Oil on Water

Many things are going on right now under my roof.  Much shifting and movement and this most recent full moon had me only mumbling thanks and gratitude...not much of a draw down there.  I can't get to myself.

I've locked myself so far away into my body vessel that I no longer feel integrated, it's more...compartments.  I know enough about myself to understand that this happens as a result of a spike in depression or an undercurrent of stress that isn't being dealt with.

The other day a friend of mind had me in touch with myself on a physical level and it was like being splashed with cold water.  I also find pockets of this when I am in the 'moment' of walking my sons' magnificent dog through the woods, or paddling a deserted lake on my kayak.  I am fully aware that I need to do more of these things to unlock myself.  It's like trigger finger - but the entire being.

Knowing what to do and actually doing it in terms of self care are two very distant concepts right now.

So why the stale mate?  Answer, unknown.  All I can imagine is that the eternal me is trying to give ballast to my vessel.  Nothing feels solid; not me, nor those around me, not where I live, not my education or belief system...not the car I drive or even the cup of coffee I purchased this AM.

Honestly, what is most disturbing, is when these feelings have cropped up in the past, I've been able to triage, diagnose, and treat accordingly.  I'm leaving way too many options open when I really just want to nail doors shut.

There are things I want to do in my life, things I need to implement, want to implement, know to implement and yet I'm not willing to come out of my hiding spot yet...so I keep counting...ready or not here I come....but I won't find me on this round....count again.

If I had to liken it to something it would be like attending a huge buffet where everything looks delicious and you know you require sustenance - but on a subconscious level; you choose hunger.

My soul is starving and I'm plowing wheat back to seed.

I do what needs to be done.  I wake up everyday without fail and I get ready, grab a lunch I made the night before, put on clothes I've laid out on Sunday (yes, I lay my clothes out for the week), I never question the gas in my care (it never goes below half a tank).  I no longer question my bank account as it sits with a reserve.  I know where my adult grandchildren are, know the pets are fed, the bills paid on time, the bathroom left as I found it.  I have become Maquina (Spanish for machine) and frankly....I am bored out of my fucking mind.

When on earth did I become so task oriented? And as I write this I realize the auto pilot of tasks needs to be balanced with the moment.  For me tasks are tasks because although they are performed 'in the moment' they really only serve the future...like the paving stones of what you Need to do, not necessarily what your soul Needs or what You Want.  But perhaps the tasks are freeing up the brain power for the creativity that is roiling your insides - threatening to make you sick lest you let it out.

A few years ago I was out of control/yet bored - sort of in the same spot.

I had a very nice, very classy, very expensive care break down on a back road in Wantage.  I'm prone to taking odd roads on a whim, especially when the music is good - it's always represented a mile covert form of freedom for me.  So the car breaks down.  Dead.  I sit there in that moment of Oh My God...NO.  I stepped out of the care and didn't bother to pop the hood because I would've had not clue what I was looking at anyway.

I remember the sound of the crunch my shoes made on the oil and stone road, the dust had settled almost immediately as there was only a slight breeze.  I heard myself sigh.

I HEARD MYSELF.

There was a low bellow coming from a pasture beyond a thin treeline at the side of the road.  There were cows amongst scattered birds.  I could smell the road and the dirt and the faint manure that the chilly air had dulled.  I stood there for a long time.  Just breathing.  No one on earth knew where I was at that exact moment and the thought of that was beyond delicious.  Covert.  I didn't think about the car or it's dead battery.  I didn't think about tasks.

I was stuck...
I was also free.

I leaned against this metal gate that had been seemingly shut once and never again opened.  I felt the breeze.  Not one car went by.  I realized everything that I thought I had to do, that was on the running list in my head, would not get done and yet the clouds and the breeze and the cows would still be there.

There's something sensual about the breeze on your arms and neck - they remind you that you have skin and flesh and though your soul is eternal, your flesh is not.  Flesh is meant to be felt.  You are meant to be present.

I need to be present.  I will move toward that.

Your greatest wish

When we met we shared our pain.  I didn’t know that it would exasperate slowly and by the power of intention come home to roost.

