A Hand Held Within an Angel’s
“When I get afraid I put it out of my mind
I say it will be fine
I don’t know how but it will be fine.”
A Heart Beat’s Distance
There is a distance surrounding her
Inexplicable
Given her tendency towards kindness
Caring, helpfulness and mindfulness
Yet the distance is there
A filter
Allowing those who share her kindness
A way into her heart
While keeping those
Whose kindness is not their first instinct
A step away
A heart beats distance
Close enough to provide support to
Yet far enough away to keep her own heart
Strong and growing
She calls it tolerance
This gift of kind distance
Another framework might call it perspective
Just far enough away to see what’s not working
Close enough that those who choose to listen to her guidance
Are able to listen underneath her supportive gaze
She has a way of taking in information
Of transforming it into something collaborative
Her ability allows her to help others
Who would otherwise be “off the grid”
She keeps the desire to help
Separate
From a need to be acknowledged for it
In this way helping those who can feel ulterior motives
Of so many of the helpers
Who help
In order
To be recognized as good for helping
She keeps a heart beat’s distance
Close enough to support with words or actions
Far enough away
To respect the histories of those who otherwise
Would push her back
They can’t push her back
They can sense she has already taken that step back
Providing hope
but unwilling to take on the investment
the one in front of her is responsible for taking
They recognize in her
Someone who will hold them accountable
Or let them fail if that is their choice
She holds the boundaries
Allowing them to make the choice
Yet always ready to support them in crossing the gulf
The distance they themselves have created in themselves
A heart beat’s distance from their own hearts
She matches them
And when they decide to walk closer to their own hearts
She walks with them
Never rushing them
Never blocking their path
Just side by side
Walking the gulf
Of a heart beat’s distance
The space of an instant
Immeasurable in its length
She used to have difficulty
Setting the pace
Providing support
Never pushing the process
Never pushing the person
Even when it was called for
It’s not a challenge she finds herself holding anymore
She is able to hone in quickly
To the core of the problem
To the core of the person
To the core of the spirit and soul
To the direction of the journey
The person is on
The ways they block themselves
Diverge from the path
Distract themselves from
Seeing
Feeling
Being
She can find the words for these things
Never hesitating to say them
For she knows that this itself is often
The hindrance
That everyone including the person
Knows the problem
Knows what must be done
Yet no one will speak it
Hold the possibility of hope that it could change
Or the accountability that speaking it alone holds
Both for the speaker and the person receiving
Knowing
She was seven
And knew when people were lying
Knew when they were not telling the truth
To others or themselves
She could see that at times
Even the person in front of them
The adult in front of her couldn’t see it
Couldn’t tolerate it
Wouldn’t listen to it coming from a child
Of course those same people
Most likely
Would not have tolerated it
Would not have listened to it
Coming from another adult
Because she was seven
They could dismiss it
Dismiss her
Which is why
She learned
To poke the bear
She decided to say the things that needed saying
She learned to say them in ways that were not so easily dismissed
She learned to hone in on those who would dismiss her
Fine tune her words
To poke the bear
Of authority
To instigate
The hope
For change
At all levels
To ensure
That when change did not occur
The bear at least
Was unable to simply swipe in front of it
To dismiss the problem
The first bear she poked
Might have been her mother
Never feeling safe
She learned to tolerate
This lack
To use it to create understanding
To the best of her ability
She learned to become tolerant
To maintain
What she could
Of any relationship
With her mother
Yet she also learned
That with tolerance
Came the heart beat’s distance
So she also learned
To take her innate kindness
To breach the gulf
With the friends
Who did not require tolerance
With the friends
Who embraced
All that she was
Valuing the bluntness of her words
Spoken to them not to poke the bear
Spoken instead to inspire in them
Their own greatness
She trusted her intuition to guide her in this
Realizing that there was no effort involved
In developing these relationships
That when she simply trusted her own heart
Her own guidance
Those who entered and stayed
With no effort
Were exactly the ones
Without heartbeats of distance
Warding their absent walls
Far Far Away
She was born in Thailand
Dreaming from an early age
Of escape from the life of a princess
Attending Catholic school at seven
She felt the weight within her
Around her
Her parents had separated
Her mother essentially absent
She wished the wish of so many
In a place akin to royalty
A wish to be in a land far far away
She prayed to St. Joseph and Mary
Having all the material things life could offer
Surrounded by the gold of Midas
A life of riches
With no friends
A life where everyone lived their lives
A heart beat’s distance from one another
Three years later she moved with her father
To the United States
Now in a land far far away
Yet deep beneath the weight
Of her father’s pressing thumb
Still no freedom to really feel
So she found yet one more way to escape
