A Celebration of Life

My sister-in-law, Shelley, along with my youngest brother, Rick, fought a courageous 10 month battle with her Stage 4  diagnosis of small squamous cell cancer. She lost that battle a week and a half ago while staying in Seattle, where she had been going every three weeks for chemotherapy, flying from their home in Juneau, Alaska to Seattle.

They had tried and exhausted every kind of chemotherapy drug, and even tried experimental therapies in hopes of prolonging her life. That she lived a full 10 months with a terminal, late stage diagnosis and survived long enough to meet her first grandson is a testament to the determination of the human spirit against impossible odds.

Now, with her loss, we are all feeling a bit adrift and have banding together as families...hers, in Seattle to says their final goodbyes. Mine....here in my home in Salem, Oregon where we invited my brother to come down and spend a week with us and another of our brothers and his wife to join us, as well....before heading back to Juneau.

We spent a lot of time just talking and sharing the experiences of the past year. It is the caring and in the sharing, that we are able to connect with others, and to feel like we are not alone, and that others truly and deeply do care.

It is a big world, with many experiences and emotions to go through in all of our lifetimes. I believe that it is our reactions to those experiences and to those emotions that shape each of us into the people that we were either meant to become, or have chosen to be, instead.  When we allow our loss, and our deep grieving, even the many stages we all go through with loss..through denial, through anger, through blame, through even great sadness and perhaps even depression, we are doing our own deep shadow work.

Our shadow is the deepest, darkest, part of ourselves. It is the part that we have in common with all others but almost always fail to acknowledge the presence of, always to see another who is this, or has that, or is filled up with-----. We all share the yin and the yang, the sunshine and the shadows. And it is with the out letting, the leeching of all of the darkest parts of our emotional selves that we can once again go into the light. We learn to see the other as the self, to see the bridges and the pathways that connect us ..heart to heart, spirit to spirit.

 Many people believe in a divine being, but those that do not may still believe in the healing power of nature and of love.  So, we go out and into nature, we bring all of that beauty, that immensity, that power back into our spirit until we see and we feel the true connection, the connection that is always truly just there.  Our true nature, as the Buddhists called it, or our soul in other words, is unchangeable and part of all that is. We connect with the healing energies through the heart into the deepest parts of ourselves and we simply release all judgement. We release judgment of  all others and of ourselves. And in that great releasing, we feel so much pain lift from within us.

I have been involved with helping many, many people in my lifetime, sometimes friends, sometimes family, sometimes complete strangers that were directed to the healing energies of my heart and my hands when they simply needed a friend to get through the challenging times of illness, loss, and their own transitions into another place in time and space until they were ready to leave this world and enter the next.



And I have learned to find the parts of those connections and to nurture their growth through love and through our connection with mother earth and all of nature.

We took long walks along the beautiful parks, bridges, and gardens in and around Salem, and an even longer time just gathered in my home and sharing multiple meals and barbeques with my own family as they come up from their homes in Salem and Eugene to share time with their uncle (and my other brother and his wife) and express not just their condolences, but their caring and support.

I know that we made a difference simply by keeping everyone busy and discovering new things to see and do in this world that are not always apparent when our spirits are in pain or feeling great loss or sadness.  By this sharing, and this doing, we create a place away from focusing on the pain, a way to transport ourselves above the body and its pain and into the mind-body-spirit world within.

 My brother had not been sure about traveling down here and staying with us for a week before returning to Alaska, even knowing that doctors and psychologists, ministers, deacons, and good friends had shared their own experiences with the gifts of my own healing heart.  But no one leaves my home without at least having a great deal of fun and feeling loved! And so, I encouraged, and desperate to feel something besides pain and loss, he allowed himself the healing gifts of grace.

 

I have learned from my own losses in life, that is good to let the negativity of those experiences out in healthy ways among people who love you, but even better to stay very busy  and finding ways to still find joy and sustainable happiness. 

