Close Call Gifts In Strange Wrapping Paper

We were lucky enough to have reasonable tickets pop up at the last minute, and got to go to the theatre last evening to see Hamilton, before the cast and crew pack up and leave town. This historic show based in the time of forming this country is as relevant to today, in this time of breaking apart the very work of those. immigrants all, forefathers, who gave their lives so all these years later, we could have lives lived in freedom; with rights, safety and happiness. Yes, that piece always gets me. They wrote ‘happiness’ into purposes and rights for us!

Here in this century, is a groundbreaking production of American theatre history. A broadway musical in a new form of tale and tune; to an au courant beat and lyric expression. The words from the experiences of long ago ring out to the audience too true in today. The tapestry of us all being beings is woven across time. One can be suspended and upended by the depth and height of experiences then and relevancy now.
The incredible foresight and guts to fight for and build a new nation from a melting pot of many differences from other places in the world; the courage to place one’s life on the line for the the highest Good and betterment of ALL against tyranny of one ruling unendingly over many, birthed for us the life we’ve been privileged to enjoy, with all its human frailties and faults.

One of the lines sung by George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, after the war ends, says this: “Winning is easy; governing is harder.”
They both go on to acknowledge the facts still needing tending, as they are trying to form a good government by the people, for the people, and sing:

“The constitution’s a mess.
So, it needs amendments.
Its’s full of contradictions.
So is independence.”

And King George, in conceding the loss of the war, watches from afar with shock and awful prescience the initial steps this toddler America takes and fairly bristles with pleasure and portent at the preposterousness of a democracy of presidents and rights of people. He hisses, “They’ll tear each other to pieces!”

We, in the audience, shudder for a second and glance around at each other; knowing  that today’s political wreckage, and climate of fear mongering among us and abuse of power is living proof that tidbit is true.

For, as we entered the beautiful 90 year old grand dame Paramount Theatre, gathering to take our seats inside her gracefull sculptured inner sanctum, gazing at the immense ‘way back machine’ stage set for our journey into history, along with ushers passing out programs and helping theatre goers to their seat rows, we noticed a dog moving up and down the aisles. My first thought at this oddity was, ‘ must be a service dog…looking for its master?’ The full house was packed and busy with excited energy of anticipation and readying for a long and life changing show.

Then we noticed there was one man in navy blue walking up and down the aisle with the dog;  allowing the animal to smell each row on either side. A dog! In the theatre? Unheard of!

Then came the dawn!

This was a service dog of a different calling…a bomb sniffing dog!

We and our seat mates all whispered as if we were trapped in a plane cabin afraid to disturb a bomb or bomber. I froze in fear. I could feel my heart stop and my muscles pull in to tense. We all looked around for the exits. Were we close or too far away, God Forbid?

Two people hadn’t yet arrived to fill our row and their seats were in the upright position. In my head, I wanted us all to stand up and check under our seats for ticking devices or c-4 packs. But I was, frankly afraid to say that or look myself… for fear of finding.

My mind wandered back to while I waited outside the theatre for my dear Tom to park the car. Voices rang out, telling people to have their bags/purses open and ready to be inspected at the doors.
“No back packs or large handbags or satchels will be permitted into the theatre!”

I watched a lady go by me with a very large satchel bag. She didn’t come back out. A gal with a backpack on. She never even took it off her back, never mind open it. She never came back out. A couple of guys with back packs went in and didn’t come back out.

What happened to them? Were their bags confiscated?  These seemingly nosy small questions previously allowed to slip away, now seemed important.

We’d been to the show last month and this hand searching through purses felt out of place and more rock concert like; a looking for bottles of liquid imbibing, weed or bringing in food than genteel theatre.
Then, like every tiny neon flash, those thoughts got shrugged off too and lost in the excitement of seeing the show.

Sometimes, I’m super insightful and sometimes it takes several acts of God to get through and move me off the dime.

This night though, was Checkpoint Charlie heightened.

Tonight, with the addition of bomb sniffing dogs (there had been none last month when we first saw this production) I was petrified, wondering how or if we could get out. Could we leave the theatre right now? Screw the show; save our lives!? It didn’t look good. We’d have to trust the dogs.

