Truth Tears

Woke up again today with a face wet from tears.  Its been an uneventful slow release I suppose - like a swimming pool in its last season, finally disassembled, the water long syphoned but some spills still.

The dream had me in yet a different house with a different version of you.  The mask was a slight of face, as disguises go, but in the frivolity of the party - the voice and the eyes remained; giving you away.

I was pleading for love from you.  The proverbial party had ended and the lights had come on. Shadows bled back in and the results were garish.  Why did it have to end? I had carried versions of you in my belly, infinitely making you more in the fabric of eternity - the greatest gift I could bestow upon one.  I used to look at you sideways teeming with love and desire - a sultry eddy during the long August heat.  It had gone as quickly as it had come - a flash flood that left me barren, cracked and slacked in the sun.

I was begging.

The last episode like this was gauzy and light, an original exoneration of faith and forgiveness. This one is heavy,  like watching the dirt being shoveled over the casket.  But it's just as important, so that would be the faith I suppose, the process of letting this all go.

Time doesn't mend, not really. Time sorts, organizes, archives.  And I've come to realize we never keep time, no, it is time that keeps us - then we are up for soul parole.

Our experience was one.  Our experiences were so personal that we became strangers.  Perhaps it visits you?  Somewhere in me I like to think you, too, wake up wet faced, but I know the Truth.  You push it aside to survive - I invite it in for tea.  Our minds were never going to meet with that one.

And therein lies my one true love - my cursed blessing...Truth.

Ancient Epochs led me here.  The journey an accelerated yet tiresome one with dark rest stops along its path.   A Repetitive Redemptive, Renewing.  This is not the human experience - take it down a notch - this is your experience.  Connected yet Individualized so much so that you are a bird over the vast sea seeking land.

Truth seekers understand the carrion of flesh, the degeneration of the temporary ground.  Truth is the fodder that brings us home to ourselves and the Void.  We are the Star Warriors.  Truth is our sword, our wound, our birth, our burial.

Ahh  I see.  Truth Tears.  That's what they were - I knew I'd come upon the answer.  Toxins out - Peace within.  Your vessel has its intelligence.  Trust its Truth.  Sometimes there is no why, there is only acceptance.

Conquer by continuing.
Namaste

Momentum

mo·men·tum

mōˈmen(t)əm,məˈmen(t)əm/

noun

1. 1.

   PHYSICS

   the quantity of motion of a moving body, measured as a product of its mass and velocity.
2. 2.

   the impetus gained by a moving object.

   "the vehicle gained momentum as the road dipped"

In my life it has been a constant effort, a consistent monitoring of thought to reel myself in from the efforts of worry.  Many journals ago my time span became shorter.  My vision from being a married secure woman went from 'Where we will be in 10, 20 years?' to Where am I right now? And are we OK right now in this moment?  It has been an adjustment for someone who always had (at the very least) a 5 year plan...

I remember writing very late one evening as my thoughts were rolling like a freight train 'Focus on right now - this is all we have.  Right now.'  I was worried about when my children got older, when I would find work that paid enough, when I would find love, companionship, or at the very least a satisfying physical connection.  I was trading the days peace for a future no one could guess.  So I made it shorter; where did I want to be in a week, a month, and maybe a year.  Time will always pass and I've found to fully be present in the moment is a gift and to work in the moment, toward what you believe a goal is, truly creates momentum.  

The past few months I was without momentum, I was floating; drifting.  I was planning when I should have been dreaming.  My mind has always been my greatest gift - and without dreaming there can be no vision, and without vision there can be no planning and without planning there can be no realization.

If this seems like a contradiction - it is.  Although I have goals, I am attempting to have them in the absence of worry.  Worry will rob you like a thief that leaves no trace until you realize what was taken. Stress steals productive energy that could create the life you want, the world you need, the lover you desire.  I have been training myself that I cannot know peace without stress and worry - but I must simply observe these things like a fire, yet feed them no fodder. For when fed they grow into terrible beasts.

Rumi once wrote 'Yesterday I was clever; I wanted to change the world.  Today I am wise, I want to change myself.'   Like a garden that needs tilling so the weeds don't dominate, I find my mind needs pruning, weeding, watering - and consistent effort.  And only then can I move forward.  

Today I scrubbed my floor on my hands and knees because it needed it and that resulted in a clean floor, which resulted in clean wood cabinets, which resulted in a clean room ready for major changes.  Such is the physical that leads to the mental in even exchange.  I feel a great readying.  Out with the old, in with the new.  

