Warts and all

This has been a mercurial week, alternating between: rest and activity; being nurtured and tending to others; wrestling with frustration and releasing it; feeling empowered, then humbled; questioning my motives and having my integrity affirmed; savoring time in my studio and wondering where I will land next; valuing my freedom and flexibility, but yearning for routine and partners; experiencing chronic pain and observing it leave.

And, I actually had time pay attention, unlike last week's blaze of constant activity that prevented any blogging or reflection.

Midweek was pivotal. I ventured to yoga for the second time and caught up with a new Quaker friend, whose journey toward creating a new farmer's market I had followed with interest and enthusiasm. Just before class, she confided that she was laying it down, a Quaker term for releasing it. I was stunned and  saddened ... enough so that, after I learned part of the story, I decided to vent on, of all places, Facebook.

After doing so, the responses began pouring in, including from a brave council member who said I didn't have all of the facts. I felt that I'd had enough, besides I was smarting from the community stopping redevelopment of the school where my studio is housed, only to get word that it will close anyway June 1. No one has enough money to save it. And no one had funds for the farmer's market.

Money seemed the root of it all.

It's also the impetus for my exploring full-time job opportunities vs. limping along with little of it for Artsy Fartsy and any salary. Last week I had an interview and two grants due the next day and more waiting to see what pans out. Waiting, uugh.

So, I bellowed with all of that in the mix, not really recognizing the amalgamation.

And the post began to be shared and circulate and I heard from all kinds of circles outside my typical one. I received an e-mail and message to call someone I trust and respect to get the full story. I did and realized that I had gone off half-cocked, just like some of those desperately trying to be the school's savior that had driven me crazy. What else was there to do, but cop to it.

I acknowledged that I had made a mistake and was sorry for spewing without knowing the full story. The reporter in me was ashamed. The community activist was grateful that a wonderful conversation had begun. And the good twin knew she had to 'fess up and clean up the evil twin's mess.

What was remarkable was the kindnesses that came as a result of the apology. Only tenderness and very affirming messages. I had no idea I was important enough for people to care what I think. My husband playfully gasps when I say that because he doesn't get why I don't get it.

The afternoon of the original post, I met with my shaman/pastoral counselor/massage therapist. I hadn't seen him in eight weeks, much too long. He always asks what my intention is and areas that need specific work. My neck and back, I said (shoulders, hips, hip flexors, sinuses are always givens). Your neck, he repeated, suggesting that its misalignment was connected to my not being able to fully be myself in the world. That is your struggle, he repeated.

Why don't I trust being myself?

Oddly enough a Facebook post this morning helps me understand. The author writes about
"the challenge of always seeing beyond, or outside of, what is currently accepted as 'the way'" yet wanting to belong. "... your preferences for unusual ideas or ways of doing things, your passion and intensity, your sensitivity and your unusual level of perception are all qualities that have made it difficult for you to fit in or to be like others." YES, I think.

Until you can live with your true self, the blog post continues, you experience a highly critical inner voice, disappointment with the lack of high standards in others, inordinately high standards of yourself and despair from feeling like an outsider.

Does this writer know me personally?

She continues: 

"Growing up in a world that did not have a way to understand or support all the unusual qualities ... you most likely lived with your gifts in one of two ways. You may have responded to your otherness by unconsciously creating a false self that blended in. You used your gifts to fit into the world. ... Otherwise, you may have felt like a failure, or that you had missed the boat somehow, because your gifts prevented you from adapting or feeling that you belonged. Your gifts may have overwhelmed you and left you unable to cope with the world’s expectations, unable to find “your groove”.

" ... you are compelled by an inner creative imperative to explore the unexplored and to give form to the previously formless."

" ... you may interpret your complex inner life and thoughts as signs of craziness. In a culture that does not value the abstract or complex, you may have grown up thinking nobody else was like you.

"As you step into your gifts, you learn to trust your unique ways of relating to the world ... You come to understand how you differ from those around you, without placing value judgments on these differences. You understand your uniqueness to be part of what you offer to the world."

Wow, this explains so much, including the intensity of the week, my reactions and others' generous responses.

You can read the post in The Architecture of Meaning at http://architectureofmeaning.com/gifted-soul/gifted/#

• When have competing issues and feelings twisted your psyche?

