hallelujah (inspired by mr. cohen and a beloved)

in the dark last night i felt so alone
the sadness of a dream sinking to the bone
and then i felt your eyes look upon me
from miles away and time apart you leaped in
and crossed my heart with the simple song of hallelujah...

hallelujah, hallelujah...hallelujah...hallelujah

i never knew a soul could ache
i never knew a mind could break
and shatter into so many jagged pieces
but then you came along and offered up a song
that swept away the rising tides of sorrow...

hallelujah, hallelujah...hallelujah...hallelujah

its all a journey without an end
a love i never need to defend
hope in a world of so much suffering
i have taken your name into my soul
written it on the sacred scroll
and with tender thoughts signed a hallelujah

hallelujah, hallelujah...hallelujah...hallelujah

as time on earth moves along i hear the notes of this song
played out in nature across all the seasons
a leap of verse...a soft caress of lines that i still undress
in a whispered response of hallelujah

hallelujah, hallelujah...hallelujah...hallelujah

just more words...

the pen is my mighty sword...as shallow words march across the page i strike them down...

cold hard words come forward...i build a fire for them and let them warm up...they burn across the sky of my heart like a raging sunset fighting the goodbye of a perfect day...

i write to save my life...

i sometimes cry out my words so loudly the pen breaks under the weight of the burden...ink bleeding into my skin as i try to stop the hemorrhaging...

sometimes the words are so delicate...held out to you shyly...eager for you to read and also fearful you will ignore them again...so i put your name in the gentle curve of my most vulnerable words...i know you have picked through my journal before and stop to read a passage if you see your name...so i write about the first time i kissed you and tenderly surrender your name again and again in these lines of missing your lips...

your name drifts across my mind and onto the page...like jasmine blossoms pulsing their sweet perfume across the room...

your name is like a kiss left in the palm of my hand...

your name sits within a poem just so you will read those promises of forever and always...

but here it is...another journal full...too heavy to lift these dense words of loss...

words covered in dark clouds of tearful pain...words flowing slowly like a dying summer brook over mossy stones...words brittle and easily snapped in two...words falling off the page like a broken down actor...drunk and forgotten...words begging for attention...sitting alone...sobbing...gasping for air...

i pour out my words to you but you are lost to me now...my words do not attract you...i flip through this journal and let it slip into the bonfire...ending all these words with ho'oponopono...i am sorry, please forgive me, thank you, i love you...

seeking clarity...

i gave up on the day i planned and went to sit by the water...i wanted to lean myself against the great puddingstone at a beach here in rhode island and whisper into it all my sudden sadness...and i did...letting the cold sink into me...letting my inner warmth rise up...letting go...shedding tears...giving way to the place in me that aches sometimes...letting the ocean reach in...the rawness of resurfaced grief stinging but i am grateful...always grateful...

asking for help...asking for a clearer understanding...

the puddingstone said "go to your wound...that is where purpose is found"...and so i did...feeling the losses...missing my friends and family that have gone on...for a moment standing in the in between place where some of them stand...feeling their love make its way to me...feeling the sacredness of it...letting my human heart rise up to be touched by the divine...

then i turned to look out at the water...waves chomping on each other...roaring to shore...and in my minds eye i saw it...out a ways but close in my mind...the spirit of a whale and the spirit of a man tangled up in a line together...and the whale spirit came closer...i understood...the man died in struggle and fear...he didnt know he was dead...the whale spirit stayed with the man until the trapped whaler could be set free from his confusion...

it was so much to know...so much to take in...this beautiful whale spirit staying with the man who had tried to kill it...staying for over two hundred linear years...

so i went about doing psychopomp work...calling in my psychopomp guide to help the man gain awareness of his own death and find peace...slowly the man stopped fighting the guides help...i spoke to the man...watched the man let go...ropes vanishing...whale spirit free of its commitment as well...i watched the light come on the horizon...it was...as always...so calm and grace-filled...i felt the whale's gratitude...its beautiful spirit going into the light and then the man followed...

as quickly as the whale came to me they both were gone...and i stood there leaning against the stone...awestruck at what had just happened...

this is my life...this is what i am...this is how i am...alone so much of the time...doing this work...a kind of hospice worker for the dead i suppose...

i gave myself a few more minutes against the cold stone...breathing...clearing my mind of thoughts...empty...i was the ocean and wind and sun and stone and sand for a moment...then i was more...the seagull, the couple bundled up and walking briskly...expanding...to the towns and cities and countries...expanding to be everything...until everything was a solid hum...infinite...whole...perfect...

i am filled with gratitude...and so much love...was going to do a water blessing today for world water day...instead my heart was blessed by the ocean...

feeling myself inside the consciousness of the beloved unseen who is happy for my happiness...

reflecting on my lifes purpose...

i have travelled to many countries and am getting ready for a long trip again...i have taught many places yet each time i teach a class or meditation i grow and learn as well...

i remember one of my first teaching gigs and amazing adventures...i was in sedona with a friend...i gathered the class on a big red rock and sat there for 3 hours...we sweat our shapes onto the rocks at one point...when we all got up it looked like deep red shadows dancing...some more fully formed shadowy beings...others just blurry masses...we watched them slowly fade and it was as if the rock was blessing us...it was a deeply spiritual moment...one person said they had felt like they were sitting in the hand of god as we meditated...and i agreed...it did feel like we were being held in a loving sacred way...

another time i was teaching a group of very active children in belfast ireland...i covered the room with a large square of canvas and we worked on a large improvised bird...we all just started seeing this bird appear as paint got splashed and smeared...so we started adding feathery shapes...a brightly colored tail appeared...swirls of clouds...it was visual music...you could hear this exotic bird singing colors...a story came and each child added something to the story of the great bird who flew beyond what we could see with our eyes...

i taught a family how to paint a landscape when i was living in nova scotia...we watched storm clouds roll in from the ocean...sun on one side and loud clouds of fierce grey racing to the shore...we made it to the car and had a picnic inside as the rain hammered the car roof and lightning zipped across the sky...

i think of all the spirited art classes and meditations and talks i have given...all the stories shared and all the meals...i think of the long string connecting me with so many of these people...they were friends i hadnt met yet...

and so soon i go to taiwan...to meet friends i havent met yet...adding more threads of connection...more growth...more lessons...

as i think of all these times here and in other places i become so moved to know i am made a better person for the adventures...with so much more to learn from others and spirit...always learning...always filled with the grace of it all...

it began with a prayer...

in my right palm...turned up in praise...a dragonfly landed...it stayed with me in its last moments of life...resting upon my life line...

nothing is wasted in nature not even the act of death...all is woven by the beloved as we undress our wounds and ask for a healing...my prayer was answered...it is as simple as accepting the answer and the actions one is asked to take...

this dragonfly...a healer...rested on my wounds as both of us prayed for each other that day...

and there began my heartfelt journey...there began my final epic quest...to transform my suffering into a new life force...to find my way back from the dead...

imaginal cells were dormant in me but as i reached deeper for truth...the truth set the cells free...

cells...like building blocks...formed deep within my world...

i left the edge of me...crawling into the mystery...

i climbed a branch of thought on the tree of life and made myself a home away from the outside world...

slowly the imaginal cells began to shapeshift my pain...slowly all i thought i was dissolved...only emptiness remained...

as i began to feel foreign to myself fear gripped at my melting bones...panic kept me jolting awake to the change...doubts collected in my mind...beginning to add too much weight...

yet the branch of thought held strong..the tree of life stood still...and in this place of refuge
i began to let go and regenerate...

at first it was too much...to feel all the love that had been waiting...flow so easily in to me...