I am ready.  The mind is a constant effort and surpasses all of space and time, or perhaps it is all of space and time - perhaps there is no separation of such and that is the true enlightenment.  

Balance to you

Namaste

Not That Girl Anymore

You've much going on and it's wonderful, but you do not get to toss frustration and exasperation around like rag dolls.  If your schedule is full that is no one's doing but your own.  Embrace it however you like, but know the child in me won't become quite, wont hide from your inconsistency.  I stand in balance.  I do not need to be spectator to you imbalance.  I used to be that girl that thought she was deserving of such witness.  I'm not that girl anymore.

You do not get the opportunity to speak to me with forked tongue, acidic words, and false smiles then ask me to join you in social graces, non-accountability,  and niceties as though I am to absorb what did not take place.  I'm not that girl anymore.  I used to be but realized I had a choice; it is again I choose, I'm not that girl anymore.

I sweated and prayed and blocked off time at 2AM to fill my brain, to gut my soul my heart with learning - to have an achievement that I could call mine.  Everyday I carry that deep inside and view it on my wall in my soul's sanctuary.   All my cells bright with photons of that light. Seconds, minutes, hours of life for anything less than what I deserve is a desrespect to self.  I'm not that girl that cannot palpate her worth anymore.  I wear it, I own it, I honor it, I drink it at every dawn and spew ink.  I used to be that girl; the one that traded her time with the Universe, the lakes, the trees, sun and moonlight for pennies.  I'm not that girl anymore.

I am not a being of smoke and mirrors.  I am authentic, organic and true.  My peace is not linked - it does not come from outside of me, it isn't achieved by proxy to anyplace, anything, anyone.  Not anymore, not ever again, that girl is gone.  She's just not with us anymore.

Like a piece of rough silver incarnate, the Universe polishes me.  God holds me up to the light - my face is not yet revealed but the shadows are more defined with every lesson, every challenge.  You were part of this cosmic alchemy, and for that I can call you nothing but friend and say nothing but thank you.  Peace to you on your journey.

Namaste

Metaphor Dreaming...

4/09/16 - 04:05AM

I woke up with a bubble of crying in my voice.  I was so bewildered that I grabbed my notebook and began to write the entire dream as I remembered - then I went back and filled in the explanations to make it readable to a mind other than my own.  What follows is the most reduced version of self and the need to study and attempt to understand my mind - the matter above the matter.  Sometimes it's maddening - sometimes I'm a simple observer to my own existence just trying to see myself, not in the eyes of now, but in the eyes of what has always been and what will always be while surrendering to the now...

Can you dream in a metaphor?  I believe I just did...

My Godmother Marguerite's house.  This is the house that has held everyone I have ever truly loved without question without provocation.  It was empty and white and hollow - readying for a transfer of ownership - but the ghosts were all there; those dead, those alive.


Cut to my marital home - the one I strove to mimic my Godmother's - complete with yard, lavish parties, orchestrated holidays.  My room was at the top of the stairs - my boys were young, very young and playing outside in the sun - it streamed through my window. then dusk seemed to come suddenly throwing shadows everywhere and my ex-husband (Bill) was walking up the stairs with my Godfather Bill.  They were laughing but only my ex-husband came into the room.  He was there to pick up the boys and we had reached a polite stage of communication - as if we were simple acquaintances and hadn't cosmically collided at any point creating two human beings and enmeshing our lives for a spell in the story of eternity.  We had become strangers - but there was always an unspoken horror between us post divorce.

We had tried a few times to right things - days before the gavel fell and for about a year after -living separately.  It had been an endless game of cat and mouse; when he wanted to reconcile I would resist - bypassing the urge, knowing I loved him but not being able to trust him.  And then I had moments when I wanted to run back to the safety I thought he was, but I would wait it out.  I believe it was the same for him.  At any time we could've fallen back into those patterns- life grooves from a dull needle on a very worn record, and the unspoken horror could've taken up residence in the marriage.

"I wanted to talk to you" I said.

"About what Chris? Marriage?" he laughed 'you want to get remarried?' he chuckled with that small boyish look that begged 'don't reject me,'  'don't leave me like my mother did'... but I had already had, hadn't I?

But it was that little boy look that got me every time.  The hurt little boy that grew into the hurt man - that little boy I see in my own little boys, rejected by his mother and as a result he would preemptively, unconsciously, make certain he would always have an out in any relationship.  He would make certain he fucked them up first - whether the women knew it or not.  And when they did find out (because a pattern is a pattern) he really wasn't that surprised and somehow able to remain solid and table each marriage, each relationship as an acquaintance that never truly got all that close anyway.

