Every moment is NOW.
Watch how you are,
Moment by moment.
Watch how your thoughts
can carry you away, how they
can steer you astray.
Come back
HERE.
E'very moment, stay
STILL.
Feel
your heart beating,
your lungs
filling
and
emptying.
Just breathe.
Just be.
Breathe into my heart
Angels whisper in my ears
I revel in NOW.
Eyes up, crescent moon
Heart flies to the azure sky
Please carry my prayers.
I am grateful for
my spiritual practice,
I stay in my heart.
If I could stay still
all day in meditation
my heart would rejoice!
December 4, 2020 I am meditating and a beautiful little ladybug crosses the rug. I don't think much of it but later when I am speaking to Mary I mention it and she starts laughing so hard. She says: "A ladybug in December? Are you kidding me? To have a ladybug in the middle of December IS A MIRACLE!"
December 5, 2020 I am meditating again this morning on my heart more and more. (THE POWER OF THIS MEDITATIVE PRACTISE IS EXTRASORDINARY!) This morning, a ladybug appears and is crawling across my rug and onto my angel cards and then around and down and then it goes straight to MY HAMSTER IN A ROSE that Holly gave me in August on the one-year anniversary of the DAY THAT DAD PASSED. Then she the ladybug GOES eye to eye with the hamster.
I wait till 10:13 A.M. and then I write this text to Mary:
"A ladybug in December? Are you kidding me? To have a ladybug in the middle of December is a miracle!" MMarino, 12/4/2020 After doing a lot of heart meditation this morning Mary my stomach started burning like crazy. And then Mary I felt my mother come to me I'll tell you the details when we speak on Tuesday but I felt her in an overpowering way, I know what that means, it means I need to call my sister Karen who is so depressed and I need to tell her that when she is sad, she is to hold that white ceramic angel that my mother gave to me when I had cancer in 2002. I'm going to do that today -- call KAREN -- with God's guidance. The miracles are so powerful that I have to work hard to stay in my body and in my heart all day long with as you said "the ANGELS WHISPERING IN MY EAR!"
And then she answers:
"Yes and -- by the way -- the rose is a symbol of divine mothers' love -- "NOT SUBTLE YOUR MIRACLES ARE!"
I reply: "Oh dear God of course"
December 6, 2020 I post the hamster in a rose.
I had forgotten the significance of the rose.
I am trembling as I write this haiku:
"I am grateful for
My spiritual practice
I STAY IN MY HEART."
Trembling I write another HAIKU:
"TIME FOR EXERCISE!
IS THIS POST PART OF MY BOOK?
WHAT DOES IT MATTER?"
10:09 AM On Wednesday December 2, 2020, I stood up from meditating and painted these abstract irises:
and then on Friday December 2, 2020 i forced myself to work on the painting some more:
10:13 I POST AND FINISH THE TITLE OF THIS MORNING’S CHAPTER:
"LADYBUGS IN DECEMBER AND MOM AND ANGELS WHISPERING IN MY EARS"
11:03 AM SENT PEG AN EMAIL WITH THE FOLLOWING CHAPTERS:
9) MOM FEEEEEDS ME THE STORY
(THIS CHAPTER COMES UP FIRST BECAUSE NOW I KNOW THAT MM,,,,,,,MMMMOOMM HAS BEEN FEEEDING ME THIS STORY SINCE I WROTE THIS CHAPTER BACK IN FEBRUARY OR MARCH
and then I attach these chapters too
9) PEG EMAIL ONE MARCH 13, 2020
10) MOM FEEEEEDS ME THE STORY
11) THE NAME GAME
12) MYSTERY ON MY MOTHER’S BIRTHDAY
13) JOURNAL ENTRY February 12, 2020
By Sharon Flitterman-King
Thank you my dear friend
For e card and for laughter
For beauty, and poems
Sharon Flitterman-King, PhD, is an artist and writer who lives in the Berkshires. She paints in watercolor/gouache and her subject is flowers. This is one of her paintings.
Sun spilling through clouds
Moment by moment they change
Fill up your mind's eye
Pink streaks the blue sky
Is God writing her Name?
Black ink, horizon.