Without fail, everyone who visits wanders out to my prayer flag garland. A garland that is added to bit by bit over time. An archway that has its little healing strips replaces once squirrels ...or birds... managed to pry the knots free and send the colorful bits and pieces off into the universe or up and into their own little nests.

video of our squirrel taking down my prayer flag strips

 
When our week was over,  I said adieu to my visiting family, and good luck to my own family. Two families to return to Alaska and their new ever-changing lives and  my own three sets of children and my husband, who is now hoping to climb and summit South Sisters, our third tallest mountain in Oregon at 10,000 ft. ..his own dream since his stroke in mid-April.

 

 

For even in the very darkest of times, we can still feel joy, still feel happiness, still understand the depths of lives well lived by our caring for others. We create our own bridge, our own archway, our path on the journey of transition from one self, one lifetime, into another. We take the first step of awareness and create an opening... and then we just take it the new journey... day by day, one little step at a time.

I look at my prayer arch garland (or any of my prayer filled creations)  and I think of all of the positive thoughts, the caring, and the prayers and I thank you all for your  kind thoughts, prayers, and comments over the past 10 months of my brother and his wife's journey from terminal cancer to what I believe with be an eventual place of grace and gratitude.  The transition is now beginning and it is a good thing and a good place to begin.

                                                         
                                                 

Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska. Sewing, quilting, and wildcrafting, with small format art quilts, prayer flags, and comfort quilts for a variety of charitable programs. And best of all, sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join her and make and donate quilts to charitable causes.   Help us change the world, one little quilt, art quilt, and prayer flag at a time!

Hood to Coast: 200 Mile Relay Race With My Pigasus

After the sad loss of my sister-in-law, Shelley to cancer just a few days ago, I can still look to the good things we do in our lives and applaud my son and his Salem neighborhood team of 12 who are running among the 1,250 teams and over 20,000 runners, along the two day and one night challenge for the almost 200 miles long "Hood to Coast" Relay Race to raise money for the American Cancer Society and Providence Hospital in Portland, Oregon.

Watch my son's team's Hood to Coast vimeo Video by Brian Watson of Sea Legs Media. He did an awesome job of capturing the spirit of 

Updated Saturday, August 23:

My son, Blake, is a member of his neighborhood team the "Highland Hood" and has been training after work and on weekends with group members for many months as well as doing his own individual workouts. 

Their team relay running shirt in black and green, shows the image of a "pigasus" and the motto in Latin: Ad astra per alas porci."

The symbol of a Pigasus was used by John Steinbeck as a personal stamp

or signature during book signings with the Latin motto:

"Ad astra per alas porci"

"To the stars on the wings of a pig."

The pigasus was supposed to symbolize Steinbeck as he saw himself  "earthbound but aspiring...

not enough wingspread..... but plenty of intention.

So, of course I quickly created a flying pig for him as a good luck gift.

                                            
Or at least a big "What in the world?"

Especially, because my wings look a lot more like a lotus flower so I'm thinking he is Buddhist or maybe Hindu..in any case, he takes away worries and brings in good energy and that was my goal!

As one team among 1,250, each with 12 members and 2 support vans, they will be awake for 36 hours, running 3 rotating shifts each of the 36 legs of the race, running day and and all night through the hills and valleys, cities and towns, farms and fields all along the the almost 200 mile journey from Timberline Lodge near Mt. Hood to the coastal town of Seaside, Oregon.

My Pigasus in now being worn by one of my son's Team of Twelves team members! Good for her and her sense of style and good for my son, he actually brought my pig to the races!!

And my son ran his first leg of the race (he was leg 6 and ran  53.48 on a 6.82. I have no idea what that means,  but I hope by telling us it means he did well and is feeling strong!

Only another long run in the night and again on Saturday. I bet all of the runners are dreaming of the finish line, photo below shows Seaside, Oregon finish arena site!!

 

The Hood to Coast Relay/ Run and Walk is a nationally recognized gargantuan relay race that has now grown to involve over 20,000 runners from all over the world.

Runners train in their individual countries, cities, towns and neighborhoods for the year before and then join with layered starting times and each team member running 5 miles at a time switching off with another member and on and on until all 199 miles have been completed.

They begin running on Friday, August 22 and run day and night until Saturday, August 23 until the closing time of 9:00 pm. Teams must finish within their own 32 hour relay time limit in order to qualify as finishers.

