Monday, December 31, 2012

good medicine

a few days ago i did a journey and ended up on an island...then up a cliff and into a cave...all i could see out of the mouth of the cave was emerald waves and sunshine...lovely...warm and breezy...serene and peaceful...it was unlike the cave the last few days...yet i rejected the teaching that day...

there i was journeying to get my mojo back!...which i thought was a simple and funny request...oy oh boy was i getting what i really was asking for once again...and it began a whole series of journeys and healing work...soul work...deconstructing...rebuilding...tons and tons of work which left me tired last night

but even as i was sleeping the work was still being done...days of this...and nights...of being transformed more...willing to flay myself open and look...really look at all the anger and hate and resentment and envy and even jealousy...i looked at my ugly parts and my good ones...i looked at woundings...self inflicted...and ones intentionally and unintentionally inflicted by others...i didnt back away or back down...i knew what i could take on in the moment and what had to sit and work itself out in the coming days...

each part was fitting into the next piece of work...each experience popping up in my ordinary reality was there to simply guide me into my awakening in non ordinary reality...until things so amazingly were lining up and making sense...

even the spill i took last night on the ice outside was a moment of "oh wow"...

it is the time in your life...if you allow yourself to see it all...where visible proof of the unseen forces  show up...angels...guides...god...whatever it is you label it all as...it is the thing at work to help you configure your own flight pattern...to land where you need to for your big smack down healing adventure...so i landed on my arse last night as part of "the plan" and for a second looked up at the stars...

one bright star reached down...and it was as if i got "it"...that celestial light bulb over my head...i got in my car and hit the road...the moon rising big and beautiful...and i saw it...i saw me...i was the moon...i wasnt this other stuff...the labels and limits of my own making and of others...i was this...i felt like a beautiful freak in that moment...really...a very beautiful freak...

i pulled my car over and watched the moon climb higher over the treeline...and she was stunning...i am this i kept saying and laughing out loud...it got inside me...and for a few minutes i was unlimited...but this feeling did fade as i was driving again...and the confining limits of my own self doubt and low esteem began to creep in again...yet there was the moonlight pushing back my dark thoughts...and it worked and worked on me...and kept working through the night...

each time i woke up cold her light reached in and warmed me...each dream came to assist me in unraveling and untangling the knots inside...each tear that fell was charged with the moon's healing grace...

there is science and it tells us how dense the moon is and what it is made of...that it is basically a sundial and yet it tugs at the tides...it inspires poets and seers...it gives lost souls comfort...it is a feminine presence which enchants so many of us dreamers...and she dreamed me home to myself last night...easing the tightness in my chest...relaxing my mind...opening my fists...bringing joy charged tears to my eyes and laughter spilling from me...i am her...

and so this morning i journeyed not to the dark cave but to the light one...to the one where a kundalini rainbow serpent hovered outside the mouth of the cave before...where it had told me to swallow it and i had said i wasnt ready...but the truth was i was too closed off and afraid...turning bitter...shutting down...struggling with my lesson plan...

but this morning i came to the cave and said yes...the serpent came in and from its body the rainbow colors flowed and came into me...and i swallowed them...feeling the warmth and vitality return...feeling the balance and the serenity...feeling something else...i suppose it is a sense that i do have purpose and meaning to my life...it isnt to caretake a mother who wont do for herself...it isnt to take on others struggles as my own or even dwell on mine...i feel my purpose is to just go through life...smile at it...cry at times...always let myself feel it...love but without any need to be loved in return...enjoy my own company...remove myself from harms way...take good care of my own needs but not be selfish...be kind...and i guess i know and feel one more thing today...the big one...the one which is the greatest part of my suffering...and it must be for many adults....

it is why i didnt accept the energy of kundalini healing the other day...it is why i have checked out over and over again at the most intimate moments of my life...it is why my chest was tight last night...

i fight battles that are no longer there...they are in my childhood...they are memories...and yet my mind doesnt know time has passed...so i get triggers and panic and shut down or run away...but when i sat with all of it last night and this morning...peeling away and looking at each memory...stepping towards each uneasy intimate moment where i checked out...i had to see it all and let myself know i am not that...i am instead the mystic moon...i am the perfect flower...i am the smile of sunshine through the trees...i dont have to resist the goodness that keeps coming to me...the goodness i push away...i can trust it...and can accept it...for what it is...each time it is offered to me...i can trust it in the moment...i couldnt when i was a kid...i couldnt trust kind acts then...i couldnt trust love...there was always a sinister thing hiding within a kindness...love was fake then...this is the root of my lack of trust...this is the big pile of crap in the middle of all this self torment...this is what keeps presenting itself...

this morning when i swallowed the healing of my own enlightenment i saw these moments again...right up to the present woundings...and there it was...the same thing coming through each time...

