Flying Lesson #1

Flying Lesson #1                                                                                Barbara Heagy

Come fly with me.

Oh, I don’t think so.                                                                                                                                                                                      

            I can’t do that.

Yes, you can.

Just step close to the edge

And let go.

No. I’m not made for flying.

            I’m heavy, clumsy, aerodynamically unsound.

            Birds are made for flying,

            Not me.

It’s all in the attitude.

If you feel light and free,

You will be light and free.

Come. Let go.

No. It’s not natural.

            I am not a flier.

            Supernatural powers would

            Have to be involved here.

We are all fliers

If we let ourselves be.

We are all meant to soar

High above the limitations

We set on ourselves.

But I’m scared.

            I would be alone.

            What if I begin to fall?

Trust me.

You are a flier.

You are meant to fly.

It will be as natural

And effortless and easy

As it is for a bird that steps out on a branch

and casts its body into the breeze.

But you have to believe,

And you have to stretch out your wings.

Gather up your courage

And jump.

You will not be alone.

The wind and the air will be your companions.

Well, if I’m meant to fly

            Let me not be

            As loose things

            Tossed about at the whim of the wind.

            Dust and leaves and dandelion seeds

            Are not for me.

            I want to be as sure as

            The goose in its yearly migration

            About its destination.

No,

There are no guarantees.

But I can promise you this;

The world of flight

Will be full

Of wonder and surprises.

You will find freedom

And new strength

As you glide

And soar and swoop

Over unknown worlds.

And you will be

More than you ever dreamed you could be.

You sound so sure of yourself.

I am.

You make it sound so easy.

It is.

Now, are you ready?

Let’s F L Y . . . . . .

I Am From

As an introduction to each other at our recent Rhythmwood Soul Journey, Wendy Roman asked us to write a poem about ourselves from a basic form called “I Am From . . . “. All we had to do was fill in the blanks as we reminisced about our past and contemplated all the people and events that had formed who we are today. Here is my poem. What would your poem be?

I Am From by Barbara Heagy

I am from country farms,
From czardas and paprikash.

I am from grandma’s warm lap
like sheltering laughter.

I am from lilacs, fresh mown hay,
and bubbling creeks.

I am from hippies and hash,
From cool northern lakes and jumping fish.

I am from journals and contemplations,
From words and books and songs.

I am from breath and moving bodies.

I am from spiritual journeys danced in prayers,
laced with pain and grace.

I am from daughters to grandsons.

I am from love –
assured and unconditional.

I Have No Words – A Journey of the Soul

This past week I went on a retreat called Rhythmwood Soul Journey, led by Wendy Roman of Rhythmwood Dance Studio. For eight weeks before our retreat where we met in person, we had online assignments using poetry, journal writing, conscious dance and shared online conferences to introduce us to each other and prepare us with some basic movement principles and ideas for contemplation and discussion.

In the studio, Wendy used daily readings, journal writing, conscious dance, meditation, nature experiences and art to take us on a further soul journey of the feminine spirit.

On the last day of our wonderful week, I sat quietly and thought about how I would explain the past week to my friends and family. It was such a deep and meaningful experience that I truly had no words. But I put my pen to paper, and let the words just flow. This poem is what came out.

I HAVE NO WORDS

I have no words.

How do you explain this feeling of wholeness, connectedness, fulfilment to another?

How do you explain a journey of the soul where I, you, us, become equally important and valuable to the woven web?

How do you explain a creation of the spirit that fills and overflows through me, to you, to earth, to sky, to water, to fire and beyond?

How do you speak of the gentle care, the kindness, the deep felt gratitude for who I am, and who I become with you, and you, and you?

How do I explain the fire within, the fire without, the consuming fire that refines and invites you to new beginnings?

How do I explain the magic of dancing with another, where the flow between us becomes liquid energy that uplifts, intertwines, and releases the ‘me’ to become the ‘us’?

How do I explain the wonder of waves rushing to shore, the birds rising through song, the sky on fire, our very souls on fire?

How do I explain the specialness, the uniqueness of another? Through vulnerability and laughter and tears, and strength and weakness, through words and song and dance and art, a new creation was born.

How do I explain all this?

There are no words.

Wendy Roman is a gifted teacher and I would recommend taking a workshop or retreat with her in the future. Check out her website at www.rhythmwood.ca

A Balancing Act

 

Have you ever watched someone actually creating those wonderful balanced rock structures? You know the ones where they take a small stone and magically, or so it seems, balance another bigger rock on top of it, and then another, and another, until they hold together in one big delicate balance. They amaze me. I’ve tried it myself to no avail. I can’t even get two stones to balance, nevertheless, three, four or more.