I joked, as I do when I’m nervous or trying to lighten a heavy experience for folks. “Good thing I didn’t put that summer sausage in my handbag!” heh heh. Anxious smiles. Nervous bits of laughter.
The gal one seat over from me looks wide eyed and we assured ourselves everything was all right. In my mind, I’m thinking of my grandchildren being told that Gramence and Grampy at least died doing something they loved. That’s not such a terrible thing, right?

I really want to get out of this place. Nice present, Tom. Ohhh, Screw this, it’s just a show; just money. No one will die for giving up either. Breathe. Breathe. All
is well. All is well. Be still and know. Angels surround.

Wait! Is this how we’re sposed to die? In the theatre!? Oh, that is too rich. ‘Not funny, you guys up there!’ I think really loudly to my too many theatre friends, family and colleagues already gone to that big theatre in the sky before me. My outrage and fear melt into more of a Let Go and Let God thing I’ve been practicing.

I sort of choose faith. And moreover, authenticity.  I’m sick of trying to be strong; bucking people up, I lean into Tom and whisper, “I’m really scared.”
And the orchestra begins, lights dim on us audience and come up onstage as the players begin to fret their hours upon the stage and we are in the nuts and bolts; slings and arrows of the founding of our nation. The booms we heath r are just the vocal ones from the singers’ lyrics representing canons of  of war and awareness of insights.

We all  lived.

This morning, as I write this, I have a gigantic energy hangover and the first thing I see on facebook is about the verbal abuse and mean misunderstanding being slammed at the survivor kids from most recent massacre of children in schools, (Isn’t that a sad thing to say…’most recent massacre?!’) These survivor kids won’t stay silent or go away in their courageous public grief. They have demands for change for public safety. Imagine the chutzpah of that! People who lost people in nightclubs, movie theatres, concerts, temples and churches want that too. I want that too.

It dawns on me this dawn, that the announcement of ‘no large satchels or bags’ allowed in the theatre last nite was to keep automatic rifles used in all the other massacres, out!
I am in shock! I am naive, even in my own good heart and character stance for sane removal of these weapons of war meant for maximum killing and optimal flesh damage. I want them out of and unavailable in civilian life.

How dare our representative not only allow the, they support the makers and lobbyists and taking away our safety for their own profit!

I’m outraged at the intrusion into schools and places of worship and the safe pastimes of our country.  I’m angry that we had to be put in a position of fear and fragility; doing nothing more than leaving the house to see a show.

And I’m fully aware that what I’m feeling in the aftermath of,   bad enough, threatening, that hat these kids went through was a million times worse in living though a bloodbath of friends dead and dying on the battlefield of their…SCHOOL!!!

Damn straight, they want these killing machines gone. So do I!

Responsible sportsmen know the sanity of this. Vets know and deserve to come home feeling safe to the country they fought to keep safe from that carnage, and not have to be in the middle of weapons of war anymore. Not to flinch at backfires or read of one massacre after another  by some white dude with an automatic weapon not meant for civilian life.
Last evening, I got a whiff of that insecurity in a place once never thought of where weapons of any kind might be commonplace.

A whiff.

No one got mangled or died. But the threat was obviously there in a normally safe place.

Who knows? Was there a threat turned in to the theatre that we didn’t know about? It is, after all, a very political show.

Weapons of war in civil life are already so commonplace, and, ghastly, actually supported by many for profit, prejudice or posturing, that we, the people, are subject to far worse than King George ever could have imagined…. but now that I’ve said that, maybe his words were more pronouncement than at the time petty. “They’ll tear each other to pieces.”

Who could have known with what flesh tearing, life obliterating weaponry that would be done…or where sanctuaries of common safety and decency in our communities would be destroyed in the name of greed, racism and treason.

Back to the future lived last night in the theatre.

People in our row talked about the signs of our times…..the notice posted on a cinema front door, “no weapons allowed inside”..the shocking little dark gun in a circle with a line drawn through it, ‘no guns’ sign on the entrance glass door to The Cheesecake Factory!

We were all shocked, trying to process these losses of civility and safety and depths of the sewer to which America has descended; the erosion of morals; the acceptance of the degradation in our country.
This shock will never wear off.  As uncomfortable as this heavy cloak is to bear and wear, we did not have to run for our lives like the school kids did and yet the ominous threat of the possibility was too real…because those with the power to make needed change, are wanton and willing…for their own personal profit!

I’ve said too many times, I can’t understand….This or that depth of terrible experience and pain.
But now I have a very valuable thing, in addition to my moral compass, within me forever,….a whiff.