i set myself up for rejection again and again...the thing that was done to me as a child i have done over and over again to myself....or created an environment so others would reject me...each time wanting the outcome to be different so the original rejection would be undone...but it never is...it just keeps breaking a person down...until all that is left is the raw wound...and it either kills you or you decide to heal...

i have decided to heal...those adults in my childhood should have been good and loving...and they werent...they were selfish and immature...they let their egos run the show...they twisted away from their goodness and were selfish pleasure seekers of the lowest form...they used a child's goodness against her...they used the bait of love and acceptance on a child...they were twisted and sick in their mind games...and i cant hate them...it was put into them by other twisted adults when they were children...yet i dont have to recreate the scene over and over...it cant be undone...it cant be taken back...but i can let go of it now...

i can see it made me a person who would never harm a child...it brought me a level of understanding about compassion even as a child...even as i was going through their dysfunctions with them i could still understand it wasnt them...i am very grateful this sweet child i was did not grow to be as broken as the adults around her...that she worked very hard to awaken to her true self...that all these years since she has grown into me and i am sitting here with a full heart this morning...less afraid...gentle...laughing even...seeing a little hand from so long ago reach out in my mindscape...and i take that little hand and bring her safely to me...she and i...at one with each other now...neither of us having to hurt anymore...i dont have to relive the past in each of my interactions with others...she doesnt have to sit and wait to be loved...

ordinary reality is still there...the challenges and the struggles of the present...but it feels different now...the healing still mending parts of me and will...the little hands and gentle eyes of my child self there now to help me soften and let in the good in my life...

i hope to laugh more in 2013...i do have a weird sense of humor but i like it...i hope to open my heart up to a close love at some point...i hope to have better friendships and above all to take better care of myself...

i think 2013 will have challenges pop up but i also see it as a time i let the goodness come into my life in greater measure and not doubt its presence...and in this sweet understanding and acceptance i know i deserve kindness and goodness...i understand why it has been lacking in my life...and now i am ready to receive genuine lovers in my life...those who love me as i am and will be kind to me...and i will trust their kind intentions...it is good to know this...it is wonderful to see it on the horizon of this new winter season...

namaste...

Sunday, December 30, 2012

blessed


wow what a difference a few hours make...and asking for a sign and then receiving it...what a heart and mind and eye opening day...

and i understand now...i have been told where my place is in the world around me...this is ok...this is other peoples opinions only...i know my worth...and i know i am loved by my own soul...and completely accepted in grace...i am decent and kind and held in the unseens grace...

i trust the unseen and find a comfort there...in it i am loved and perfect...beyond the walls of this room i may be viewed as imperfect and unworthy but in my own self there is an immense knowledge of all our greatness and all our worth...we are all worth it...each of us a perfect flower...a perfect expression of the divine...

i sit in the dark this evening and yet am filled with light...blessed...i have been thrown away often in life...and never understood it...still dont...this hurts to be treated as less than...but i am blessed...i lift myself up...

i have never thrown myself away...i have held on...i have loved myself through hard times...and still do...blessed be to that love...and to all of us lovers...

getting it done!

last big blow out push before the end of the calendar year and the last big clearing away of stupid stupid junk from myself so winter season really takes hold and i am flowing fully in the groove rather than always stopping myself short...ya know i know this self work stuff backwards and forwards yet i still stop short of really looking directly at the last pile of crap right in front of me...always dealing with the sidebar stuff...or saying this is my BIG issue (trust) but then i move away from really dealing with it all...looking to the either side of it...like a dog who does that little sideways glancing at you because it knows..oh it knows you are gonna say "bad dog"...well for me i am the looker and the look-awayer at the same time...so yikes!...but it has gotta be done...so i am looking at my poo today...the whole nasty thing...and i really dont like it and want to throw up my hands and go play in the snow or even better go have hot soup at some chinese eatery and not feel anything but warmth from the soup instead of this cold stark reality i am sitting in front of...oh well...i will deal with my stuff and make soup later...

so to the next round of my journey into the cave and deal...

~*~
 
in the deepest part of the cave...no guides...nothing...creeping along listening to the drip drip drip of water somewhere...i make my way to it...notice something at my feet...a flashlight...how convenient i thought...i get snarky sometimes in a journey when i start putting up defenses...but realized i should be better behaved and pay attention...
 
i turned the flashlight on and there was a slow drip from above splashing into a dark pool...i held my light over the pool of water and knew it was a mirror i was meant to look into...but instead of a reflection of my face it was a reflection of my thoughts...all the flashes of thoughts came to the surface...speeding up and slowing down...each unfolding as i thought them...and the trick i knew was to empty my mind of thoughts so what was behind my thoughts could surface...
 
and so i let go and let go and stilled myself...i suppose this is why i have been drawn to doing deep still meditation over the last few months...i was readying myself for this moment...
 