This morning, catching up on my morning Facebook, I came across a friend’s posting of one of these incredible rock artists. I learned something watching the video, something I had never noticed before.

I’ve always thought that the structure was built one stone at a time, fully balancing the first one before the second, and then the third was added. But I noticed that the artist didn’t build them one at a time, fully balancing one before he balanced the others. He worked with the group, holding them together with his hands, as he built. If he let go too soon, before the final stone was put in place, the whole structure would fall. If he kept the group together long enough by holding them all with his hands, the final stone was often the one that put enough pressure on them all to hold the whole structure together. Each stone didn’t stand alone.  Each one was necessary and stood on the shoulders of the one above it simultaneously. The stones worked together, at the same time, to find that precarious balance.

That in itself can be a lesson in life. We think we have to move step-by-step, fully balancing one factor in our lives before we move on to the next when, in reality, we need to include all the elements, holding them together long enough until we can put the final factor in place to bring it all together as a balanced whole.

When we feel that we have to fully achieve one thing before we can move on to the next, this separation of the elements can hurt us. It leads to perfectionism which tends to stifle us, sometimes stopping us in our tracks in our intended progress. If we can’t even get one thing fully working in our lives, we feel we are not ready to move on to the next area of expertise and drop it all together. We give up and refuse to take the challenge. We never feel ready or capable or good enough. It can lead to poor self-esteem.

In reality, we often are balancing many components, multi-tasking, learning as we go, pulling the elements together in a jumble of ideas, until the final conclusion hits us full in the face. Or doesn’t. Sometimes we pull it off but the final structure is held in precarious balance, ready to fall at the slightest outside force. But so what? At least by trying to build something, refusing to give up, believing that more than one factor is at work in our lives at a time, we learn from our mistakes, and continue to move forward.

Years ago, I studied modern dance while getting my first undergraduate degree. After four years of study, I left and went travelling. When I got back, I went and visited my former professor of dance. She told me about a local recreation department that was looking for a teacher to lead a creative movement class for children. I told my teacher there was no way I felt ready to teach anybody about dance. What did I know? She assured me I did know enough, so I gathered up my courage and applied for the job. It was the beginning of a career in dance for me, both teaching and performing.

While at the same university, I met a woman in my dance class who was really just starting out in dance. She had been brought up in a very strict religious family, where dancing was not allowed. She couldn’t even skip properly at the first class. That didn’t stop her from teaching her Inter-Varsity social group everything she learned. Day by day, she learned something, and day-by-day, she took what she learned and taught it to others. Her confidence in herself amazed me. She didn’t feel she had to be fully accomplished to offer her skills to others. She was of the Maya Angelou philosophy, “When you learn, teach. When you get, give.”

The world is a busy, multi-factored, jumble of ideas and experiences. Don’t be afraid to pick up many of them and fearlessly start building your life. It’s all a balance. Make yours beautiful.

 

 

The Power of Telling Our Stories

Last night I attended the ‘Evening of Sharing – The Power of Telling Our Stories’ organized by Lisa Browning, One Thousand Trees Publications. The three speakers inspired me deeply with their unique life stories. They went beyond themselves and shared generously details of their lives from dealing with the death of a loved one, to writing our own stories instead of living through others, and mental illness and depression.
 
Margaret-Ann Brix shared her children’s story “Grampa’s Butterfly”, Melinda Burns, psychotherapist/writer/poet shared the importance of finding our true selves through writing and journaling, and Clay Williams spoke of his inspirational long distance runs for charity, specifically depression and mood disorders.
 
I bought Margaret’s book to share with my grandchildren and found her story to be a delightful metaphor on life and death.
 
Melinda began with a short meditation that focused and centered us. Her lesson was about mindfulness, being our true selves in the present moment. We can learn about ourselves by writing down our thoughts and feelings. She spoke of the difference between thinking, writing, and telling our stories. Writing is that safe space between thinking and telling, where we can record our thoughts and feelings in a safe space with no judgement from others.
 
Clay encouraged us to sign the Canadian flag that he carries with him when he runs in remembrance of someone we know who suffers with mental illness. “I would be honoured to run in their name,” he said. My signature joined hundreds of others to uplift those in my life that I care and pray for.
 
Thank you to all three speakers and to Lisa for organizing this special evening. Lisa holds “Evenings of Sharing” every month, each on a different theme. You can check them out at her website www.onethousandtrees.com.