held by the unseen beloved of all yet i nearly tore myself away...

but i have always been driven by more than fears...i had a mission to complete...i knew i was more than my sorrow...i am the resurrection of my original self...

in the stillness i let the process make its self known to me...each part of my body surrendering...

the world i saw with one pair of eyes was leaving...a new pair of eyes came up to see the world i was reentering...

hands that once took up a battle ax...now became hands that would hold tools...

feet that walked into every broken place now were feet that would simply stop and turn away...

the heart that once took on others pain became a heart flowing with love...resistant to the beguiling ways of others who suck the life out of those who love in compassionate ways...

the belly where suffering churned became a cave of wisdom...the carved up misery of a uterus taken from me became a carved crystal bowl of blessings...my blood was cleansed and filled with vitality...my bones covered with loving psalms...muscles toned with jazzy notes...flesh kissed ripe with the sun...

recovered from a tomb of my own living hell...i was now reshaped and in the sacred yes of redemption i received my wings...

upon the branch i sit ready to fly away...find the life i wanted...before i gave my dreams away...

the transformation from the willing victim to the self loving being i am today has not been easy...i came to the brink of taking my own life...then for a time i let go of those things and people most precious to me so i could be alone and go deep into the wilderness of myself...through the darkest parts where i healed horrible wounds...into the unknown parts where i explored and found more wounds...to the greener places in me...the places where i am strong and loving and kind to myself...

i kept going there...til i was brave enough to let myself change into who i originally was...long ago...when i was pure and without wounds...

the tree of life is there...the healing...the acceptance of all my past wrongful actions...i confessed everything to the tree...

i built a loving altar beneath the tree....

all my wounds came to the altar of love to be transformed...i humbled myself...conscious of the knowledge i am not god but of god...standing in the consciousness of god...the beloved unseen...

i held my fears like a macabre security blanket all these years...as if they were keeping me safe...but as time past and through many journeys i began to break free of the patterns so ignorantly created in me as a child...my mother is a great weaver of fear...she is weighed down by a heavy blanket of fears to this day...but i kicked the blanket off often and lived more of my life out from under the covers...

under that tree i let go of fears and climbed...and let the chrysalis hold me...there in that swirl of imaginal cells i let go of more fears and said yes...yes to my own redemption...yes to forgiving myself for all i thought to be failures...yes to the love waiting to embrace me...cocoon me...transform me in a chrysalis of light...

i am renewed...a new born...full of wisdom untapped...unsure of what to do...but trusting fully this next part will be what i need it to be to give me those things my heart is drawn to...i am so in love with my new life as it rises before me like the dawn...shimmering on my new wings...i am eager to taste the nectar of life flowering open...i look forward to these new days...this new season...this new life...

paradise lost...

sleep wont come...but the sun soon will rise...and i will fly...too close...like icarus...feathers and wax failing me...falling fast...the ocean swallowing me up...but unlike icarus i am part selkie...i will swim to the island and go ashore...tasting the ocean on my lips one last time...breathing in the air...nostrils taking in the scent of this place...

what does it smell like?

all my lost hopes and dreams...

and there it is...every unasked question...every broken bottle with a faded message inside...glass biting me as i shed my skin...

i climb up the cliff...

the view...

once i saw the world from so high up...now i just see the ocean...seal skin drifting out with the tide...

here i stand...self exiled...

yet there is the memory...of smiles and youth and future ripening slowly on a summer vine...young feet running fast...so young...

i didnt even know my true loves name...but there she stood with her eyes not looking at me...

the years piled up and the heart kept on...til her wings wrapped around me...and the salty scent and the land of green and the faith and the love all came to set me free...i had a glimpse of what life could be...when she turned to me and answered my prayer...then took the answer back when i failed to fly...

but there is no anger...there is no blame...i came with my broken wings to this creature of the sky...i came undone in a slow unraveling of time...i came and went like a ghost...

but with one last bit of strength i melted down the bees wax and gathered up the feathers...i tried...oh how hard i tried to make sturdy wings...i tried to keep up...i tried to fly...but there was too much to overcome...there was the sun...

i look at my young self and smile and wave goodbye...i look out over the ocean and let go of the sky...i watch the wings of a goddess spread wide...golden...shimmering as the sun blazes across those perfect wings...goodbye hopes...goodbye dreams...

i came close...i almost found paradise...

finding my REALigion

 

i have a feeling this bit of writing...always stream of conscious...may become extreme of conscious before i am done here...

ignition...lift off...full throttle up...here i go...

when i was a little girl i fell to the ground and stopped breathing...long enough to hear odd sounds...like sound that was movement...like a fluted tunnel...i saw many pinpoints of light grow into one big light...it was a very brief experience but in the split of a second i felt it...the love...all love...or at least a feeling i associate with what love is without all the gravity of being flesh and bones...i felt a fluttering of my own energy...i didnt know it was the real me at the time but i do now...

then i took a gulping breath and sat up...i think that was the moment i started on this quest without fully knowing it until later in my life...the quest to understand what being human is and what being a human with spirit is...

i have often failed at being human...not good at fitting in or dealing with the bullshit...i see through a whole lot of bullshit and it often feels like wool against my skin...it annoys me...sometimes i will say something to the manufacturer of it but most of the time now i just try not to get any on me...

i love and speak of life in a way that messes me up...i have given people chance after chance to be kind to me and they find it safe to be unkind to me instead...for they know if i love them i dont walk away easily...well until the last couple of years...i got my heart ripped out by some cruel words and since then i started changing this part of me...i dont like the change...it has broken me down...i have nightmares about it...wake up with such sorrow it literally makes my heart hurt...i stopped trusting myself...and others...i felt the human part of me shriveling up...death has been near...not suicide but death...illness after illness...sinking into poverty...giving up...and i know if i didnt deal with this i would end up hopeless and homeless...and then death would come and ease me from this life...and i would regret this...

i would regret failing to be a better human to myself...i would regret the loss of this life and the time i could have spent loving better and being me...

so as i sat in the bathroom last night...trying to get my asthma under control...wondering if this was it...i spread a blanket out on the cold floor...i had a few pictures of loved ones sitting on the floor next to me...and i looked at them and felt comforted...i wasnt afraid...

i have never been afraid of death or what is on the other side of it all...i know there is love and compassion...and i spoke in my heart to that god i love...which is love...the unseen beloved...and i just asked for courage to live and not fail...

i went to sleep early this morning on the floor of the bathroom with friendly faces beside me...i didnt dream...i did empty out of my sadness...and when i woke up the sun was shining and snow had settled on the world outside...i sat up...got up...put my hand under the bathroom faucet and took a handful of water to my dry lips...

and as if a voice had reached through time and space i heard the voice of one i have loved forever...her voice said "blessed is she who seeks"

it made me smile...and feel alittle crazy...but i understood it...and knew that voice...felt the strength of those words...let those words steady me and hold me to this body...i took a puff of my inhaler...a pill...let myself sit in silence for hours...thinking of those words...letting them become a meditation...

blessed is she who seeks...

and i have been seeking...for nearly all this lifetime i have known i am more than this cage of bones...i know i am more than a lifetime of experiences...i have fallen and gotten up again and again...always amazed at the grace and stillness i find holding me...

but the last few years have taken a huge hit to my faith in others and i became more and more upset at the way this world is being trashed...i was losing my religion...

my religion has been humanity...you have been my religion...

i consider us a sacred creation and have done my best all my life to treat others as sacred...but it has worn me down...these last few years...