i sat by the water...the flashlight shining a beam of light onto the dark surface...the drip of the water drawing me into my stillness...the ripples becoming waves washing over me...emptying me out...and there it began...on the surface of this pool but also in my surroundings...the resurfacing of memories...without any attachment of emotions...without much of anything other than the seeing of them...the faces of others over this past year...happiness and kindness...anger and hurt...fears and unhappiness...their fakery and phony ways...all the masking and unmasking...then i felt their suffering...it slipped out of me as each memory came up...each drop of suffering i took on dropped into the pool...
 
when this year of suffering/toxins had been removed it seemed as if the consciousness around me asked if i want more removed...and i did...heck yeah!...this is just what i needed and then to never do it again...take on other peoples toxic stuff...they still suffered and also didnt learn and kept doing their silly suffering...what was i thinking all these years!....oh yeah...that i would somehow get love and acceptance...duhhhhh...that was dumb...got just the opposite...
 
i was feeling lighter and wanted all of it gone...i didnt have to think of the times i took on other folks stuff...it all came...flowing out of me...drops became a stream gushing out of my belly...and all the water retention i have been suffering from for months made sense now...the toxins building up and making me sick...the ovary angry and sitting like a dead seed pod in me...it all made sense now...and why even the thought of being around others right now was making me dizzy...i knew i couldnt shield myself from their suffering or their disharmony with me...it would consume me more...flood me more...the endless feelings of drowning i have had makes sense now...as the suffering i have taken on was draining from my body the flooding feeling was leaving me...
 
phew...
 
so the pool swallowed all of it and began transforming it...the flashlight was clear light from a place of spirit i realized...guiding the toxins from me...extracting the sorrow...showing me what i have been doing to myself that benefited no one...and caused damage to me...
 
and then a voice spoke from the darkness...my shaman guide..."those who dwell in their own ignorance and avoidance hear no voice of truth or see no visionary sights...only falsehoods they invent to shore up a broken heart...they see only darkness and sorrow...they hear only the echoing of their fearful thoughts...you are not to live this way....come into the light"
 
and the pool shined brightly and i stepped in...i was filled with the warm flood of light...it was watery yet not...it came through every pore and opening...it filled every cell...it reached into my heart and bathed my soul...and asked me if i was willing to come back and go deeper and finally look at this last part...
 
i am...
 
i am going to rest and then i will brave this last journey into the cave...i am surrendering to the unseen today...trusting love...i am worth it...
 
 
 
 
 


  

cave day 4

the cave journey was alittle tougher for me this morning...i knew it would be simply by the energy shift of the cave as i entered...big lesson getting ready to be taught...well i had it coming since i put off the one from last night...but it is what it is...

so i entered a very unfriendly cave this morning...the shaman very intense...the walls dark...the fire out...no other guides around...no comfy blankets or fruit...just the silence and the slow growling chant of the shaman...which i found very annoying to me...and she noticed it and did it louder...

then she stopped and looked over at me...she asked "am i bothering you?" and so i said yes...because well she was...the noise was very bothersome...and i didnt know why but it was...so she asked me "why is it bothering you so much?" and without thinking i said "because it is a fake chant"...and then i started laughing because well i just told a shaman she was faking a chant and it is kinda funny...but she didnt laugh...instead she got very pissed off and started stomping around the cave...beating rocks with a stick and throwing dirt...and yet i still found myself laughing...then she bit herself...like a frustrated little kid does...and that really sent me roaring with laughter...she jumped up and down and foamed at the mouth and yet what should scare me was all just alot of tantruming...and that is when i saw it...i saw the lesson...

and she saw i saw it and sat down...i piss people off when i see through their fakery...their smoke and mirrors...their hiding out game...i see through alot of the phony baloney stuff in life and when i let them know i know it pisses them off...they dont like witnesses...and then they get mad at me for what they were trying to pull off....ahhhh...duh...and you always have to get rid of the witness so you can hold onto your fakery and protect your most vulnerable damaged parts...well you dont have to but you think you do...ya know?...i have done it...still am with one last nasty bit of sticky tar taffy crap i am dealing with... 

well this makes me feel much better than last night...thinking i am a cancer and this is why folks reject me...nope i get rejected alot of times because folks know i know when they are faking it in some way and they dont like that...they pour alot of energy into building their protective structures and here i come along and look right past them...and dare to love them even...yikes...must freak folks out...it would me...

if they only knew i can do this not because i am a better shaman or a more "evolved" person or anything like this but i am able to do it alot of times because when i was a kid i had to know the moods of the crazy adults around me for survivals sake...and i simply "read" folks easier...some of the greatest intuitive people out there or most sensitive ones were probably the most abused emotionally and/or physically as a kid...

