Tag: trajectories

A New Dance

The above photo was taken on the way to surgery two days ago…the sunrise was beautiful, and I took it as a message that God was with me and had my back for what was to come.

I’m back for a quick update…Surgery done, new hip installed, and I am indeed, the valedictorian of recovery. During the week prior, I spent time doing all the pre-surgery protocols and appointments that, while they went great, left me in the throws of anxiety. Control was entirely in the hands of other people, and that is hard for me (others too…I know I am not alone in this). What I dreamed about often and what was all encompassing in my mind was the idea of how my injured hip, its damage and the pull and effect it had on the music in my soul and my dance in the world was also the perfect metaphor for how limited we become in the physical world by those damaging circumstances we all have to face every day. I literally could not dance my dance or hear the music in my soul clearly because of the limiting physical circumstances I was emersed in. This new hip, was to become for me, a new opportunity to hear the music in my head more clearly and now have the freedom to physically dance my dance. The spiritual part, though, was harder. It also meant that I had to release the damaged parts of those circumstances that also limited my movement forward, meaning releasing all those people and behaviors that unnecessarily altered my physical journey as well. I apologize if I’m not being too clear, but at this point in my year of living on a higher plane, the physical world and the spiritual world are inseparable. So if I am to welcome new physical freedom I have to simultaneously welcome the same spiritual freedom too…and that means letting go of the spiritual damage that was limiting me just like my damaged hip was limiting me.

My surgery took place on Tuesday, (two days ago). I am already walking with a cane, doing stairs and am working hard doing exercises with an attitude of love as a welcome from my body to the new “part” to enhance my journey. I also decided to spiritually celebrate all those who were there for me during this process with love and gratitude as I released all the isolation I felt last time. To start, I want to thank: Megan, Michaela, Matthew, April, Nick, Avery, Dr Weiss and his team, Kenzie, Brittani, Hunter, Rinee, Tammie, Will, Kay, Nida, Jud, and Lynn who were present, loving and helpful throughout this ordeal. Healthcare workers never get enough credit for the level of amazing and often unsung work they do in the healing process. I had many lovely conversations getting to know these people, most were surprised that I actually asked their names and seemed interested in their lives. I always responded that it made it so much easier for me to utilize their help when I got a sense of who they were, and all were open and marvelous. I hate being in a hospital and was glad it was only overnight. Interestingly in one of my conversations with my case worker Lynn, she asked me what I did and when I told her I was a painter and showed her some of my work, she was moved and them came back later to share that she had contacted the Phipps center for the Arts at the University of Wisconsin River Falls who does the hospitals art on their gallery walls and it looks like I will display there too. What a great opportunity to bring the joy of art to the healing process. The new dance has begun.

The next few week will be filled with a different kind of effort, the changing of my dance. While the physical part manifests as overcoming the pain of such a dramatic physical alteration, for me it is a welcome pain, one that offers a freedom I have sorely missed. The spiritual part is more challenging, because behavioral change is hard, but I’m going to be the valedictorian of spiritual recovery as well. Yesterday, when I got home from the hospital (thank you my bebe Riley for picking me up) my sister texted and let me know my mother had fallen and cracked ribs. They are having her rest and managing her pain. You know what? I felt nothing, and was glad she was safe and sent a prayer of recovery for her…a huge landmark for me. There were also several “issues” of work and real world stuff that I either handled or let go for another day…and focused on myself, for once. It was good.

I want to end this rambling (I am still on medication…which I hate, but they limited upon my request, to which I am grateful) with how much appreciation I have to those trajectories, to those I love who sent me love…I felt it overwhelmingly and it was central in helping me make it through this experience easily. The hard part is over, I am on the mend and open to receive all thar is coming my way. I am thankful and ready to dance into my new future.

