Memoir – Janis Dehler

The River of Sadhana


In a night vision, the meandering timeline of my life 
floats before me, like the river that flows past my house, 
winding its way south, touching here and there, while 
always moving in the direction of intent.

Challenges and joys that went before are seen,
as I float on to this moment. I see my learning 
and my fears, when, as a child, I do not understand.
I see confusion, tears, aloneness, transitions, 

moving in time, trying to find my way from there to here, 
with deaths, friends, shame, insecurities, curiosity.
I feel sadness and joy. I am a child, then a teen 
in my self-centered world, lacking awareness
 
and understanding. I see my marriage, my babies, 
the delight, the loss, their gifts to me. I see me, 
catapulted to awaken to my life, to shed old skin,
as I long to create, find purpose in being, alter perceptions. 

I enter deconstruction—spiritual crisis— and am stripped to bones. 
In newness, I am embraced. Through friendship, divine manifestation, 
love, compassion, forgiveness, and healing, I find I am enough. 
All the iterations of me.  All one. All love. 

Joys. Challenges. Acceptance. Strength. Understanding. 
In allowing and accepting, the way opens. Amma, holy one, 
names me—Sadhana, spiritual practice. This name guides me, 
as I seek to know the meaning. To accept my path. Learn to allow, 

to create, to accept light, to accept love.
I enter my day with the message: 
open arms, open heart, receive, give, be.
Be gentle. Be patient. Be love.

“Anything can become a spiritual practice once you are willing to approach it that way—once you let it bring you to your knees and show you what is real, including who you really are, who other people are, and how near God can be when you have lost your way.”
Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

“The goal of spiritual practice is full recovery, and the only thing you need to recover from is a fractured sense of self.”
Marianne Williamson

“Spiritual practice should not be confused with grim duty. It is the laughter of the Dalai Lama and the wonder born with every child.”
Jack Kornfield

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The Flow of Compassion

El Camino IV, The Flow of Compassion by Janis Dehler

In the fall of 2017, I hiked the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. When I returned, I created a series of paintings depicting my emotional, physical, and spiritual experience. Recently, a print of El Camino IV, The Flow of Compassion was purchased. I did not share my experience and the meaning of the work with the buyer but allowed her to see what was there for her. This week the collector sent me her perspective on viewing this art as a review to post on my website. As we enter the Christian Holy Week, I offer you her words, her intimate experience of self-awareness. I feel deep gratitude in being able to touch the life of another embodied spirit.

I sense the flow of something powerful within me and through me as I take in the vibrant colors, flowing and attuning to my inner being, awakening a deep knowing of the nurturing of my broken heart by compassionate people in my spiritual community. As I look more intently at this amazing work of art, I see a cross.

My thoughts go to Jesus as he suffered intense beatings after his arrest; after he heard the declaration, ‘Crucify Him’! and while he hung on a cross, slowly dying.

I remember reading his response ~ Forgive them, for they know not what they do! And I feel a powerful movement through me and in my heart ~ the flow of compassion.

I am in awe of his response. Instead of blaming the darkness, Jesus brought in the light of forgiveness, through compassion.

Now my thoughts go to myself ~ I have been blessed by the flow of compassion toward me; I have allowed the power of compassion to flow through me to others, and finally, I have forgiven the one who broke my heart.

Eileen

“All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.”
Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.”
Plato

“One love, one heart, one destiny.”
Bob Marley

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Movement Slows

Seagulls stand at water’s edge,
in stillness, they look out to the gulf,
webbed feet tickled by gentle waves—
born from tranquil water. Unexpected peace 
after a week of wild roar. 

Within the calm,
sanderlings also cease their scurry, 
gather at water’s edge and appear to
cluster in quiet conversation, then,
rest in contemplation.

Movement slows,
lovers walk hand in hand, 
while nature ceases her uproar,
inviting us to stop and observe,
the sacredness, which is now.

“When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall; it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient.”
Margaret Attwood, The Panelopiad

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”
John Lubbock, The Use of Life

“They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.”
Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

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When Prayer Was Magic

Once I thought prayer was magic: 

If I pray hard enough

God will give me what I desire. 

I was young and did not yet know

grief and despair. 



I grew in knowledge of sorrow and joy, 

and found no being who could 

change the course of the many things 

that bring us suffering, as was told, when

once I thought prayer was magic.