Haiku is a traditional style of Japanese poetry that has 17 syllables. In Japanese haiku, all 17 syllables appear in one line, while in English, haiku is split into three lines of five, seven and five syllables. Haiku, which originated in the 1600s, is often written about nature.
"Realize deeply that the present moment is all that you ever have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life." Eckert Tolle
It's Friday November 6, 2020 and 50 degrees and the sky is bright blue and sunny, so Leah is once again doing her yoga outside on her purple mat. The iris is just a few feet away.
Leah breathes and stretches her arms overhead, stretching one arm up and then the other. Then she kneels on the mat and raises her arms in a steeple pose.
Today makes exactly nine months almost to the day that Leah first walked outside onto the frozen lawn. This book has had the gestation period of a human baby.
Here now it is November and the lawn is still green and unfrozen but all of the trees and shrubs and flowers and plants, with the exception of
GRANDPA ANGEL-o's IRIS!!
Everything else is brown and crispy.
About an hour ago, wearing her blue bathrobe, Leah had just finished meditating.
She started writing in her journal about light.
At that moment, suddenly and with no explanation, the flashlight in her iPhone turned on. She couldn't turn it off.
Leah smiles. She isn't shocked anymore when these littles miracles might happen. She is accepting and grateful.
*******
Her cousin Donna Ricci sent her more information about her Grandfather, ANGEL-o Ricci, and his family. His mother, Augusta Baldini:
His father, Giovanni:
Here are GRANDPA ANGEL-o and his wife, GRANDMA ALBINA ORZO when they were courting.
ANGEL-o's daughter, Elizabeth (Bette) Ann Foeller, nee Ricci, who lives in Illinois, interviewed Grandpa ANGEL-o in 1988, and learned that he emigrated to the United States from Priverno, Italy on
February 6, 1903.
EXACTLY TO THE DAY,
117 years before
THE LEAH HEALING BOOK BEGAN!
ANGEL-o's parents, Augusta and Giovanni, were poor when they first came to this country.
Writes Aunt Bette:
"Angelo and his father, Giovanni Ricci, took a train from Priverno, Italia, to Viterbo, changed trains and went on to Naples. In the Port of Naples they boarded the "Princess Irene," a two-stack steamship, which was a German line with an Italian crew.
"The ship stopped in Palermo, Sicily, to pick up more passengers. They had third class tickets, "steerage passage." The food was bad with no choices; they carried their own utensils, slept on a bunk in a large dormitory, sanitation and comfort were poor."
"Angelo's ticket was $41.00; he was 11 years old. They landed in New York Harbor, were processed at Ellis Island, on February 25, 1913 (14 days on board.)
"As an immigrant, Giovanni had a job with the New York Central Railroad as a forger in Maybrook, N.Y. His skills working with metals in Italy, where he made and sold cooking pots, were advantageous. Giovanni also grew artichokes when in Italy, which is a crop that brought a high market price. But years of bad weather ruined him financially."
"His wife, Augusta (nee Baldini), owned and operated a grocery store in Priverno. She and other family members emigrated separately. Angelo tells of his brother Freddie, who would hide on a shelf under the counter of his mother's store so he could snitch some cheese or other goodies."
"In the United States, Angelo worked alongside his father as a waterway. One summer he worked as a houseboy for a wealthy businessman, emptying chamber pots and generally helping the domestic workers and family."
"He and his father finally settled in Bristol, Connecticut. Angelo for many years worked for Ingraham & Company, the local clock factory. He rose to the position of shop foreman."
"He courted the love of his life, Albina Orzo, with her sister Mary, chaperoning often at Rockwell Park in Bristol where they would row boats on the Park lake. He would serenade his sweetheart and play the mandolin.
AGAINST THE WISHES OF HIS MOTHER, AUGUSTA,
"He married Albina Orzo on October 12, 1921 (he was 20, she was 18). They married in the rectory of Saint Anthony's Church. They had five children, Robert, Richard, Catherine, Paul and Elizabeth."
"He died on March 7, 1993, at the age of 91, of pneumonia while hospitalized in New Britain, Connecticut."
