Hitting Bottom. Drawing Strength

Where does strength come from when you have none? Looking back on my sickness at Christmas, I think it was a combination of two things. My friend Gretchen was a strong steady companion to me. No fussing, she just stood by me and went with me when I had lost the energy to do anything for myself. The other thing was this presence of the Holy Mother to whom I prayed, sometimes half heartedly, sometimes fervently. There were two pictures that came to me again and again. The first was some Renaissance picture of the Annunciation and the other was Michaelangelo's Pieta.

Lama Marut says that there is a level of desperation which leads us to decide to seek refuge in a Master. I sought refuge in Mary. Right now I am seeking refuge in the Dalai Lama. In my mind's eye, I get as close as I can to him and then picture myself shrinking and going inside his body. It sounds plenty weird, but each time I remember to do it, I feel a moment of compete calm and once in a while a flurry of bliss. When I go to Mary, I feel a sense of surrender to forces much larger than I am.

I am struggling with the inability to help someone I love. I am struggling with the fact that her karma is her karma. I am struggling with the fact that I have mixed up my karma with hers to an unhealthy degree. She is not free and I am not free. Mother Mary felt for her son, but knew he had a destiny that he came to fulfill. I can know this, but it is one of my life's works to feel it, to believe it over and over.

If I believe in karma, which I do, then I have to remember that what looks like a life of horrible suffering might actually be a burning off of old bad karma for that person. This does not mean that I can't and won't do everything I can to alleviate the suffering of another. But it heavily implies that I can only do that with a pure heart. If I rail against it, then I am another suffering schmuck added to the pile.

Acceptance, surrender, gratitude, forgiveness. Hard stuff to keep up with. I know my job is to keep on keeping on with a lot of help from my friends, both visible and invisible.