JACKIE

 

As many of you might remember, from time to time I have done tributes to folks I considered my heroes. I like to do them while the person is still here and not wait until they are not around to read it. Sometimes I like to do these posts with the person’s blessing. Jackie, while not being exactly uncooperative, basically ignored my begging for a picture to use on one such post. I could not find any picture where she was not one of a large group, and I did not want to use that group on a blog. Sadly, I had to wait until Jackie was no longer walking among us to get her picture… from the funeral home’s obituary.

I don’t remember when I first met Jackie… it just seems like she was always there… somewhere. I think actually the very first meeting was about a real estate transaction, trying to find a place for a friend to live… and there was just something about Jackie that made me remember her some years later when I began to run into her again and again. I think working with her in Hospice was the time I got to know her better. We shared a very difficult patient, I became frustrated and ready to walk away, Jackie became MY rock and mentor. This was back in the 70s. It was the beginning of a long mentorship.

Since Jackie is gone and can’t read this, I will speak more freely. Jackie was married for 53 years. After her husband passed, Jackie was like a reborn spirit. Free at last to pursue her own interests, she blossomed. (From the obituary: After her husband's death, Jackie moved to Accomac, VA, where she was known for changing the spiritual life of the shore through healing touch.) That special part of Jackie that had been mostly hidden for so many years by an extremely dominating man burst forth and the healer came thru. If you read the tributes on the funeral home’s tribute page, you will see that I was by far not her only admirer. She was a mentor to so many. Under Jackie’s teaching and others, I studied various forms of Healing Touch, eventually becoming certified, also. At the same time, I taught her healing practices used by one of my family members. I am so honored to say that when Jackie got sick, she would call me to come and “work” on her. Likewise, one Mother’s Day, maybe 15 years ago (?) I was taken to the hospital ER doubled over with abdominal pain that just did not want to go away. After 13 hours in the ER, they admitted me to the hospital. The next day, the anesthesiologist came to my room to give me my pre-surgery pep talk. I could not get a definite answer as to what they were going to do when they opened me up… “Oh, just look around a bit, see what is going on…” and the usual no dinner, no food, going to surgery at 8 AM… WHAT? Just to have a little look around?

He left the room. I had a friend call Jackie. When we had her on the phone, I told her to get down there immediately, told her what was going on, what the doc said, and we agreed no one was cutting me open if we could prevent it. It took Jackie a half an hour to drive those 25 miles. Jackie was about 80 years old at the time. She worked and worked, shifting my energies around, and the pain started to leave. After a couple hours, Jackie sat down to take a break, drink some water, catch her breath… I did mention she was 80 at the time?… and she started over again. Healing Touch is a very physically demanding activity. After a couple more hours, I was able to sit up with no pain, stand up with no pain, got myself dressed and checked myself out of the hospital. No knife for Jan!

Jackie was the first to go to the Monroe Institute. I soon followed. If you want to know more about Monroe, check their website. http://www.monroeinstitute.org/. It is an amazing place with some amazing programs. If you have the skills to do this, it will change your life. It is not for everyone.

Jackie and I became partners in drumming, especially for healing. I gave her her first healing drum. Its name was Luke. I still have Luke, Jr. and use him only for special occasions. One of my favorite memories of Jackie drumming was one night when I had about 8 or 9 drummers here in my living room, we had been going at it for a good hour when Jackie’s drum went silent. Most of us drummed with our eyes closed, almost going into a trance like state of meditation, but yet with awareness to every other drum in the room… Luke was quiet. I opened my eyes and there was Jackie peeling off her sweat-shirt… and then she resumed drumming. I glanced around the room. A few others had noticed Luke was missing for a minute, we finished drumming with smiles on our faces as Jackie happily drummed away in her Playtex. I was reminded of the old Maidenform commercials – “I dreamt I was drumming in my Maidenform bra!” When we took a break, she looked around the room – we were all women – and said, “What? I got hot!” Drumming is a very physical as well as spiritual activity.

After Jackie moved to Iowa to work on her sister who had cancer, our drumming group seemed to have much less power. The spiritual chemistry had changed and all of us together could not begin to make up for that loss. It was just not the same. Funny how one or two people can make or break a group. When all of our own little group of like-minded folks drummed together, magic seemed to happen.

One belief (among many) that Jackie and I held in common was that it was important to give healing (or help of most any kind) away. Jackie set up a healing institute here on the shore. It basically made no money. Those who could pay did. If you couldn’t, you didn’t. The universe has a way of evening those things out. There Jackie practiced her Healing Touch and Reiki (she was a Reiki Master) much of it pro-bono. She brought in a wonderful acupuncturist who also did a lot of pro-bono work. He drove down from Salisbury to treat people at Jackie’s place a couple days a week. Some days the trip cost him far more than he made for his efforts. But Max realized, like Jackie, the more you give, the more you receive – and cash is not always the answer. Then Max remarried. His wife, also an acupuncturist, was more mercenary, and Max’s trips south came to an end. There is a long story there, but this is not the space for it. Suffice it to say, the more you give of yourself in compassionate ways, the happier you will be. That is the Law of the Universe.

