To walk to the edge of any of life's symbolic precipices & consciously step off, this is courage in self as no other. Such conscious decision gives intent & dawning, trusting in self and in spirit absolutely, to walking your path and walking it true...
M

A lost communication in these unfathomable times

An unsual solitary moment within a world in turmoil....

Amid the oppressing humidity, despite the heated, torrential downpour I took foot upon a familiar running circuit over the mountain to ease the turmoil within myself. Shallow, barely present trails had become channels for the deluge and each footfall in climb and in descent was calculated, my eyes constantly seeking the next rock to stabilise the pace...

Unfathomable floods and shattering fires, random senseless shootings and abhorrent acts of violence, I take road on this day on foot to relieve the tension I take up in the task I am here to do (as I often do). Each coursing rivulet of sweat takes with it the toxin of stress that does not serve me. Today is indeed a disturbing day. A run in the rain, often silent and solitary, is fine retreat.

As is common in my experience of life, I often have butterflies land upon me (no doubt related to the work I do in healing) so as the cloud of butterflies began to build about me, even as I ran, at first I wasn't disturbed. Rising from the very earth that sheltered them they took flight deliberate in their intent to draw to the runner.

An iridescent glitter began to dot and decorate the increasing cloud building about me as dragonflies, coming from it would seem nowhere, joined the chaotic throng. An unlikely coupling. And as such a quiet disturbance took root within...

I slowed to a walk, curious, and sure enough the butterflies started to take claim upon my flesh.

Not sure if this was uniform through the bush, perhaps many insects were behaving so, I quickly sprinted forward, finding that this kaleidoscope veil was isolated and focused about me... and rapidly caught up. I quickly returned to pace but ...something deep within stirred more unsettled.

Why were they seeking me like this?

On this when so many are suffering.

On this day when so many are bracing for an unknown but given horror.

On this day when a world is struggling to feel safe are they too seeking comfort?

This deliberate entry upon my path did seem a search for reassurance.

Only when I saw a dragonfly stutter in his flight did I consider that it was indeed pouring with rain. It had been consistently the whole way, cascades from my cap, rivers meandering the length of my limbs...

I have never seen such creatures endure the rain before. Running in the rain is solitary not just in those you may come across but in all creature, sounds, visually you are shrouded...

Not this day.

Desperation was clear in their actions but not in their language.

A warning? An attempt to comfort?

As my foot hit tarmac, almost home on my circuit, this gifted veil lifted from me remaining in boundary of bushland. I stopped and turned, my rhythm broken by this sudden shift. Rising and gently dispersing they rapidly disappeared...

and without knowing why, my own tears began to fall, heavy, burdened, lost and unheeded amongst the confusion of the solid rain.

What did I miss? They braved an atmosphere dangerous to them, life threatening, to desperately accompany me...and I missed it.

I do not know the message. I did not hear the communication. I would hope the solace they were seeking was found even briefly but I fear perhaps not.

For myself the weight of all that is happening, of all calling for help and assistance is heavier upon my return...

My friends, give light whenever you can, because you can, in these unfathomable times.

Know gratitude that you can share this much.

For we are still here on this day

Melissa Hocking

A Year Ago Today...

A year ago today my son and I were in the general waiting area of a major hospital about to be admitted for his radical, extreme and horribly painful orthopedic surgery.
He was hysterical with fear.
I was too. But there was only room for one of us to scream and cry.

A year ago today, according to my own doctors, I had three weeks to live at best. I had ceased treatment for my own terminal illness in order to be functional for my boy through the horror we were necessarily about to embark upon.
They were not supportive of that decision.

A year ago today two incredible girlfriends, true friends, had moved in to our house to help us as we had nobody that could and as such my daughters were at home with them in a childhood oblivion to the trauma upon us.

The experience of being human is never matched in intensity as owning the responsibility of guardianship: of family, of friends, of self.

On this day my son is laughing, loud and musical, at his mother's antics as he bears weight through is legs working toward promise of walking. This in utter defiance to the quadriplegia that claims his body. And only possible due to the surgery he chose a year ago.

On this day I breathe deeply, my mind clear, my body stronger than it has been for several years. My heart beats not renewed but instead, reborn.

