The presence of absence

The limits of being human are never quite so obvious as when our loved ones die. Their absence is so pervasive to the point of being its own entity.

A few days back, I sent my beloved kitty into the great beyond and still cry about it. My perspective remains intact: this was a very old cat who had stopped eating and lost the ability to drink water. She was not going to recover and could have lingered for weeks, yowling over her water dish managing only to take a lick or two. I was clinging to her life more than she was, and I still doubt whether I made the right decision to assist her on her way. I would much have preferred that she die of her own accord and, eventually, she would have, but after how much suffering, I don’t know.

Her absence is still very much in residence. Her ghost is here. I glimpse her image out of the corner of my eye as I pass a corner where she slept and on the stairs she would run down to greet me when I came home each day (yes, not your typical aloof cat). These empty spaces are full of her absence. They used to be full of her presence.

If our loving were so strong, I imagine that our connection would supersede death. But, the actual physical connection is severed. My connection with those in my life who have died is in the memories and recreating the feelings in those memories in a bittersweet dance. It is the irretrievable presence that most consumes my misery. It is one thing to be separated while knowing that the other still physically exists. We can retrieve another’s presence in our lives. It is another thing when death is the separator.

Those who have physically died have entered an energy state our human senses cannot always detect. Why this is so, I don’t know. But I believe there must be a life-sustaining reason for it. One of the laws of physics says that energy can neither be created nor destroyed – it only changes form. We don’t know that energy cannot be created. We only know that as humans we cannot create energy. It is the law of our human existence, not necessarily of our energy existence.

In the presence of absence, there are lessons to be learned. Absence itself is an energy that is teaching me to be present in each moment and be mindful of the memory that I am currently creating.

©2010 by Barbara L. Kass

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the disappearing presence

In yesterday’s blog at Speaking from the Heart, Laurie talked about death just being another step along the continuum of our existence. Intellectually, most people know that they will die. Emotionally, we wreck ourselves out of fear of dying, and we are programmed to avoid death as long as possible. The problem is that when we live out of fear of dying, we don’t really live. When we live out of knowing we will die, life takes on all new meaning.

So, I pondered this dilemma as I am apt to do on a Sunday when life is good and pleasant and I kept asking myself: what do I want to take with me in the ethereal energy that will leave this body? In these 50-odd years, I have created all sorts of energies and ways of being that I define as “me.” Some of them are pretty nifty: perseverance, generosity, understanding, and this quirky sense of blending the properties of the physical world.

For example, Laurie mentioned just a few of the thousands of ways to die like accidents, heart attacks, and being eaten by sharks (okay, she didn’t mention that last one).

Me . . . I think I would like to die of evaporation. Yep. I just want to go up in a blaze of vapor and disappear. Forget the body leftover, all that funeral stuff, people dribbling past the casket saying “she looks SO natural!”

Bleah.

I want people saying “where the heck did she go?”

I want to be the mystery woman. I am not at all mysterious in life. I am just kind of out there with my tongue tripping over my words, bumping into walls, taking life a bit too seriously, and probably taking on more than my fair share of responsibility.

I seek what I am not, though. I travel through my days and nights searching out this mystery of life, finding my own truths, and connecting with my true presence. The biggest mystery, of course, is where will I go and what will I be when I die? I’ve come to a truth for myself that I will take with me all that I have become. We all came to this earth with unlimited potentialities of defining the energy that we describe as “self.”

I just have to decide what self I want to live with forever.

©2010 by Barbara L. Kass

Allowing presence

Yesterday I wrote about working to bring my true presence to life. Now, I wonder if a more proper and supportive word might be “allow.”

“Allow” is a nice, polite way of saying “get out of my own way.” Allow means I have given myself permission. Just getting out of the way has a more passive attitude, and has the same results – more of who I truly am emerges to be in the world.

At times I feel my eternal presence cloaked beneath thoughts that keep me safely hidden away from being truly engaged with life. I feel as if I (the me who acts as the agent of transition between the surface personality my mind insists is who I need to be to survive and the me who exists eternally) has to set the perfect stage, have the right circumstances, and then persuade myself into being my eternal presence.

That’s a lot of work. I am not sure that all of life has to be work. Focus . . . perhaps. Remembering . . . certainly. Being present . . . absolutely. All of these activities imply some energy expenditure is required. But then, aren’t I spending energy developing and supporting the superficial presence I bring to the world?

How I use my energy, what I think, and how I act (or not) is a moment-by-moment decision. By stepping aside and connecting with my eternal presence, more of these decisions will support being in the world as who I truly am.