In Iowa, Jackie’s energies were spent getting her sister well again. Once that was accomplished, Jackie looked for a space to teach and practice her Healing skills. She continued to teach and practice well into her 90s, still doing as many as 100 treatments a week, most pro-bono, up to the age of 95. Sadly Jackie fell, and that put a serious crimp in her career as body movement became a bit more limited. I guess one is allowed to slow down a bit once they are into their 90s. I get aggravated with myself that I have slowed down so early… my best role models kept going long after 70! In fact, some of them just got going when they reached their 70s, reaching their peak of productivity while in their 80’s.

I am often asking people to do Gratitude lists, that is Gratitude with a capital G… sometimes I also do a list of people that I feel blessed to have known. Now it is true, everyone is your teacher – even your worst enemy – they are there to teach you something. But not everyone is your mentor. Not everyone is a good role model. And I know it sounds dumb to be past the mid-point of one’s life and still look for and have role models, but we all probably do. Choose wisely. I have had some awesome people in my life. Think of your list, who is in your top 5 or 10? Besides your family members, who has been there for you – I mean really there… not some hero in a movie or jock smashing his brains out on some distant field. Who has taught you to heal, not hurt? Who has taught you about saving lives, giving selflessly rather than trying to get all you can get, have stuff to show off to the world. Who has been your model for compassion, forgiveness, kindness? How many people can you even put on this list? I am so blessed because I have a good list, and Jackie is at the top of it. I do miss her.

THE SOUND OF A THOUSAND WINGS

Blog the sound of a thousand wings

Once you’ve made it to 70, one thinks that perhaps they have seen it all, experienced it all, yet I am amazed almost on a daily basis by things I discover in the world around me… amazing things right here in my little corner – I don’t have to travel to Egypt or China or get stranded in Antarctica to be surprised. Nope, all I have to do is step outside at the right moment in time and something is there to make me go, “OOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo.” I did not come inside to grab my camera, I doubt it would have shown much anyway that would have made a good picture, plus, I was sure it would all have been over in a matter of a couple seconds. Wrong on that count! As it was cold outside and I was not wearing a jacket, hat or gloves… I had just stepped out to put down some old left over cat food – someone will eat it and be glad for it…

And I heard a sound like suddenly it was raining, or maybe a sudden cloud of sleet hitting the leaves of the holly trees and magnolias or maybe the roof… but no, I was standing out in the open and there wasn’t even a breeze stirring. I looked around for the source of the noise – wind in the leaves? No, no wind… what? And my peripheral vision told me to look up as a black cloud, a noisy black cloud flew over my land. I won’t say over my head as the birds covered at least 2 acres, maybe more… so many wings beating the cold air… there were hundreds of birds.

No, I was wrong again. As I stood there (getting a bit chilly now as the seconds passed by) the stream of birds did not stop. The number seemed smaller for a few seconds, perhaps only a few hundred passing over about an acre, the sound of their wings grew very faint, then just as suddenly came this great beating of a thousand tiny wings in the air as the cloud of birds grew huge once again. I stood out there for a couple minutes amazed at the seemingly endless stream of birds heading south. It is kind of late in the season for birds to still be migrating, but there they were, thousands, not hundreds, in large groups, then a more narrow band, then spreading out in a dense cloud once again.

I was getting kind of cold standing out there in my jeans and ‘jammie’ tops, which fortunately this time of year includes an over-sized thermal shirt over a long sleeved T shirt. (I have a need to sleep with my arms on top of the blankets – go figure.) So, it was getting a bit nippy. There was a third huge rush of wings then the seemingly never ending flock sort of migrated to the east where they just became a shadow visible thru the tree tops. OK, I was cold. I headed in to the house. I bet from the sky the line of birds had to have covered at least a mile.

There have been times when I have seen huge clouds of birds shape shifting up and down back and forth in the distance… maybe these were organizational flights to teach the youngsters how to stick with the crowd, I dunno… but that cloud of birds has never flown right over my house before – not with me standing out in the yard on a super quiet morning. I know some flocks have been so large they actually showed up on radar! I am used to flocks of geese flying over, but they are noisy. These little fellows were not making a peep. I guess they saw the weather forecast and were getting out of Dodge! I worry about the robins that winter over here. I hope they had enough sense to go a bit further south, too.

i borrowed a shot off the web of a smaller cloud of starlings.

