Thank you for truly braving your heart space and posting. It is an amazing gift to me.
It's 11:11 pm in Minnesota and one month since I gave birth to my heart teacher Max. We celebrated by putting his birthstones in my ears. I feel him everywhere, he is everywhere but I literally see him in the eyes of my sisters babes. Zoe walks down the stairs with her rainbow wings and pauses to look up past me, "Aunty Heather I have to be careful with my wings, Max does too". Howard told a visitor yesterday, "Max didn't stay because he has bigger work to do". They know. It is the adults that have a harder time. On the other edge of rejoicing that Max is present is the reminder that he is not physically here. If given the chance I would fist fight god with brass knuckles and go into straight up spiritual warfare to have Max with me. I did this. I did this fully and didn't get what I wanted. None of us did. So let us not bullshit my amazing warriors for Max, nothing about this is about getting something in return. Again, nothing about this is fair. Again, nothing about this is anything but unconditional love. This is one of the most difficult teachings of Max and if you are going to really be a part of this movement you best start to get a grasp of how radical this is. In the words of Kimmi G, "Love is not an economic equation". Love can't save your marriage. Love can't even save your babies. But love is the human experience and all it wants to do is pour through us. When I wrote "Let Love In" as a push from Max, what it really means is that although we don't always get what we want, what we do get is the realization that love is something we get to do. We get to participate in relationships where we can pour love into each other, skin to skin, and eye to eye. This is the incredible gift of embodiment. So on this one month celebration of my teacher and son Max, remember the gift.
Max Love. Max wisdom.
Heather Bear
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| Max's birthstone earrings to celebrate his One Month Birthday. |
6 comments:
All bullshit aside, sometimes I feel like we lost that battle and it pisses me off. When I am in my head about it, I just don't get it. There is no way we could have assembled a more powerful team of bad-asses. You know (and love) the story where I threatened the Divine that if Max wasn't allowed to stay with us I would quit teaching yoga and become a pilates instructor.
But of course that didn't happen. I thought I would lose all my faith in the power of prayer and perhaps in the Divine, which in my mind would reduce my practice to nothing more than a workout.
But what happened instead is that my heart got busted open and everything has changed. I am heartbroken and in love at the same time. I surrender to the place inside me that is connected to that which creates miracles, even if those miracles look nothing like what I want. I long for Max and then I see him in the eyes of Hanuman at D's house. I hurt for you, Heather, and then Shantala sings the Hanuman chant on Max's one month birthday and I open my heart to all of it... there is no separation between this love and pain, and I just keep letting it flow through me.
Today after Kirtan someone asked me: "What do you do with all this?" and I replied: "Keep your heart open." Its the lesson I keep learning from Max and Heather.
I love you for no reason at all other than to love you. We can do anything we want with this, but we keep choosing Love for no reason other than to Love. It doesn't get us anywhere, we will still end up in the same place regardless if we love or not. It doesn't make me a better person or protect me from uncertainty. I finally get it, the whole Devotion thing. The payoff for devotion is to be devoted. The payoff of Love is to Love.
I love you Heather. I love you Max. I guess by now you know I am devoted to you both.
Love Jen
Dear Heather,
I Love you Max and Heather. You have both touched my heart in such a big way and am so grateful you are part of my life. After reading this, I am crying my eyes out. Such powerful words you've written and shared and an even more powerful teaching you two are passing along.
You are right, Kids are amazing and they do get it because they are still so in touch with Spirit and able to cross the line between the two worlds. I am so glad that you are surrounded by your loved ones and the little ones with wings. I know your arms ache to hold Max near and wish there was some way I could ease that ache. All I can do is be here for you in whatever capacity you need me to be. I am glad that you can at least feel his presence and can see him looking at and into you through your niece and nephew's eyes. Howard and Zoe's words and inner knowing must be of great comfort because I am certain Max and the Angels whisper in their ears all the time. ; )
I pour my love into you.
With Deep Gratitude,
Marcia
Beautiful Heather,
I can hardly speak all that has gone through me in the month since Jen called us all to saddle our prayers and love and send them to you and baby Max. I have shared hopes and prayers and tears with a beautiful group of people. I have chanted the name of a great saint, and sang the Hanuman Chalisa. And I have cried. Through all of this I have felt the amazing presence and powerful courage of your momma heart, Heather, and the radical call to love, and to keep letting love in.
I had the great pleasure of spending a day with Manorama, and I felt she could be speaking to us all about Max's visit and journey on. I want to share from her words, as they touched me deeply and their presence has been potent in my heart. She said "the more grounded you are in your humanity, the more you can express your divinity." The more we can feel our grief and pain, our joys, our doubts...all of it-with awareness...the more the divine presence opens in us and pours forth. She also shared of her mother who recently passed after a challenging and painful illness. When she was having a hard time one day she asked her mother how she was able to cope with the pain of the process so well. She replied "I Trust." Wow.