my whole life has not been easy but i could always look around and see good people doing good...but the last few years i have begun to see good people pervert themselves...sell out...buy into the destruction of our world...gluttony has replaced generosity...power grabbing has become the norm...the worship of gurus and celebrity has replaced self awareness...egos are out of control...it is painful to witness...the planet is sick because human beings are sick...but so many reach for the poison and not the love potion...

the more i saw of it all the more disappointed i became...the more faith i lost...yet i denied it...i didnt want to know i was losing my faith...my religion...i began to see humans as the disease and not just symptoms of the darkness consuming the world...i began to secretly have anger and hatred for humans...

each animal abuse story...each child rape...each school shooting...each dirty government politician...each corrupt corporate action...each bite of polluted food...each sip of unclean water...each foul mouth speaking in a grocery line...each time someone didnt stand up and take a good action...each homeless person ignored...each gutter full of trash...each beach littered with dead whales and dolphins...each and every act of hate...i felt it...the coldness of losing my religion...of losing my faith in people...

and today as sirens filled the air...as i sat here letting my body recover from the asthma attack...i wept...for myself...for this world...for all the beauty being lost...for the horrors...for those sitting alone like me...struggling...mourning the loss of all this potential...grieving over the stupidity of it all...the waste...the selfishness...

i journeyed...to my storytelling guide...i asked him to help me...he has become family to me...and instead of advice he asked for a story...about the grim reaper...so i told him about the time the grim reaper came to town...this is the story...

this grim reaper had been coming to our town since its founding in the early 1800's...the reaper would come and take someone in a gruesome tractor accident...or from giving birth or from scarlet fever or from choking on christmas dinner...in some gruesome sorrow-filled way...

this time the grim reaper came for the most adored and oldest person in town...miss james...102 years old and still teaching first grade...a teacher for over 81 years...from riding on the back of a mule from homestead to homestead...to one room school...to the elementary built in the 1970's...she had seen nearly all the townsfolk in her class...and this was a woman so loved and appreciated that everyone spoke softer when she was around and had their manners in check...

but the grim reaper didnt care about how much folks loved her...he wanted to take a prize from the town...so he did...

miss james was standing at her bathroom sink one evening...she had disrobed and was taking a bird bath when the reaper passed over her...he whispered in her mind to go outside and sit down...and she did...as if walking in a dream...she was sitting under the maple tree in her front yard on the coldest of winter nights...without a stitch of clothes on...she thought she was sitting back at the one room school reading to children...

a neighbor found her in the morning...frozen to death...

the town was horrified...she was in her right mind...she would have never done such a thing...she was a modest woman...she loved life...and it began to be said that very morning the grim reaper was heartless and cruel...for taking such a good woman in such an insulting way...but the town put aside their hatred and anger to celebrate miss james...

they laid her out on a bed of pink roses...her favorite flower...sung songs to her she had taught them all...they told stories and praised her and served a feast in her honor...she was placed in the most beautiful white casket...lowered into the ground with gentle hands...flowers must have been in great shortage in the world that day for thousands circled her grave...

days later there was a big meeting at the town hall...it was decided to get that dirty grim reaper but good! it was miss mae...the healer woman and now the oldest person in town at 99 years who came up with a plan...

signs of welcome went up on every door and business and on every street corner...

WELCOME GRIM REAPER!
WE HONOR YOU FOR YOUR YEARS OF SERVICE.
COME TO THE TOWN SQUARE AND LET US CELEBRATE
YOUR 200 YEAR ANNIVERSARY.

now they didnt know if it had been 200 years or not...but they bet the grim reaper had lost count in his much longer track of time reaping souls...

day and night someone sat with a large bell brought down from the church tower to ring when the reaper came...each person watching...waiting...for the reaper to appear...and the grim reaper did come...

in dark cloak and hood...in a deathly cold blast of wind...the grim reaper swooped down and began walking up the middle of main street and to the town square...the bell sounded and town folks came running...

the mayor welcomed him with a key to the town...the grim faced ghoul reached out with a boney hand and took the oversized key inscribed with "thank you for 200 years of service"...a band played and miss mae was brought forward...

the reaper towered over her...his scythe held low...

someone brought a ladder to her and helped her climb it...she was still only eyes to chest but that would suit her just fine for what she did next...

she spoke with a strong raised voice..."old reaper you have been taking lives for 200 years...we all gotta go and there aint no one here would fight you...but you been taking folks in nasty mean ways...heartless ways...so i figure you aint got a heart!"

and as quick as a hummingbird darts through honeysuckle...miss mae reached into her chest and took out her heart...slamming into the dark hollow spot where the reaper was missing one...

miss mae fell back dead and was caught by her grandson who laid her down softly on a cart full of daisies...her favorite flower...and folks watched as her soul climbed up out of her and departed in a ray of light so pure it made everyone's heart joyful...

the grim reaper stumbled back...stunned...letting out a hellish cry...growing color to the flesh where before there was only sickly grey skin stretched over bones...his empty eyes of dullness turned to the sweetest color of summer sky blue...

he took a deep breath and fell to his knees...

miss mae's grandson stepped forward and said "reaper you aint so grim now are ya? you got the heart of a healer in you...a good woman and friend to all...you go on taking souls to their afterlife...but now i think you will be kinder and gentler in how you take them wont you?"

the reapers new eyes welled up with tears...he nodded yes and flew away...

and from then on when someone crossed over to glory they crossed over with a smile on their face...always found with a pink rose and a daisy upon their chest...

 ~*~

so this...in the middle of a day of struggle...was the story i told my dear storytelling guide...and as i wrote it my heart softened...i felt the acceptance of what i have been going through...and smiled at the thought of a whole town standing up to the grim reaper...not to defeat it...but to help it have empathy...i understood the teaching in this story...this is us...this is how the world can survive...if we give love to those who dont know how to love...teach them by example...with courage and open hearts...to have empathy...

i HAVE been losing my religion...my faith in humanity...understanding there are good folks doing not good things...as i have done this too...ashamed of my actions...saddened by the harm i have done...all of us struggling in some way...searching...hoping to find some kind of meaning to life...

tonight...i breath alittle easier...letting go...of beliefs...ways...patterns of behavior...even letting go of those i love so much...letting go of grief and disillusionment...letting go of what i thought would make my life better but in the end it only crippled me from living my life...i placed my faith in people who live in fear...the fear of death and of life and love...i placed my dreams in the hands of others and that was foolish...i take those dreams now...of children...family...a home...and i kiss them and let them slip from my heart...blessing them as they go from me...

and here i am...finding my REALigion...a different way of seeing the world...as it is...a mess yet beautiful...i see others and all their frail broken parts and love them...but i let go of...well...i let go of my need to struggle in it all...

i send my love into the coldness of this world...and there is light...and sounds like movement...like a fluted tunnel...and all the fragmented parts of myself i make whole...i give all my love to the broken hearted of this world...i understand...

the spirit of love...it is out there...if you need to feel loved hold out your hands and scoop it up...place it over your heart...let it sink in...the warmth of it...the music of it...the light...

this world is fading...will it fade into darker times or be filled with good works and much love? i dont know...i have lost my faith in humanity...but i have found a greater faith...in myself...in love...and in the hope that love will heal broken hearts...

blessed is the seeker...she found herself...

resurrection...

walls came crashing down this month...wall after wall after wall...purging myself of possessions...letting go of things i thought i cared about...reaching back tonight into places and times and seeing them...really seeing them...just as they were...all the ugly truth of it...all the hurt and pain...taking one last look...the web of karma...one action leading into another and another until...until the destruction of my life and all those hopes and dreams i was clinging to...