What my aunt doesn't mention is that GRANDPA ANGEL-o WAS AN EXTRAORDINARY GARDENER. HIS VEGETABLES WERE EXQUISITE. HIS ROSES DIVINE. AND HIS IRISES
ARE
NOW
THE
SUBJECT
OF A
FAMILY HISTORY.
What Aunt Bette doesn't write is that none of Albina's grandchildren ever heard a word about her in-laws,
AUGUSTA AND GIOVANNI RICCI.
It was as if GRANDPA ANGEL-o HAD NO FAMILY AT ALL!
How terribly sad.
As Leah writes this history, she feels a deep dark cavernous emptiness in her chest. She feels anxiety and she realizes it's all because of the very sad story she just wrote.
When she tells her spiritual therapist about Augusta denying her son, GRANDPA ANGEL-o,
Mary says
AUGUSTA DENIED HER NURTURING FEMININE SELF AND SHE ABANDONED HER SON ANGELO RICCI MUCH AS
DOMENICA ROTONDO ABANDONED HER DAUGHTER GISELDA!
So was the bad feeling that Augusta had for her daughter in law Albina --ANGEL-o's WIFE-- that Augusta erased herself from her son's life.
And now Leah knows that she needed to trace these family stories
in order to
ROOT OUT THE DARKNESS FROM HER ANCESTRAL LINE.
She is so so grateful to her cousin Donna Ricci, and her Aunt Bette Foeller for helping her unearth GRANDPA ANGEL-o RICCI'S HISTORY!
As Leah finishes writing, she asks herself,
is this the last family story
she will tell?
In her GREEN JOURNAL NUMBER TWO,
she writes, "AM I FINISHED?"
And she answers: "I will ask that question in meditation. I will wait for an answer!"
November 6, 2020 It is 8:55 a.m. ON FRIDAY MORNING and I am sitting outside cross-legged on my purple yoga mat. It's 50 degrees and the new iris is a few feet away from me.
I have five journals piled here at my feet, they complete the first draft of HEAL LEAH LEAH HEAL.
The two green journals, miraculously, are exactly nine months apart. THEY ARE LIKE BOOKENDS FOR THE MEMOIR.
I started the LEAH HEAL book with a chapter called "LEAH IN THE FROZEN LAWN" on February 6, 2020. I never posted that first chapter on this blog.
Nine months later, I have just written: "LEAH, UNFROZEN, CONTEMPLATES THE CRYSTALLINE IRISES."
So perhaps the first draft of the book is done. I will ask that question in meditation. I will wait for an answer.
November 8, 2020 How odd! When I went to write the date in my journal, I first wrote it as:
February 8, 2020
I am being drawn back to the first GREEN JOURNAL. I am being drawn back to read the first draft of the book.
I am trying to absorb and digest the fact that this book may be finished. Is it? Have I told the whole healing story?
7:51 am: I am rereading HEAL LEAH LEAH HEAL. I read the first chapter:
"LEAH IN THE FROZEN LAWN"
I like what I read.
I read the second chapter:
"LEAH AT SUNRISE." It too reads well.
I send both chapters to my friends Peg and Renee. Peg has been reading the book from the beginning. Renee has just started reading.
I need readers. And these two friends are some of the best.
I need perspective. I NEED TO KEEP READING THE BOOK.
February 9, 2020 IT HAPPENED AGAIN, INSTEAD OF WRITING NOVEMBER 9, 2020, I
WRITE FEBRUARY 9, 2020.
AGAIN.
Finally I slow down and pick up my red pen and cross out February 9, 2020 and write:
NOVEMBER 9, 2020 After reading four more chapters of the book, I perceive a break in the flow of the narrative. We go from the opening Leah chapters, which are paced well. None of them were blog posts. I come to a chapter called:
"MOM AND THE MIRACLE OF THE ORCHIDS." It's the first chapter I put up on the blog. The tone feels different.
And then I go back to the original GREEN JOURNAL. The one that began on February 6, 2020.
I flip through the pages. And I see that every page is filled with English and Italian. I see that every page is chock full of realizations I am making in therapy with Mary. I am wrestling throughout the month of February with fear and anxiety, specifically in terms of my mother. And her asthma.