Heather, you are an inspiration. I feel your powerful heart and your message to "let love in" has been resonating with me since I read it. There is no more beautiful way to honor Max's visit, and our presence here, deeply steeped in our humanity, then to let the love flow all around us and through us. Infinite gratitude to you for being the portal for such a beautiful being, and for being open to share your heart. Thank you.
With love and gratitude,
Kendra
"Max is with the Angels up in the airplanes." Grace (Max's hanai sister)
KimmiG here. Just wanted to lay it down for the record. I had a little conversation with Max/Spirit today. The slash is officially in effect for no other reason than he is it/ they are we/ it is he so I KNOW they are playing together and listening in syncope.....
This is the week I am face forward into the teachings from my Grand Sensei from Tokyo. A typical time of trepidation, anxiety, dread, chattery mind etc.. But after day 1 while driving home, I just kept saying, "I GOT THIS." - a term often used while we were on Oahu.
I'm calling myself "out" to you to pull back my veil of "hiding" my acu skills, my professional accountability if you will. No more hiding behind my fear, hiding behind Grace, behind Richard's $, behind my resentments towards Chieko. You were my witness today to me stepping out in the spotlight to receive the teachings, be present to my clinic, humble down to the intense Japanese lineage of tough love, invite new energy in, to help more people, to SPREAD THE LOVE.
Damn, I feel naked right about now. It feels good.
Thank you Max. You are a hardcore reflective Teacher. There's really no bullshitting you is there?
But I am still mad that you are not here. I'm human, what can I say? I had plans..... But I also am getting the lessons of moving forward. I am getting those lessons more and more because Heather created this platform for communication. So thank YOU everybody for sharing. You are helping to chisel away my anger. (or maybe I'll just bottle it up for my first roller derby bout.... that will be an extremely effective strategy for acute aggro-ness)
I love you Max. I love you Heather. I love you Spirit.
KimmiG
I know you are an incredibly beautiful woman. I can't wait to one day meet in person. Your blogs are amazing and inspiring. Thank you for letting me in on you and Maxs journey. Lots of love!
I sent Heather the following email and she requested that I post it to her blog. So, in the spirit of love and vulnerability here it is:
Dear Heather,
My heart is with you. My heart has been with you every day since Max’s birth. And ever since his little physical body left I have composed a letter to you in my head every day – each different than the day before. I think I finally have the courage to actually write it down.
You are going through what every loving mother has nightmares about. How many times when Fiona was little did I have moments of irrational fear. When we took her back to the hospital a week after her birth for some undiagnosed health issues I spent hours in their little chapel praying that we would be allowed to keep her with us. Seeing her so little and helpless, stuck in a hospital room with IV’s I could not bear the thought of losing her. You have gone through what I can only imagine as being the most difficult kind of loss – a ripping apart of the soul so deep that the most realized being couldn’t help but be shaken to the ground.
I know the kind of amazing person you are - and through your blog I know of some of the ways you are grounding yourself and becoming the person you are meant to be. You amaze me with your positivity and ability to see the gifts and the love present in your life. In this time when you could or should be receiving and resting you are giving - you’re so lovingly giving your milk to nurture other babies, your even sharing of yourself in your blog, which strangely gives me some comfort, even though I shouldn’t need comfort. I have no doubts that this is the hardest of life’s experiences to swim through and that every day you have to pick yourself up and give yourself a spiritual pep talk. Allow yourself some time to rest and tread water and just float too Heather – others will hold you - I know you feel the love.
I want you to know that if I could, I’d be right there with you with the brass knuckles in spiritual warfare with god, and I’d make damn sure that you had your Max in your arms. In fact I know you had an entire warrior army of wonderful women and men behind you. I feel angry that god ‘won’.
You are right when you say that it’s all about unconditional love and that it’s not about fairness, which sucks because I so do believe in fairness. I see all these healthy babies at the hospital on the days I’m volunteering at the OB department, and I get so angry at the cluelessness of some of the parents who get to take their child home, you know the ones - I don’t want to be judgmental about, but when it comes to children not being fully loved I will be . I think to myself that in a world of fairness this wouldn’t have happened. So I pick up those babies in the nursery and quiet them and whisper to them and try to give them a few minutes of Max love, because I’m quite certain it’s going to be a hard road for them.
My moments of comfort come from when I remember you with Max growing happily inside of you. You gave Max a wonderful 10 months of being! You loved him so deeply and gave him so many amazing experiences during the time he was with you that he had a full lifetime of unconditional love just in those few months. He got to swim in the ocean, do headstands and backbends, he heard his mother laugh and be a part of her vibrancy, he felt your hands rubbing across your belly, and he felt the peace, grounded-ness and love that is you.
I am happy that you feel Max near you – he will always be there with you.
You are an amazing mother to Max and a beautiful person to us all.
My heart is with you still, and I love you both.
Love,
Jeanette
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