I've been thinking for months now that my blog needs to move in a new direction. The experience of death, of aging, has been a central concept for me in this blog design. I now feel the need to move it in a new direction. Not that the work of aging and dying isn't in need of its own platform, it's just that there are other topics that I would like to explore. I would like to include you, my readers, in this venture. Please feel free to post your own reflections, artwork, dreams, poetry...Argue with me. Agree with me. But by all means, please engage in dialogue with me. Feel free to present your own beliefs, similar or dissimilar to mine. This is about sharing, about thinking, about opening our minds in a new way...about ancient things. Engage.
The Holidays are difficult for many. Both of my parents died in December; it was in December of 2016 that we realized that my brother Jim was indeed on his "journey," as we euphemistically call it in Hospice work. He was engaged in the work of saying goodbye. Of dying.
Now, a year later, his family continues to process that time of unstoppable transformation. Of preparing ourselves for the loss that would come, for the new life that would arise as a result of my brother's departure. For example, even as he was passing, his son was expecting his second child. A beautiful baby girl who would be named for my father, Emerson. Her nickname is Eme.
One soul leaves this Earth, another enters. Are they related? I do not know. I do know that the cycle of life constantly revolves around death and birth, birth and death.
It is on birth that I would like to concentrate my Blog this coming year. Birth. Life. Transformation. And yes, death, too. Ultimately, it is Death that brings us back to Life.
And so, my friends, I invite you to join me on this journey in 2018. I will not judge you; I ask that you not judge me. I will share my stories, my reflections on various readings, and I invite you to do the same. Out with the old, in with the new.
Blessings,
Patricia
Christmas 2017
New Year's 2018
"Christus Natus Est" - Collage. Patricia Wheelhouse. Mixed papers and watercolor.