you develop a set of survival skills as a kid...if you have healthy family around you then most likely your survival skills will serve you well in the adult world...but with unhealthy family around you the survival skills become a twisted kit of things you do to protect yourself and what makes you feel safe...not great for coping in the adult world really...you can read people and see through alot of BS...but that just gets alot of adults pissed off...especially adults who have suffered different levels of abuse in their own childhood...

wow i knew this on some level but it really helps to make sense of some crap in my life...makes sense when it is applied to alot of situations in life for me...

i have a follow up with the shaman today...lol...she said so...i have a feeling it isnt gonna be all candle lights and roses with her today...but i can deal...i want to get this work done so i can loosen up and enjoy myself more...and perhaps others might then enjoy me too...

on a happier note the fresh snow is so pretty and it is inspiring me to make some kind of soup today...miso? french onion? split pea? or chili? and then i will journey some more...and paint and not be so hard on myself no matter what comes up today...





Saturday, December 29, 2012

the cave of creation



the cave walls i go into when i journey are remarkable...inspiring me to create on canvas...the colors are delicious to my eyes...the images rising up from the dance of fire...the figures and racing forms leap to the walls quickly...i feel as if i only see bits and pieces of a greater thing at play...yet i dont need to see the full picture to understand what is roaring through me as well tonight...rising up in me like flames slapping the walls of my heart...i am the storyteller in my cave of bones...i am the flesh devoured by flames tonight...the pacing poet of my own wild dance in this cave of creation i reside in now...at home within myself...away from all the twisted creatures and deformed minds who are snatching at this world right now...all of it going mad...nothing making much sense...
 
i am in here...in me...in the black hole in me...in the earth...in the universe...a circle within a circle within a circle...where even matter doesnt matter...outside of time and expanding far and back and nowhere all at once...
 
the snow falls over the dark landscape in ordinary reality...i walked out in it earlier this evening...a man was walking up the middle of the snow covered street carrying his shoes...these are the things you see now i said to myself...this is the new normal...like the man peeing on a stop sign the other day...all the crazy things happening in the world...these are the new normals...
 
and so i journey into my cave tonight and looked and asked and was open for guidance...and it came to me...in a simple sentence from my shaman guide..."cancer does not know it is cancer"...and so there it is...wisdom short and not sweet...
 
it is sad...to see the potential of this world...to see the potential of human beings...and then to see where it is going horribly wrong...and there is a course it will run and an ending and then a beginning...all i can do is my part...and know what i do...perhaps this cancer has just become conscious it is cancer...if you know you are cancer then what?...ah there is another journey and a new question...but do i want to know any more on such a night when the cave is so lovely and the walls of the cave dance with better art than i could ever paint...
 
i will leave the sad world and the cancer thoughts and the man walking barefoot in a snowstorm carrying his shoes and the sirens and the horrible new normals...i will leave them outside in the cold and warm myself in my cave...watching the walls and perhaps calling in storytellers to sit with me and tell stories in my dreams...

the cave...day 3

i didnt want to leave my journey this morning...it was warm and safe and full of wonder...the cave lifted its dark shadows and was full of rainbow light and filled with the warmth of the fire a kind woman built...i had so many guides sitting around...so much support...funny how i eat sleep and work in this quiet apartment surrounded outside by people and traffic and planes going overhead yet i am alone...but in the journey i am supported by kind company...able to relax and simply be myself...

i think i should let my apartment become a cave...shut out the ordinary unsafe world and let this space be of great inspiration as i create my art and recreate my life...it makes sense after the visit to the cave...

i have been going through alot of stress and emotional strain since returning to rhode island...my mom talking to me on the phone every day..."working on me" as she does to come back down to maryland...making her life sound so precarious when actually she has more at her disposal in life than i do right now...that is her way and i understand it...she has always been like this...but it still pulls at my heartstrings even as i know she is attempting to manipulate me...

and then there is being back in rhode island...dealing with hospital bills and my health...i am playing mad scientist with my body to see if i can lessen the effects of my unwellness ....and also approaching it from a spiritual slant as well...i know what creates my unwellness...it is my own undoing...so i am working on those broken pieces as well...finding each place of resistance and easing it loose until it is held out for surrender...the big one is a tough one to let go of though...but i am strong and i can face anything and will let go...i know why i dont...i know what it is...so it will be surrendered soon enough...there is a stage of mourning i must do...a ritual of sorts...in this cave of my creation...i will...

in this mornings journey i had a cave bear and coyote...a fox and a small dragon like creature...i had my kind buddhist monk and others...my shaman...i was in great comfort with blankets to sit on and some fruit if i needed it...i had songs being sung to me by a myriad of voices...both human and animal...what a beautiful blend...and in their singing the cave sung as well...a low hum of sorts...comforting me....giving me great peace...and i trusted them all in a way i dont trust others any more in ordinary reality...

