“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face…”

I look into his eyes.  Rather, I dive into his eyes – deep, dark pools, out of proportion to his head, really – totally open and staring at me, looking at me as if I am the only person in the universe.  It’s as if he has never really seen me before, has never seen who I really am.

I have spent hours – days, even – staring at him as he lay on his side sleeping — and surely he has looked at me before.  Looking is different than seeing.

I know that I love him, that I will always love him.   More…  I know that I can never not love him.

I want to give myself to him – I never give that a second thought.

I have told myself, for months now, that I want this.  But, before this moment, I had no idea – really – what that meant.  Other people have told me about this kind of love, but I’ve never felt it before.  I’ve always been wary of love, scared to give my love without any conditions.

He’s changed that.

Now, there is certainty.  I thought there would be a moment when I would get to decide: “Ok, I’ll take the risk”.   It wasn’t like that at all.   One minute, it wasn’t there and the next minute, it was all there.   I couldn’t have stopped it if I wanted to.

I am laughing – what a silly conversation with myself – not wanting to love him like this?  Not even an option.  And, in that “no option,” there is freedom.

I touch his skin.  He doesn’t flinch or blink or acknowledge it in any way. He keeps looking at me, and I lean over and kiss his forehead, his cheek, his ear.   I am full of him.

I whisper, “I love you”.

He’s looking at me.  I know he loves me.  I have no doubts.

Again I whisper, “I love you.  I love you more than anything in the world.”   There, I say it.  I declare it – for him, for all the world –  and for me.  The commitment I’ve always wanted to make is right there for me to step into.  I have no choice.  I don’t want a choice.  If there is one, the choice is between loving him and loving him.  There is nothing else.

I drop my gaze for a moment as I let it travel over his body – his perfect body, with his perfect hands and his perfect fingers.  He touches my finger as I reach for his hand.  That is enough for him.  He holds on firmly – not so tight that it is desperate, but not lightly either.  A touch that says, “You and I are together”.

I look up again into his eyes to find them still looking at me.  I melt into him even more, if that is even possible. How could it be possible to love him even more than I loved him just a few seconds before?  As I dive deeper into my love, each moment brings some new layer, some new richness and, with it, even more freedom.

I could stay this way forever.

“Mrs. Feuer?”

I look up.  The nurse stands there, not wanting to interrupt.

It is time.  I know it and she knows I know it.  I don’t want this to end.

“Mrs. Feuer, he has to go back into his incubator.”

I look back down at him.  I don’t want to give him up, but I also know that she’s helped me steal a few moments.   The neo-natal intensive care unit doesn’t allow you to hold them until they are 4 pounds.  I don’t want her to get in trouble.

One more look, one more hug, one more declaration: “I am your Mommy. I love you.  I will never leave you, ever.  I’m right here.”

He’s still looking at me.  Even as I lift him and lay him in her arms, he tracks my face.   She turns and puts him back into his incubator.  I don’t move.  I feel like my heart has just been ripped out of my body.  Is this what it is to be a mother?

I watch as she takes the blanket off his skinny little body and lays him inside his warm, see-through egg-like compartment.  She hooks his tubes back up to their machines.   When she is finished, she closes the incubator and walks away.  The tears are rolling down her cheeks.  She doesn’t want me to see, but I do.

I get up from the stool and walk over and look down at him.  He is still looking at me, but with the glass between us, it seems less intimate.  It wasn’t so long ago that we were one body.  Now,  I am here and he is in there.  We are only inches apart.  Still…

I put my hand in through the hole in the side of the incubator and touch his hand.  Again, he grabs on.  I bring my head near to the hole and I whisper through the opening:

“I love you, Joshua.”

He just looks at me.

Deliciously, deliciously yours,  Linda

This is my son, Josh Feuer, with me on Mother’s Day this past May.  He’s 31, healthy, brilliant, wonderful — and I’m still loving him more and more each day!

He was born an RH baby at 32 weeks and spent the first 8-1/2 weeks of his life in neonatal intensive care, after 6 exchange transfusions to save his life.

This photo was taken at the Cervantes statue near NYU in lower Manhattan.

A REVIEW: “The Power of Your Spirit”

In my own life, when I am not connected to spirit – and ego holds the reins of anything I do – life is lonely, hard, and nothing seems to work.  If I can just wrangle myself back to letting spirit be in charge, everything shifts – and life is effortless, full of grace, and filled with the synchronicity that always means to me that God is in charge.