It will be a grueling and emotionally, as well as physically, challenging experience, but hopefully also inspiring and as each runner tests him/herself to the limits in order to not drop out and disqualify the team.

A team member can take your place if you completely have to drop out, but then they have to double the endurance running and only one of them, that next one in line, is allowed to do that!

"The Hood to Coast" (HTC) Race first began in 1982, when race founder, Bob Foote, needed a new challenge beyond his own records as a 35 time marathoner and 13 time ultra-marathon runner.T

That's when Bob came up with the idea of running from nearby Mount Hood, the backdrop for the City of Portland in which he lived, to another favorite weekend get-away - the beach!

The first Hood To Coast Relay took place, August 7, 1982 on a full moon, with 8 teams of 10 runners. Bob made simple spray paint marks on the road to indicate exact exchange points, and being an architect, this meant exactly every 5 miles.

This translated to one exchange point being in the middle of a very busy intersection in Portland! Changes were made for the second year and by then it had grown from 8 teams and 10 runners per team to 64 teams with 10 runners and it went wild from then on!

Supply and support vans and volunteer vehicles and onlookers line the route in parking lots, side roads, sidewalks and fields as they cheer the runners, many of them in assorted and often strange apparel, keeping their, and others spirits up along the often grueling not to mention exhausting race.

By the 90's celebrity runners like Alberto Salazar and Mary Decker-Slaney, set a whole 'nother level of competition and race times with their teams and it has just grown and grown since then.

Now, it has evolved into a race that increased to the current 199 miles and ends in Seaside not Pacific City, with teams growing in size to 12 members, in order to accommodate the extra mileage.

In 2007, seasoned filmmaker Christoph Baaden ran HOOD TO COAST for the first time with his producing partner (and wife) Anna – after that he was hooked.

The idea was not simply to document the race, but rather to experience an event of epic proportion through the eyes of the people crazy enough to do it.

  

After receiving official approval by the race organizers, filming began months before the race, eventually narrowing the cast of characters to four teams: The Novices, The Experts, The Survivor, and The Story of a Healing Family. 

Over 100 crew members worked in alternating shifts, covering 197 miles of Oregon wilderness with limited cell phone reception.

Each of the four main teams had their vans embedded with microphones and extra lighting, along with a field director, camera and sound operator who all traveled hidden in the trunk! 

In addition it took 16 more film crews, time-lapse cameras, cranes, and a helicopter – all strategically moving to capture the magic of the event.

So, by the 30th Anniversary of The Mother of All Relays! The ‘Hood To Coast’ movie was released for nationwide release to rave reviews and ever increasing national popularity as teams compete for entrance into the race.

Teams now come from all over the world to compete in this incredibly popular (and world's largest) relay race.

It is a gigantic endeavor for race managers, runners, and volunteers incorporating:

• 1,250 teams with 12 runners and 2 support vans each, to total well over 20,000 runners
•  4,100 volunteers
•  576 Honey Bucket porta-potties
•  20,400 runners and walkers from  35 countries and all 50 states represented.

Now, the race has raised over $5,400,000 to-date for the American Cancer Society.  And now, of course, the funding has also grown as has the number of everything else..especially volunteers and organizers. 

The 320 km (200 mi) Hood To Coast course consists of 36 legs; each team member runs three in rotation. The course is run primarily on paved asphalt roads and paved asphalt or concrete multi-use off-street paths, with small portions of the course on sidewalks and gravel roads.

The legs vary in length from 5.4 km (3.4 mi) to 12.5 km (7.8 mi); some legs are virtually flat, and others descend and/or ascend steep hills. Consequently, a runner may total between 21.9 km (13.6 mi) and 31.7 km (19.7 mi).

Teams in the full Hood To Coast relay must complete the course within a 32-hour time limit (averaging under 5:50 per kilometer or 9:30 per mile).

Teams start on Friday, August 22nd, between 6:00 a.m. and 6:45 p.m. in staggered waves of approximately 20 teams every 15 minutes. Teams are seeded based on previous race pace times.

