When we look back on our lives we see that we have survived many trials and often to our own amazement.
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We have all faced moments in our lives when the pressure mounts beyond what we feel we can handle, and we find ourselves thinking that we do not have the strength to carry on. Sometimes we have just gotten through a major obstacle or illness only to find another one waiting for us the moment we finally catch our breath. Sometimes we endure one loss after another, wondering when we will get a break from life’s travails. It does not seem fair or right that life should demand more of us when we feel we have given all we can, but sometimes this is the way life works.
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When we look back on our lives, we see that we have survived many trials and surmounted many obstacles, often to our own amazement. In each of those instances, we had to break through our ideas about how much we can handle and go deeper into our hidden reserves. The thought that we do not have the strength to handle what is before us can be likened to the hard surface of a frozen lake. It appears to be an impenetrable fact, but when we break through it, we find that a deep well of energy and inspiration was trapped beneath that icy barrier the whole time. Sometimes we break through by cutting a hole into our resistance with our willpower, and sometimes we melt the ice with compassion for our predicament and ourselves. Either way, each time we break through, we reach a new understanding of the strength we store within ourselves.
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When we find ourselves up against that frozen barrier of thinking we cannot handle our situation, we may find that the kindest choice is to love ourselves and our resistance too. We can simply accept that we are overwhelmed, exhausted, and stretched, and we can offer ourselves loving kindness and compassion. If we can extend to ourselves the unconditional warmth of a mother’s love, before we know it, the ice will begin to break.
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25 MAY 2016:
ONE month post-op of the prosthetic/joint implants into my ART HAND.
Surgery #47.
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26 MAY 1999:
17th anniversary of my first total hip prosthetic/joint implant of my right hip.
I had to lie back @120 degrees for 8 weeks so the implant to set into my precarious bone.
I finally was receiving the “gift” of my beloved Dr. Mark Coventry’s revolutionary innovation:
the prosthetic hip joint- which has altered the vision of lived mobility forever.
Dr. Rodney Peterson was the selected surgeon.
My Dr. Coventry’s soul had gone over the rainbow
– but, he was PRESENT and WATCHING OVER!
I created Catherine’s Courageous Compassion Circle: a GOLD circle; a SILVER circle and a BRONZE circle
– friends that stepped up and entered this wilderness: a challenging and a pivotal vortex of healing
with their kindness, their honor and their constancy of loving presence.
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My Uncle Bob Cottor ( Dr. Robert Cottor) was at the helm as I began this uncertain/high risk climb
to a summit of an OVER THE RAINBOW dream.
My Aunt Sharon, Bob’s wife/partner, was fully present in the distance.
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Of course, the sonics of Charles Lloyd set the tone in THIS pivotal surgical procedure of magnitude.
Charles’ sonics have been in EVERY OR ever since
EXCEPT for once: when my right knee was reconstructed:
my friend Connie Evingson’s SWEET HAPPY LIFE album filled the OR!
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Healing is like music- it cannot be created in an empty vacuum.
Healing occurs within the invited souls’ energy of intentional and the scintillating
improvisational capacity to create the rhythm, beauty
and a palpable frequency of compassionate LIGHTLOVEGRACE.
Yes, that is how it works: ensembles.
The Wounded is also the Healer within the ensemble because the wounded
invisibly calls out the LIGHTLOVEGRACE within the souls of those attending.
MERCYMERCYMERCY #8 (For N.A.P.) Catherine L. Johnson 2008
CATHERINE L. JOHNSON 
Played by Joe Zawinul & the Cannonball Adderley Quintet during a live studio performance.