in ordinary reality i feel more like a caged animal around people now...i feel like they have imprisoned me with their unkind thoughts and low opinions of me...but in my cave i feel lifted up and treated as an equal...not better or worse than...but an equal...it is nice to be here healing and recreating before going back into the world of people...other is not appreciated in this unkind world...but in non ordinary reality all is respected...it is becoming my home and this other world is just a place my body has to be...not a bad way to live right now...the world being what it is...

and i know this caged feeling will no longer touch me when i surrender more to what i struggle with now...and i know i need to make myself very strong now because the times we are living in are getting ready to be of even a greater challenge...the world is not making a peaceful transition...change often does come with tragedy because as humans we tend to let things slide into disrepair until it becomes so broken the work to fix it is so much harder...but i have faith even though it all is so incredibly broken...i have to believe good folks will risk it and be brave...though it seems many are cowardly right now...hiding out in their dysfunctions and building more elaborate facades...i know winter and smile...winter will change this...something is coming and it will change everything...the winds of change...they are coming down into the valleys of many closed hearts...and then it will begin to turn around...it already is...in the shouts and mourning cries of those who see the innocent suffer...these are the winds that blow open the doors of many hearts...and in my small way i open my heart more and more and am the change being added to this broken hearted world...in healing myself i help heal the world...from my cave i am changing the world into what i wish to see it as...kind...compassionate...giving...open hearted...unselfish...forgiving...because i am changing me...


later...in the fire of the cave i see hope...i see the old burning away as i put my struggles in the flames...i see the flames leap images on the cave walls...giving me inspiration and reassurance...and i feel a kind permission to live how i choose to live...that those who love me will support me as i am and those who are hard hearted and fearful will be done with me...peace will rise up for all great lovers in 2013...no matter what comes at us...our hearts will be in a nest of peace...

Friday, December 28, 2012

a courageous heart

once upon tonight...

fox slowly found her way to coyote's den...the moonlight gave her easy passage...she brought her beloved a basket of cranberries, acorns and rose hips still holding up even in this chilly winter's start...

fox smiled as she neared coyote's warm home...the little opening had coyote's soft earthy scent lifting up on the cold night air...she stopped and took in a deep breath...this love was still forming its edges and sharpening its aim..her heart was wounded before by a broken arrow's promise...she found it a challenge to let another arrow aim for her heart yet she was a brave one when it came to love...

here fox stood...a gift of food for this odd coyote...this vegetarian moon caller...this dancer of streams and polisher of star stones...spinner of stories...weaver of poetry...

the tender heart of the fox began to feel crowded with all the love she holds for this wise coyote who stumbled across her path a moon ago...

with shy steps she breached the cave opening...walking in to her happiness...leaving fear outside in the cold...

in the cave..day 2

journeyed into the cave this morning...and in the journey i meditated with tibetian monks who chanted in the most deeply moving way...the sounds of which filled the cave and vibrated in my chest...what an amazing place to be in non-ordinary reality...

as i was coming back from the journey my heart didnt sink to be back in my apartment as it has recently...but instead i was reminded of a very happy memory from childhood...

when i was very young i heard a word...it was a word which instantly meant something majickal to me...when i would whisper the word i felt my heart glow...power filled...i can still conjure up the awe my young self felt in saying and knowing the word bioluminescence...

now i still giggle over the excitement of it...i was so fascinated by this occurrence in nature...i saw a field of glow worms as a field of stars and dancing fireflies as otherworldly...i got the gist of the chemical reaction at play to make all of this happen but i felt so excited by the idea of it even existing...on their own accord creatures were lighting themselves up...creatures in caves and under the sea were finding ways to do this as well...

it made me think of the image of christ i saw in a religious tract...his heart shining...and i wondered if all our human hearts glowed...they must i thought...they seem like they should....and so when i was afraid of a nighttime walk or the woods when it got too still or adults fighting...i thought of my heart...how it was glowing...it was making more love i thought...it was helping me...keeping me safe...and i took it even further when some well meaning adult told me i had a guardian angel who would light my path in life when things felt the darkest...well then i thought my heart was where my guardian angel must live or at least travel through...

for an entire summer around my eight or ninth year of this life i was mesmerized and enchanted with bioluminescence...and still when i whisper this word my heart feels as if it is pulsing with light and i am safe and have my path well lit...