there is so little i am left with tonight...and i am ok with that...i am starting over...broke but that is just money...somehow i will make enough...it will come...but i am not broke in spirit...in fact after everything...after a long life of losses i still feel like i have won...

for i havent stopped...i havent given up...even when i wanted to my beautiful soul said "go a little further...seek a little longer...give yourself to it and it will come...love will come" and so i have...i gave myself a gentle compassion to endure...to find love for myself...to hear my voice rise up in me and say out loud "i deserve better...i deserve respect...i deserve love"

yesterday...talking to my mom on the phone...she was struggling...saying she felt like she deserved all the bad stuff that has happened to her...she said she never felt loved...i reassured her...but i know it has been a long struggle with her and i dont know if she will ever overcome any of it...today is her birthday...she is 73...and she doesnt love herself...i wish she could...it is worth the battle...

i had to learn to love myself...i had to learn to have self respect and to know i deserve to be treated well...but i did learn...so many times i struggled and was so desperate for love...i wanted a family so much i would have done just about anything to get acceptance...yet at the same time i chose people who would never see me as good enough...crazy but there it is...

but i finally connect some huge strings of events and understand why i was so desperate for a family...for a home...and even for the rejection...

once you know...once you are conscious walls begin to fall...i had so many walls up...so many barriers keeping me from love...

the walls have fallen away...when i finally said no to being treated poorly recently i could actually feel a wall sway inside me...i could feel it break apart...collapse under the weight of my awakening...

to connect the words "i deserve love" with the feeling is remarkable...to say "i deserve respect" is revolutionary...to demand fair treatment is to reclaim my dignity...to say "this is not acceptable" is to stand in my power and lift my bowed head...and i have...and the walls fell...the prison is gone...

i released the anger and resentment tonight...for all of it...for the rejections big and small...for the unkind acts and the cold-hearted treatment...i took the behind the back cruelty of even those i have trusted and i looked them in the eyes and forgave them...i didnt deserve anyones unkind ways and i will not carry it one more step...i gave it back to them...

i took the iron bars of homophobia and i melted them down...i took the locks on all those prison doors and i opened them...i took those doors to all those different cells and i kicked them open...i took those cell walls and i pushed them down...

all the writing on the walls...all those memories....all those years of suffering...they turned to dust...

i held up my hands and i said come to me...every bit of my soul i had lost came home...from the smallest speck to the largest ones...my soul is home and i am completed...

to those who treated me like garbage i gave their stinking piles back...to those who rejected me i gave them love and forgiveness...to those who harmed me i offered them the same love and forgiveness...and for those i gave my power to...i reclaimed it...

it is more than the new moon or the year of the horse for me...i sit at the beginning of my real life...

my life...fully mine...

i will sleep soon...and wake to greet more of myself than i have had with me for lifetimes...for i have travelled into every lifetime and every wound and i have gathered my soul up and i am filled with all of me at last...

i do not place myself above another but i also will never bow my head again...no one will ever own me again...i am not a victim and i am not disposable...i am not unlovable...i am just like you...i am worthy and i know it now...i am awake...fully...and i am finally all the way alive...

a sky of hope...

i must say after a wild ride of a week i came away with a deeper appreciation of my wonderfully imperfect self...i celebrate all my imperfections because to me they are simply the doorways to all the classrooms of study and learning...and i am finding i trust other imperfect people much more than those who put on perfect masks...

i come away from a week of getting back my wings and then learning how to use them...bumping into walls...finding balance...understanding the currents...building trust in my abilities...letting go of the old me...feeling the pain of that...letting anger rise up in me...letting it overtake me and letting it teach me...the journey into it all tonight...what does my anger have to teach me?...i could think of no other fitting question to pose...

i ended up in the shamans cave...the fire was roaring...snapping at the darkness...i was given a bowl to drink from...as i swallowed the drink it burned through me...i felt it seep into every cell of my body...i was on fire...and in each snatch of pain i had a flash of an angry moment in my life...moments of rejection, envy, betrayal, violence, insult, disrespect...all the times i became twisted with anger...all the times i had a tantrum inside myself...angry at myself...for failing...for not having what others have...thinking i wasnt good enough...giving up...giving in...settling...becoming bitter...on and on the moments flashed and i looked...until all those moments blurred into one...and i understood...i understand all of it now...my anger...how i implode and make myself sick...i knew i did this to myself...but this is different...this is what triggers it all...what upsets me and makes me attack myself...makes me spiral down...weakens me...makes me physically sick...

in the cave i had my wings...i spread them...a bear reached out and tried to bite off feathers...i pushed him off...a wolf stepped forward and growled...i defended my ground and protected my wings...a bat swooped in and i fought it off...i was standing up for myself and my right to keep my wings...

the shaman led me out of the cave and gave me a pouch...she pointed upward...i lifted off...flew high and away...

and this is me now...letting go of anger...owning my wings and accepting abundance...going off into the mystery of the blue sky... saying goodbye to so much...yet saying hello to the horizon and what lies beyond...taking with me a pouch of all that is important to me...the anger left in the cave...it is up to me if i create more anger or peace for myself...

this new thought coming as i fly towards lush green mountains..."i choose love...i choose peace...i choose life"

a brief visit...

i had the lovely company of a lady bug for days...for such a small creature she had such an impact on me...

you see she kept the loneliness away...her presence filled this apartment...sometimes she crawled up the curtain...or along the kitchen counter...i took a tubbie and she followed me...climbing along the edge of the tub...when i bent my leg and the knee came out of the water she flew to it...

i talked to her...outloud...in the stillness of this apartment my voice went soft when speaking to this wee one...

slowly i understood who she was and why she was here...she was someone visiting from long ago this lifetime...she reminded me i was once loved without struggle and with such deep devotion...that love never fell away from me...i have often felt it...

i have always found it odd...the words in and out of love...how do people fall out of love? once there is true love it is there and there to stay i think...i love who i love deeply...no matter what...the love was there and always will be...it will live on even as this body doesnt...love...true love simply is...this lady bug reminded me of love and its ever present grace...even in moments of struggle...love comes and lifts me up...brings me peace and comfort...

i have often felt unlovable...in the intimate sense...i certainly have had enough women tell me they arent in love with me...i have had enough who would not meet me in the middle and share their life with me...this part of me has shut down and became overgrown lately...

but the lady bug reminded me of the time i was very much loved...she reminded me of what i have missed for so long...that look someone gives you who is happy you are there...i have missed that look...i have missed out on so much...i once was accepted just as i was...loved...with all my imperfections and my struggle...i could be me and know it was ok...

anymore i am often around others who themselves wear masks and want me to put one on too...but i am not good at surface living so i fail...i am not perfect...i am not even concerned with perfection...those seemingly perfect people are at times the most screwed up people in the room...they are just talented at turning off parts of themselves and putting on a good show of it all...but really is it worth it to pretend? i mean arent they sick of pretending to be so well put together?

there was this little creature who now has emptied out of her body...she came to that vulnerable place in me that is finding it difficult to be single and she got me to feel the pain of it all...simply by being with me...how odd but how wonderful...

i feel the loss of these last few years...the grief...the unbearable longing...and in her way this lady bug taught me to empty out...empty out the bitterness and resentments...

i feel them slowly coming up...the anger and the heartache of failed relationships and this present life that is hard...i feel it draining from me and the me i am leaving behind as well...

her shell of a body sits on a little stone here til i take her outside tomorrow and return her to the earth...tonight i sit with her and reflect on all she has told me...the whimsical conversations and the serious last ones...

as she emptied out i know...in a way...i really do need to empty out too...

so much is gone from my life...to hold onto the pain of it all is just more to waste of my life...and i have wasted far too much of my life on people and places that were not worth it...