©2010 by Barbara L. Kass

The wonder of presence

Words with “wonder” were prevalent in my vocabulary within the first 30 minutes of my awakening today. I even started making up words . . . like “wonderfuller” meaning more of wonder.

Occasionally I am blessed with the presence of mind to become acutely aware of how just being a presence is a wonder. I exist . . . how amazing is that?

The alternative, of course, is nonexistence but if we can be aware of what nonexistence is, does that mean it exists?

Yes, I am definitely in a mood today.

My presence in life is a shared miracle. I share presence with every other sentient being. Our energies connect no matter what our physical distance. I share presence with living matter such as plants and minerals when I ingest them. Minerals are a particularly interesting presence. They enter our bodies through food or water and do their jobs: calcium makes our hearts beat, the iron in our blood cells latches on to oxygen to carry it where it is needed, and salt is required to control the amount of water we have in our bodies. The best thing about minerals is that we can reuse them over and over and over and have since life began on earth. The calcium in my bones was probably used by another creature (maybe even a dinosaur!). When it exits my body, calcium will still be calcium on its way to another home. It will just know me a little better.

Today, I am mindful of the amazing wonder of presence. My goal is to see the eternal presence in everyone who comes on my path. My intent is to connect with them so that we both can share that solitary miracle – the knowledge that we exist.

©by Barbara L. Kass

The presence of story

Lately, I have had the feeling that I am running out of time.

At least, that’s the story I have been telling myself.

Joseph Campbell’s words “Eternity doesn’t start when you die. You’re in it now” remind me that I am always in the eternal now. Time is the unending unraveling of the universe and the constant movement of energies. Time is the coming together of energies and the eventual dissolution of those energies.

I am mindful of the fact that the cohesion of the molecules I call my physical body can end at any time. And I often feel as if I am wasting this opportunity because I am imagining that I am not doing all of the things I should be doing. I feel as if I am very far behind in becoming all of the presence that I should be.

Yesterday, I wrote about listening to the story within me. Today, I am mindful of where the story may be coming from. And, I need to be aware that part of my lesson in this existence is learning about bringing my true presence to life. To do this, I need to face the stories within me and find out if they are true or if they are just something someone told me about myself a long time ago.

Don Miguel Ruiz begins book, The Four Agreements, talking about the presence of story within all of us and how we design our lives to make those stories become our lives. We live out the stories other people have told us about ourselves. We live life because someone told us “this is how life is” and we believed that person and continue to recreate that reality over and over again.

Ruiz goes on to discuss how powerful our words are and the stories they create. Words create lives. Words destroy lives. Today, I will be mindful of how my stories are creating or destroying my life.

©2010 by Barbara L. Kass

The presence of distraction

Distraction is the presence of energies that attract our attention away from anything else that we could choose to focus on. Distraction is a useful mechanism, but like anything else, whatever we focus on will grow. It is even possible to have a life full of distraction.

I struggle with distraction. One time, I was sitting in a death-by-meeting at work struggling to stay awake among 20 other people also close to dozing off. My participation was not required. I was there for informational purposes only. The person who had called the meeting (let’s call that person, um, Unconscious) had already given me what I needed to know in the first five minutes. While I could have left, Unconscious was someone known to take that sort of behavior as a personal offense. To keep myself awake, I began freewriting and, before too long, I was well into the first draft of a short story. I had four handwritten pages by the time the meeting ended. I was part of the crowd surging for the door when I heard Unconscious call my name. Ever the good employee, I stepped aside and let the herd sweep around me. Unconscious said “I was really impressed with the amount of notes you were taking. Could I have a copy of those?”

You can guess the rest. I had to run around to 18 other people and ask them what the heck Unconscious had talked about without letting them know I had not heard a word. That story became my second short story from that meeting.

Distractions are just energies that appear more appealing than other energies that need our attention. I need to say “no” to all the distractions that come dancing my way waving their fancy little fantasies and tales of pleasure. I need to stop thinking in the Land of Supposed To Be or the Land Where I Would Rather Be and instead think and act in the Land of I Where I Am. I need to take full responsibility for my choices and take care of myself in the present. If there is a situation I am avoiding that I need to attend to, I have to stop and ask myself why. Am I waiting for the stars and planets to line up in perfect harmony? For everything to be okay so that I feel safe in taking that next big step in my life towards the Land of I Want To Be? If I continue this frame of thought, I will be waiting a long long long long long time so it occurs to me that I will probably take a small step today, put a toe (maybe even an entire foot!) in the water to test its depth, measure its temperature, and see how it might be to walk in that ocean that leads to the Life I Envision For Myself. At some point, I know I may fall off some yet unseen precipice and find myself underwater, but that’s okay . . . I know how to swim.

©2010 by Barbara L. Kass