lavishly. This care is above and beyond the ordinary knowing of being loved and favored as a treasured part of this great and tender Universe in which we have being. On the list of my many blessings are my fri...

Yes, it has been one full week since I signed up for Hospice. A lot of wonderful events filled that week. There is my assigned nurse with the perfect teeth, causing me to miss my own teeth even more. Well, that is being rectified soon, as I made my dental appointment last Friday. A wonderful treat as an impression was made for my new denture. That's just step one. The great delight of my first week was the bathing ladies two of them. Put me in the tub, they did and insisted that I had a bath. No, I screamed like the two-year-old I have become, I don't want to have a bath, but then it became so soothing and caring, that I half sobbed, I like it. The nurtured feeling the bath gave me lasted all day. I must pause here to mention the reclining chair which came the day after I signed on. The pain nulling medicine came near midnight on signing day. Because it is a narcotic my niece signed for it before going to bed. That settled the day, so I slept all night for the first time in mon...

  I am about to pull a Jimmy Carter. How you may ask. Here's how, I have just signed up for Hospice care. If you may recall the oldest living past President has been on Hospice since February 2023. More than likely, I will do Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve and of course my birthday in February 2024. The decision was a joyous one. For the past two or three months I have been uncomfortable with constant pain in various parts of my body. Palliative care now is much more preferable than the aggressive care I have been taking. I have become quite fund of the caregivers at the cancer clinic as well as the MRI clinic and will miss seeing them. However, it is time to say farewell to them. I will have to find a way to have those wonderful chats with Miss Kat during my ride back and forth to my treatments. Don't get me wrong the cancer drugs and the radiation treatment have decidedly slowed the progression of the cancer that has decided to cohabit the body in which I live. T...

  Yesterday, I finally gave in and called an ambulance and gat myself taken to the ER, where I saw Doctor handsome, I 'sware to God' he was straight out of central casting. Never mind the eye candy doctor.  Let me tell you about the pain. It was steady with shooting moments that solicited a scream, sometimes it started under my left armpit and wound its way down the arm and into the elbow. All the while the pain was accompanied by thundering belches. So, here's the first bright spot, they took an Xray of my left shoulder, right there in the ER waiting room. No calling down to imaging, no being wheeled down long hallways but in the screened room on the bed which served as a gurney. The young technician wheeled in a device fit for a science fiction movie, pointed it at me asked me to turn my head to the right, said thank you to me and it was done, and she was gone.  A few groaning minutes went by, and I closed my eyes for a brief meditation, a practice I do when I have to w...

 It's well past midnight and the television is playing something from the Meditative Mind on YouTube. My mind has entered into introspective and prospective mode that is somewhere it has not gone for many months. So, I feel compelled to write.  I'll start with the events of the past few days. I have been in a lot of pain due to the withdrawal of the cancer medication and its reappearance after the extraction of my few remaining teeth. Not having teeth leaves me with a limited types of foods to ingest.  These are oatmeal, grits, mash potatoes ice cream and anything soft that does not require chewing. That is a boring gastronomical experience. The pain interrupts my sleep. All of the physical discomfort, I used to request my soul to leave this particular body. Sometimes this request was done in tears and with some self-pity. The answer was always the same as it has been since I began this phase of my earth journey three years ago. No, there is more work this body has to do ...

  Fani in Atlanta, Tishia in New York and Tanya in Washington D C, these  are the Black Women Karma is holding in Its timely hand to fulfill Its immediate purpose of correcting the curve in the road of America's Democracy and restoring balance in the forward march to the multi-cultural, multi racial, prosperous society, which is the intent of America's founding. The balance comes in the form of accountability and reckoning to the one man who has become the glaring symbol of our collective imbalance. What does this have to do with Human Spirituality you may ask? Answer. Everything. We humans are Spiritual Beings with an earthly purpose. That purpose is to harmonize our relationship with the planet and all of its inhabitants, including ourselves.  We lost our way and the man who is experiencing the hand of Karma is the outward display of the correction that is underway. Give ourselves a pat on the back and have a celebration for the grand correction we've made. The Pho...

  Yesterday, in the early afternoon I managed to get outside of the house. That may not sound as an achievement to some who come and go whenever they want to ou, or with very little notice of this feat.  But to me it was a great overcoming. So much so, that while in the midst of this grand accomplishment, I texted a friend to woller in the glory of it all. I opened the back door and stepped out on the patio and sat on the bench that was a few steps away from the door. The sun was warm. I immediately noticed that there were there were birds picking food from the grass, a few bees on the dandelions the mower missed, and the dappled sunshine under the tree by the fence.  A very cooling breeze surrounded my body in an embrace I had not felt in what seemed like ages. Then one of my favorite smells of the Earth caressed my nostrils with its familiar fragrance. The smell of freshly mowed grass thrilled me with pleasure and joy. I luxuriated for a long time in the intense feeling...