So your father was a millionaire that was cast out of his family and you got to view it from afar,  if at all.  Then he met your mother…and then you guys came along.

A distant relative in a black hat flew in from an old money state with papers from an attorney.  Provisions had to be made for your sister and brother – because they came first and he had been shunned.  But you had HIM…should’ve taken the signatures….millions gone w a drop of ink.

Your mother was a meek farm girl from the south, but, damn…she looked good.  She clung to him as the acrid smell of tobacco drying in that oppressive southern heat was too much to deal with once she hit the big city.

Fathering the first time around was rough, the second time around proved impossible.  Then you went to a caring family so she could focus on her husband, because that’s what good Bible belt girls do. They were abusive in quiet ways that family…ways that no one could really discuss.

His shit got together for a stretch and a new house in suburbia would change everything.  In one car ride to the country any stability you had was gone.  Pretty roses planted around a split fence…that was all that stayed pretty.  The southern blushing belle faded and bottle after bottle got emptied.  He had a little repair shop…Tomorrows service Today….sometime next week….or when this bender was over.

Car after car smashed but those were the good old days, you could crash your car, slap your wife, humiliate the kids and the cops told you to sleep it off.

But time rolls into time – children grow up and only then learn what could’ve been done, what should’ve been done.  Mom was to blame, why didn’t she step in?  Why did she let him sign those provisions away?  That could’ve been YOU in law school…touring Europe…marrying old money…leaving provisions to the Mid-West University your whole family graduated from.   You resented your mother – she should’ve been strong and should’ve looked out for her children.

So you met a woman that did and you married her, but that destructive gene expressed itself.

And now you resent her for stepping in, stepping up, speaking out for your own flesh and blood.  After all…the kids have YOU, don’t they?  Not really.  You have a new family, new house, new life…

Recall….

You married a girl.

You divorced a warrior.

She will satisfy those longings.  She will step in and do what should be done and if you look deep enough, peel back enough, you’ll realize the universe has granted you your greatest wish. 

Thunder/Buck Moon

July 10, 2017 2:31AM

I woke up with a start and looked at my phone 2:31.  I still had a few hours before the M-F
 grind would start.  I had a good Sunday; kayaked, replenished the house supplies, cooked a few trays of food, loads of wash and cleaned.  And yet something was nagging me and the fact that I was up with a start ready to roll was a definite indication that there was far too much activity going on cerebrally.  My brain can be like an overactive child, afraid of the boogie man in the closet – only the closet happens to be a cluster of pockets in my brain that demand to have their say.   

The moon cares not of the inconvenience for it only follows its ancient path.

Up with a start with nowhere to hide, I could’ve lit some candles and retreated to an exhausting hot bath…but the damp cool swamp breeze tempted all of me.   Like a cat, I drifted down the stairs and out the door.  There is a secret way to open the oppressive front door that is completely silent.  It swung like a dream and the front grass and wet street were aglow with the archaic light of a Thunder/Buck Moon.

It’s amazing how your being can remove you immediately from civilization, as if it’s had enough and overrides your civilized self.  So there I was; barefoot on damp grass, blue eyes oddly catlike in their seeing and slowly savoring the night air.  As the sounds of the realm around me settled and triaged themselves in my brain, I was became aware of what many would think of as the screams of a woman being tortured.  I’m feral enough to understand that these were not punishing intermittent blows delivered by a jealous lover.  They were the rhythmic screams of a fox in mating.  I smiled in the night as the fox reveals itself quite readily to me at the oddest of times.  It was far off, behind the tumorous strip mall, beyond the house with no purpose and to the glen in the crook of the stream across the way.  I had the urge to call back, I also had the urge to walk naked in the shadows the moon had cast- both of which I viciously longed for, then vetoed.  

Still human.

I decided I needed a reason to be out should anyone see me, or mention it.  An alibi? How absolutely ridiculous and delicious – but it’s where my mind was.  There had recently been sightings of tow trucks in the development and at $300 a pop for 24 hours (should they take your vehicle) and the impound a mere 7 min walk from the development; I reasoned car keys would make sense.  Back in I went and grabbed my son’s keys – he is notorious for illegal parking.  Keys in hand like a shield, should anyone wonder what I was doing out at such an hour, I began to walk barefoot.  