NOLA Jazz Music and Life Lessons

NOLA Jazz Music and Life Lessons – April 28, 2018

This month I visited the renowned city of New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz music. We stayed close to the French Quarter and had many opportunities every day to hear jazz music in a variety of venues – the street, small pubs, the beautiful Orpheum Theatre, aboard the Steamboat Natchez, and the night clubs of Frenchman Street. I’ve been to several jazz events and festivals in my life but, for some reason, the New Orleans musicians made me see my life differently. The way they related to each other as they played, their culture, their spirit, all spoke to me. It seemed there were some unspoken rules while playing that could be good examples for living a balanced, kind, and joyful life for us all.

Thank you, New Orleans musicians. This is what you taught me.

  1. Live in the moment. Catch the groove and ride it.
  2. Be creative. Look for the magic and let it happen.
  3. Be generous. Offer your best. Give it your all.
  4. Take turns. Share the glory. Give everyone a chance to shine.
  5. Be authentic. Be real. Be you, for you are special.

And, above all,

  1. Have fun.

Life is a celebration. Throw yourself into it and share your joy with others.

The Still Point of the Turning World

Barb Heagy Dance in the Park 2015 242-002

This week Wendy Roman, of Rhythmwood Dance Studio, asked her Facebook readers what the phrase “Effortless Effort” means to them through dance. Another reader and dancer, Laine Magidsohn, suggested it be called “Dynamic Ease.” I like both phrases. Both phrases speak of finding that balance between active participation and passive release.

I think ‘Effortless Effort’ and ‘Dynamic Ease’, are both phrases of just stepping aside for a moment to connect with life’s energy force. Letting it flow within, embodying it, giving it room to become one with me and then moving forward together. I don’t just step aside and let it take me over. We work together, side-by-side, internally as one. One body, one flow of energy.

When I was getting my MA in Dance at York University, my thesis centered on finding the relationship between creativity and spirituality. I held a day long workshop of movement and dance, journaling and oral sharing. Later in evaluations of the experience, two of the participants spoke of finding ‘stillness’ in the ‘movement’ while they danced. A paradox. After the event, one of the participants gave me a beautiful hand-made calligraphy copy of an excerpt of T. S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets – Burnt Norton.” For her, his poem spoke of finding “The Still Point of the Turning World” and acted as a metaphor for her experience.

From T. S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets – Burnt Norton”:

            “At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;

            Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

            But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,

            Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

            Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

            There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.”

Finding that balance of stillness and movement is a form of active release. It means standing still for a moment, breathing, centering myself, becoming deeply aware of all that is around me so that I can connect with the movement of life and its energy and begin to move as one with it. It’s becoming as T. S. Eliot calls ‘The Still Point’ so that I become the axis around which my world turns. I am integral to its being. I support it, as I become the stillness from which the movement circulates. The world rotates around me, life happens, but I am always centered and strong, actively a part of it, and deeply aware of the bonded process. It’s finding “The Still Point of the Turning World” within myself.

Choose to Live

001-001

At a recent writer’s retreat I attended, I was sharing my published books with another new writer friend. An author has to be able to say what his or her book is about in under 30 seconds, one or two sentences at the most. My keynote for my first book is “10 – A Story of Love, Life, and Loss, is an inspiring cancer story. It may uplift and encourage you to live your best life.” I often say “It’s an inspiring memoir/cancer journey/love story.”

Then, my friend asked me a simple question, one I had never been asked before so succinctly.

“So, how do you continue to live a quality life when you’ve been given a terminal diagnosis with no hope of a cure?”

Her succinct question demanded a succinct answer. She wanted to know in a few sentences how my husband and I did it.

I answered her this way, in list form: change your focus to ‘living’ rather than ‘dying,’ live in the moment, live with gratitude, and focus on your abilities, not your losses.

  1. Focus on ‘living’ every day, rather than ‘dying.’ You try to fill your day with as many life-fulfilling activities and people as you can, and you focus on those positive messages and feelings, rather than negative people, circumstances and thoughts.
  2. Live in the moment, with mindfulness, tapping into all your senses. Taste that juicy apple, smell that scented rose, look up at the sky and the clouds floating by, feel the softness of your child’s cheek, listen to the sounds of nature all around you. Often, the simplest things are the most meaningful.
  3. Live with gratitude. Say thank you. When you awake, be grateful for another day given, and when you go to sleep, say thank you for all you received.
  4. Focus on what you can do, rather than what you can’t do. In spite of impending losses, you still are capable of many things. Use your time to enjoy doing those things you can still do.