Nor did outward prayer give me

what I yearned for, which may 

conflict with another’s longing.

Who does this being listen to?

If I pray hard enough,



I am told, if I am good enough,

follow the rules, listen to authority,

learn to be pure like the saints,

deny myself,

God will give me what I desire.



Then I learned to go within:

to know prayer as silence, 

to focus, allow, listen, sit in peace, 

open to universal wisdom. Not taught to me when

I was young and did not yet know:



the connection is within the seed of the divine inside of me. 

All consciousness, open to love, forgiveness, and grace

changes me; I then join with others as 

we open to joy, and ease that which is our

grief and despair.


(Thanks to WP friend, David, for his teaching of a ‘cascading’ poem.

“It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without heart.”
Mahatma Gandhi

“Prayer is the inner bath of love into which the soul plunges itself.”
St. John Vianney

“God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer.”
Mother Teresa

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Mended

Today I sit with my friend from

long ago and remember when she

broadened my world 

through ritual and story; when we

drummed and howled

on many a solstice night as we

each held the past 

in the palm of our hands 

like a bird with a broken wing—

wounds visible, stories told,

honored, when still young.



Age evident on our lined faces 

and altering bodies, we 

acknowledge each other now: 

honor what we each create; celebrate

what we each offer to the world. 

The mended birds fly:

winds lift, support, and carry,

on currents to new horizons, with

a whisper heard; Be free.

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can’t be any large-scale revolution until there’s a personal revolution, on an individual level. It’s got to happen inside first.”
Jim Morrison

“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”
Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.”
Jim Morrison

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From The Book Page

Reading from One World: A Journey of Becoming

I am excited to announce the launch of ONE WORLD: A JOURNEY OF BECOMING. Seeing my name in Amazon and on Goodreads, as an author, with my book, was stunning.

I finished and thoroughly enjoyed a week of book launch events that were well attended. The full art show is still hung at Common Ground, here in Cambridge, and available for viewing M – Th from 10 – 3pm. It will be taken down on January 28th.

I could not be happier or feel more filled with all the care and love expressed to me as I share my story. As I now write, it has been four days since the last event. I’m tired but feeling carried by all the support. One person asked, “What is next?” That is a hard one to answer. I have a couple of ideas for another book. I am thinking of creating a retreat. I am needing rest and sunshine.

More than anything, I want to continue to support individuals and groups in learning to ground and center into the core of who they are and open to what lies ahead for them. We are called to awaken to ourselves and to our divine connection, however we envision this to be; to find joy in who we are and what we bring to this world in healing, through compassion, and opening to this grand universe.

One World: A Journey of Becoming is available from me on my SHOP page, www.janisdehler.com/shop, to be mailed in the US. It is also available at Scout and Morgan Books here in Cambridge, MN. Both the paperback and eBook version (soon to be released) are available on Amazon here and in many other countries. The Great British Book Shop and Ingram Spark carry the paperback.

Blessings and gratitude,

Janis

NOTES FROM the book page

Greetings,

How did I end up compiling a book of my art and poetry at this time in my life?

My summer art and poetry exhibition were well received with many requests from longtime supporters, as well as people I was meeting for the first time, for me to create a book that could be kept in hand to ponder the poetry and the art at leisure. I decided to follow the lead and I began a journey into learning what it takes to self-publish a book, besides, well, writing the book. (More on that wild ride another time.)

I was into a deep research dive when my sister-in-law, Cynthia, was diagnosed with terminal glioblastoma brain cancer and given possibly three months to live. This news numbed my brain while I tried to absorb what this meant for my 61-year-old sister-in-law with new grandbabies to hold and to love, my brother and my nephews who were trying to understand and accept this reality, and all of us who loved and cared for her.

A couple of summers ago at Cynthia and Bill’s cabin, after she and I returned from a robust kayak journey, Cynthia strongly suggested that I write a book about my El Camino experience from 2017. I gave the idea serious thought, but Covid hit, art became my life, and it went on the back burner. Now, it turns out the poetry and art book captured my imagination. As I write and edit, I still see Cynthia at the cabin and hear her speak to me of her vision and her belief in my ability to write. I now draw on that vision to give me momentum.

We all have people in our lives who hold up a mirror for us to better see ourselves. People who have looked upon us and have seen what we have not, or what we have held with uncertainty or even fear. Cynthia, a writer of short stories she hoped to publish, left us after a short two and a half months, but she still reminds me to speak up in support—naming what I see in another’s potential, in a loving and caring way. Is there someone who has influenced you in a way that you did not expect? I would love to hear from you.