Thus the flow of teams through the 36 exchange points and finish line remains relatively smooth, with all teams finishing the race by the closing time of 9 p.m. on Saturday.

The course starts at Timberline Lodge at the 6,000-foot (1,800 m) level of  Mount Hood, and proceeds down Timberline Road to Government Camp and drops 2,000 feet (610 m) in elevation over about 6 miles (9.7 km); the next two legs from Government Camp to Rhododendron, Oregon, have a combined elevation drop of 2,300 feet (700 m) over about 10 miles (16 km).

It is the ups and downs that make this such a grueling race, as well as the sheer length of it and the severe sleep deprivation, with runners often battling pain and testing their own physical and emotional limits along the way.

Runners proceed west along US Route 26, to the towns of  Sandy and Gresham, where the route proceeds along the Springwater Corridor trail to the Sellwood neighborhood in southeast Portland and then proceeds north along the paved Springwater/Willamette River trail and crosses the Hawthorne Bridge west into downtown Portland.

After crossing the Hawthorne Bridge, runners proceed north along Naito Parkway in downtown Portland along the west bank of the Willamette River and onto US Route 30 to St. Helens through hilly rural and sometimes unpaved backroads throurgh communities along the coastal route all the way to the beautifully scenic coastal town of Seaside, Oregon.

So Cheers for my son and his team's running the" Hood to Coast" and cheers to my brother, for choosing to come on down and let us give him a big hug of understanding and support this Saturday, race day #2 as he stays for a whole week, putting up with crazy sister who never sleeps.

And then more support in another three days, when my middle brother and his wife come down to join us for the rest  of the week of supportive family time.  We are having our own support team relay of sorts.

Judging from these runner's googled images, chances may be slim that my son will actually bring the pig, but it was the making of it that was my fun and good wishes  :-)

I noticed that in the blue pack, one runner even put in a pillow thinking he could actually sleep in a van with 11 other runners, and all of their support people and gear for 14 people!!!

So, my son may not be able to fit in a pig much less want to use it's hand puppet abilities to entertain others while going without sleep. Nope, that's the kind of thing that only I might do!

Updated: The apple doesn't fall from the tree! He brought my pig to the races! I don't know the team member wearing it on her hat, but I like her already!!!

 

  

Think good thoughts and give out a cheer and send it the 20,000 runners of the Hood to Coast Relay Race and to Salem, Oregon. where I'll feel it and may even hear it!!

Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska. Sewing, quilting, and wildcrafting, with small format art quilts, prayer flags, and comfort quilts for a variety of charitable programs. And best of all, sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join her and make and donate quilts to charitable causes.   Help us change the world, one little quilt, art quilt, and prayer flag at a time!

In the Jungle

In a month of celebrating transitions, in a time of great change for so many members of my family, my focus has been on going with the flow, doing what needs to be done, and enjoying every minute of it.... no matter how challenging any single thing might seem, or feel at the time.

Even in this time of great change, in constant adding and subtracting of plans and activities, I can see and find solace in the quiet times, and in those secret places of the heart that give me my greatest happiness.

One day, I am beginning an art quilt for my nephew and his new bride-to-be. Another day, I am on the phone with my SIL, Rebecca, as she tells me that my brother Doug, has been readmitted for the third time this year for constant health issues, the next week, he is out of the hospital and he is calling to tell me that now it is Becky that has been admitted to ICU with the problems that plaque her end stage kidney failure....this time she has the pneumonia and the bacterial infection has entered her bloodstream.

Then the very next day, I get an email from my youngest brother, telling me that his wife, Shelley, is no longer finding any hope or help from the last of the experimental chemo drugs for her own end stage lung cancer. They are making plans for her 'medical retirement' and a the possibility of renting a motorhome 'in the States' so she can spend as much time with her young grandchildren as possible.

Another day, I offer to recover my son and his wife's patio set, knowing that I won't have a pattern as I don't have the industrial sewing machine that allows you to sew finished edges from the outside in and that with my severe sleep deprivation and lack of spatial skills, it will be a challenge, I still volunteer and somehow do it!  And my tuxedo'd and multiple toed grand cat, Johnny, loved it as well as his five-second wild fleece simply fringed cat lovie! 

