Questions to the God of My Un-understanding

Dear God,
Are you up above or down below or roundabout in all of us and all of it? Or nowhere at all?
Do you mind very much that you've been gendered? I would if I were you.

Where?

What happens to everyone when they die? I know what happens to their bodies, but to them. When my son died the coroner said I could not see him. Maybe wise but odd too, as his mother, not to touch him one more time. I stayed beside my husband for 2 days after his death. I sang to him, played my harp, read him Winnie the Pooh, because he’d loved it. On the morning of the 3rd day I said to him,
“Oh, you've gone.”
Where though? I wandered like a lost soul myself, asking, “Where are you?” for months- years.
Where do they go God, these souls that leave behind the vehicles they have inhabited all these years? Where have you taken my beloved?

Desire?

In his absence, what am I to do with my love and that most forbidden force, especially for a widow, desire? 
Steeped in a patriarchal religion that values purity and transcendence, what is one to do with the honey of longing and desire? 
I remember a science museum I visited with my son. We put our hands in a machine which measured stress while we looked at pictures. I was stressed seeing snakes and rats. He was stressed seeing a naked couple, the man and woman both very old and very wrinkly. Why? The taboo of wrinkly love.
Since you have put longing inside us, is all longing sacred? 
Where does the ache for my husband end and the longing for the divine begin?
Is it all a longing for union with you? 
Are you infinite or intimate? Why are you so elusive? Are you hiding in plain sight? 
How will I find union with you? Inside myself or through another? In nature or in meditation? Are they all possibilities?

Getting it wrong?

Can I get it wrong? Will everything I do eventually lead me to you?
Is the universe made of Love or is it neutral? 
Do you care?
Why is it so hard to live in truth and in peace? Why do we make such an ugly mess when we love and thrive in beauty?

Imagination?
Do we only leave to come home again? 
Do souls stay individual or do they merge?
I sense my son whizzing past sometimes, dropping by momentarily and then he's gone again. Am I imagining it?
Is my husband at my back? Am I imagining that too?

Best and rest
How do I do my best and at the same time rest in being? 
Do I give out too much and allow in too little? Can I trust the in-flowing? Can I trust in you?
Why, when I weep with loneliness, don't you comfort me? Or was it you who sent that woman to notice and touch my hand?
When I receive comfort from the old tree and teaching from the river running by, is that your wisdom?

Knowing you 
Do I have a purpose in this world or don't you care what I do? 
Am I on the right track or isn't there a track at all? 
Am I meant to simply enjoy my life? If so, how do I do that when I am tired and lonely and aching for the loves you've taken from me? 
I long for so many things: peace within, to know joy, serenity, to be loved and intimately known and cherished. Are they all the same thing? A longing for you? 
Do you long to know yourself in me or through me? Are you me – and her and him and them? 
Can we find you in each other – “namaste”? 
Is it you looking out of their eyes and receiving yourself through mine? 
Are you as close as my breath? Do you give me my breath? 
When the sun goes down on my life and I'm not in my body any more, will I recognise you then and realise I've known you all along? 
Will I see my beloveds again or is that a fairy story?

Will you? Will you show me how to live and how to die? Are they the same thing? Is there only Love and is that you? Will you hold me, comfort me, guide me, meet my longing now and when I'm a very wrinkly old lady? Please.

Eternally yours (or so I imagine), Nickie

PS from Rainer Maria Rilke:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions. Now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer”.

---

News

Creatively Writing Through Loss

There are still 3 places left on this online course starting on Tuesday June 11^th and running for 4 weeks.

It will be warm, it will be kind, it will be enlightening. Join us if you can.

For more information or to book please follow the link to my website or contact me here

A Day to Tend to Grief

This will be the gentlest of days, exploring ways to resource ourselves through nature and creativity, and remembering that it is a time to be compassionate with our tender hearts. There will be plenty of spaciousness, time to share in a safely held small group and there will be, even if there are some tears, laughter as well.

If you live outside Devon, why not come for the weekend and immerse yourself in the amazing, green beauty of this lush countryside? I am available for one on one in-person sessions on the following day.

Follow this link to the events page of my website or this one to contact me.

Song and Silence For Peace

Such a beautiful day planned, with sweet songs and quiet reflection, time alone and a simple ritual. With peace in our own hearts we can walk peace into our world as well as sending our prayers for peace on the wings of our voices.

Follow this link to the events page of my website or this one to contact me.

Coming Up

Walking with Loss, Together, is having a second iteration starting on 4th September this year. Emma Capper and I have some funding already and hope to have more.

Running on Wednesdays for 4 weeks from 2-5pm in Ivybridge.

Contact me here if you’d like to hear more.

Moving Forward with Loss – an all women residential retreat dreamed up by Sally Potter, from 21^st to 25th November this year, on the edge of Dartmoor. I am facilitating some of the sessions. The cook, Sandy from Dartmoor Larder, is phenomenal. Sally creates a generous and ‘comfortingly cushioned’ space. Please check it out here.