A Primal Scream for LIFE

Over the years I have noticed (in hindsight) several tells that indicate I am in a depressive chasm. Refrains that echo in my brain from the Cranky Monster part of me.

Corinna, you have read all of the books. There is no more to read. Creativity is dead. Everything is a variation on Twilight.

OR

Corinna, you have no friends, no one cares about you.

OR

Corinna, how much money has the medical industrial complex poured into keeping you on this planet - in this body? You better be doing something earth shattering to justify that allotment of resources and energy - saved the world yet?

Eventually, I get my head out of my ass. Shake myself off. Have many or a few really good naps and come back to me.

I spent quite a few months this past winter/spring in a black hole between the couch, tears, white knuckling parenting responsibilities, and being an active cancer patient (chemo, blerg). It was a time of flayed skin punctuated by lots of praying.

I want to highlight, acknowledge, and thank three distinct experiences as boulders shoring up the path out of this black hole.

Claude Monet’s Water Lilies hanging on the wall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. I walked into the gallery and felt pierced with the beauty. The Divine glory of this earth shining forth. Claude seeing SEEING into God. The color of the sky in the water sculpted between the reflection of trees. Thank you thank you thank you thank you.

Intellectually, I know we are part of the greater I AM - I can reread what I wrote after the cold sheet experience where I stopped breathing and remember. But I can’t feel the feeling of that night anymore. I know it is in me somewhere - but sometimes it gets buried under fatigue and Cranky Monster bullshit.

Our human birthright of overwhelming gratitude, love, joy, and bliss - they are just words until a painting brings you to tears in a crowded public gallery filled with tourists hiding from cold rainy NYC weather.

Water Lilies gave me that. I felt connected to God standing there, absorbing the beauty, grateful for this life where such glory exists.

Halfway through Justin Peck’s Mystic Familiar by the NYC Ballet performed at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center I wanted to stand up and shout.

THIS IS LIFE!!

WE ARE ALIVE!

YES! YES! YES!

The pulsing music, the strength and grace of the talented dancers, the audience’s rapt attention to every pause, bend finger, elongated arm, turned knee, rotated face - it was SUBLIME.

And I felt it again. The rush of gratitude for this life, for this glorious amazing life where such talent exists and we can partake of it.

Another boulder.

Drum Church Sunday with Fre AtLast in Rosendale.

I have been wanting to join a drum circle for years. Years. Thank you Isa for introducing me.

Joshua Michael Schrei, in his The Emerald podcast, says music is a gift from the animate world because instruments are made of trees and animals. Music enables humans to reach a trance state where we feel our connection to The Divine. The trees and animals want us to connect - so they donate their bodies for our connection. For us to feel the pulse of the Universe.

To vibrate with the beating heart of Cosmos and our breath weaving in and out of such.

To be held in the circle.

To be carried by the waves of the percussive energy.

To feel the collective passion of our fellow drummers and the throbbing intensity of the beat.

To be pushed further by the frenzy of the fingers flying!

YES!!!!

THIS IS LIFE!!

LLLLLLIIIIIIIFFFFFEEEEE!!!

Thank you thank you thank you

Ad infinitum

Thank you