The concrete walk illuminated under my bare feet from the moons reflection.  I fell in love with the way my feet looked under that light - sure, sturdy, wandering.  The sky was clear and the backbone of the mountain past the swamp visible.  I walked through the night, through the neighborhood.  I paused at the dark quarry, silent like a quagmire crater of dropped and fragmented dreams.  No movement; just black stones, black water, and a drab landscape.  I walked through the common yards and noticed the garish light of some forgotten TV’s.  I recalled the stations of snow from my childhood when the networks would log off, sadly nothing logs off anymore.  

But was I not doing just that? 

I felt so oddly alone, yet so unbelievably connected to the true realm; the billions of leaves that swayed an watched me, the ground with its varying dampness and light, the earthen smells rising from patches of dirt, the air and the intrinsic scent of still water, swamp water, dew, and rain.  The foxes tortured consistent cadence, like music, screaming into the night.  

I held the keys tight as I didn’t want to hear them clink.  I did not desire not one human sound.  

Earlier that evening I meditated with intention for the full moon.  Among the many things that I wished to draw down and into my life was a sense of strong connection to the earth.  

The night delivered.  

It would have been better had I obeyed my organic indigenous nature and bared not only my soul, but my white freckled body and lay naked in the damp grass under that moon and breathed.  I also intended land of my own one day.  I know that is on its way….

However…until its delivery…

Still Human

A Fall

They are downing trees on my ride to work for a conglomerate of sorts, a facility to test things when the forest would surely know best.  You can feel them crying.  Palpable.  Stripped and naked.  An unknown roadside holocaust.  The emotion bleeds into the pavement like watered down sap; silent and slow.

Clock reversed; paper, pulp, solid strong branches in prayer to the ceiling; passed the dome, into the stars.

What keeps us from falling?  Like a sheaf of papers, sliding from a desk to a bottomless floor,  What keeps?

Morning.  I walk into work.

Quiet.

Only my footsteps under lights that never dim, lights that hum in my head over the grid of the floor and I think; 'Why do humans fall?'

Not the trip, the misstep, but the fall...within.  Just stop, like a clock that cannot wind, like a dawn that never shows.  Just the fall into darkness, into the universe of themselves.

Stars explode.  We implode.

And I hear my footsteps, my small body like a machine, a mechanism, a freestanding cog with things to do - tasks at hand.  And I pause.  Just a pause.  Yet it's so seductive, covert, and deviant. this pause.

And it's as if I could stop the planet spinning in this moment - admit defeat and surrender to the lights that make us mad; rabid.  Surrender to the glossy floor that can be mopped, sterilized, wiped clean of me as if I never laid completely open upon it.  Surrender to the tasks that would get reassigned in the void that I would become.  A small delay.  A small inconvenience.  A small body that, one day, just fell.

Then procession.  Clock ticking 

I breathe twice; feeling the ocean of my body ebb and flow, aware of the oxygen/blood exchange - an ancient dance of existence that I am not the least bit in control of.  This vessel with this brain that is always seeking to exploit the dark crevasses, like the God forsaken false prophets of the false lights overhead.  

My shoulders square, perhaps the last time...I am unsure.  I step forward from my pause; into my day, into faith, into a mask, as if I, too, were mindless and without the awareness of suffering.

Connect nonetheless 

Namaste

The Girl in The Pic

The other day I was going through a box of pictures.  Pictures can be difficult for me because the second they are taken, everything can change.  Still, I wanted to send some to my step daughter and went into the task with the mindset that it would only take a few minutes.  I came across the above photo quite by chance as it was in a folder and I simply opened it.  It gave me pause.  Like a time traveler I sat on the floor of my walk-in closet suspended in a portal of sorts.  I’m not sure how much time went by, but I carefully closed the folder, picked up the pictures that I had gathered for Jen, and went about my day.  Oh but the seen can never be unseen, can it?  A day or so later around 2AM, in a lucid dream, this came out…

The girl in that pic was trying to hold it all together, trying to hold herself together.  She was riddled with doubt; of love, of herself, of everything. The only joy coming through in that time and space was that of the children.