 Today I spoke with my very dear friend, and she mentioned that a mutual friend was on her mind. I said that same friend has been on my mind as well. When we ended the call, I called that friend who had moved away from the Atlanta area, got here machine and left a message letting her know how loved she was by her Atlanta friends. Within a few minutes my beloved friend called, and we had a most loving and warming conversation. ( That paragraph was written May 30, 2023, then tennis begun with the French open at Roland-Garros started May 31, 2023, so I will complete that amazing, serendipitous experience, after it ends a week from today, on June 11, 2023, or perhaps a little sooner, but it will be done.) A few days before I had received a massive amount of the healing energy that sometimes courses through my body up and down my spine the same event happens whenever I need to contact someone who may need to connect to this energy. Sometimes the energy seems to flow into what I have com...

 Roberta is my sister-in-law. She  was born in the verdant countryside of North Carolina. In the place of her earthly beginnings, she learned that family is important and equally important is being a part of a loving community. Roberta McCarthy, Nee Harris came to the bustling New York City with her values intact and kept them for the rest of her life there in that bustling metropolis.  She was soft spoken and a woman of few words, yet her commitment once given was never withdrawn.  Seated within her values is a generosity that was unparalleled, and an attraction which drew into her life a new family, which grew with every person she took into her heart. She found community within the Jamaican community, she loved them, and they loved her in return. Living within that Jamaican community was her husband, my brother Clement. Having found the love of her life she. became one with his family. Clement's mother became her mother, his...

Yesterday was the day for me to see the doctor at the infusion center where they monitor my ongoing progress with the challenges my body is handling since the return of the cancer, we had banished in 2014. However, the visit was very different this time, My skin encased Angel. the lovely Miss Kat who takes to my appointments and stays with me though the rigors had to change the routine we followed for these visits ever four weeks. She had an unexpected event, so she planned to leave for the time between the doctor and the infusion and return to take me home. A great plan and would have been perfect except my toothache got in the way. The tooth needed to be pulled and I needed an oncologist dentist to do that.  A referral was necessary, and the infusion had to be suspended until after the extraction because the medication given by way of the infusion could cause excessive bleeding.  Infusion day usually starts with blood work, then the doctor consultation, then the infusion. Th...

    In  1986 the company for which I worked shipped me to Miami Florida from Nashville Tennessee, a turn of good fortune as there was a Jamaican community there and lots of mango trees. I was not unhappy with the move. I found the New Thought community via the Unity Church led by the Reverend Goodison-Orr. I also found a wider New Age Community and continued my deepening Spiritual growth through both of these communities. In other words, I thieved while there and ended up spending the next fourteen years there. I made many friends in both of these communities. Early in my Miami sojourn, I attended a group meeting with my newly found New Age friends. As is my wont, I pontificated on the topic of walking the path of spiritual unfoldment. After all I had read many books on the subject as well as attended many retreats and workshops. I knew a lot about that topic, or so I convinced myself at the time. As I entered my stride in the pontification process, a kind gentleman enter...

 Yesterday, I celebrated my 79th birthday. It is wonderful knowing I've lived for 79 years in this body.  As I recall my span of years, it seems that it was just the other day, I was nine or ten years old and my only concern was could I go next door to pick some genype (a beloved fruit with a huge seed that could be roasted), from our neighbor's tree. Here I am 70 years later crying with joy at the sight of my family gathered around my bed singing happy birthday to me. Here's the story of this body. It had a recurring vaginal abscess for thirty years, which led to a phenomenal healing of the childhood trauma of being repeated molested by a neighbor who bribed me not to tell. From that point I journeyed on in it as a very healthy vehicle until in the middle sixties when it encountered cancer as an accelerant to a deeper plunge into the invisible world of Spirit. Using the opportunity cancer offered, I began to knowledge some of the other talents I brought into this lifetime....

Within the pinch of eternity called my life span, love is the state in which I live and move and have Being. Love fills the cracks and crannies as it carves with infinite precision the moments of my days. Love wakes me each morning to gaze upon the bright new day in which to see its handiwork in the lives of birds, butterflies, scuttling armies of workers in speeding cars every spot an eye can see. It puts me to sleep at night so that I can enter the realms of light the day obscures with actions in the place of being. My life here in my pinch of eternity is made soft, alluring and fulfilling each moment when I remember I am the Love that created the Universe in which a salamander coexists with exploding stars. Oh, the joy of having my being in the cradling nest breathed out by love! Photograph me leading a meditation at a friend's wedding, in Miami 80s?

 Six Yellow Leaves Fluttering in the Autum's breeze Glinting in the sunlight Shinning for all to see Six yellow leaves Saying goodby to summer's heat No moaning nor defending The life force now receding into winter's long sleep Awaiting the awakening Spring's joy will reveal As they fall into the ground to nourish the dormant seeds of a new day's dawn Six yellow leaves swaying on branch bare Holding with deep grace The cycle's yearnings to return The never ending Upwardly spiraling pace of grace.