Grief shuts you down. After Mr. Virgo died, my world went silent. No TV. No Music. Even the sounds of a loving, boisterous family set my teeth on edge. I retreated within myself. Not necessarily in a depression like I have felt in the past. It was more like grief sucking the life out of me and placing me in a vacuum. A place I needed to go to heal…but not to set up camp forever.

I have mentioned in several posts that life on the river has been a soothing, healing, spiritual experience for me. I can’t put my finger on the exact moment but sometime in the last several weeks I started to wake up. I met a circle of friends that enjoy live music and I started going to every venue I could and listened to every note. It was therapeutic. I began to connect to the rhythms…the beat of the music, the beat of my heart.

I have a friend I can talk music with. He’s one of those individuals who knows the names of groups and what albums they put out and when. He can quote lyrics of obscure recordings. I wish my brain worked like that. He loans me CD’s to listen to. This means I have to bring music into my personal space…my car, my house. And something remarkable has happened. My heart is so wide open and fresh that when I lay music across it, I feel it to my bones. It’s almost as though I can hear colors in the notes. I sit in the dark in my camper…listening to Lyle Lovett and Paul Thorn. Neil Young and The Allman Brothers. Leon Russell and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Life pours in with every song.

When you have lived in the desert for so long, the gentle rains of spring coax you out of the ground. And with great hope, and strength, and courage…you turn to face the sun and bask in her warmth.

❤

“We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”

2 Peter 1:19