Have you ever heard the sound of thousands of tiny wings beating the air above your head? Isn’t it amazing? How lucky to have chosen that moment to clean up the old cat food.

TAMING THE WILDERNESS

Its that time of year when many of us plan our gardens, leaf thru seed catalogs, plan new flower beds, wonder if the old mower will make it thru another season… some of us wonder if we will make it thru another season.

For a long, long time I have wanted to clear out the thicket on the acre east of the house. It has been a slow job, doing almost microscopic sections at a time, then watching the jungle grow back when I would have a summer with too much pain to do any work out there. Though actually, summer is probably not the right word – most of the work outside gets done in the spring or autumn, sometimes in the winter if it is a mild one, but summer is usually too beastly hot to get much more done than keep things watered and the basic grass cutting. Tree cutting is best done in the winter when the sap is not running. That is also a good time to not get into poison ivy as it is dormant unless you decide to pull its roots. Late fall, winter, and early spring are also the best times to work outside because there are no mosquitoes and ticks are fewer except on those really warm days when they wake up and decide they are hungry and you are delicious. Last year, a friend bought an old house to fix up. I gave him a load of camellias and another friend, an azalea grower, sold me a bunch of azaleas, at wholesale, for him. The only catch was, John had to dig the camellias up. So, while he was digging, he dug up more than he could use and we planted them out on the edge of my “thicket” and another friend put a park bench together for me in the middle of it all. Preston brought me a big piece of slate for under the bench, and things started to look good. I didn’t even mind the other half acre of junk trees and bramble that much. The middle was cleaned and slowly getting planted in baby camellias.

   

A couple months ago I posted a couple pictures from the bench toward the thicket. The cedar tree and the trees with yellow leaves are still there, but the jungle behind them is now gone.

Then I asked Charlie to cut down a 20 foot camellia for me next to the house as it was where the generator is going to go. It broke my heart to have it cut down, but, it had to go. I remembered it wasn’t much more than a twig when I planted it. But Charlie, chain saw in hand, decided to keep cutting. He headed out to the thicket and kept going. I never knew when he would be out there, or how much he was going to cut, but in a couple weeks, the jungle was cleared, his bush-hog chopped down the miles of vines and bramble and I could walk across that acre for the first time since I moved here. I could always see a beautiful old tree in the far end, but could never get even close enough to it to touch it. Now Charlie has even driven my truck around it! I lost count of the truck loads of wood he took out of there, much of it locust and cherry.

     

In the middle of this jungle, there is a tree that fell, rooted and kept growing, looking like the Loch Ness monster coming out of the earth. Charlie saved that, too, tho he cut the sucker branches off. It is sort of a built in bench out there. Used to ne that Punkin would follow me everywhere I went, but, he is gone. Imagine my surprise to see Spook, my scaredy cat keeping his distance, but exploring the “new” territory with me.

  

We kept a bit of jungle around the edges until I get Preston or someone to plant some evergreens as a wind break on that corner and slowly fill the lot with azaleas and camellias. My goal is to create a meditation garden, a place of Peace, perhaps prayer, contemplation… perhaps a couple redbud trees, a dogwood or two, maybe another fringe tree if I can find one… a beautyberry bush or so to round things out. I think I will sprinkle some digitalis seed here and there, see what grows. Maybe I will put in some daffodils next fall when I have a better sense of the form it will take. Of course, the big challenge will be keeping it clear as the jungle will try to reassert itself come spring.

If you are ever in the area and want to wander by, come on it, sit a spell and be refreshed. Or grab a shovel and plant a camellia!

FROST

While many of you are getting snow, usually we have been getting rain… but now it has turned cold – 28 degrees when I get up is considered COLD here… and the world is white in certain places – roof tops, some plants but not others.

  These are azaleas and Beautyberry.

And then it warms up again and the camellias pop open one more time. I was able to pick a nice large bouquet of “Aunt Alice” camellias for the holiday table. That is the name of the camellia and it is one of my favorites. Of course, it helps that I used to have an Aunt Alice years ago. I wish she could have seen these beauties.

MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE - 2013

In spite of a lot of illnesses, our group got together and headed out once again to carol in the neighborhood. The weather was very cooperative with temps in the upper 50s! I remember the first year – we sang standing in snow!

Once again we had singers from several different churches. The Baptists provided the words in English for those of us who learned out songs in Latin! We included the words for Ava Maria for them to ponder. We did not try to sing it. Maybe next year. About half way thru the men disappeared to try to get my van running. Dead battery. Oh well, it is the original battery… I added up how old it is and much to my shock, it is 7 1/2 years old. Since I only have 47,000 miles on it, and it is a Toyota good for another 200,000 miles or so, I don’t think about things like age. But I guess the battery did.