Losing herself in art and photography
Creating a world internally
A heart beat’s distance from everyone else
Yet finally in the rhythm of her own
Wire Work
Her Parents were Wire Monkey Parents
Parents who perhaps meant well
Yet were incapable of providing softness and warmth
Made from wire and able to sustain the barest necessities of life
Food, Water, anything that came with a price tag
Her parents kept their hearts within their own wire frameworks
Raising her a heart beat’s distance away from their own hearts
Framework
Some create Mandalas on large wooden circles
A framework to hang the spirit on
For others the last step of creation
Having stretched their soul across canvas
With color
Is to balance the raw
Unfinished picture of their consciousness and heart
With a structure of matting and wood
To contain it enough
For viewing by others
Or to provide balance enough
To be pleased in the viewing of their spirit
For themselves
For her the artwork
Itself was the Frame Work
Transmuting the anger and distance
She so often felt from and towards others
Into the joyous embrace
Of herself
The Temple Within Made from Midas Gold
As a child she had no other recourse
She struck back against her mother
To keep a safe distance
She found ways to push people away
She fought with them
So that she could have breathing space
Fought with them so they would leave her alone
Fought with them so that her heart could
Find a safe distance from those who didn’t
Care for the expressions of her heart
At 25 she found the way away from them in a different way
Through the deliberate creation of safe space
Though color and design
A path she had only glimpsed at ten
When spending time with her aunt
At 25 she found a way away from them in a different way
Through the deliberate engagement of flow with her own spirit
She could finally feel the regret for being mean to her mother
For pushing her mother away to keep her own heart safe
She found the way to transform anger into tolerance
At 25 she found a way away from them in a different way
Finding a place of safety in heart none would be able to alter
An Altar within her from the Gold her parents tried to tell her
Was as valuable as love and affection
Molding the gold from their Midas touch
Into an intricate framework of beauty
A temple within her own heart
Where she brought the people she struggled with
A creation of imagination to bring peace to her spirit
On the Shared Path from Anger to Tolerance to Love
Mindfulness
Each step forward with mindfulness
Brings the next step to you
There is no walking forward
Just a realization that you have moved in space
To a different place
From Thailand
To the United States
From Virginia
To Oregon
From Anger
To Tolerance
From Wire Monkey Parents
To the Immersion of your Own Soul
From A heartbeat’s distance encased in gold
To an embrace of Angel’s within their wings
Being
With Mindfulness
You realize
Each step forward
Brings the next step to you
There is no walking forward
There is simply
Just
Being
Being
In Action
Present
In this way
With mindfulness
There is never any travel
Just transformation
Breaking into Being
She took her first steps at 26
Into the full realization of herself
One could argue her first steps were those steps
Away from her parents
From the perspective of Being
Her first steps took place when she was older
For Not Being Like Another
Fighting Against Something
Doesn’t give definition
Consciousness
Immersion
Choosing how you will be
Gives Definition
In this way she took her first full steps
When she found her way to the colors within her heart
As in so many journeys
There are glimpses
Glimpses of who we are to become
Moments when we are already that which we strive to be
Before we realize that we have always been
Always are Being
Exactly that
That there were never any steps
That we always were
That we always are
That we always will be
When we recognize there is no travelling
Simply transformation
Nevertheless
In Being on this planet
We believe we are travelling
In travelling we have glimpses
Of who we can be before we get there
Moments of being
And moments where we stop
Being that which we are
Fully
To try and be what others hope for us
Or demand
Safety
At 26
She glimpsed what she would become
She allowed who she was to enter her
She allowed all of her lives before and those to come
To inspire in her the simplest of creations
A project she was given by her teacher
To create safety
Others in her class almost without exception
Used the word SAFETY in different ways
Tried to use the word in patterns of logic
To explain what safety was or is
She intuitively knew you cannot create
Or explain Safety
It is a way of Being
An experience
The experience of a child’s hand
Held within the hand of an adult
Safety she never really had
With Wire Monkey Parents
First Language
Her First Language in this lifetime
Was Thai
Her parents Chinese
Her first fully formed sentences
Were from the language
Her nanny spoke
Somewhere within the language
Is her heart
A Story from the Islands of the Pacific
There is a story of a princess
Who defied her father
She tried to escape
To find her heart
He had her killed
For her disobedience
Had her heart
buried in the jungle
There within the jungle
Her heart grew
Within its own rhythm
Within the darkness
Taking its own form
Away from expectations and demands
Her heart’s seed
Emerged
Becoming
The first Mango tree
Breaking From the Shall
The expectations around her
Tried to define her
Attempted to determine
The course of her being