i once again was told recently that i talk too much...i have been told this all of my life...i think it isnt that i talk too much but that to these people who say this my words have no value...i express myself with a crowd of words...so what...i am this way and i am done feeling bad about it...i am going to keep talking...keep writing...keep painting...keep showing my emotions...keep forgetting to brush my hair...keep settling into an aging body...keep living an imperfect life...i value me and my words and my voice and the love i extend to others...no mask...showing my imperfections...

i love this imperfect human being in all her messy wonderful ways...i love that i can spend days with a lady bug and let myself learn from her sweet little life...i love that i can shed tears now and miss her...and know she was a visitor from the place we all go to after life...i know i am loved so much to have been given this time with her again...

if all people see is a surface and not this deeper being i am this is their loss...i see me...and i profoundly love me...i know i am worth being loved...i may be unlovable in that special intimate way but i am not going to apologize or feel bad about my tender imperfect life and how i conduct myself in it...

like the lady bug i have some emptying out to do...shedding old resentments and old grief...so i can enjoy myself in greater measure and the adventures to come...

filling up with love...

i have been enjoying the cool, damp air as the sun comes up behind the veil of greyness...windows open...the sound of birds in the bushes...a loud concert of canadian geese flying overhead...they arch and circled back...

i look out to see the tree tops quivering in the wind...here and there a nest is tucked in...a squirrels home...a birds nest...a tree elfs high rise dwelling...

it is a grey day...a day of writing...

i am at a point in my book where i am dealing with the death of a man...even in his last hour he is struggling in a battle between the darkness and light in him...will he have a transcending victory over his own ego and his own love of darkness?...in his eyes the darkness fades away and light fills him from beyond...will he open up to it? or will fear sink him to the bottom of the darkness?

how many people remember the times they have collected the darkness in them and the suffering it has created?...how many are distorting its importance?...thinking it is there to give value to the light...fooling themselves into believing it gives as much meaning to life as the light does...

to me it has no importance...in fact it is the blockage which keeps us from the light...it is the enemy...my only one...

there is no darkness in the place of the beloved one who created love ...that place is the origin of all light...it is the beginning point of all love which flows in endless directions...it is the place our prayers fly off to and it is the place comfort and unconditional love reaches for us...in everything there is the presence of the unseen beloved...but the beginning point is where it flows from and where we go home to...

we entered a world where there is both light and dark...good and not good...the freedom to say yes to life or no to it...there is rational thought flowing from a calm heartfelt spirit...there is the minds chatter and the jagged outcropping of an ever-hungry ego which feeds us to the darkness of this world...

from the tantrums of arrogance and judgement to the fog of a drugged mind to the ignorance of greed and gluttony the darkness smiles and reaches into you...it whispers in a syrupy sweet voice of seduction..."you need me to be whole"..."you need me to be balanced"...you need me to become powerful"..."you need me"...

folks are on spiritual paths which dont reach back far enough to remember a time when that voice was not there...darkness has an easy sell these days...darkness is getting access to people now because there is a growing collective thought we should embrace our dark side...this is a path to destruction...and we see it all around us...everyone saying how bad things are yet they are still opening themselves up to the darkness in so many ways...

there is a reason the animals, trees, plants, water do not hear the darkness calling but humans do...we have become refuges from the light...the very thing we long for we now run from...we are wounded and hiding from all that is good...

we are born into this world from the place of light with the darkness waiting for us...this foreign entity...the darkness is a creature of suffering and sorrow which was born to this earth as well...older than any myth...but arriving after us...it hunts us down and begins early to remove our allotted light from us...

the darkness was born from fear...fear came as consciousness took hold in the human mind and we began to understand the limits of our human life...in that first moment of fear in a human heart the darkness found its birthing place...it has grown powerful and full of seductions since...

people go to the darkness in their most private fearful moments...they crave wealth, fame, approval, power over others, worship, immortality...and there the darkness is...ready to feed on your fears...ready to give beguiling false promises you buy into...in your arrogance you snatch and grab all you can to feed from the world of others as the darkness feeds on you...

the darkness hates witnesses...it likes to put out glossy promotional material in the form of gurus, celebrities, polished people of importance...talking heads that speak of love and compassion yet in their mind they plot and scheme...they angle and instigate so much deception...they dress the part and study the particular path they preach from...yet they are in love with the darkness and use others to feed their ego...

but we are living in very amazing times...the age of information and the age of awakening are propelling us into a greater level of understanding....many of us are seeing through the illusion the darkness creates...those who serve the darkness in ignorance or consciously are becoming easier to spot...these peacocks who dress up as doves are beginning to have less and less to feed on...

politicians are losing their power seats, preachers and gurus who serve the darkness are losing their worshippers, corporate systems built on the false promises of the darkness are collapsing under the weight of their gluttony...the greedy war machines of this earth are self destructing..it is all shifting...light is speaking louder than darkness...its song is pure...it is the voice of the unseen reaching into us...

you can feel it cant you? it is an overwhelming feeling...you may feel a moment of choking as the darkness is pushed out...you are being filled with love...dont fight it...let it rise up...if you need to shake the darkness out of your body do so...or release it in a flow of sound from your mouth...sigh and breath deep...whatever you need to do compassionately for yourself to remove the darkness...be gentle with yourself in this process...this is you reclaiming the sacred land of your own body...

you dont have to be devoured by darkness any more...you can be filled with light...and it can stay fully in you from now on...because now you are a witness to the darkness...as it comes to you in a whisper, another persons actions or the pull to act in some dark way yourself you will now see it for what it is and reject it...

this is the end to suffering...this is the embrace of the unseen...this is love...

samhain

as children's screams and laughter snatch at the darkness tonight...as the wind rattles the tree bones and sends the leaves in a spiraling death dance to the ground...as the streetlight outside my third floor window looks like a cyclops interloper...i sit in my big blue chair with a cozy blanket and a pot of tea...

staring into the bottom of the emptied cup the tea leaves resemble the crescent moon..

i know...as the veil is the thinnest...as spirits walk alongside the living and the living can hear these spirits...as i sit in my solitude and journey...i know i am at the crossroads...

i am ready to step forward and take that wondrous leap of faith...i am ready to open my heart like a dove's soft wings...i am ready to answer the call of my own wild spirit...i am ready to write a more adventuress chapter in my book of the living...

here tonight i am free...i am whole...i am fully plugged in...i am love...

plan b...

plans change and my plan b for the morning is poetry and coffee...my afternoon is studio work and evening is writing...so it all works out...

as the trees shapeshift and there is more dark hours to dine on the candle's light i turn to irish and scotish poets...this morning some silly weeping over robert burns...if you have never read "to a mouse" it is worth the time...such a sweet wee poem...one of my favorites...it is where the line "the best laid schemes of mice and men" comes from...

i am definitely wading through tender-hearted times lately...i feel as if i am breathing in the air of ireland...if you have walked the land there you know what i mean...it isnt a sadness in the land but a suspension of time...the soul of the green hills speaks right into your heart...the etched rainbows in heavy clouds brings your eyes up to smile at god...a slant of light squeezing into a crack in a stone wall reminds you to shine even when you come up against hardship...the fast running wind through a valley reminds you to put out your arms and run/fly too...sheep inching along a cliff's edge tells you the risk is worth it...the raven crossing your path gives you pause to bless the life you have...and Death...the ever present companion walking with us as we walk through our days is silently counting down our allotted steps...

today i feel full of the sacred memories of walking in nature in different parts of the world...i feel humbled...i feel wild and green...just like ireland...