~*~

2nd journey back into the cave...realizing this cave dwelling day is about reconnecting me to childhood memories i havent thought of in years...i am so incredibly moved by this...to see in such detail my young self and all "her" goodness...my gosh she was such a good-hearted kid...

one memory which just came up in the cave was from 4th grade...there was this very shy boy who's dad owned a country store...often he brought big boxes of treats to school...packs of gum or suckers or even a big box of candy bars...i remember those times as very uncomfortable for me...all the kids would push and shove and snatch at the treats he held out to them...but i would stay back or sit in my seat...i could never take anything...it felt so uncomfortable...yet even then i couldnt understand why...all i knew was it made me sad for him...but now looking back i see more...i see the kids pushing him as well...fighting over it all...like crazy seagulls fighting over a bit of food...yet each time he held the box out and for a brief moment there was some attention directed towards him...he was the kid who gave out candy treats...and then the kids came to expect it and came to him and he would hold the box out if he had anything...otherwise they would look at him and walk away in disgust it seemed...

i remember his eyes...they were happy as the kids took his offerings...

he always sat alone at lunch...or at the end of the bench and would get bumped off when another kid squeezed in...i was with the popular kids and yet there was one time i felt especially uncomfortable with how my friends treated him...it was around christmas and he brought in big candy cane sticks...but i think the kids didnt like them or thought they were to ordinary too offer up...so they took them and broke them at his feet...they smashed them against the walls...they poked him with them and did fake sword battle with them close to his face...

he ever so slightly flinched...i got up and stood close to him...i think it was my quiet way of saying enough...then i helped him clean it all up and we went to the drinking fountain to wash our hands...i remember wiping my hands dry on my pants and he copied me...

he had soft eyes...brown like the brown of buckeyes...he was small and smelled like old spice...

i sat with him at lunch that day...i remember the noise around us...my friends puzzled looks...santa came through the lunchroom and tossed penny candy at us...the lunch ladies each got a card and some flowers...i remember the boy looking up and smiling as he retrieved a piece of candy which had landed in his soup...i watched as he dried off the wrapped candy on his paper napkin before sticking it in his pocket...he leaned over to me...it was the first words he ever spoke to me, "it must come all the way from the north pole....it must have majickal powers if you eat it"...this was a kid i could relate to...this was a kid i understood more than my friends who snatched at candy and made fun of a little boy with soulful eyes...

for the remainder of the year i got to know him in quiet moments...never taking candy from him...but feeling more comfortable with him than anyone else around me...his name was stevie...he slowly came out of his shell...he grew to be a handsome teenager...we grew apart...after we graduated from high school and i moved away he committed suicide...for some reason i thought it was because a girl broke his heart...but i am not sure...and i dont think i want to know the why of what finally broke him so completely...

today i remember his hands...his little hands clutching a box of goodies...i remember his soft chuckle at some silly string of words he would feed me to get me to smile on a bad day..i think at home he was going through things i was going through as well...and when we started understanding this about each other we grew apart...it was too much to see in each other perhaps...

and today i understand i didnt take the candy because i wasnt like the other kids...i couldnt take it...somehow i knew it was offered out of loneliness and longing...it was the same loneliness and longing i had...to be loved and cared about just as i was...and often wasnt...i think that is why somehow i keep surviving this world and he didnt...because i knew and still know i am good enough...even if it is just good enough for myself...just as i am...and those kids...some of them my best friends...they saw his need for acceptance as a weakness and they rejected him...the most gentle soul among them and they rejected him...i hope somehow he always knew i never rejected him and i always knew he was special...

i am grateful to remember him more today...to remember the tenderness of him and i...the friendship...the trust...i always trusted him to be kind to me...what a good boy he was...

Thursday, December 27, 2012

the cave

when i journey and end up in a cave it is always for a great teaching...
 
the cave is the center of everything...the black hole which is in us...and in the earth...and in the universe...
 
in darkness dwells the lessons we hide from ourselves...it is where our creation and re-creation dwells...it is why we are taught to fear the dark by those who are weak and input their weakness into us...our alcoholic father perhaps...or an abused mother afraid of her own power...a crazy mother who put her crazy thoughts in your head...a father who saw his own children as competition for love from his wife?....so many ways you were made afraid of the dark...yet it is the darkness where we begin each great lesson...the lesson is life after all...
 
i embrace the darkness...
 
so often when i feel a great teaching calling me it is into the cave of darkness...where a fire is built and a lesson unfolds from the flapping and twisting flames...from the walls the shadowy figures leap and lunge...the shaman lifts herself from the deepest part of the darkness to come sit with me and guide me to my knowing...
 
last night i dreamed of the cave...it has been edging up in me for days...and now i know it is to be where i will live for many days and nights to come...creating new life from the nothing i have right now...unlearning patterns...as new patterns are formed on the cave walls...
 
at last i see i stayed too long in places i never should have been...where rejection was programmed into the environment of the situation...yet i stayed there as a catalyst or to stir the pot for others to get a chance to see their patterns...i understand this now...yet it was a waste of my time...people are unwilling to change and let go of ego...they are often so full of fear nothing short of a near death experience could shake them free...and often not even that will get them to let go...my mother will never "get it" for example...she dips even lower into her dysfunctions...no strength left in her to lift herself up from her own suffering...
 