To Escape the shalls of her father
She chose not to listen to her intuitive voice
She married a man
Whom her very dreams told her to defy
For her before her marriage
There were few roads to the space within herself
That did not involve fighting
Or at best extending a hand in tolerance
After the marriage broke
She herself broke from the shalls
So many rules
She had been living into
So many external values
Not in keeping with her own
“All of my values broke when I got my divorce”
Her heart cut from her body
Planted into the floor of the jungle
Lost for a time
To emerge
Bearing fruit
Full and Sweet
Kind with Compassion
With branches to provide shelter
For those who would seek not just food and water
That any wire monkey parent could provide
Yet also the softness and warmth
More than terrycloth
A deep resonant warmth
That filled the space around her
That held in the air about her the moisture of tears unwept
Brushing them away from the eyes and heart
Even before they emerged
To create a place of safety
That required no walking to get to
A place of safety
That always is and has been
Through the years and through lifetimes
Safety that requires no travelling
Simply transformation
Be
“I’ve learned a lot
It brings me back to mindfulness
I thought I was being mindful
I wasn’t
Whatever the moment is
Be”
The Wire Monkeys
Wire Monkeys are not like the Flying Monkeys of Oz
They don’t lift you up
Albeit terror may fill you
To view the landscape below you
As they carry you to your destiny
To face down the fears in yourself
To douse them
Then emerge to find your home
The one that was always there within you
Wire Monkeys are not like the Gigantopithicus of the Jungle Book
Who has a passion for the Red Flower
A passion to find the fire
So great and so deep
It brings out within you
A glimpse of your own deep longings
Even perhaps
As the ancient buildings of your self
Collapse around you
Wire Monkeys are not like Curious George
Whose unending curiosity
May create frustration and annoyance
Yet which ultimately
From the challenges created
Generates happiness
Even for the Man in the Yellow Hat
Who has to clean up any messes
that were created
Wire Monkeys
Just sit there
Offering you
anything your heart desires
As long as it can be purchased
Yet with no kindness behind those actions
Other than what can emerge
From the wires
Keeping their hearts
A heart beat’s distance from yours
Strangers in the Night
She found the hearts of strangers
Kinder and more receptive
Than those she had known
In her own family
Stranded on the side of the road
She called her father for help
His reply
“Call Triple AAA”
It was the strangers
Random people on the street
Who helped her push her care to a safer place
Strangers in the Night
Angels in the Darkness
Who held her hand in theirs
Offering Safety
Instead of telling her call someone else for help
Angels
It was in her 20’s that she dreamed of the Angel
She was in its arms
She could smell the angel’s warmth and radiance
The Angel’s wings, its feathers brushing against her
Enfolding her
Purpose
She stepped into the field of mental health
To help others
To create a space
Of being enfolded in Angel’s Wings
She has her dreams of her other lives
Dreams in which she was always helping others
Dreams in which she has died helping others
Nonetheless she knows this is her purpose
Safety Is Not a Word
Systems are often simply another way
Of setting rules and what should be done
How it must be done
Golden Intentions
Golden Statues
Intended to help
That keep the helpers
A heartbeat’s distance away
Disillusioned with the systems
she stepped away from them
Creating her own Safe Space
Holding the intention created when she was 25
Of what Safety is when you simply Be
Not what it should be when you strive to contain it
Within the letters and structures that make up the word
A Way of Being
An adult hand embracing a child’s
An Angel’s hand embracing hers
One with the wings of Angel’s
Enfolding each spirit that walks within
Those who come to her
All have struggles in ways familiar to her
She brings them to themselves
Brings them to their better selves
There is no travelling to get there
Simply Transformation
A willingness on the part of those who come
To learn how
To Be
Home
We are always home
No Travelling to Oz is required
No need to seek the Red Flower of passion
No need to fall into messes in the pursuit of Curiosity
All those qualities are within us
We simply must choose to Be
For Adults
For Children
They are told that if they seek to turn
That which is around them into Gold
They will find their desires fulfilled
Transforming others into objects
To satisfy their desires
Leaving them hungry and thirsty for love
Leaving them a heartbeat’s distance
From their own heart’s blossoming seed
She releases them from their strivings
Assists them in realizing that when mindful
Nothing needs to be transformed into gold
That the most intricate gold
Is the tempering and shaping of their own hearts
Into Temples
She gives them a place that is Home
She soothes and comforts them
She can hold their hearts however long she needs to
Nothing is ever wasted
When in Essence
When in our own Divine Space
We are always home
She creates the Divine Space
Within each person she works with
Brings them out of their own wire cages
Transforms them into Temples
To feel their hearts
To immerse themselves
To face down their flying monkeys
To find their Red Flower without being crushed
By the ancient buildings of their old selves
To enjoy their own Curiosity
Without having to create messes in their pursuit of knowledge