In my dream I consciously said 'No, but I am getting married.'  I let that sink in.  He closed his eyes like one that had been dealt a death blow - like someone or something they truly loved just ceased to exist.  On his closed thin eyelids in the shadows of blues from dusk I witnessed all the pain he had lived, he had caused, he had carried - all in one moment.  It was overwhelming, even for someone with a hard heart, such as I had cultured.  So I verbally stumbled on...

"I met someone, I knew him when I was younger - he lives in Oregon and is in conservation engineering, (In my dream this registered true - though in conscious life it is not) 'You know I love that stuff (In dream registered true) He has a little boy (In dream registered true) Our boys will be the big brothers - they love him, it's an easy fit, we are leaving next week.

He looked at me and smiled defeat.  'Well then there's no competition Chris.  I can't compete with that."

"You see' I said 'that's the problem.  He's a great guy ( I was holding a pic of him in my hand) and I do care for him deeply..but...when I tell him I love him it doesn't ring true.  Not really.  It's true that I love him, but not with the depth, the ALL that I loved you with - that I still love you with, that I will ALWAYS love you with.'  He hugged me and I broke a bit.  And in my dream I only saw my own face streaming with tears.  "I loved you so much.  Why did you hurt me?  I still love you but I can't be with you  - yet I want to be sometimes.  This guy deserves someone who loves him like that - someone that can say it with their ALL.  I can't say those words to him, I never will be able to because there is still you.  I miss you.  I miss you so much sometimes - the dumb shit we used to do.  Even if on your side it wasn't ever real - but for me it was!  It was REAL. Regret gathered in my soul with the deafening roar of acceptance.

Then I was standing in my Godmothers kitchen.  It was large and white - a big galley.  I was buying it, or she was giving it to me.  But it was empty.  So very empty.  And so white, and it was just me there all alone.  I thought of all the people I loved that it had held.  The parties, the gatherings, the dinners.  You can never re-create that.  It's not a set.

Your moments must be organic connections - real - spontaneous - and maybe you only get them for a little while.  Maybe true love is like serotonin - when over fired it can deplete, but you're human. You're always gonna chase it but you know it's never as good as the first time.  It's never as good as the real love and moments, and the trickery is you don't always know what the real moments are  until you have a 'set' of engineered ones to compare them with.

There in lies the wistful truth, yes? The knowing. The terror of the knowing.

Best to believe every moment has the potential to be THE moment; the moment of love, of honesty, of truth, of happiness.  Don't worry about the hard moments so much. Believe me, you'll rack those up - but remember that your cosmic DNA dictates that you survive - that you walk exposed, get sliced, bleed, and repair.

Make the choice.  Choose to remain open.  Great hurt is only known while standing next to excruciating JOY.  Great Forgiveness is only achieved when you acknowledge regret and begin the practice of forgiveness within your own heart.

The beauty is not over until it is,  and even then you may not realize your life as the truly magnificent celestial breath that it was.  SO BELIEVE IT IS NOW.

Great Sadness and fear can strike at anytime but if you should find yourself in the throes of it KNOW WITH EVERY FIBER OF YOUR BEING GREAT JOY AND LOVE CAN STRIKE ANYTIME AS WELL. You can never truly know one without the other.  So cry. And wait. And pray the hard stuff down because the good stuff can't be far from you.  Its a balance through the Epochs - through the seed of the dream that everything began with.

I looked a the galley kitchen that was to be mine.  I saw the keys in my little girl hands and put them on the counter.  I took a slow last look, heard the echoes that once were and the stillness that is now.  I turned to the arch way that lead to the door where the sun was so bright I may've been walking into the sky.

Some things we should never see as empty.

Today is here
Namaste

Sacred Spaces

I've been under the weather for about a week now.  Heaviness in the chest, coughing uncontrollably and a low grade fever.  After the initial 'flat on my back' rest I began to climb the walls.  I think I've read 5 books total.  A mind forced down is a chaotic neighborhood for sure.

I dug out some old writing that I did about 3 years ago (much of it on a graveyard shift at a job I no longer work) and I have to say it was like seeing an old friend.  It was a practice in meditation - creating a vision of something, based on nowhere I had ever been - truly creative.  It was a work of solitude both in writing it and the character it reflected.  It could've been considered sexual in some areas but it was tasteful, or at least that's how I reflected upon it.  I also pulled out old journals and read about when I went back to school and all of the hope in which that time frame contained, and it made me smile.  Memories, dreams, and fears in ink.  My favorite.