trippy good stuff...

a beautiful meditation leading into a journey tonight...to the pulsing sound of crickets...relaxing into a deep state of knowing...complete emptiness...expanding and expanding...feeling the edges of myself dissolving until i was not a body but a presence...

to get to this expansiveness i went deep into myself...until only i...the eternal...was present...then i went up...beyond the clouds...beyond the stars...beyond the dark...beyond...

i felt it then...the pure love...endless and constant...the flow...i sensed i could ask questions and so i did...and the answers came with such peace and ease...they were mundane questions of what i should be doing and am i on the right path...am i doing ok...and i felt the love simply hold me as it gave me clear loving guidance...my human self feeling comforted and reassured...nurtured...i asked more questions...ones about love and my feelings for others...my ever present drive to keep my heart open and spiritually in alignment with love...the struggles i have with expressing love or being loving...

the one who was answering my questions shined through me...and i felt so...well...part of something indescribably beautiful...what is this i asked...who is this?

lights came...these amazing waves of light i can only describe as joy charged reactions to the happiness i was feeling along with the love....as if i was making this place happy...

some might say the lights are angels but i think of them as light beings...a countless swirling glorious dance of them...moving in waves and whirl pooling to me...and then i sensed what i was in...what i am always in...what i never leave but cant sense fully as a human because i block it with ego and nonconstructive attachments...

i am in the consciousness of god...it is where i always am...in a great flow of love and peace...and in asking i made this consciousness content...as if i brought this human love to this divine love...and simply by my presence of acceptance and appreciation of this beautiful experience i created happiness there...

i thought this is where we all are...this IS the oneness...this immense feeling of endless space within me is actually who i am...i am dwelling always with the consciousness of the beloved...as a visual it is breathtaking...the vastness...and the feeling of love is overwhelmingly inspiring...

there is so much we dont experience as humans...we cant...we have to live this artificial life of body and experience teachings about how to love as a singular form to reflect back into the oneness we are...

ego wants you to think you are god...but ego is all about power and control and keeping you small and struggling...in the oneness i understood this...

i am not god...i am the oneness of everything god is...which to me is different...i dwell in oneness with god...in a consciousness so simple yet so infinite...

my human life is karma...my soul is taking in lessons...i am sending love or suffering out...the suffering can be transformed...the love added...

(wow this is all hard to explain and totally out there...lol)

it is so much better to create happiness and contentment in the consciousness of god than to bring unhappiness to be transformed...i knew this...instantly...feeling it...i felt suffering come from this physical world and sensed the light beings transforming it...

this was so much to experience...still letting it unfold in my human heart and mind...my soul...

but i feel at peace tonight after this head trip...

i feel like i am even more sure than ever god is love...and i am with god and i am love...even as my human activities sometimes dilutes the love as it comes up in me...i am still always in the consciousness of the beloved...not really here at all...just in a body doing human things...

and it is ok to be this human doing this life...humans arent so bad...actually it is very remarkable to have a physical body...to have limits and challenges and obstacles...to overcome...to transcend is a good thing for a human to achieve...to not be afraid and to simply forget about measuring time or being in such a hurry to gobble life up...being more human is to be more loving i took away from this as well...

so i am going to be more human from now on...

the sword...

breathing is not good...asthma attacks.. but i know it is the holding back i do...the hot coals of anger using up all my oxygen before it reaches my lungs...my veins...my brain...but it is creating something amazing in me...and i accept this...

the gentle holding of my heart keeps me anchored to my art...my self work...my journey teachings...i am grateful for the fire and for the hearts crafting of a great tool for my life...i take each suffering moment of my life up to exam and transform it...it is as if there is a ringing sound of hammer to metal...and this i came to understand...the memory of the town blacksmith...the thrill of seeing the sparks as he struck the hammer to glowing metal...my journeys are coming together to create something for me...i am seeing it to the end...

(this morning)

most of last night and yesterday i was sifting through the stench and dirt of an old barn in my journey work...as well as a dirty apartment building my grandparents owned and i was constantly cleaning...i was reclaiming myself and reuniting bits and pieces of myself from my childhood and then adulthood...a cupful of tears that soaked the earthen floor...a torn shirt memory...healing all the bruises...pushing away the abuser as he lifted a belt, a piece of rubber race track, a fist, a pair of scissors...standing apart from a mother who wanted me to parent her and be her support instead of her being a strong mother...but she couldnt...she broke early on...when she didnt have the emotional use for me she would farm me out to my mamaw and aunt...but in my journey work i stopped myself from making it better for her...i let myself be a child and play...it was as if i had a rewind and did it differently...yet came away with the lessons of both paths...i feel stronger for this...

i am connecting the events of trauma like dots on a map...understanding my adult actions and who i came to be and how to remove the not good parts of who i am...

in this time of retreat i lost faith and hope in the world...in people...in myself...in the silence of others in my childhood...in the silence of others in my adult world...in the power and control games of my childhood...in the power and control games i see as an adult...in the roles others played in abusing me...

i would seek out abuse as an adult and teen to get the fix and the relief of the time after when the abuse would stop and i could just collapse...abused people know this trick...sometimes you collapse into illness...other times depression...but it seems to always follow a traumatic moment or an abusive situation...it is the addiction of abuse...you become addicted to the release and will suffer the drug of punishment to have it...a person is your bottle of pills...an abusive person...who will give you a dose of abuse...a fix...so you can sink low and fall through the bottom to the numbing silence of isolation you suffered but found relief in as a child...i know...

it is a miserable thing to know how much i have hurt myself using others...but i know now...and i know not to as well...stopping myself as i reach for a bad relationship...an abusive situation...a dysfunctional person who will harm me...it has meant stopping contact with everyone for awhile and looking at what i do...and what they do...and seeing who to be around and who will just give me a fix...i now understand...it hasnt been until last night that i fully understand my trigger and when i pull it...this self inflicted wounding as i use another persons dysfunction...it feels so good to know completely...finally...

i have to thank that violent childhood of adults dancing their dysfunctions and fears over the children in their lives...you made me who i am today...one who sees through all manner of bullshit...who carries anger in her and is now transforming it into something greater...i can now protect my spiritual self and defend myself from anyone who wants to reach in and harm the vulnerable places in me...

i didnt become you...i am not weak and fearful...i dont hide out...what you see is what you get...i am stronger than anyones hate...i am more empowered than anyones punishment doled out in gossip or rejection...i am smarter than your game and politics of power and control...i am more than your ego's bullying...i am braver than your negative energy and dark thoughts...

i am all sides of me now...the peaceful and the angry...the light and dark...the body and spirit...the female and male...the earth and air...the fire and water...

i am no longer a ghost of my own life but a fully fleshed out human with a spirit that never broke...and a heart that never closed...righteously angry but cunning in how i react...never weak and silent again...no ones fool...not even my own...

and to those who harmed me...i forgive you...and thank you for the suffering you helped me create...i didnt know fully what i was doing to myself until now...and what you were helping me to do...it was all about transforming the pain into something greater...with each blow...with each mean thought directed at me...with each cruel word spoken to me...with each abusive action and manipulation...you hammered a great sword in the fires of my own suffering...i am a stronger warrior and healer than i ever knew...

 

 

i lift this sword not as a weapon to harm anyone...but as a beacon of light for my own self and others...i didnt go into the darkness and burn up in the flames of suffering...i lifted my spirit high and let it create the most noble and righteous sword for healing...i transform my painful experiences with it...and in ending my suffering i add light to the world...

 

may you who suffer see the path out of it and walk that path with the strength of spirit and the fire of your own suffering transformed...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ziggy marley says it best...

