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unhinged
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my heart was heavy after calling my mother. her ongoing illness has made her bitter and hopeless. when i was young i only saw her laughter (which when it was directed at me stung and rankled but i realized later in life was never ill_intentioned. just not all that skillful for highly sensitive child with depressive tendencies) and her brave face and her pantry magic that made my mouth water. and the constant encouragement of anything creative especially in the face of pain and struggle. (calligraphy nibs when i brought a calligraphy book home from my grade school library. countless empty journals to encourage my writing before the internet, getting her violin out of the attic when i came home from school raving about the girl i saw playing one at the orchestra recruitment assembly). me and my brother stretched her patience thin in our adolescences but i never caught even a whiff of bitterness or hopelessness. we gave her reason upon reason upon reason to be frustrated with us but it was always rooted in love.
her health has taken all kind of precipitous detours in the last decade. the chronic headaches with no real solutions from her doctors (the lingering shadow of privatized healthcare creating perverse incentives that led her mother to an early and painful death echoing in both our ears) added the bitter hopelessness. my warrior mother who made magic with canned goods and whatever was in the discount bin at the craft store was depleted to....defeated by....
i try to be the good daughter but my last visit was fraught. she asked me if i was coming for christmas this year. covid19 makes the idea of airports and airplanes too much to bear; they already give me panic attacks. the way she said 'i totally understand' was so...loving...mothering...understanding...i feel like a horrible daughter for not being brave enough to get on an airplane.
i pull this white_tara from my tarot
but i find any excuse not to sit
the momentum of my daily practice
finally nudges me past the excuses
from the very beginning
from the refuge vows
i am crying
but by the time i get to
white_tara (19)
remover of sorrows
i am crying so hard
i can barely utter the mantra
the dramatic_irony of that
was not lost on me
but only after she uttered to my soul
'the sun always comes back'
and the next tara took her place
transformer_of_poisons
the tarot
always gives me the right taras
in the right order
the surrender of prayer
is the only thing
making my life bearable
right now
ah_so
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201106
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