 
Then, I learn of the birth of a new little one born, and the upcoming birth of another little one to sons of our dear friends since the late 60's.  Two teens, now young men who grew up without their mother, or their 12 year old sister.  Their mother, my best friend since college, and her daughter,  my younger daughter's best friend, both killed in a terrible car accident in 1997. Never to learn of these little ones or experience the joy of welcoming them into their family. Never to be a grandmother, never to be an aunt, or a bride, or wife or a mother, herself. A loss that now still hurts as we continue to live next door to the house they once built next to us in 1978.

So, of course I made those sons, those brothers, these now young men with children... new baby quilts. Somehow, you just get it all done. You might not take photos of the process. You might not even remember you did it. But you just do it. So, recovered patio set for my children, a quick fuzzy lovie for my grandcat, and two tiny quilts to welcome new little ones into this world.
 

I look down the bridgeway of my lofted sewing area, I see these projects, and my wedding gift art quilt on the wall as I take its photo before packing it up and giving them all away. And they all make me so very happy.

The next day, my younger daughter and her husband of one year, are telling me that he has been offered a job change and they have two weeks to put their house on the market, quit their current jobs and look at relocating to another city without anywhere to live or place to store their belongings. So, of course, I volunteer us, our house, our limited but still available space in our garage for storage, for temporary living for them, for anything we can do to help.

And yes, it took me an entire day to clean just a small spot in the garage for furniture, hoping against hope I can still keep my Prius's spot empty and clear..since we got her a year ago, it was the first time in 20 years that I'd been able to massively clean out the garage back then to fit her in!!!!



Then, yesterday, I drive south, I help pack up belongings and cram them into the Prius.

 I lack the strength I once had, but I still carry and fit, up and down stairs, in and out of her darling little 700 sq.ft. house,  and fit even more, and more...and I'm thinking how did she fit all of this and keep her house so clean and cute..when I hardly took any of the stuff that was in there!...
and even with my strange lack of spatial reasoning, I still find my way there to her house, and then back again to mine.

Ok, so the Prius has a gps ;-) It still has a gps-y for a driver who likes to take wrong turns when she confuses left from right!   And yes, my little car's Gypsy, told me to turn left, and I still got in the right turn only lane!  But I am so grateful, that I, the car, the belonging all made it safely home.   I couldn't see out the back or side windows, I couldn't use the rear view mirror, and somehow my guardian angels surrounded me and I didn't cause any accidents or end up in Oregon City instead of Salem...(don't ask)   Ok, so one, only one, semi truck driver hit his horn at me. But since I don't know why, maybe I didn't do anything wrong, at least not that I know of!

Yes, it was an incredibly busy month, week, day, year. But they all are!  And it is in the creation, in the knowing that you can do it, that the greatest strength, the greatest power, all of the doing and the being, lies.

The bright beginning of young love and new lives as paralleled by longer loves and older lives and if you are me, you look for the hidden meaning in all of this. All of this busyness, all of these trials and tribulations of life. But also, all of the wonder, the beauty, the growth, and the grace of every single day of life.

You know that there are thing you can do to help others. And you learn that as much as you do, as much as you give, as much of your love and your heart that you share..there are still so many more things that you can't change, can't help, can't create all of the miracles that you wish you could.

So, how appropriate, that as I was creating an art quilt for the young family in the process of being married, that I would find myself designing a quilt where you look at the busy energy and symbolism of actually getting married at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma, Washington and see how fitting that truly was for the energies of this month.

In spite of everything, life and love not only prevail but as time marches on, so does the very foundation of our beliefs and our hopes and our dreams for a new and better day. You say, 'yes, I can.' 'yes, I will' with the defiance of hope and youth, or the experience of strength that comes with age. And you just plain do it.  You just "let the sunshine, let the sunshine, let the sun shine"  in!

As I stated this quilt I knew I wanted it to reflect not only their wedding in a beautiful area of the zoo with a lovely plaza overlooking lush greenery, beautiful flowers and the serene beauty of Puget Sound beyond and below, but also the very richness of young love and new beginnings.

