Breath of Heaven

When I was growing up, I was surrounded by music. My mother loved Louis Armstrong and usually had his music playing while she went about her business in our home.   Family lore says that on the day I came home from the hospital, as I was not expected to have been born alive, she danced around the living room to Louis in her joy. My mother was always singing, as did her parents. I know a lot of old songs. I also know just about every lyric for every song that was popular during my youth. Give me a few notes and I'll take it away in off-pitch singing.  Glenn used to ask me where I'd been storing it in my head all those years. I don't  know...but I guess it explains why I always have a song in my head...it is the "tune in my head" gene. 

This is how today went down.  I felt weird when I got up...I was restless the last few hours of sleep and when I got up I felt listless and edgy, as if I'd had too much coffee, when in fact I hadn't had any. I got irritated with myself. I felt like my blog was turning into a blah-blah fest and I was sick of hearing myself wallow. The more I decided I was done with wallowing, the edgier I became. I started day one of this 30 day meditation program with Oprah:)- todays message was, "Today I will be open to the presence of miracles." Couldn't feel it. I finally went outside and transplanted a few perennials  from my daughter's home. Every shovel exhausted me. When I finished I came inside and proceeded to have a full-blown anxiety attack. My pulse was racing, not dangerously fast, but I swore I could hear my heart beating,  and I felt like I was going to jump out of my skin. I couldn't stop replaying the trauma of that night. 

This is where the miracles started occurring. I went on line to research grief counselors in our area and found that our hospital has someone who does just that. I called for an appointment and found out it is free and that she will visit me a few times. She was so comforting and told me that often times our symptoms mimic the symptoms that caused our loved one to die, and that I wasn't going crazy. She also told me that when I feel like that, it is like it happened 2 seconds ago, because that is my truth. I started to feel better, but I still felt like I couldn't get a breath.

Last week I was offered and accepted a gift of a massage. Not a deep tissue massage, but more of a healing spiritual massage. I went for it today and found another miracle. I cried at first...all the pain started to come up.  The prayers and the energy being directed at me started a process. And I began to breathe again. Really breathe. Big, long, oxygen rich breaths. I felt so much pain release. And I realized that just now, even though I've thought I was on my way, has healing begun. It's not there yet, not by a long stretch, but there is peace in a place where there wasn't before. 

And that's how this ties into singing. Before Amy Grant went totally country she sang a beautiful song, really from the perspective of Mary, mother of Jesus as she was riding through the darkness to give birth.

The lines from the song that keep playing over and over in my head tonight are these: 

" Breath of heaven, hold me together, be forever near me, breath of heaven. 

Breath of heaven , lighten my darkness, pour over me your holiness, breath of heaven."

Being able to take deep, life-giving breaths today and tonight- priceless.. 

I truly believe it came from heaven.