In Hamilton, when those young men from across the sea, who became our forefathers took to the battle field, they sing; “We’re finallly on the field. We’ve had quite a run.
Immigrants get the job done!”
A roar goes up and fist rise, woot woot, in the air every night from the audience members, as if we are right there on the battle field too; because we are….again… and every blessed, or damned, one of us immigrants!

As is said, in this historic production, after the founders fight for and hammer out tooth and nail, a creation of a better life; a better, safer country for highest Good for ALL:
“Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
We fought for these ideals and we shouldn’t settle for less.
These are wise words.”

We, the, people, descendants of immigrants ALL, must not settle for less either.

Rise up.
Speak up.
Stand together
Honor what was gifted us.
Do not accept the unacceptable.
It is not commonplace.

I think of the young people standing up to those in leadership positions who won’t lead and are only interested in being well fed and not rocking their monied boat.
The founders were young too.
‘Young scrappy and hungry.’

Treason and death are inside our gates.
That is unacceptable.
Words from “Hamilton” that were true then and are true now:
“There is a battle for our nation’s soul.”

And, after last night’s scare, instead of living in fear, I choose to focus on another line, another perspective, from the women characters of that time period, who were also activists; I heard with different ears, connecting them from then and now which give me another way of looking at the wreckage going on around us, that I despair of seeing:

“Look around. Look around at how lucky we are to be alive now. History is happening in America and we just happen to be in the greatest country in the world.”

A ray of the light of hope opens in my heart and liquid light of pride and the love I have for our country and those who have fought to bring her into being and raise her well, slips down my cheeks.

How can we heal her?
Can we heal her?
Yes, we can.
Yes, we will.
Together.

 

and my dear Tom, of good humor, pokes his head in to lift my spirits with his ’60’s soul and wit; sees what i’m working on and through and quips a line from another Broadway period show, “Hair”: ” Believe in DOG!”

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Once Upon A Wild Hair

by Florence Ondré

 

This morning I dragged out the 10 times magnifying glass and took a what everyone the sane world says you must do….a good look in a mirror!

Shock of shocks, the discovery was that I’d gone right past becoming my mother and straight to being my grandmother! …and every bushy, crazy looking, wild haired old woman I’d ever seen.

Yes, I was right up there on my own world list of wild haired women where I’d wondered, “how could she go out in public like that?  good god, how could she live with those crazy ass eyebrows?”

There in the light of day, I stood aghast at my window, peering thru my eyeglasses to the magnifying mirror (yes I need both to see anything now) and viewed my own eyebrows gone awry.

Wasn’t it recently I’d tweezed the errant chin hairs which so cruelly and capriciously grow when and where they want?  I took care of those little stubborn hard line, now thankfully white instead of dark colored bristles.  I may not be able to see you but I feel you and out you go.

Then I moved the glass to my eyebrows and saw I had farm work to do.

Hairs had sprouted like gmo wheat fields from my upper eyelid to my brows.  God, how could I go out in the world looking like a mad scientist!

Pluck pluck groom groom…gone gone.  Whew.

And then I spied the brows themselves…. Hey! Wait a sec!  Shouldn’t eyebrow hair be short?  What karma had I been dealt overnite, with some leaning into the maginot line; lengthy enough to hang down over castle turrets; long and strong enough to be braided for princes to climb upon?

What had I done to become Andy Rooney or deserve curls gone wild every which way but loose?

Memories of women I’d known whose facial hair seemed to explode in odd directions on their aging faces floated to consciousness and I reached the terminal at the end of platform ‘why me?’  I had become them.

I wondered if my friends who spend tons of money on face creams, depilatories and spas had arrived at this plateau, unhaired, or had they just had more time and money to hide the inevitable? s

Some whispered the truth.  Don’t tell me we are not all one.

Stow the baggage of judgement and surface ego on this trip called life.  It’s simply a matter of arrival time.  Just for today, I’m a bit dishevelled from that red eye.

And now that I’m momentarily presentable, where am I going?

To a children’s party… and you know these are our greatest critics!

Who I Am What I Do

“It’s not a ‘rant.’  I am not ‘fussy.’  I just tell the truth, ask q’s, be reasonable, kind & then express appreciation for what is & for what is still coming.”
florence ondré dec 4th, 2014. inconvenient truth teller & survivor.