On this day both of my incredible friends are moving through life amid blessing and trial as life would have them do so. It is delight to watch. And they are loved by all of us.
It is a rare gratitude, complex and rich, that we shall eternally bare for them.

This day houses light as never before. Love as never before. A future as never possible but I know no impossibility and so, I shall claim it.

For we are here on this day.

"Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will. It is always interesting"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Melissa Hocking 2011

"And now you say, "Merry Christmas"."

We were forced to do it. We had to brave a major shopping centre, a few days before Christmas to grab some last minute items. The sweat, the throngs of desperation, the madness, the accelerated mental fatigue, the tantrums, the social ineptitude birthing from utter self-centredness in the fight for retail survival... And the crowds would be there too.

Our schedules being our schedules (never dull) it had unfolded that the kids would need to come with me. Three kids, all believers in Santa, one autistic and wheelchair dependant, its never an easy journey Christmas crowds aside.
Amid reminders of, "Best behaviour, guys. Let's stick together. We're in the last few days now. You don't want to blow it and hit the naughty list last minute!" Their protests fell on my ears deafened by the pulsing ebb of impending throngs as the automatic doors drew back, sucking us inward...

Within forty meters of entry, my seven year old daughter cops a pram running into her ankle from the side, with the father pushing the pram hissing at her, "Watch out!".
Shoving wheelchair in his path and halting his progress entirely, I caught his eye, "I believe you meant to say, "I'm sorry. Are you ok?"." The now crippled seven year old sitting on her brother's lap on the wheelchair, we moved onward...

Entering the depths, I lead the troops into the belly of nonsensical purchasing: The market.
More would follow the first pram incident, subjecting us to complaints of "taking up the whole moving walkway with the wheelchair" (how inconvenient of us!), a four year old slapping my nine year old daughter for holding the last pink ball, minor tantrums from my gang when Mum refused to purchase another DSI so "we don't have to share" (where am I going wrong?) and Jack blatantly taking advantage of his disability to barge in, completely jumping the queue waiting, to speak to Santa with the announcement of "Santa, thank goodness! I've needed to talk to you..." and once again, as happens every single year, Santa looked at my kids, looked at me and said, "Are these your kids?" (who the hell else would work this hard, I ask you?!)

Eventually we made it to the four deep crowd, queuing at the butcher. People were yelling across the counter with items of meat and money flowing back and forth in rapid succession. Chatting with the gang (the kids) as we waited our turn, it took me some time to realise the crowd was laterally shoving one another but not progressing, feet were tapping impatiently...
At the counter was a gentle lady, somewhere around the eighty year old mark, leaning heavily on her walking frame and trying to be heard over the counter that towered well above her. She was trying to buy a piece of corned beef for Christmas Day.

Her frail but friendly voice called, "Could you please weigh that for me? Tell me how much it might be..." the piece the butcher held was not much larger than an apple . However upon weighing it was apparently far too expensive.
"Do you have a smaller piece?" The butcher procured a piece barely palm sized. But alas again, with a slow and sad glance in her purse, it was too costly...
"Could you cut it for me please?"...

My Colby, all heart, grabbed desperately at my hand pleading, "Mum, we have to do something! Can we give her some money? Please!"
"How can we do it, Col, without making her uncomfortable?" The four of us huddled, three of us rapidly whispering different theories of how we could help this lovely lady without embarrassing her. Jack however wasn't sharing and instead kept saying, "Give me the money, Mum. Give it to me!", clutching at my hand with his clammy cerebral palsy grip.
The crowd was shuffling, impatient, blatantly rude...To keep Jack settled I handed him the $50 note we were still busily plotting to drop in the lady's bag somehow...
The crowd's muttering started to become decorated with baubles of "Ouch!", "Oh, excuse me." and "Oh, sorry mate." An audible shift that tells me my son is on the move. I looked up to see Jack shoving his wheelchair through the crowd, ramming whoever would thwart his path (something he never does!) bee-lining for this frail little lady.
"Can I help you?" It was our turn at the counter.
"First of all, I'd like..." I began using the distraction to my advantage...