7:59 A.M. I CHANGE TO WRITING IN RED INK: I AM WRESTLING IN THAT JOURNAL WITH ME SITTING BY HER BED, AS SHE IS HUNCHED OVER PILLOWS, STRUGGLING TO BREATHE.
VIRTUALLY NONE OF THE MATERIAL IN THE JOURNAL PAGES ARE REFLECTED IN THE BOOK.
AND NOW, READING THE BOOK, AND LOOKING BACK AT THE JOURNAL I THINK:
SO MUCH IS MISSING IN THE FIRST DRAFT OF THE HEALING STORY.
Shouldn't I be writing some of that material into the book?
RECALL THIS: YOU ONLY REALIZED ABOUT A MONTH AGO THAT LEAH'S NAME
SPELLED BACKWARDS
IS
HEAL.
8:04 A.M. TIME TO STOP JOURNALING AND DO YOGA. TIME TO GET BACK INTO MY BODY.
I MUST WAIT FOR INSPIRATION ON HOW TO HANDLE THIS ISSUE OF
REVISION. REALIZING NOW:
WHEN YOU WRITE THE FIRST DRAFT OF A BOOK, YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE HEADED.
WHEN YOU WRITE THE SECOND DRAFT,
YOU HAVE THE
COMPLICATION (OR IS IT THE ADVANTAGE?) OF HAVING INSIGHT INTO THE
WHOLE ARC OF THE NARRATIVE.
What will I do? How much of the journal material belongs in the book?
STOP.
8:15 a.m. What will I do? How much of the February 6 journal material belongs in the book?
8:18 a.m. I HAVE TO STOP READING THE DRAFT OF HEAL LEAH. I NEED TO CAREFULLY REREAD THE FEBRUARY 6TH GREEN JOURNAL (WHICH LOOKS JUST LIKE THIS GREEN NOVEMBER 9TH JOURNAL.) I NEED TO CONSIDER ADDING DETAILS FROM THERAPY.
WHY DOES THAT FEEL SCARY?
BECAUSE I BARE MY SOUL IN MY JOURNAL.
8:23 AM: IT FEELS OVERWHELMING. BECAUSE IT FEELS CONFUSING, AS IN
WHAT IS THE BOOK?
AND
WHAT IS THE JOURNAL?
AND WHAT IS THE BLOG?
And then I remember what Mary says to do
WHENEVER EVENTS THREATEN TO GO OUT OF CONTROL:
8:26 A.M. I CHANGE FROM RED INK TO PURPLE:
BATHE THE BOOK IN PURPLE FLAMES!
*******
JOURNAL ENTRY NOVEMBER 10, 2020
7:49 a.m. I bathed the book in purple flames all during my meditation this morning. I felt nervous about trying to read the FIRST GREEN JOURNAL but I just kept bathing the book in violet and purple flames.
I got up and walked into the kitchen where the FIRST GREEN JOURNAL lay on the counter. I opened it at random to
JOURNAL ENTRY February 10, 2020 (EXACTLY NINE MONTHS AGO TODAY!)
A NEW DAY!
8:00 a.m. Even after tapping I can still feel twinges of panic in my stomach but nothing comes up as the cause. I want to have a good feeling today. I don’t want that EVERYTHING IS BORING AND FROZEN feeling. Mary would say “you have to stay with what comes up. JUST KEEP OPENING YOUR HEART! Just keep opening up your heart. Yesterday when I texted Mary telling her I was in such a panic she wrote back: “Find the feeling you don’t want to name.”
Let the violet flames take away the fear and the panic! Stay with your open heart. Have patience and you will find GRACE. Is all of this just PTSD? I will go forward with the day and pray I can stay calm! Mary says when I’m having this frightened frozen feeling I am blocking some emotions.”
I stop typing the journal entry. I print it out. I slip the "JOURNAL ENTRY FEBRUARY 10, 2020" entry into place after the chapter called:
"WISE SAYINGS, WEIRD SIGNS."
So that is how I will approach the revision of HEAL LEAH LEAH HEAL. That is how I will read the FIRST GREEN JOURNAL. I will open it at random and type up some of the entries. AND MAYBE I WILL ADD THEM AND MAYBE I WON'T.
I feel relaxed. I know how I will go forward.