“Wrangling myself back” to spirit – Aye, there’s the rub.  Ego does not give up its hold easily.

So, when I received my copy of Sonia Choquette’s new book, “The Power of Your Spirit:  A Guide to Joyful Living,” I thought, “I am open and willing to hear whatever you have to say, Sonia!”  I was in one of my particularly strong ego, fear, loss periods – and anything that would help me to get back in spirit’s saddle and let the Divine take over the reins – well, that is always something I want to hear!

Ego really did not want to give up control.  It took me until page 68, when I read the following:  “We all eventually reach a moment in life when we must come face-to-face with a force greater than our ego, or intellect; and, at that point, we’re invited to recognize the holy force, the Spirit.  People struggle against this because it feels as if we’re being asked to hand over our power.  On the contrary, it’s actually an invitation to get to know and accept the most powerful, brilliant, authentic essence of ourselves.”   

Yes, I know that moment.

There’s an expression, “My best thinking got me here” and I can tell you that “here,” for me, at that moment, was a place of sadness, loss, defeat, and what I saw as failure.  I felt as if I had nothing more to lose and, Sonia’s book notwithstanding, I was feeling that the divine was nowhere near and certainly not listening – and I was even angry about that.

I came on that passage and it landed for me as just what I needed to read.  That’s when I started to pay attention.  I went back to the beginning and started over again.

“The Power of Your Spirit” takes the reader on a journey through the four stages of awakening to spirit and allowing the divine – our own spirit – to guide us daily to the greater good for all.  The ego wants us to win – “Me, me, me!” is the ego’s cry.  The spirit wants life to be great for us and for all.  We cannot “win” if someone else has to lose in the process.  There is no grace in that.

The four stages are:  “Awakening to Your Spirit,” when we go from being spiritually unconscious to realizing that there is another dimension – a spiritual one;  “Discovering Your Spirit,” when we read everything spiritual we can get our hands on, take spiritual courses, and listen to spiritual teachers (my particular balliwick);  “Surrendering to Your Spirit,” which means “moving beyond the parameters and perceived safety of your ego and turning your well-being over to the mysterious, unlimited realm of intuition”; and “Flowing with Your Spirit.”  In this last stage, “your ego steps aside and allows your Spirit to completely take over.”

Since I wasn’t doing such a good job of handling my life on my own, those last couple of stages really called to me.  It was time to stop reading, taking courses, and just talking the talk.  “Letting go”, whenever it happened for me, always worked – and perhaps this book, arriving when it did, was the proof that divine guidance was stepping in to remind me that it was time, once again, to “walk” the talk and let spirit take over.

I was especially intrigued with the last stage, about “being in the flow.”  I’ve experienced that before and it has been magical.  I’ve often wished that I could make that happen more often.  Ah, ah…?  “Make that happen?”  There’s the catch.  “Making it happen” is the ego’s game.  Being in the flow is “life experienced with ease, grace, peace, healing, and connection.”  When that’s not happening, you’re not in flow.  When life occurs as peaceful, magical, graceful, and you find yourself in mystical situations that you cannot explain and they work effortlessly – that’s being in the flow.  It’s not something to force.  It’s something to fall into.

As Sonia Choquette says so eloquently, “Flow is faith in action: the synthesis of your true Divine nature merging with your faith in God, the Universe, and life.”

It gives new meaning to the expression, “Go with the flow….”

Deliciously yours in the Mystical Transformation of it All,   Linda

From the Afterword of “The Power of Your Spirit”, a chapter subtitled, “The New Frontier”, a quote that I love  from The Buddha:

“Teach this triple truth to all:  A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.”

This is Sonia Choquette, the author of “The Power of Your Spirit: A Guide to Joyful Living.”    She is an internationally renowned author, storyteller, vibrational healer, and six-sensory spiritual teacher.  She’s also the author of The New York Times bestseller The Answer is Simple.  Her website is www.soniachoquette.com.

Here is the link to Hay House where you can buy “The Power of Your Spirit: A Guide to Joyful Living”

http://www.hayhouse.com/details.php?id=5565

 

Disclosure:  I received Sonia Choquette’s book, “The Power of Your Spirit:  A  Guide to Joyful Living” for free from Hay House Publishing.

© Linda Ruocco and “Spiritual Chocolate”, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Linda Ruocco and ”Spiritual Chocolate”  with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.  Thank you.