Tonight, behind the clouds, I am sure there is a glorious full moon. Earlier in the evening, before the rain started, I did walk barefoot along the grass by the water and felt the Earth and Moon pulling at one another, in the dance that they do.

Often I host Full Moon events, responding to the generosity of her full shape, wanting to light candles and speak the words of the guides. But tonight I sought alone time, as I turn to solitude in response to her call.

Our household surrendered a loved one to death this week. We knew she was preparing to leave, but her power and grace kept growing right up until her final hours, so now her physical absence settles deep. Her name was Helena..

Helena was a radiant, searingly intelligent and passionately loving woman in mid life. She was also schizophrenic, or so the doctors said. This was the term used to describe her experience, and at times it does help to have a name to put to the struggle.  But the label as it stands misses the point,  relating only to behaviours and denying the soul. We need to look again at this experience from a new angle, through the comprehensive eyes of our highest spiritual nature. And when we do that, we see that Helena was brilliant, open, courageous and real, without peer, although I find her special beauty to be a common characteristic of those who live with labels upon their lives.

Indeed there is a heavy price to pay for daring to embody with the high sensitivities of Schizophrenia, Autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, ADHD, Bipolar, OCD, not to mention PTSD, and so on. Where there is feeling, there is pain. Where there is life, there is suffering. There can be no joy without having tasted agony, and where there is surrender to all of these, there is healing and empowerment beyond measure.

Some “normal” folks are stuck upon the idea that differences must be “fixed”; it creates a sense of safety to compartmentalize. But I see these divergent souls (including myself) as reaching for something far beyond what most understand, poised with one foot on the planet and the other in an energetic world. They feel so acutely that they are afraid to fully embody, and are in and out of their bodies, often walking through life, one part puppet, one part puppeteer. For the Sensitives, just being here is an act of immense courage, and only those souls who hold a passionate light are choosing such a path.

Helena embodied so much light, it overflowed everywhere. She knew god, she held God inside her, she sang like an
angel and the further she surrendered to herself, the more her power grew.  A conversation with Helena was like talking through the veil to the other side, and yet, there was a flesh and blood woman sitting before you. She was at times an absolute child, sparkling with delight, demands and fears. At other times she was the sage, speaking with a frame of reference that went beyond present time and dimension. There was a sharp truth in her words always, even the ones that were so full of love they melted you, even the ones that slipped beyond. You could feel that she was telling you everything, giving you everything, and one day we would all meet in the middle and the illusion of duality would end. You could feel it ending, in Helena’s presence.

Is this a mental illness, to be too much alive, too tender, too wise? What if we were to listen instead of define? What if love really is all there is?

Helena taught me about love amongst the many parts of the self, she taught me what an open heart looks like (a rare enough sight) and that the material is dust in the wind. She showed me we can step outside of the nonsense of the physical plane and be true. That the spirit really is our eternal essence, unlimited by appearance, form, illness or death.

Some full moons ago Helena sat with us, a beautiful group of women, to honour the moon and talk of love, and we filled the top of our house with a sultry glow. Tonight the house rests, and I feel the lifting of Helena from earth to sky, raising the roof gently to stand so very tall. She is gone, and she is so very much here.  She is silent, and she sings in my ear.

Moons come and moons go in a cycle so endless that there is no point in worrying, in separating ourselves from the trust with which the Mother Earth continues to live. Once we accept the vastness of our being, we see that our Helena’s are not absent, they are before us, after us, underneath us, within us and all around us, and wherever we turn our gaze, there she will be. As we learn to pay genuine attention (her words) to what is before us, we see that by staying present with the love we have, we remain connected to the love we once feared to lose.

There is no moon to be seen tonight.  The blue black sky has given way to pelting rain upon the attic roof, and yet I know she is there. I do not need to see her face every time, to feel her power. To be with her in prayer.

I think of you tonight, sweet Helena, and thank you for your blessing.
I love you too.

Adi