Carol

10 years – She’s been gone for 10 years –
seems impossible somehow.
Remembering her now – boohooing the whole time.

Carol was an instant friend, a heart / soul friend – someone that I recognized would always be in my life – part of my family of peeps with whom I would navigate life with, witnessing each other’s lives –

She was a big personality – what might be more accurate actually is that her ‘being’ was big and her personality reflected that largesse –
packaged in a tiny body.

She was funny – hilarious actually, the best giggle girlfriend you could ever ask for – snorting giggles, giggles that grew into full blown squeals and screams –
You could always count on laughter when Carol was around.

Laughter and dancing.
Laughter, food, more dancing –
although after babies it seems to me there was less dancing and more food – but the dancing vibe never disappeared.
Since she passed, I laugh and dance considerably less.

For the longest time I would reach for the phone to call her to share something – having to settle instead for an imaginary conversation with her in my head – which I still do occasionally, all these years later.

I miss her, her presence, her big, beautiful being –
I miss our relationship and doing the things we did together, the deep dive discussions we would have – going from serious to silly back to serious again without skipping a beat
I feel her absence in my life and the richness she brought to it.

The light that shone through the prism that was ‘Carol’ revealed a big open hearted soul who loved to laugh and dance and eat and hang out with her family of friends. It revealed an intelligent, funny, compassionate, loving, adventurous (in her own way) soul, committed to making the world a better place, especially for women and children.

All this memory mining brings her to me in a deeply felt way, and I find myself wondering where she is now –

I see her and I sitting closely having tea … lemon balm and mint with honey – giggling as we watch a young girl maybe 8ish – dancing in the sunlight with a stick, completely immersed in her imaginary world. I want to say her name is Simone – at one point she stops dancing and looks directly at us, as though she sees us watching her through the veil that separates us. She waves, then continues her beautiful, carefree sun dance.

Carol sitting next to me gives me a long hug and a smooch, then disappears – having shown me that she is still dancing in her new life –
forever a dancing queen.


Louise
Okori

11.14.22

Imagine

‘Imagine all the people living life in peace…’ John Lennon

As much as I find myself with endless things to say and to share, at the same time I feel paralyzed – unable to imagine what I could possibly contribute given the current state of the world.
I attempt some thoughtful comments, perhaps helpful perspectives –

I think its fair to say the majority of the people that inhabit planet earth just want to be free to live their lives in peace. When I dial back and observe, I see this overwhelming energy of people trending towards peace, but in effect there has been little political will to uphold that energy –
war after all is an economic driver ( how twisted is that ? )

If there is hope to be found here let it be that Putins’ war re-energizes the peace agenda

For the first time in history anyone, anywhere in the world can watch war happening in real time and witness the ravages of the decision made by one man, and how that plays out with peoples lives across the globe.

What we are seeing / witnessing gives us all the evidence that we need to hold all the people responsible to account – the ones who made the weapons that are killing people, the ones that profited from the sale of weapons, those that sanction the use of weapons to achieve peace ( again how twisted is that? ) –
go down the list…
It gives us exactly what is needed to end war once and for all.
But instead of seeing that war itself is a crime, and those perpetrating those crimes should be caught, stopped and punished, we increase military budgets and justify it to fight the ‘bad’ guys…

We are all human
This is where we meet, this is where we connect – regardless of any other identifier – we are human
Our humanity is what connects us, all of us, everywhere on earth –
everything else divides us, creates hierarchy and righteousness, it gives us cause, justifies bad behaviour and breaking the rules – divisions become reasons for war.

Imagine if we removed all other identifiers and everyone navigated the world from that singular position – as ‘human‘, I wonder what would happen? in our personal lives? in the world?


I’m going to leave you with this quote from Caroline Casey whose eloquent words mirror my sentiments.


“Let all the horrific cruelty in Ukraine,
resonating out to empathic kinship with all suffering –

create a profound revulsion for war in all our hearts –
that cruelty be dissolved from the human repertoire –
so we can attend to the essential task before us
of humans humbly cooperating with

Nature’s Guiding Genius to co-weave, with Flora and Fauna,
the fabric of creation back into supportive solace for all our kin…” 

Let this be the hope – that we not only imagine peace on earth, but that we finally ‘see’ peace on earth for all of humanity –
so we can get on with re -imagining a harmonious, just and safe world for the planet and all sentient beings that inhabit it.

Imagine –
Peaceful hearts
Peaceful thoughts
Ommmming harmony and wellbeing

Louise
Okori

Under the light of the pink full moon
April 2022


Curious fact:
166 years ago Russia was invading Crimea, what is today Ukraine. They lost badly, but it changed the entire Russian culture. At the time the planets Jupiter and Neptune were together in the sign of Pisces. And now they have met up again in the exact same position in the sky as they were then, 166 years later and Putin is invading Ukraine again. Talk about cycles!
There is a lot of information on this on the internet if you are curious.
https://anneortelee.com/the-jupiter-neptune-conjunction/

Places for perspectives on peace – each completely different, same agenda –
‘ global coherence, peace ‘

Heart math institue https://www.heartmath.org
Caroline Casey https://coyotenetworknews.com/bio/
Yascha Monk https://www.persuasion.community
Panache Desai https://www.panachedesai.com/call-to-calm-meditations/

photo ‘ cities lights americas ‘ NASA

Welcome

Life it turns out is an exercise in making choices, letting go, moving on – strings of days and decades – mapped in our memories, they become reference points for caution or optimism, a guide –
dots on the map of our journey moving through this world –

I have journaled about my life for as long as I can remember. I have daytime journals and dream time journals going back as far as my late teens. Archeology!
Yet I don’t really consider myself a writer.
Writing for me has acted as a bridge in my life –
safe passage from a turbulent emotional state to one that was unburdened and free in spite of any outside circumstance. It is a way to help me make sense of the world, to sort it out, to see it from witness. It is a way to think through thoughts, and ideas in my head, in my heart, and land them on page with a pencil – I know old school!

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