 

 

 

 

 

"Life has come a long way since yesterday, I say

And it's not the same old thing over again, I say
Just do what you feel and don't you fool yourself, I say
'Cause I can't make you happy unless I am, I say, I say, I

Got to be true to myself, got to be true to myself
Got to be true to myself, got to be true to myself

Day in, day out I've asked many questions, I say
Only to find the truth, it never changes, I say
If you don't deal with it, it keeps killing you a little by little, I say
Call me selfish if you will, my life I alone can live, I say, I say, I

Got to be true to myself, got to be true to myself in a way now
Got to be true to myself, got to be true to myself

I don't care if it hurts, I'm tired of lies and all these games
I've reached a point in life, aey no longer can I be this way
Don't come crying to me, I too have shed my share of tears
I'm moving on, yes I'm grooving on, aey well I'm finally free

I've got to be true to myself, got to be true to myself in a way y'all
Got to be true to myself, got to be true to myself, c'mon now

Got to be true, got to be true, got to be true to myself in a way y'all
Got to be true, got to be true, got to be true to myself"

 

 

never give up on yourself and never stop being yourself...

 

 

i have been an idiot for a long time now...made a fool out of myself for love again and again...stood up for justice and fairness but got hammered for it...havent stepped off my spiritual path for anyone...took less so others could have more...let myself be walked all over at times...lived in fear and lived with courage...i have had money and been flat broke...i worked long hours at jobs i hated and been unemployed...left abusive relationships and stayed in them for too long...i have lied to myself more than others...put up with too much BS...i have given away time to those not worthy of it while not giving time to good decent folks...i have hated myself often...but more than anything...more than all the good and the not good of my life i have always tried to stay hopeful...keep moving forward...keep healing...

 

tonight i got into the belly of the beast with it all...seeing through BS once again...understanding more about things than i wanted to know...unwilling to play by rules in a silly game constructed by ego...and i was feeling stupid...but then...i shifted my perspective...and stopped caring about the world and its bullshit...i dont care about anything other than my soul and my healing and my life tonight...

 

the rest is just not worth it...healing from my childhood and overcoming the pain of adulthood is all that matters tonight...i am getting there...and i know it...i know when i wake up tomorrow i am waking up to the truth...my truth...all of it...and i can take it...i can let go of the crap...hold close the goodness and live a better day than this...

 

i am excited...thrilled at this strength rising up in me...i have been this idiot who has screwed up in life and been screwed over...i am a human yet more...i am me...the me behind all of this...and damn it i sit here tonight in love with this stupid little life and all my human mess...that is a victory we should all know...to just say to hell with it...all the judging others do...all the demands and all the pressure to conform...

 

overcome...break free...be that one horse who kicks open the barn door and runs wild through the storm until you find the promised land of wide plains and tall skies...sweet grass to eat and cool spring water to fill you up...escape while you can...they want to nail the door shut...all those sheeple out there who want to pretend everything is ok just the way it is...let them stay imprisoned and trapped in the dark walls of that barn...fattened up and slaughtered! dont do it to yourself...dont stay there in that barn...dont give up...freedom is calling you out...

 

i AM that horse tonight...kicking free...running wild!

 

re-birthday

another sleepless night...the summer closing out...fall coming...letting it all fall now...the last threads holding the old patterns together...time shifting and folding and coming in and out like the tide...as the moon grows fuller i know i am emptying out more...and i am completely surrendering to this death of the old...

last summers end was so different...i was full of hope...after being set free of depression and being healed of that long suicidal battle i felt so hopeful...my birthday was coming up...i was buying a 50th cake...went to a cake shop...felt so excited and playful...but as my birthday approached so many i had coming to the party backed out last minute or put me last on their list...it felt odd and yet i had some amazing friends show up and made it a great party...

the following day a sweat lodge in my honor though it was an odd experience and a huge unraveling...i wouldnt have known i was honored but for the mention of it...there was no prayer...no recognition...it just was...i went off to the side and made offering...drummed...called upon my ancestors...asked for their blessing and healing...it had been years since i had done a sweat...i felt a longing undefined...i felt my roots go deep into mother earth...i felt the other womens energies...some not good...some full of ego...it was an odd but profound moment of understanding how i was perceived...one person even called me by anothers name...it was startling yet i was seeing more clearly then and it was empowering...i actually felt a deep loss that night...yet a deep understanding...the learning of perceptions had arrived...i lost women out of my life then...it was also a lesson about who you can trust and just how to perceive things in life with clear sight and stay true to myself...

it took months to heal from but i am on the last bits of it as well...i will never look with rose colored glasses at others again...i will not trust or let folks close to me who do not respect me...i deserve more dignity than i was shown then...but i have learned just how dangerous closed hearts and fear-based lives are to others...a closed heart is the most dangerous thing a human can possess...i do not trust closed heart people to do right by me or anyone...they are into avoidance of pain...and in this great fear of feeling vulnerable they cause great harm to themselves and others...i will never again put myself into their cage...

i let myself become overly cautious for awhile...it was good to do...i also allowed myself to feel what i needed to feel without censoring myself...

this summer i got deep into it all...my childhood and all the drama of the adults around me then...the damage it did to me...i am finally healing it with such a grace-filled compassion towards myself and them...and in healing that past i am healing the suffering of last year and of brokenness...those relationships were simply the re-creation of chidhood players of drama..amazing to see it now...

i sit in my apartment tonight feeling as if i am nearly drained of my old life...my health not recovered yet i have faith i will come back up from it...the stress is leaving me and this usually helps me recover my health...this time i dont want to let the stress return...i can be done with it as i am done with depression...

i am seeing myself and others with a startling honesty now...i see the dysfunctions of others and how mine is triggered and activated by theirs...i was talking this week to someone who became annoyed with me talking...and i watched it as i was speaking...i didnt pull back...i stood in my own power...women have this thing they do....they want me to be more like a docile man and shut up...listen to them...let them boss me....but i dont...i am a lesbian not a pseudo man...i am talkative like women can be...i am insecure and emotional...i am a woman...duh...yet so many women i have had in my life see me as this she male thing...and it is to me a mistreatment because i am a lesbian...it hurts...i have even had to tell women i am a woman...literally remind them i have the same feelings as them...yet it seems to get lost on them and they go right back to the same old treatment....then i dont give them what they want and they definitely dont like it...

straight women sometimes treat men and lesbians in such a bossy pushy way...not allowing themselves to simply stand in their own power while not seeking power over another...i am the monkey wrench in their plan...i dont let myself be controlled or manipulated any more...i have my power back...and some women dont like a strong woman around them...it is a threat to their power...like i want to take something from them...when i dont...i actually want to see them succeed...i just dont want to get walked all over in the process or be manipulated into doing anything i dont want to do...

i set myself free of trying to please others and now i just please myself...it makes for a more peaceful life...

i am in the end game of my healing...a process that started when i turned thirty...my birthday is coming up...a little over 20 years of self work and i finally understand how i abuse myself and how i self sabotage and why...why i picked women as partners who werent in love with me with much passion and who would get so annoyed by me...my dysfunctions and their dysfunctions making it so painful for both of us...i get it all now...i was simply looking for a parent who would reject me while picking partners who would infact reject me...simple and yet a pattern too hard to break until i reached deep and got fully engaged with my childhood and the healing...

i still have a heavy duty bit of childhood to lay to rest...but i am doing it...and it is at once emptying me out and freeing me up...i do feel the labor pains of my own rebirth...i feel the ripping apart and burning away of all that childhood mess...and i feel i am making peace with the patterns repeated through my adulthood...still need to forgive and heal a couple of interactions with people in my recent past...and i will...i dont want to hold onto the hurt of it any more...perhaps it will allow me to move on and find love...true love...i know i deserve it...though i can also be a true love to myself now...and am...