To allow their heart’s seed to blossom
Where the Should’s and Must’s
Cut their hearts out and planted them
Deep in the jungle floor where even they
Lost track of the shape of their heart
Allowing their hears to Emerge
As Temples and Mango Trees
No Travelling
When people find her they find their own spiritual direction
There is never any travelling to her or away from her
There is simply the moment they are with her
There is simply the choice to engage in transformation
There is simply the choice
To Be
With One’s hand embraced in the Hand of an Angel
Her feather’s brushing up against your arm
Safety surrounding you
Nurturing you
Allowing
Mango seeds
To grow
Into
Trees
Above you she will soar
Flying through the air
A warrior in the sky
Strong and compassionate
Bound only be Goodness and Light
Another Path
She had grown up with temples
Within the temple there were those who channeled
They would enter into the bodies of those who struggled
Entering into another and heal them
Her Grandmother saw in her the ability
Saw and prayed for her
Begged the divine for her not to be a vessel
Wanting her to have in this lifetime
Things that otherwise would be denied to her
A Normal Life
So it was
That in this life time she had had the opportunities
To close the gap of a heartbeat’s distance
While everything was set up for her to be a vessel
Including parents who kept a heart beat’s distance
In this this lifetime
Something else emerged
She would not need to die to help another
Lose herself in another to heal them
Her Grandmother’s prayers were heard
Still a calling is a calling
A destiny when followed without resistance
Can unfold peacefully
With joy and love
Led by the hand by Angel’s
She met the woman at 11
as she was supposed to
That did not change
The woman who was also a vessel
The vessel that spoke to her deep into the night
A conversation the woman was unaware had even occurred
The next morning
Everything was put into place
Having met the woman
Having spoken with the spirit within her
She knew
She didn’t want to be a doctor
Didn’t want to have to go to endless years of school
Still she wanted to be able to help and heal others
The path was there
The way forward clear
No sense of losing her heart
When she was taught to keep a heartbeat’s distance
She could have lost herself in spirit and became a vessel
Her Grandmother’s prayers were heard
Angel’s wings guided her another way
Instead of a direct channel in which might lose herself
She was given a direct channel within which she found her heart
Colors and Patterns that years ago her aunt had shown her
Her Grandmother’s prayers were heard
Yet the groundwork for either path had been lain
An Aunt with an appreciation for art and vibrance in life
Wire Monkey Parents that taught her the perspective of a heart beat’s distance
With temples merging the beauty of spirit with expression
Illuminated Manuscripts
Drawn by her very own hand
Lifetimes ago
The merging of spirit
With art
In each life time perhaps
She had been given alternate paths
In this lifetime
She received both warning and celebration
For her marriage over three hundred years in coming
Her path
As all paths are
Both pre-ordained
And as product of her own free will
She could have chosen differently
Yet in this lifetime
One in which she has poked the bears many times
The one “authority” she always chose to follow without fighting
Was that of God and Angels
Both wise enough
To provide her
Multiple Paths
From a heartbeat’s distance
To the Temple
Within
Her Heart
“Whatever Miracle I didn’t recognize
I recognize them as Miraculous Events”
“When I get afraid
I put it out of my mind
I say it will be fine
I don’t know how
But it will be fine”
She was never actually mean
Although she described herself as such
As being mean to her mother
Of fighting with others
And yes even now she has a reputation
For both poking the bear
As well as being blunt with others
At times without the tact of softening the blow
It is not that she is just “being honest”
As claim to be when they in fact are lying about their honesty
So that they can hurt others in the guise of truth
It is that she truly is being honest
Yet with the intention of trying to help
At times the heart beat’s distance
Still shows up
Just enough to provide a skip in her feedback
Nonetheless when she speaks
Whether soft or hard
Her intentions are more than Midas Gold
They are the gold of the Heart’s Temple
Intricately woven to create beauty
Yet with an immutable quality now that
The strands are hardened once more into shape
For truth at times is simply truth
Even now as an adult
Like the child she was
She is incapable of communicating in falsehoods
It is not that she is so “concrete that she is dumb”
It is simply that at times the truth bubbles up
From the jungle floor
Erupting from the ground
When it does
Listen
For when the ground erupts
It does so with fertile earth
To surround your heart
Allowing it to grow in the shape
For which it was intended
She has lived many lives
Taken many paths
All brought to back
To the healing and helping of others
In this path she learned
In ways to move beyond the circumstances given
Beyond the capacities of those surrounding her
She learned to Sever and heal from the pain within her path
She learned that she
Her Path
God
Angels
Heart’s Temples
All are one
That Color and Vibrance
In one’s spirit
Cannot be contained
Within the structure of wires
Within statues of gold
That Color and Vibrancy
Are always existent and present
When one
Simply choose
to
Be