Higher Ground…and so We Begin

Van Cliburn – pianist 1960

I’ve spent the last few days in deep study and reflection in preparation for the idea of living and walking on higher ground. It afforded me an opportunity to look back in hindsight and in doing so I realized how I have spent my lifetime trying to incorporate this very theme into my life and work. It was then, that the directives of this year’s theme became even more exciting, because of how it opened up my mind and spirit in the past. I am cautioned, however, because when I look back objectively, the implementation of this idea throughout my life in specific moments wasn’t altogether very effective. The mechanisms, the events, curriculums, and programs that I created independently never achieved the goals I had anticipated and I was sometimes even punished for them, often leaving me feeling ineffectual. And yet, when I strung them all together over my lifetime…well what I saw wasn’t ineffectual but something else entirely. I had thought, given this direction, that I was to start the year by extracting what I learned from the failures of these accumulated experiences of my past. Failure, as much as accomplishment is often a great gage for me to improve, change or enhance my understanding of how I need to move forward. After last night, however, that is no longer the case. In addition to a powerful dream, another older dream was brought to my mind. To begin, here the dream I had years ago about Van Cliburn’s Hands. https://maryfrancesflood.com/2010/01/28/van-cliburns-hands/

Perhaps it was my attempt to describe my new bed using one of my favorite pianists, or my definite need for a massage, but I have had a recurring dream with Van Cliburn’s hands in it.  Usually it is just the hands, moving beautifully, bringing forth music.  Only the music doesn’t come from a piano, but from me.  My face turned red just writing that phrase, not because of some untoward sexual reference, but because of the intimacy of the action…of being played and the resulting progeny, a tune so beautiful and melodic that it brought a tear to my eye.  I couldn’t remember the melody when I woke up, except the tune was familiar and once I started to sing it, I flew upward into the clouds where a group of ancient looking kings and queens danced in a circle while holding hands.  I wanted them to hear the song, that I could sing it better than anyone else.  I woke before I heard an answer.  For the life of me I couldn’t remember anything else about the song, except those amazing hands and that I had heard the tune before.  Perhaps a connection to a past event or theme?  Who knows, but it was an amazing dream….

It seems personal sharing wasn’t limited to last year, however given this post was written 16 years ago, and it was brought to my attention in another dream I had last night, I think it is very pertinent. I dreamed I was a monkey in a crowd of dancing monkey’s (no, this is not a joke…it is a very serious metaphor connected to the concept of the “100th monkey”…look it up). I saw a director/person in charge leading us to a train of sorts, and I wanted to show him a new dance that had suddenly come to me. I bowed and caught his attention and started to dance to a tune in my mind. At first he really didn’t notice, until all the other monkey’s started dancing to it as well. In my mind, my Spirit guide whispered, “Van Cliburn’s hands” It was then that I woke up and realized that that melody I dreamed of so many years ago is still alive and well inside my soul and this year, hopefully, I can better share this melody and create a choreography, of sorts, that is the result of all the past “movements” I have worked toward, one that others can also dance to, in hopes of creating an expanded way to live out our beautiful blueprints, and love each other more easily and fully. Not to great of a goal, right? Of course I never shirk from throwing it all out there, and I am, after all this time, completely aware that the results of my prayers and year’s journey will be beyond anything I have or can possibly fathom. I also feel the time requires it. This planet, the Body of Humanity and the direction that the God of Love desires for us to shed our light into the darkness also requires all of us all to participate, or it will never come to fruition. For this is what the God of Love requires of us:

So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

2 Corinthians 5:17-20.


I urge you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect. For by the grace given to me I tell everyone among you not to think of themselves more highly than one ought to think, but to think soberly, each according to the measure of faith that God has apportioned. For as in one body we have many parts, and all the parts do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually parts of one another.

Romans 12:1-5.

So I begin, taking what I learned from the past, and walking forward, with the commitment to continue to work on the emotional stability that I learned last year is necessary for wielding love, and with full faith in the God of love and all the beautiful trajectories in my life to share the melody of my soul in all its beauty and uniqueness in the hope that will help us walk and live together on a higher plane. God is my orchestra and you are Van Cliburn’s hands.