Standing On Ceremony; Looking Back And Forward

by Florence Ondré

For years I made a formal burning bowl ceremony for all my New Year’s Eve gatherings and have had slips of paper for everyone to write their release wishes on and slips of paper to write what they would like their angels to help bring to them in the new year and an envelope to but their names and addresses on, so nearing the end of the coming year I could send them to them &/or give them to them at the next year’s New Year’s Eve gathering as we shared a feast at my home.

Even a tin foil pan large enough to accommodate safe fire-releasing was done outside in any weather…snow was present many times as we bundled up and trudged through the winter white to each take our sacred turn.

At each New Year we could share what we’d wished for and then, with the help of our dear friends, find that even if we thought we didn’t get what we wanted in the ways we’d written down, we found that angels had heard us and answered in ways, many times, better than we could have imagined.

Through tears and revelations; with a little help from our sharing, caring friends, we healed in addition to being included in a tradition of closeness, caring, kindness, compassion and enfolding in the hearts of each other.

No one was excluded and tables and chairs got added when needed….even one year when I had no heat in my house due to a heating system break, and an insurance company overlong refusal time for fixing what coverage had been paid for years, we few friends and people invited to join, who had no place to go; bundled up, sat on the living room floor, ate from a communal pot of of chilli and paper plates of salad and shared round a few candles, how we’d experienced the past year and what miracles we’d seen in any of it… the burning bowl tradition was started…in our modern day version of a long ago time in a manger, with people who knew and had never known each other; simple gifts of honoring and finding peace and joy for going forward with hope in our hearts, because we had come together. That was the first year with many to follow; each with more delight and sharing of food and friendship and holiday spirit enriched. How we all looked forward to that every year now traditions filled tradition.

There came a time when illness took that ability to be the open house of my open heart and a couple of people stepped up to step in and host the annual togetherness from the warmth of their abodes; a joy in tradition taking turns.

Differences showed up. The in-house-ness became..go to restaurant then perhaps back to someone’s house to play games & have dessert…or gather at a friend’s lovely bachelor pad, everyone bringing a dish to continue to enjoy another tradition of my instituting; gathering around the piano and singing together.

Since Hurricane Sandy demolished my home and swept away that sacred gathering open house, more things and people went out with the tide too.

The piano which sat in my lovely warm living room; where we all sang amidst freshly hung fresh, front door, pine-coned, red-ribboned wreaths, fir roping across the mantel and mistletoe in the hallway; pine scent wafting heavenly amidst aromas of home cooking & happiness… these were the visions and memories in my sad and numbed mind, as that, now sodden with sea, bay and sewage water piano got hauled to the curb and the contents and possessions of my home and life became garbage in dumpsters and high heaps of ripped and bagged, barely recognizable, wreckage.

Photos of family green and growing and all the wonderful gatherings blurred in waterlogged albums turned to mush.

Every letting go tore my heart out and yet reminded me of so much good over the years for so many.

I think when they took the piano out to the curb and a sanitation worker; spotting the broken musical instrument got down off his bulldozer, pried the lid off the keys and stood over it to play a tune, was one of the most poignant times for all of us present in surviving the biggest national disaster in the history of our east coast of our country in over a hundred years.

We were, bereft and broken & grieving & stunned into silence as our next door neighbor’s piano joined ours at the curb and the music stopped and the gatherings without kitchens and warm shelter and holidays and burning bowls stopped.

Survivors who were the open and welcoming, warm hosts for many years got left out of inclusion in the last two years.

Connection has dwindled down to a rare returned call or a call-in just for caring and connection.

Last year friends of ours who were always at our gatherings, went out to dinner and didn’t even manage to invite us to join them at a local restaurant minutes from our shelter.

That ripped my heartstrings and severed my illusions.

This year, a call to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving turned into a crabbing about how upset this woman was at my recent in-communication, as she wanted to vent her frustrations on my ever bearing ears…yet it never occurred to her that I might be depressed and ill, these 2 yrs later still displaced without hope of my still gutted to the studs house, cold and emptier than her own totally rebuilt arm abode.

The next disappointment was from someone I’d thought of for over 25 yrs, calling the nanosecond before Thanksgiving to cheerfully wish a happy holiday…this from one who has dimmed her closeness down from daily visits and sharing cheesecake, tea, cocoa and confidences and phone calls several times a day, just to share a laugh or something we see funny; like good girlfriends of close heart who went with tears and trials to the Blessed Mother statue on the beach to sit together in sacredness and closeness like sisters to gather hope and just to be happy in each other’s company… now boiled down to barely ever calling and avoidance of connection with rare returned calls in days or weeks.