NOVEMBER 22, 2020 BY STAYING IN THE NOW.
Leah slips into her powder blue bathrobe. The sun is on the cusp of rising.
Slippered now, she steps out the front door to check on her irises.
Her eyes open wider. Her heart flies apart!
Are these irises hers? Or do they belong to her heavenly ancestors: Grandpa ANGELo and her dear father, Richard L. Ricci?
Awe gee, we are so lucky to have so many family members on EARTH. And so many ANGEL ANCESTORS IN HEAVEN.
This morning, the ancestors are sharing, big time, as
LEAH IS STARING AT SOMETHING SO BEAUTIFUL SHE CAN HARDLY TAKE IT IN!
The irises are crystalized. CRYSTALLINE PURPLE!
THE PETALS LOOK LIKE ICED PURPLE FLAMES.
She gasps. She holds her chest.
THE FLOWERS ARE AS FROZEN AS SHE WAS LAST FEBRUARY WHEN SHE STARTED TO WRITE THE BOOK,
HEAL LEAH LEAH HEAL
OR IS IT
LEAH HEAL HEAL LEAH?
NO MATTER
the book has a title page, and it can be morphed. Endlessly.
That is the beauty of publishing the book on the blog. It is a fully fluid format.
AS FLUID AS SHE IS
FLUID
WARM AS SHE IS
TOTALLY UNFROZEN.
So complete
she feels
the heat of
happiness.
Her husband opens the door. "It's below freezing honey. Aren't you cold? You've been out there for 40 minutes?"
SHE SMILES. Only 40?
HOW MANY MILLION MINUTES DO YOU NEED TO WITNESS AN IRIS MIRACLE?
She is FULLY WARMING BY INTERNAL PURPLE FLAMES.
"I'm watching the irises," she says, as if he doesn't know.
She keeps photographing them over and over again, in every pose imaginable.
Suddenly her sister in law Jo Kirsch calls. Leah is buying a Hindu "murti," a statue of the deity
SHIVA. And it was Jo who, two days ago, helped her figure out which one was her archetype.
She will give a fuller explanation in another chapter.
Meanwhile, this morning, which is Halloween, her irises have been blooming for nearly two weeks.
She's finished speaking. For now, she is resting in the wind of her heart.
In February I began writing a book about my Italian ancestors, and it has turned into a healing book for me and my family.
But it's time to take a break from the book, HEAL LEAH LEAH HEAL, to ask my thousands and thousands of ancestors to help DEFEAT THE MOST REVILING MAN IN AMERICAN HISTORY!!!
In honor of Dia de Los Muertos, yesterday we had an ancestor party at my house. There were eight of us at the table, my siblings and my cousin and me, and
there were literally 10,000 or more photos of ancestors, photos that everyone brought to the table. (My sister Holly brought six HUGE BOXES of all the photos she's inherited through the years!)
I made spaghetti and caper sauce (my specialty which I haven't made in 15 years!) and Rich made scrumptious meatballs and we even had ESCAROLE the way my mom and Grandma, Dee and Mish, used to make them!
Back to this damn election. I've been praying and praying and begging and praying for a
BIDEN HARRIS BLOWOUT OF EPIC PROPORTION
A LANDSLIDE LIKE WE'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE! That's the only we are ensured that OUR COUNTRY will be
FOREVER RIDDEN OF A SOURCE OF SLIME THAT I'M NOT EVEN WILLING TO NAME.
So here instead I will bring a few million ancestors to their
HEAVENLY VOTING BOOTHS!
To name just a handful of my ancestors,
there's my grandparents, Grandma Albina ORZO Ricci and Grandpa ANGELo Ricci (of the irises fame.)
And Grandma Albina's parents, PASQUALE ORZO AND CATARINAAMENDOLA ORZO:
So these are a just a handful of the ancestors THAT I'm asking to go to the voting booths on
behalf
OF GOOD
AND
DEMOCRACY
AND
DECENCY
AND SO MUCH ELSE.
My dad, a lifelong Republican, is free to vote the way he wants to from heaven but by now
I THINK EVEN MY DAD WILL DUMP the nut job in the White House.
Here's to a landslide of EPIC PROPORTIONS!