“10 – A Story of Love, Life, and Loss’ is a story of struggle, pain and loss, but at the heart of it, it is a story of love, hope, and strength. It is a story that may help others who have been given a life-debilitating diagnosis, as well as helping their caretakers and loved ones who journey with them.

My book can be purchased at The Bookshelf, Guelph; BookLore, Orangeville; Hannelore Headely Old & Fine Books, St. Catharines and Spa Wellness Tamara, Guelph. It can also be purchased directly from me by messaging me. Buy it online at amazon.ca.

 

Good Grief

Barb Heagy GGP Book Launch 003-001We had a very successful book launch. Thank you to all who came out. Here is my speech:

The first thing I want to say is how honoured I have been to be a part of this very special book, Good Grief People. I knew none of these authors, except for a slight acquaintance with Donna Mann, until we began working on the manuscript last year. Glynis M. Belec, Carolyn Wilker, Ruth Smith Meyer, Donna Mann, and Alan Anderson, I now count you as best friends, my BFF’s, and I admire and respect you all so much. My friends have taught me much about death, dying, and the grief process.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about what ‘good grief’ is. And now that I see the book in its final form with all our stories and poems, I think I would have this to say about good grief.

Good grief is about bravery, sensitivity, acceptance, and a generous, fearless attitude to life.

Grief is much like falling in love – to do it well, we have to drop the barriers holding us back from fully stepping forward into it. Yes, it’s a powerful emotion, as powerful as love. But that’s what grief is – love. When we have loved deeply, we grieve deeply.

Good grief means facing the fear, the anger, and processing it in good faith. It’s about examining one’s life and finding new purpose and a new identity. It’s about a willingness to live and find a new you.

Like a woman in labour, who works with her body and mind to embrace the pain, to release it instead of fighting it and bottling it up, when I grieve well, I learn to ‘go with the flow’. These stories have taught me that I can birth myself into a new identity. It will be a world without you, a different world, but I will still be in it and will find my new life.

Grief is like a wounded athlete who learns to work through an injury, strengthening the other muscles and joints to heal an injury to regain our health and wholeness once again. Grief can be like an amputation, and when you think about it, losing someone dear to you is like losing a part of yourself. But even through that, we can learn to do things in a new way and go on.

Good grief is the fork in the road, and although we may hesitate, we choose to take it in good faith. It’s the willingness to continue the journey, a journey into the unknown.

Good grief is the willingness to accept the end of one story and move on to the next chapter or book. We all have our favourite books and stories that we just hate to see end. We stretch out the best parts, savour it, read it again slowly, or even stop reading because we can’t bear for it to be over. But it does come to an end. And then we move on to the next story, but not until we have placed that story in our ‘favourite books’ shelf for safe-keeping and re-reading. We know that we can return to it again and again, but we know too that it will never be the same as that first time experience.

I hope that our book, these stories, will help you find hope in the midst of despair, comfort from the pain, joy in the sadness, strength out of the weakness and acceptance in the midst of denial. They all sit on the same plate. We can learn to live with both.

Rain Makes Rainbows

I was thinking about my recent trip to Hawaii where I went to dance at a week- long event called One Dance Tribe. After spending almost a year co-authoring a book about grief, I was looking for some pure joy in my life. And I did find it.
The first day, the first dance session, I was invited to dance with a complete stranger, and as we circled, and swooped and jumped around each other, I found myself smiling and then laughing out loud. Pure play. I felt the freedom of a young barn-bound colt let out to romp in the grassy meadow on the first warm, sunny spring day.
I also experienced pain, my own as well as others. On the dance floor, we were invited to consider the pain in the world, our own as well as others, and express it in movement, gesture and dance. No words. I cried in the arms of a stranger, as tears spilled down my cheeks over the death of my brother-in-law, who I had just found out the night before, via text, that the cancer he had been fighting for years, won. I wasn’t going to be there for his funeral.
Several times, after dinner, or at a quiet moment, someone would approach me and sit across from me and slowly start telling me about their lives, often being moved to tears. I just listened. It was an international dance event and, early in the week-Barb Heagy Maui 092long event, most of these people were strangers to me. I felt honoured that they would share their lives so intimately with me.
Every day, it rained for some time, usually just a quick blast of warm drops and it was over. But the sun was always back. And with it, came some of the most beautiful, vividly-colored rainbows that I had ever seen. And there was usually more than one throughout the day. As one of the participants said, “Hawaii is a rainbow machine.”
So yes, I did find joy. But I also found pain. I found they exist on the same plate. It rained almost every day, and every day we had an abundance of rainbows. Rain and rainbows danced in the sky, side-by-side.