I seem to be in a holding pattern and beginning to wake up a bit more like me.  Damn you time change - you man made parameter that disrupts my primal clock.  4:30 seems to be the current wake time in that simmering pre dawn hint.  I wake and because of my congestion I pad downstairs to make a cup of very strong Irish Breakfast tea, I feed the animals (more than I'd like to admit right now - well, who am I kidding? we are keeping every animal in this house) and then I take refuge in my room,  It has become my space in that last 2 months and everything in it reflects that from the photos of my boys and kayak photos to the Himalayan salt shards, to lush plants,

to my degrees, to the art I've dabbled with (the site DeviantArt has become an obsession), to hanging scarves, to the hidden poster  (The Walking Dead) nabbed at a Walker Stalker convention after kicking myself for not buying it at Comic-Con the year before (Oh yeah I'm one of those),  It's hidden because when I sit in my chair in the corner the poster is hung on the side of the armoire - so only I can see it.  I love the iconic image - everything went to hell and the only sounds;  a man's thoughts, hopes, and horse hooves.  Yes, yes, and yes.

To the weird thrift jewelry that takes turns on my walls, and let's not forget my totem/spirit animal (fox) which is everywhere.

It's a lovely place and I find the felines under my care prefer this room over all others in this large townhouse.  The windows are always open, at least a crack, I despise stale air and would rather have a cold front come in than settle for stagnant breathing.  The wind sounded like a tide in the dark early this morning and there are snowflakes now dancing in the sun.  My tiny wind chime hangs between the windows that face the swamp and they hang from one of my mothers old rosary beads, the crucifix long lost. The crystal on the end splays bits of concentrated light around the dark walls making the cats stare in wonder.

Another thing I have noticed is that I have relaxed significantly into this space.  I think it has to do with a shift I had regarding the temporary view I've held of my home.  It was spawned of fear.

When you are afraid (or at least when I am) of losing something you tend to disassociate from it a bit. I believe that's what I did for a while.  Money was so tight and I was running with fear that I was afraid to truly love this space or commit to it on an energetic level.  I don't really know what happened, I mean money is still tight and a constant pain in the ass balance sheet in my head, but I've leaned into where I am.  I've owned the place for 11 years now.  Odd, I know, but that's the way it went and once I decided to do what I liked with it as opposed to what I thought it should look like (which is exactly what my magazine worthy marital home was - I see old pics and think it was lovely about as lovely as a nice funeral home) I began to achieve a level of comfort.  I'm a gypsy at heart, a Boho chick by way of druid forest kind of girl, more at home out of a house than in one.

But I finally feel at home.  Oh believe me, I've had different love for this place but never this level of Inner comfort.  It's quite surprising and lovely.  I'm still restless inside, still working for things, still walking through fear most days with my sword  - I don't think that will ever leave me.  So somewhere in the middle, for a few hours here and there, I relax.

This morning found me up, writing, then settling in with my laptop.  I dabbled with my Youtube video subscriptions - Brothers Green Eats, Tiny Home Giant Journey, Relax Shacks, Seeker Stories, River Cottage, Ana White, Exploring Alternatives, Kirsten Dirksen, Peak Moment and Cold Antler - just to name a few.  I have a long day ahead of me as a few things got pushed off until I felt better.  But this morning I had a sacred time, alone with the break of day - cloistered in a space that cradled me - I wish the same for you.

Sacred Spaces
Namaste

Someone's looking out for you

So last year I amended my taxes because I didn't want the fight.  The ex is in a constant state of threats.  I had (rightfully) claimed the boys and he flipped.  Without going into too much detail - remember it IS in my best interest that he remains fiscally healthy - I 'gave' him the deduction for two years at an overall cost of 6k to me.  But something strange happened last year when I did that, when I just leaned into it...

Picture this I'm sitting in the accountant's office; overworked, overtired, overdone.  I had the thousand mile stare of one who had become numb to combat,  a warrior who knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would have won that battle, but a I was a little girl with a red haired pony tail that just desperately needed a hot bath and a nap that lasted a week.  Fight? I just didn't want it.  It didn't matter that I was right.  It didn't matter that I could take it to the mat.  It just didn't matter.  So I give him the 2 years, not for him,  For me.

I wanted peace.  I wanted a clean sheet of paper.  So I amended the taxes and left that office smiling - because in that instance the pen was indeed mightier than the sword, mightier than the court room, mightier than the judges gavel slap.  I smiled the whole way home.  I cringed a bit every month for the past year when I made the monthly payment, knowing it wouldn't be paid off in that year, it would only be dented.  My friends called me crazy, my accountant shook her head but understood.  And a year when by...