The girl in that pic had no idea of the fire that lay dormant; a tartan gift of DNA – a strength that would be summoned one day.  In her soul, that girl stood barefooted on a rocky crag in the shallows of an ancient sea.  The fine salted sprays would mist her freckled face and gently rouse a sleeping warrior.

The girl in that pic had not a clue that she could battle for the children as fiercely against the man she had loved just as fiercely the day she created them with him.

The girl in that pic didn’t see the derailment coming, did not understand that she was already prepared in ways she couldn’t believe existed.  She didn’t yet see the decisive bargaining she would do with her soul on a Jewelers mat, her dusty gems laid before her on a velvet pillow ready to be sold.  She didn’t yet expect the stirring of inner wisdom that was to come as she realized there wasn’t a price to be had for such treasures.  She didn’t see her hand as she scooped them back into her pockets, knowing she would take them to the grave.  She hadn’t yet decided that she could not be haggled and purchased.

The girl in that pic could never have imagined the toil, the work, the lessons that lay ahead.  She had never prepared for the course of learning to care for oneself and two other little souls.  Overtime they would not just be her children; they  would be known as her cosmic responsibility – one that she would take very seriously.  She couldn’t imagine she would work by day and provide, and then work and again domestically to cook and clean and pay attention, for she would intrinsically understand that attention was very important with these souls.  And that in her future she would  come home exhausted, fearing nothing left to give them . She would take a moment, close the bathroom door and stand before the mirror, then look into her own eyes and whisper, “Crisy, pay attention, this is the important time.” And she would face them refreshed.

The girl in that pic could not see the example she would set as far as education was concerned – did not realize then that in 10 yrs time her own words would be echoed back to her; ‘Mom I want something for myself, I know I need an education.’

The girl in that pic couldn’t dream of the navigation that would ensue to keep little men from mis-stepping.  Attention to friends, situations, influences, and thoughts, as constant as the tide and then the day she would be relieved of this duty as they would watch out for one another.

The girl in that pic couldn’t fathom gulping down panic attacks while trying to smile, or the insomnia that would plague her like a dark unwelcome guest.  And when she did sleep she would have the same dreams over and over and over, each time running forward while terror nipped at her heels.

The girl in that pic didn’t know her future, soon to be past; the moment it was realized would present itself as a tangles ball of string that would slowly be sorted.  She didn’t know of the repressive visions that would come without refuge in sight.  The civil rights that were impinged on, that only became clear in their gravity as time moved forward.  She couldn’t see herself as strong, only scared.  Outwardly she smiled.  Inside she was a running cacophony of musical horror.

The girl in that pic walked blindly forward into her life, into herself, with only the intuitive energy of her ancestors and the angels guiding her.

The girl in that pic could not see herself twelve years in the future looking down at that photo.  She did not yet know the mature, capable, grateful and humble woman she would evolve into.  The woman who would run her fingertips over that photo in a gesture of love and whisper, “I remember you.”  She would not have been able to conceive that twelve years in the future she would have a strong ally that she would meet; someone who would admire her for the strength that she (at that time) was unaware of.  A future self that would forgive her mistakes, pray her through insomnia, and love the children that became men.

The girl in that pic didn’t feel loved and couldn’t comprehend that somewhere in her tomorrows, she already was.  She didn’t know, couldn’t possibly see that it would be SHE who would reassure herself and look upon herself twelve years down the line.  She didn’t know, while frozen in that picture, that moment, that mindset; that it would be her own hand extending kindness and love, her own hand that would reach through to bring her home.  It would be her own voice, older, wiser, that would whisper through tears of Self Love, “You did everything right, because we are still here, and look at these boys…It all turned out just fine, better than fine.  You did a great job, I’ve got this now My Love…

And by the way my darling, the answer you were searching for is YES – It was worth it.”

Namaste.