all of it has left me empty...tired and undone...i sold my own life short so others might get their true selves aligned...and now i go to my cave and seek alignment for the life i am ready to create...i have given up enough and taken on enough and been attacked and attacked myself enough...now i am in there...in that comforting darkness...unafraid to look...for what is there to be afraid of but what is past...
 
i look and see...i understand and move into new ways which fit me now...this is all...to see into the darkness and watch for signs and listen to my guide...
 
i write out my dreams but here is what i wrote last night...not exactly what happened in the dream...for there was too much...this is what i wrote instead...
 

i dwell in the hidden realm of hollow boned earth...the cave...a place to sit or pass through...for travellers who move from time to no time and back again...prayers echo here...answering back to the sender like rolling thunder...what you give out is what is given back...sorrow matching sorrow...praise amplified as well...you build a fire to push back the darkness just enough to see the truth in it...and in the fire are the answers to unspoken questions...images leap up from flames and dance on the cave walls...messages from spirit...
 
this is what i wrote late last night...as the wind howled outside this cold new winter season night...as i wrapped myself up in a cocoon of blankets...
 
i realize i am in the cave today as well and will be for many days and nights to come...creating art...answering the darkness with courage and solitude...loving myself through it all...listening to my shaman guide as she shows me parts of my own dark cave i push away from but know i must face...and i am relieved...i know when i emerge i will be full of more knowing...understanding more...and stronger...i wont walk into places of dysfunction again...i will allow myself to be around those who are kind and good instead....
 
my old patterns are falling away even as i enter the cave...for to know is the first moment of deconstructing old useless patterns...
 
to know...to find the root cause...to let go of it...to see myself as i go to reach for old behaviors again...stop them...to get in the habit of healthier behaviors...this is how it is done...it may feel uncomfortable and even miserable at first...but if i get beyond those first bits of discomfort then i get to the easier path...
 
for now i am in this directionless place...it is not depression or sorrow...simply transition...for so much has fallen away or rotted to pieces...the hope of a loving relationship...any form of family...a belonging to something...it is all gone...the last embers of it passing away in the deep darkness of this cave...and yet there is in this emptiness a new form ready to be created...another me...one i will recognize...i didnt know this other one...she always felt foreign to me...willing to be punished and harmed to receive little bits of love and acceptance...it never felt like me even as i was experiencing the hurt...and soon i hope to understand in the darkness of this cave of creation...where are the roots of this and then i will remove it all and be re-created...
 
so i give myself these cave dwelling times...in this cave of creation...by the fire of my own hopes...as winters icy fingers strum along the window glass...as sirens snatch at the air...as cars rev and roar along the roads...as street lights stand like cyclopes in the primal nights...all of it blurs as the cave takes me in...i am the eager student once again...ready to understand...ready to learn more...
 

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

the happy seagull



 
another sunny day...feeling the cold in my bones but it is good to challenge your body with a walk in nature when cold comes calling upon us...ice beginning to form along the shoreline...i am eager to use this ice for art but not yet...the time will come soon enough...so i play with rocks and watch the seagulls sail along on water and sky...if i could be a seagull today i would...i love the way they glide along and the way they drop quahogs from the sky onto the rocks...smacking the shells open for the edible treasures inside...

~*~
 
sitting in the car now...warming up...i just let myself shapeshift and play with the seagulls...i was free of the cold...i was in the moment...fly...snatch up food from the water...feast...repeat...sit on a rock...wait............fly....glide...snatch up a quahog...hover...drop my prize...feast...give up half for the brown gull pushing its way in...back to the rock...i see a wave lift...small fish schooling...here comes more food...
 
and so it is...this day unfolding...finding my footing in this winter season after a year of searching for something which was in me all along...the light of my own sacredness...
 
i kept myself from the light...and i understand why...but i dont now...it is me...the real me...not this invented self pieced together from the hurt my mother and father gave me to carry early on in life...or the heavy judgement of others at times or the burdens i placed on myself from the weight of fear and self punishment...this is all done with...the light of the unseen took it all away...i am like the seagull today...finding my feast...gliding along the current of hours...i am the happy seagull...warmed by my full heart... 
 

Monday, December 24, 2012

still still morning

i love this swan...it lives alone now on a pond of ducks and the occasional visiting canadian geese...it came as my guide this morning in a journey...it is my solitude guide...to help me navigate my solitude...what a perfect and peaceful guide to stay with me...i feel blessed to have her always with me...
 