We did not have our usual police escort this year, so that limited where we went. We stayed off the Main streets because of the kids – they get excited and sometimes run across the street. So, to keep them safe, we stayed on the back streets. We sang at the homes of several people who usually come and sing with us. It has been a year for surgeries and such…

Anyway, we had a good time. Lots of cookies, hot chocolate, and a Muslim friend made us a tray of Turkish Baklava. I thought that was a good way to top off my 4th Ecumenical Moment.

 

SANTA TRAIN 2013

Santa Train was a huge success again this year. We counted 130 kids who sat on Santa’s lap and a few who did not. Add to that the fact that each kid was accompanied by at least one adult, and sometimes 4 or 5 adults, we know we had better than 300 people go thru our little Station this year. 

  The line seemed to go on forever and the office was soon packed with people, popcorn, cookies and hot chocolate! It was a wonderful treat having real walls, ceilings, and HEAT! And for those of you who remember our first Santa Train, no one had to be under a tent INSIDE the building in case it rained! Ah, yes, those were the days! No tent to keep the cookies dry… did I mention we have heat in the building?

The other big deal this year was having numerous trains running, from the tiny N scale that the tiny folk seemed to enjoy,  to the big O gauge running in the freight room and the really BIG garden train running outside.

But the real star of the show, of course, was Santa and Mrs Claus who once again charmed the kids and even the adults with their patience and kindness, not to mention a bag of goodies.

  The parents lined up with their cameras and listened in as best as they could. I loved the kids who brought their lists. One kid had printed his list on his computer, single spaced, full page.

Also fun were the answers to “Have you been good?” One kid admitted he had struggled with that but thought he had been much better this year than last. I’m glad they didn’t ask me that question.

SIMPLE BLOGGER, WHERE ART THOU?

Blogger problems – As computers morph and change into monsters more amazing than my mind can handle, and as sites change to adapt to the smart phone applications and not as easily used on the big screen desk top stuff, folks upgrade and add more and more clever add-ons… and dinosaurs like me get left in the dust. Several of my favorite blogs are no longer totally available to me. Or, perhaps I should say are only partially available as they have gotten so loaded with stuff my computer just refuses to open them. One friend usually loads bunches of pictures on her blog, as do I, but I never get to see more than 1 or 2 of them or only the top of a picture, the rest simply will not open. Not even the pictures that are part of the heading on their blog or the blog’s name. This is also a blog that will now ask me to identify myself repeatedly when I try to comment until I give up and just hit the little X at the top and call it quits.

I remember when several bloggers tried to add music to their blogs. It slowed them down terribly and some blogs would not open beyond a couple notes of music every 15 seconds. Fortunately, thise couple bloggers gave up on adding music to the cleverness of their blogs and now they can be viewed in their entirety and within a reasonable time frame. If anyone still has music on their blogs, I don’t know about it. It doesn’t open.

As someone still with dial-up and who will hopefully never have to have a “smart” phone, and who can’t see anything on those dumb little tablets, I realize I am being left in the dust of modern technology. I have adapted to much of it. I open your blog and go do the dishes. (No, I don’t have a dishwasher, either, beyond the 2 hands I was born with.) When the dishes are done, your blog is up, I sit and read it, and all is well… except for a few people’s blogs. I can go cut the grass or drive to the Post Office and still only 1 and a half pictures are up and never any heading.

So if you are not hearing from me, well, maybe you have grown beyond my ability to see what you fixed for dinner last night, or what birds are at your feeder… I won’t get to see where you went on your latest journey or how much the grandkids have grown. Sorry about that. Just want you to know I am not intentionally ignoring you…

For those dear, dear friends who are of the less techy variety, bless you my children… I still love reading your blogs and seeing your pictures. And I try my best to get blogger to let me comment. Just sometimes blogger seems to be having a worse day than I am having. That takes some doing.

I have been accused of being a Luddite, and there is a grain of truth in that. but I have no need to show the world my great computer purchases and upgrades… in fact I just bought a new laptop and it is at the computer place being DOWNGRADED – getting rid of Windows 8. Imagine that! Yep, I even bought a Windows 8 for Dummies book and still could not figure it out – so Marvin is reprogramming it to Windows 7 which I can manage on a limited scale. LOL! Shoot, I had to call him up to figure out how to turn the damned thing off! The controls are hidden… well, never mind. You will eventually find this out for yourselves. But I have yet to hear anything good about W8.

Anyway, the point is, if you have moved into a different level of cleverness, I am not there, and I really don’t want to be there… Just like I don’t want to own a dishwasher or a microwave, an X box or a Wii. If you have outgrown me, well, sorry. It was fun while it lasted. I will miss you. But, I will still be here, plodding along with no clever add-ons if you want to see what is happening in this little corner of the world.