i am stronger even as my body has taken on illness from all the stress of dealing with my dark parts fully at last...but i know this short run of illness and asthma will go away as i free myself more and step fully into my new life...the one i finally allow myself to have....

so tonight sleep is still not coming as i write this...nearly 2 a. m....so i am going to journey into my last threads...brave it...let myself dream of it...understanding more...and finding greater peace and healing...this fall is about harvesting my life's work and moving on into a new time...i feel so grateful for the work i have done and the help others have given me through these 20 years of work...i feel like celebrating a re-birthday this year...in nature perhaps...in the quiet unfolding of gentle hours...walking barefoot on the good earth...feeling the drumming of my own heart....this september is a blessing...i know this birthday will be so much more peaceful...opening wings...finding my way...free...

to you...it is always you...

you are the sky of my happiness today...the ghost of your kind ways haunting my heart...lingering around the edges of all my smiles...leaping up from the fire of my joy like snapping dragons...thank you and thank you and thank you...

i once looked at your palm and saw your life line curving to the same degree as the slope of your hip...it made me blush even after we had traded a thousand kisses...and i still blush at the thought of your life line curving over me...

i am forever anchored to the love still whispering yes in my soul...

sweetly simple wings fold in to warm me in my thoughts of you...and the flow of thank you...the flow of love...

my dreams made more peaceful to gaze into...the comfort of your presence in my mind keeping the growling teeth of nightmares from me...

it is always you...as night lifts up on soft paws and comes to sit in my lap...these stretching hours of longing...not for the steam of sex but the uncorking...the decantation...the breaths of love...life line touching life line...giving in to gravity...to a relaxing of bones...to a sigh of taste...

i open the window...the candle falls silent...i lift my life line to the darkness and let go...thank you...to you...from me...always...

inside joke

particles colliding...thats all that matters...

(inside jokes always make me laugh...on the inside...which i am...laughing...on the inside...i have to laugh alot these days...on the inside...held together by endless collisions...smashing bumper cars of frantic cells)

a bird hit the window this morning...particles colliding...and i wondered if cartoon birdies flew around its head

(laughing...on the inside...inside my apartment)

i use to know so much more than i do now...but ignorance is bliss...i am growing more blissful each day as my brain is eaten away by the last of my evolutionary path...pathways narrowing...on the inside...white light vibrating...a harmony of humming energy...

(laughing on the inside at the grey matter turning to dark matter...its a cosmic thing...and i am laughing on the inside at another joke god and i have been running back and forth to each other)

my soul sees me as a carbon copy...this imprint is much lighter...lines blurred...the carbon specks more fuzzy after each run through...from dark to light...more copies to come...but not many more...

and here i am...the pop science junkie...from omni magazine and nova fed youth...smiling at the buzzing flies in my memories...i named each one einstein because they all looked the same and flew with the wild wonder of atoms circling the carcass diner...

the einsteins who kneeled at the altar of decay worshipping science in their own way...a chorus of buzzing...a holy feast...sin eaters...transforming death...

i feel the place in my brain that sizzles sometimes...an itch i cant scratch...fingernails-on-chalkboard annoying...i have to say my abc's so it goes away...or flex my hands...or tilt my head and think about the ocean...tricks...to distract my brain who hates numbers but gets stuck counting them...

my funny grey matter...

(laughing at me...on the inside)

i am unable to remember my phone number but i can recite the one i had as a child...i dont remember what i had for breakfast...but i know what i was eating when i was nine...when my dad had a tantrum and threw a pale blue plate against the wall...i remember the slide of spaghetti and the stain it made...which looked like the state of texas...but...what did i have for breakfast today?

patterns and numbers and photons and nothing matters...carbon and stardust...collisions...

a child takes your hand and you know there is a god because you can see god in the childs soul-filled eyes...a god so big in those eyes...a universe swirling there...dense...deep...expanding...

einstein buzzes across the room...less than the speed of light...but too quick for me to snatch him up...

particles colliding countlessly in this room...but my brain will not let me think about the endless counting...

i walk to the window...open it wide...einstein exits...i feel...nothing...matters...

(i chuckle...on the inside...another inside joke)

the gift of anger...

this has been the summer of torching the last shreds of my dignity...this has been the summer of allowing anger to course through me like a wild animal on fire...and tonight has been the most clench-fisted night of my life...

have you had that moment yet?...maybe in the middle of your midlife crisis when you realize the person who you wanted to spend your life with really could care less if you are there or not? or maybe it is the moment when your smart mouthed kid tells you to go F yourself? or when your boss treats you like a slave and not an employee? it is that moment when you completely die to it all and give up...where you just dont care any more...you sunk your heart and soul into something that was an absolute waste...

then after that moment you have the next moment...you take a look at what is left...how many years are left...who is left...what you are willing to put up with...and then the next moment is one of action...of getting up off your loser arse and throwing out all the broken promises and pathetic people in your life...slapping your 20-something across the mouth the next time they call you a name...or raking everything off your desk into the trash and walking out on your stupid boss...

what is it for you? the breaking point when you are sick of being sick of the same old tired worn out crap from your life and the crap others hand you?

for me it is like i have been an irish stew...my life slowly heating up til it is a rolling boil...scorching the bottom of the pot...bubbling over...the anger...the glorious anger of a ruined life...what a waste it has been but what a delicious freedom i feel tonight...

it snapped so easily...so clean and with only alittle pain...this evening...the struggle is over...i am free of giving a damn any more...i dont have to work so hard for only the crumbs any more...i dont want them...i dont need crumbs...people are too self absorbed to share a slice of happiness with me so keep your crumbs...no more leftovers to feel left out with...no more cheap meals while others feast...i am done with it all and the bitterness of it is leaving me tonight...

this life...it is just life people...it isnt even a speck...it is pointless and it is shameful now...this world we have collectively created...the violence...the hate...the rape of mother earth...humanity is a cancer eating this planet bit by bit...and we all know it...we all know in our guts what the outcome will be if we keep at it...and we are keeping at it...

i am rooting for nature...our best nature and the planets best nature...but like my dad use to say "nothing lasts and nothing matters...even the mona lisa will no longer be there some day"....i fought knowing that all these years...i fought alot of things...not any more...i started breaking and quiting and giving up last year...not in a depressed state but in a rational state...in understanding the world is very broken and full to the brim with broken people...

i saw alot of it very clearly last year...of how ego and especially women with rabid egos are killing this world...i mean many men can be brutes with their guns and bombs...but women had such a great calling to heal themselves and this world...to give birth to revolution on a scale that would be remembered for thousands of years...but i see what is happening everywhere now...women are now aping the brutish vulgarities...they are tearing it all down right alongside of men...their egos so busy defending their dysfunctions...and i have occasionally even joined in...i have watched women like my mother and other mothers over the years...passing on the disease to the next generation...the de-evolution of the feminine divine...and i know now that women are the death nail in all of this...and it is ok...my dad was right...nothing lasts...

and i wasted most of my life wanting something some of us just dont get...because nice people do finish last...so i finish last...that is fine too...i will paint and do my best to feel good about myself...be me...but that thing i held onto for so long...that hope i would be seen as equal to those around me...i dont care any more...reject me? put me down? make me less than you? well guess what...i AM more evolved than you....i would never do to a man woman or child what has been done to me...i deserve better but you dont have it in you...you are weak and a coward and are a waste of my energy...and i am free of you...