The El Camino story is still cooking—gaining steam, making some bubbles.

Keep your pen handy..

The Unseen Force

I thought of the ways we rejoice in life,
offer gratitude to the unseen force,
weary then from trial and toil,
seek solace to soothe our soul.

One thought riding the other,
one emotion responding to need,
making our way to a final day
when breath retires
and we release to what comes beyond—
something or nothing.
We call it faith or delusion,
each in their own way.

Then, I watched the sun set,
sparkling on the waters deep,
hearing a child’s laughter 
as she ran through the evening waves.
Whatever you are, I mused, 
this is what you are.
This is how you speak.

“Thus, to know humanity, understand the earth. To know the earth, understand heaven. To know heaven, understand the Way. To know the Way, understand the great within yourself.”
25th Verse of the Tao Te Ching

“My work is like a dialogue between me and unseen powers, like alchemy.”
Cai Guo-Qiang

“To work magic is to weave the unseen forces into form; to soar beyond sight; to explore the uncharted dream realm of the hidden reality; to infuse life with color, motion and strange scents that intoxicate; to leap beyond imagination into that space between the worlds where fantasy becomes real; to be at once animal and god. Magic is…the ultimate adventure.”
Starhawk

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The Final Breath: a short, short story

“William thought of that Sacrament now and felt bad for all the children who were forced to divide their ordinary lives into sins and not-sins so they would have something to say to a cassocked stranger.”
Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful

That is where it all started, she thought, as she lay her head back on the pillow reviewing the course of her life as she struggled to breathe.

She saw herself clearly, first as a young girl, fearful, as she crept closer to a curtain which she would step behind to talk to a man about bad things she did or thought.

She started memorizing in her head, I yelled at Mary, I wanted the doll my sister got for Christmas, and on and on through a litany of events and thoughts from her week wondering if these were good enough sins to tell the priest.

Now, in old age, she realized that this is where she started to divide the world into good and bad, sin and not-sin, black and white, where no middle ground held any merit—a line drawn as if chopped by a cleaver.

As she wept, holding this young girl in her heart, she began to forgive herself for all the ways she judged herself, all the times she shut herself off from her own desires, cut herself off from others out of fear, expressed anger at those who saw events and people from a different perspective. All the ways she stopped herself from fully living her life.

She opened her eyes, felt all the love in her heart, gasped for a final breath, and cried out to anyone who would listen, “I am alive.”

“Hate the sin, love the sinner.”
Mahatma Gandhi

“He tried to name which of the deadly seven might apply, and when he failed, he decided to append an eighth, regret.”
Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain

“Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity.”
Thich Nhat Hanh

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The Last Breath

When my baby lay dying,
we called all to our home to meet her,
to hold her, to kiss her goodbye. 
When everyone departed, we lay on our bed 
with baby at rest, spooned between, 
and I slept.
While I was sleeping, she took her last breath, 
swaddled in a yellow rose blanket, 
smelling of powder and lotion. 

When my father lay dying, 
We were called to his side.
We sat, stood around the bed,
told stories, laughed, wiped tears,
and sighed. After a night and a day 
I walked out to rest. 
While I slept, 
he took his last breath. Then we sat 
and waited and remembered as 
his spirit fully left.

When my mother lay dying,
we called all to her home, as we 
sat, cooked, ate, and talked, laughed, 
and cried, for five days and nights. 
At dusk she lay quiet.
Leaving my brother to sit vigil,
I slept. 
She took her last breath.
Seconds later, I was at her side.
We washed her body and adorned 
her with rose petals and oil.

When my sister lay dying, 
I slept in my bed,
then awakened from a phone call 
to rush to her side after she drew 
her last breath. I sat with tears, 
spoke to her spirit as memories of 
her sweetness and her challenges 
washed over me— the joy, the delight, 
the losses that formed her life.

Now, I wonder, 
will I wake before I die?

“Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what’s left and live it properly. What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.”
Marcus Aurelius

“If you are living every experience fully, then death doesn’t take anything from you. There’s nothing to take because you’re already fulfilled. That’s why the wise being is always ready to die.”
Seneca

“Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to ‘die before you die’ and find that there is no death.”
Eckhart Tolle

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