The magic of symbolism and the "hidden pictures" just evolved as I went along. While I can sketch, draw, and even paint if need be, I like the spontaneity of just cutting and sewing randomly so much more. And that is simply how I create my art quilts.

A huge whirlwind of flying fabrics, snapping scissors and lifting up and down of pieces as I quickly, try this and that until I am happy with where it is at. I don't take time to take very many photos because it is not that beautiful, meditative, and  contemplative process that so many quilters use.

No, this is when my hyper creativity of being in a flash flow strikes. Woosh, I'm in and running with scissors, glue stick and sewing machine to the finish line of fun!

My energy is wholly intuitive, and from the gut. Snip, snip, place, place, barely pin and sew like crazy before I forget what I wanted to create!  And when I am done, I sit back and then I say, 'hmm? what else?' And then I added the extras...the 3D prayers flags up at the top and the arrangement of hidden stars in the night sky.

And yes, I have been driving hither and yon, packing up household goods and cleaning out my own garage to hold as much stuff of theirs as I can. I have been calling my brothers, and my SILs and telling them I love them, and offering long distance hope and healing energies the best that I can.

I have taken in two foster chickens, Pia and Ping, two beautiful Brahmas with their sweet Indian names,  from my youngest daughter. I'm trying not to consider them (just yet) permanent additions out of necessity to my own feathered flock, and considering the possibility of getting my house ready to fit in additional house guests from Alaska, for a week and maybe even temporary residence for those in transition for a bit longer than that.

I juggle the introductions into small chicken coop of these new girls to my three littles..Edith, Dorothy, and Little Nell..who are not so little any more...and my two older girls, Matilda and Penelope...

I drive to West Salem, where my husband and son are building a new home for a wonderful family in an area named 'Hopewell' and I feel the deep meaning of that name. Hope well. So lovely, so meaning filled.

I visit that new construction with my husband, doing my best to support his hard work since his stroke in April. I look out at this lucky family's beautiful view... at the patterns in nature and created by man. And I see that beauty.

The beauty of the simple old things..this taken from an old barn..a winch, a pulley, something in an old barn that my husband and son are transforming into a vintage light fixture, along with modern 'mason jar' lights, into a dining area chandelier for their everything new is old again farm house up on the hills of Hopewell.

We drive to Philomath, another hour or more to the South of us, to the other new home under construction. I see it for the first time, and as I look out its window...way up high on another hill, in another place in space and time...more beauty...

This house in a residential neighborhood, not vineyards and hillsides.  But still massively extensive in its far reaching views and beauty. And even if our little business is small, even if we can't seem to make very much money no matter how hard everyone works. We still do so much good, and create so much beauty. Houses that are so green, so efficient that many of them others can't believe we can even do. But we (they) do.  Hard, hard work, but great emotional and personal rewards from the time and the effort and the joy we help create for others.

I hung my completed art quilt on the wall to take its picture, then,  I wrapped it in recycled tissue and a reusable gift bag made of recycled materials with my own homemade paper card, adding prose poem about their love and direction, and brought it to the wonderful wedding in Tacoma and our own few days of great fun.

The only vacation we get other than camping or hiking or simple pleasures and joys of chickens, cats, and free time quilting, crafting or gardening....or better yet..resting up from them...at home.

All of this driving, hither and yon, and now, today...emptying my car from packing it up yesterday, every single cranny, over..above, under, and inside of each space....and now the filling up my once clean garage to the brim with household belongings...well, I also take a deep sigh of contentment.

Part of me can't believe I've done this much from July into August. Part of me can't even remember doing it ;-)  But all of me as I  go out in the yard with my expanded gang of seven and watched as they all scurried around to circle me, all of me....still feels so content, and so very happy. And I am grateful to have these moments of joy in times that I know will be challenging.


Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska. Sewing, quilting, and wildcrafting, with small format art quilts, prayer flags, and comfort quilts for a variety of charitable programs. And best of all, sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join her and make and donate quilts to charitable causes.   Help us change the world, one little quilt, art quilt, and prayer flag at a time!