Today I did my taxes and (rightfully) claimed the boys.  He knew I would.  He knew I had to.  He knew there was only so far that I could be pushed until I had enough rest and adjusted the shield for battle.  There was $ coming back for this single mom and I told the accountant to square me up with the IRS and whatever was left over, I'd take the boys to dinner.  I'm squared up, and once again I left the accountants smiling.  I felt like a grownup which rarely happens.  I mean, let's face it, I run this entire beautiful shit show - but sometimes it feels like I'm just wingin it.  And as I open up and talk to everyone else, well, so are they.

We all have to adhere to the code that is correct for us.  What good is the fight when my precious life energy is needed in so many other ways?  What good is it to win when it parts you with endless photons of energy that scatter like snow when a car flies by?  I need to be ok with me - and if that goes against the norm, or what people think I should do - so be it.  I'm done asking for permission to live my life.  I'm finished adhering to some mysterious set of terms in regards to what we 'should' do, or what they 'would' do.  No one knows that crap for sure unless they've spent the entire amount of time I've been on this earth in my shoes.  I do what I do based on how the ship is balanced at the time - whether I sit in a typhoon or calm waters.  It's my shit show and it's beautiful because its mine.

I'm neither too old or too young, too smart or too dumb, I can be rich and broke at the same time - depending on what we are discussing, but I'll tell you what I always am; equipped, provided for, filled with faith, love and wonder and above all hope.  Here's to a poker game that never ends, dice that always roll, a sun that always rises, and a moon that shares my tears and fears with no one.  This is my life and I'm on it like a bonnet.

When my accountant told me today that my return equaled almost to the penny TO THE PENNY what I owed,  I shook my head and asked "How is that even possible?"

She put her pen up over her head and said "My dear, someone is obviously looking out for you!"

I think she's correct.  I know she is.

Follow your compass and things fall right as rain.

Happy Returns

Namaste

Calling

Image from Baldwingypsycaravan.com

I’ve taken a few months off of blogging.  Stupid busy I’ve been in an effort to salvage.  Dreams have been swirling; epic and constant – Jungian myth style; Floods, Reflections, Regret, Redemption.  The moon is out there somewhere and I need some time with her. 

So what have I been up to?

My anthropology group has been kept up with and provides excellent fodder for the human condition.  I’ve been graced with the company of a modern day Coven of Witches, I have both taken and passed Reiki Healing One, Deepened my understanding of mediation and the practice of it, soaked up energy at a Buddhist temple, read more than any normal person I know (mind you I don’t know many) and read most of it at the ‘3AM spirit hour’, Discovered that my spirit/totem/guide animal is The fox, Kayaked late into December in some idiotic frigid conditions and just returned to my liquid space this past week, I’m in serious talks with a charter school that is mapping a way for me to teach (finally), I am finding myself in quick sands of fear as I am currently working 3 jobs in an effort to keep the werewolves from the door, I’m in deep recognition of resentment and all its pitfalls.  All in all things are good. 

But I desperately miss writing – on a level I can barely comprehend; the craft of it, the cadence of it, the creation of it, the sin of it, its chaos, its order, its demands, and the shadows it brings to my being.    I have visions of it and fantasies of it.  

Case in point –in my mind’s eye I sit in a gypsy vardo wagon at dawn, solid in that gauzy light between the morning and eternity.  I smell the nubbled wood around me, acrid and dry from its last oiling.  I’m in a field of ancient apple trees long gone to crab.  They are twisted and tortured and knowing trees; the spirits of mist lay low at their bases.  There are white blossoms slowly drifting to the unseen ground here and there.  I wear a loose wool blanket and am skin underneath.  A small slut stove burns with true light and heat, a simple pot boils water for tea.  I have a loose large book of parchment spread before me; words and dribbles of ink.  I have written of a witch at the base of a mountain that plucks the rain from the clouds and feeds a fertile valley below.  Each month the stone witch captures the moon in the dark waters of a wooden bucket and intends things.  Though the apple trees bloom, time here is different and cold weather will come. I ponder if I will finish the story but I both hope and fear it will never see an ending and I’ll have to burn it all so as not to freeze when the snow makes its way back…

Oh but if I could exist awake all the time, I’ve so much to do and far too many responsibilities.  And I work too goddam much.  In the coming months I will be culling things that no longer feed my essence. 

My gypsy wagon is out there somewhere, but for now I carry it inside, I'll find it one day.  

I must believe that.  

Namaste