The sweet lady only noticed Jack once he was right beside her.
"Excuse me, " he said to her, and with that Jack smile and a huge amount of effort he raised his quadriplegic affected arm grasping the $50 note," This is yours."
"Oh no, it couldn't be..." she protested.
He interrupted, "No, it is yours. It is. Please take it."
She stared at him, then looked about the now silenced, watching crowd.
"Please. It hurts to hold my arm like this."
She took the $50.
He smiled and cheerily said, "And now you say "Merry Christmas Jack!""
Her voice shaky she said, "Oh yes. Merry Christmas, Jack." To the crowd, "Did someone drop this?" And the crowd all smiling all shook their heads, murmuring utterings of "saw you drop it", "sure its yours".
I sidled over, grabbed the handle of my boy's chair and we quietly made our way through the gathering.
We were moving away when the butcher called over the counter to her,
"Here's your corned beef, ma'am.", handing her a large parcel of corned beef. As she again began to protest he went on, "No charge. Already paid for. Merry Christmas, Love!"

Well clear of the butcher's queue, camouflaged in the moving crowd, we turned to glance back. This lovely lady was softly crying, happy, several people from the once impatient and hostile crowd, smiling and gently comforting her.

We all looked upon the image from a distance and a quiet whisper came up from the wheelchair beside me as he looked on,
"And now you say "Merry Christmas"."

Melissa Hocking 2010

Treacherous Tides

Bewildered angst holds steady in the tides of an ocean dawning hatred.
Time’s thought toward it, denied. And yet,
Rise and pitch
Beguiling
Against restraining perimeters drawn in upon her.
Perimeter misfits her very being,
Emotion the foreign downtrod that confounds.
Reverberating threat “There is no release!”
The boundary will not retreat.

How then, oh life,
How does the bombardment engage the constricts?

Foul loathing rises within the collar of lies constricting truth’s escape in a slow suffocation of silence.

A silence that promised truth would hold.
A silence that promised justice in pardon for the mistake made.
A silence that promised to quietly, softly render them powerless.

She heaves within at the horror of bad decision,
Time wasted stains the present tears,
Regret a weeping ink upon her soul, staining evidence of a connection still bound.
The metallic sting of Blood strikes the nostrils as the daggers pierce,
Shredded flesh cascades a shawl down her back,
Shrouding the betrayal of silence.

Too many voices for silence to fall.

The orchestral machinations of a closing,
Sweet metallic nonchalance of latch sealing…
All is in darkness and all is misleading.

How then, oh life,
Put light within the dark?
Put light upon this treacherous ocean!
Amid the course and terror, shards will stream,
Light will mirror and shatter such hatred.
Into the depths within the layers the greatness of ocean depths will claim and diminish,
Wave upon wave closing in, closing down.
The tides will ebb.
The tides are rest.

Melissa Hocking 2010

We are created of layer after layer of subtle light (information)

& that light communicates with all other layers of your "reality" -

inwardly, outwardly, multidimensionally, infinitely.

All comes from you first.
You are the conductor orchestrating this creation.

MH 2010

A Limited Reality on a Spherical Luminosity

We accept a linear time frame.

As such we are restricted in how much information we can obtain and assimilate in a lifetime. Yet from this limited and restricted source we construct a “reality” and despite it being merely a confined perspective, we convince ourselves under the guise of “belief” that it is “truth” and it is “right”.

All the beauty, all the atrocity, all of our race’s history is built upon this limited equation.

We are infinite.
Limitless.
Our possibilities are genuinely without restraint.

Evidence is mounting as change takes speed and vibration lifts under the reality we call “quantum effect”. Remembering that this too is only a limited perspective.
Well beyond the “equation” each individual remains unique: never being present in this form before and, as evolution must have it, never again repeating this presence. This in itself appears evident of our infinite capacity.

We think time is linear but it is spherical, boundless.

Luminous, ever shifting, ever growing, this is every single individual’s truth.

In the present equation we cannot truly know any other’s reality for we are too preoccupied with “knowing’ our own. But we can choose to accept their infinite luminosity.
Such a choice, owned by each, enables humanity’s history to remain “history”, and the unending possibilities of a new humanity’s consciousness to take life.


Melissa Hocking 2010