And another who I introduced to my own friends who went on to make my connections her own, only to exclude me and still post happy pics of her with my friends, sans my mate & I…phone calls reaching in, which did not ever say ‘would you like to join us?’

Even if one knows you might be under the weather, it is still nice to be invited….but I only heard the whispered, ‘oh’ dear, so want to hear what is going on with you’ instead.
It sounded so unrealizing, or was it hoping i wouldn’t be aware that it had no feel of real concerned because there hadn’t been any regular connection or caring for a long while; knowing sadly that it was as it had been before… just to get the dirt and gossip about it later with my ‘old friends’ so she could say, ‘aww poor them’ and look into her own mirror to say, ‘see I’m a good friend. I called.’
Becoming aware that these calls were, strings attached; more about and for the callers than simple expressions of unconditional love for me, silenced me more than the pneumonia with which I’d just been diagnosed. No one took my quiet or silence for sacred time for me or possible illness or loss of voice or hope. Sadly, these supposed friends rife with promises of get togethers which never happened, just got crabby, angry and dismissive that they didn’t get their wanted on their schedules, self-centered results.

I got referred to this past week as ‘fussy’ and my expression of hurt spoken of as,’rants’ and dismissed with self serving anger from those who hurt me, judged and tried to ‘fix’ me, dismissed me and forgot the heart of the warmth and caring of years of sharing home and heart.

On this planet, my path has been varied leading ultimately to becoming a teacher of Spirit, an Angelic Channel and Reiki Master Teacher. Yet, after seeing firsthand, the tsunami sized waves cover the world and plunge it into darkness and devastation with no essentials left standing for human survival which devolved into anarchy and streets under armed guns, Marshall law, drove me to my knees. I lost myself and my beliefs; feeling a failed healer. Aspirtual person bereft of spirt or connection to spirit.

It is a long walk home in more ways than one. Yet, I am remembering. I am a sensitive, I can feel the real emotions under the facades from afar. There are those who forget that about me and count on me forgetting too or sweeping the dirt under a forgiving heart; forgetting, being and staying less than I was.

Years ago a spiritual mentor, once seeing my good and forgiving, generous heart getting tromped on, gave me this reminder, “My dear, you must remember that Jesus said, ‘I am the door’ …not the door mat!”

Until reading this lovely piece, I was so sad and in grief and mourning; wondering in all the let downs, what my life had been for, if anything, that I almost forgot that the tradition I started does not have to die along with the self centeredness of today or the friends who I now move into acquaintance areas of past as I let go of deeper layers of losing so much.

I am homeless in another level and, yet on the porch of my shelter/little off-site storage unit, there is a tiny terrace. I have a tin pan and scrap paper upon which my love and I can write what we want to release. We are still paddling together the rough seas of a recovery which is no where near recovered and healing only becoming apparent as bones are laid bare as my house bones.

Relationships may have gotten washed away. It continues to become apparent as facades crack and truth outs; so I place my energy to surviving and helping the storm homeless and hungry like myself that people don’t want to hear about.

Even though now outsider, treated as an inconvenient truth, I remember including all in my home and in my heart.

I am reprioritizing the minuscule energy and health and time on earth that I have left….

And thanking the Conscious Shift Community and Lauren Mclaughlin for reminding me that I can stand on a different ceremony which is familiar and soothing and honoring, which no one can take from me.

I can take the sadness, hurt, loss, grief, unfair treatment and selfish, compassionless, unkind, treatment, heart sobbing and write these things down on paper to step out onto the terrace of cold air and put match to make ashes of my heart lift up to the heavens to be taken by angels away to leave me again lighter and ready for better than I can imagine to show up in ways I can’t imagine at this time….

Free to be grateful and appreciative for all that I become awake and aware to…

To remember that I am a spiritual being in an earth suit having human experiences with a most wonderful angel at my side always, my dear Tom, a sensitive spiritual teacher too, who holds the burning bowl up for me and stands beside me though it all with unwavering light, love and honoring.

Standing on ceremony indeed, dear ones, standing in good company and honoring.

in light & love, enjoy reading : http://consciousshiftcommunity.com/standing-on-ceremony/