Hello Friends,
Well…December and the year of 2018 is almost over! Why does it seem at the end of every year we say, “Wow…that went fast!”? Yes, time ticks along and we are singing songs, day by day! It IS incredible how quickly life has moved along. My Dad came down for the Christmas Holiday. He is 87 years old and though he looks amazing, I can tell he is reflecting on very much these days. He can’t move as swiftly as he once did and he needs to rest more but he is doing very well.
I reflect a lot without being 87. I think this is part of a singer-songwriters mind. I wonder, “How would I feel if I were in his shoes? What thoughts would I have, knowing that I’m closer to the end of my ‘ride’”? I know, a bit morose but when do we get to talk about these things? No one wants to bring anyone down, but we all have the same questions. “Where do we go after this? Did we do what we set out to do in this lifetime? Will we see those we love again when we cross over?”
December is a month of inward reflection. We get together with friends and family we haven’t seen for a while. We see age lying upon our faces only when you don’t see someone in our everyday world.
It makes me feel better to know, on a gut level…we will all be “around”. When we do cross over, there is another realm we will be transported to and we will have experiences with those we know once again. I don’t know how it happens, but like all things in life…there is a circle so with death comes re-birth in some form or another.
I remember the weeks after our beloved Osa dog passed. I went to the gym to go for a swim. I put my feet in the seemingly cold water and sat upon the edge. I had many sad feelings about losing Osa and I just couldn’t seem to take the plunge into the pool. I didn’t want the cold to lie over my body and I shivered just thinking about it. I remember thinking, “where is she now?” I pondered that thought. I looked at the water and in a way, heard a deep wise voice from within saying, “this is exactly what transcending feels like…” and to my surprise, as if involuntarily, dove in the water. Wow! The cold rushed over me, but only for a second. I was a little shocked but delightfully floating, no body weight to pull me down. I was flying in the translucent liquid and I felt a FREEDOM! I was swimming and my body adapted to the coolness in NO TIME! In fact, the water was indeed, warmer than the air! That moment I had clarity of where we all must go. We move into a different reality and form, like ice melting into water. We get reticent about the immediate departure and have many emotions before the “plunge”, but the instant we do it, we are truly OK. Truly FREE.
There are many deaths we feel during life. We feel the loss of love ones. The pain of change or the seasons that call us into our winter fold. We see wrinkles on our faces, missed dreams, blown opportunities. Yet the glory is, we get to see the birth of many things too! We get to feel ALIVE and expanded! We see dreams come true and meet new people to love.
And new puppies too!!!
All this is to say, we are constantly expanding and contracting. We go inward to uncover, we go outward to discover. It’s like breathing. We are not always on the exhale! Much like the seasons we can shift our expanding and contracting in one day or within minutes! Yet BOTH are valid. I would not yell at the ocean for being in low tide, nor would I expect to always be inhaling. We must DO both and value both. We think about life and opportunity and greatness and excitement. We think about death and loss and missed chances and pain. The ALL of it, makes up our lives! The ALL of it is - o.k.
I cannot come to a blog, a person, a crowd and be in expansion all the time. There are moments I wonder, “What in THE HELL am I doing?!” *Big Laugh!* And I let the moment take me. If a sad song comes up on my set list and I’m resonating with it or feel the crowd is cued for it, I must play it because that is just as true as a happy song. All we really can do is be the best we can be in that moment, and sometimes in those moments we feel little deaths. And sometimes in those moments we feel little births. That IS Life. Isn’t life beautiful? The ALL of life?!!
And with that, I close this blog. Knowing that YOU dear reader will take from it what you will. May you move forward to this next year of 2019 embracing the ALL of life, its expansions and contractions, its births and deaths. May you be blessed now and for the years that will buzz by, “Oh, how I wish I had, another 100 years with you…” May we have another hundred years as we sit with our feet in the “pool” with anticipation of what is to come, and like a faithful dog, enthusiastically leap into our “freedom song” and swim gleefully into a new dream!!!
Great Niece Mina, Juno with Nic & Mo Christmas Eve 2018!
Many blessings and much love!
Niccole