 
 
~~*~~
 
in this still still morning...as the sun shines wildly in a cloudless sky...as the cold hugs the land...and ice shimmers on the surface of calm waters...in the strong company of the trees...i let in all of nature's healing presence...
 
i have meditated with clear light flowing through me this morning...i have prayed with loving intent...i have journeyed for guidance...i am experiencing this beginning of winter season with my new heart growing in the place where an old one gave out under the crush of disappointment and sorrow...
 
this new heart being formed is full of simple yet great love...it isnt cradled in a nest of hurt and rejection...it is held in divine light...it is created with such loving kindness from all the good which ever was, which is and ever will be...it is created by the grace of the unseen...
 
what a year...what a year of breaking and breaking and breaking until i sat under a tree today and cried it all out of me...all the homophobia and unkindness of the year...all the rejection and hurt...all the ways i set myself up for suffering...all the ways others attempted to transfer their dysfunctions onto me...
 
i was tested so intensely in so many different ways this year...to the brink of giving up on life itself...yet the spark of my own spirit would not stop shining through...the grace of which kept me going and finally filled me with hope once more...not a hope in something wonderful to happen...not even to be protected from suffering...but i have a hope which is simple and pure...a hope born of love...self love and love from the great unseen...with all my flaws and missteps i am still loved from the place of spirit...just as i am...i am enough as i am...
 
what a simple but perfect thing to know...even as my body fails and i am in an odd place of no clear direction in life...even as the winter begins in uncertainty...i still can smile and be happy today...
 
in this delicate weave of hours...in this beautiful landscape of me...with all my imperfections i feel loved...and this is enough...it is the one thing i trust in life...
 
this love has taught me of late how to see with my new eyes as well...i now see actions as truth and not the false words i trusted before...it is the wisdom which comes after great spiritual harm...i am grateful for this outcome...
 
i trust the great unseen which flows through everything including me and you...i trust it to guide me to do right...i trust it to hold me away from darkness...i trust it to be there at my end to bring me to my spirit home...i trust this beautiful purity to keep me in this simple hum of time as my new heart grows and strengthens...flowering with love as i meditate for more and more peace for the world...as i love myself through challenges...as i let love in...expanding and never living with a closed heart...
 
i hope this for everyone...to have peace in your mind and love in your heart...in your new heart...and to see with new eyes...past the miserable suffering left by those twisting away from spirit...i hope for you to see with eyes filled with the beauty of nature and the light of others who shine their love upon you in sacredness and respect...
 
in this season of peace many of us felt a deep wounding by the sufferings of others in places like conn., syria or in our own private losses...i hope we all keep peace in our hearts and stay hopeful...if we all keep to the bright path of love the darkness has so little space to grow...those in darkness will be pulled to the light they so desperately hunger for yet reject from their own loss of faith...i will have faith for them and i hope for you...let us amplify love so all may feel it...even when we struggle to feel it ourselves...keep reaching...keep holding on...keep being love...keep lighting the world...
 
 

Monday, December 17, 2012

dohiyi

the things you forget until you remember again...


 
came across this picture tonight
cut me to the bone tonight
leaping back in memories tonight
dohiyi...peace...tonight...

she must have looked the word up
tried to impress me with the message
written on her arm...dohiyi...peace
 
and i chant it to myself
as the hours crawl by
the pain in my belly exploding
dohiyi...peace...
dohiyi...peace...
 
and i will keep her in my head
a laugh...a smile...her sorrow
the cancer...the treatments...the surgery
 
the hard to swallow days...
the hair falling out as i combed it for her
tucking some in my pocket so she wouldnt see
 
the meals i made she couldnt eat
the walks we took to her favorite trees
a pair of hawks cirlcing the pond
 
the tears she hid from me
the tears i hid from her
the words we didnt say
never the word goodbye
 
and here i am
and she is everywhere
in the highest redwoods
the tallest mountain's peak
 
she missed out on climbing mount everest
or spot a moose posing on foggy maine morning
time was running out like fast hands on a clock face
 
but the word on her arm
stands out for me
to read and smile and give thanks
for the breath in my lungs
for my eyes to see the stars
for my hearts drumming
 
dohiyi...peace
dohiyi...peace
dohiyi
 
 

Saturday, December 1, 2012

heart to heart....





last night i was so very ill i felt as if the pain was exploding like fireworks inside my body...as if i were a dark place of pain illuminated by shooting streaks of light...i let myself see the light of this pain...let myself travel to the origins of the pain...what was setting those explosions off...i journeyed deep...

and in this place a stranger stood...cloaked and unknown to me...i stood there and asked "are you my guide?"...but i knew the answer before it spoke...no...

i cant say this was even a person or entity or being...it seemed formless and yet fully itself...it was not an enemy or a friend...it was not me and yet it was...i believe it is the part of me which meets up with my own sorrow...and creates the actions i dictate...this creature in my journey...a witless servant of me...is simply the form of my suffering...

so my suffering took a form so i could dialogue with it...

the pain in my body is now manifested from years of self punishment and denial of my own worth...i pay the price for it now...it is here and may need medical attention...though i hope i can calm it and bring it back from that outcome...but i have to heal the last difficult parts...