• Did you act out? How?

• On reflecting, what would you do differently?

• What wouldn't you change?

• What did you learn about yourself?

swirling with

emotion

good, bad

and ugly

I had to

release

had to

knowing it

wasn't how I

typically behave

when I want

to fit in

instead of

just being

myself

this once,

I gave in

and the world

didin't come

crashing down

instead,

it accepted me

warts and all

Naked-baby confessions

The naked plastic dolls in my studio have become a subject of curiosity. Enough so, that I am taking note. There's a petite basket full of tiny ones that my mother was ready to pitch as she downsized. I couldn't let them go to the dumpster. Then the closer to real-sized models. Two look like clones except one is smaller. They came from the local thrift shop. They were so cute and lifelike, I couldn't resist and, besides, my girls were in the baby-doll stage then. The last used to be a Baby Jesus, sans his halo. People ask what that missing chunk out of the back of is head is ... well, it's where the halo used to be, I respond.

Somewhere along the line they were all clothed. Not now and I think that may mean something ... something significant.

Mostly people marvel over them and deem it appropriate for an artist's studio amid the plush toys, Godzillas and giant princess Halloween mask. They, however, really freaked out a recent visitor from Taiwan. A quiet teen who wants to be a film  director. No horror, she said. No wonder she didn't like the  defrocked dolls.

Other baby confessions as long as we're at it: I've always liked dirty babies in diapers  ... you know the ones someone is not quite tending. No clothes, no shoes, usually a full diaper and no attention of any kind. They're on their own, playing in the mud, sticking a dirty spoon or rock in their mouths. Saturday I gave my favorite baby gift: a basket jammed with pristine onsies, soft socks and thick wash cloths – all white. Pure and simple: just like real infants.

Sitting in worship Sunday, ruminating on a wonderful poem our minister chose to read, made me think of those molded infants. The poem was Louisa Fletcher's "The Land of Beginning Again" and the minister also mentioned early, influential Quaker Margaret Fell and her conception of letting the light "convict" us, laying all open for us to see: the good, bad and ugly.

I have known that place – perhaps too well. It's a place of nothingness, no clothes, protection or screening. Something like these buff babies I seem to collect. And then the poetic line that really stung me was:

"And I wish that the one whom our blindness had done

The greatest injustice of all

Could be there at the gates

like an old friend that waits

For the comrad he's gladdest to hail."

This poem is about starting over clean, dropping our mistakes and headaches "like a shabby coat at the door." I shivered at the line about a friend waiting at the gates, thinking:

"What if it's yourself you wait to meet at the gate of forgiveness?"

I am beginning to believe those babies represent my innocence and vulnerability, My True Self and my inner children. Some of the things that have been lain bare alongside the darker parts. I've been sifting through the dirtier, messier stuff. Maybe it's time to put that aside and claim these delicious little babies.

• When have I unconsciously collected something that held deeper meaning?
• What was that meaning?
• How was I awakened to it?
• How does living into my oddness or uniqueness help me claim more of my True Self?
• How do I express my awe, wonder and gratitude to Spirit for this journey?



always
they have riveted me

nothing hiding,
no protection

the live ones
babbling and
playing on as if
it doesn't matter
they're not tended

the hard facsimiles
don't notice anyway

just beckon me
with their exposure

helping me see
mine and
appreciating it

Listen to this post:

Death of the false self

Listen to post:

In a dream, I am sitting at the end of several rows of stackable chairs whispering something in God’s ear, then I slump back , clearly dead. I don’t know my exact words, but I release something and I feel the ache leave my heart.

This was a waking dream during a centering-prayer session and I literally feel the release of my heart. I know I have died, surrendering what I had been holding onto. The change is palpable.

           

Soon, the silence is broken by the sister signaling its end and reading the day’s selection from The Daily Reader of Contemplative Living by Thomas Keating:

"January 24

The Way to Divine Love

'Behold, I make all things new.'

                            – Revelation 21:5

Divine love is compassionate, tender, luminous, totally self-giving, seeking no reward, unifying everything … the experience of being loved by God enables us to accept our false self as it is, and then let go of it and journey to our true Self. The inward journey to our true Self is the way to divine love … The growing awareness of our true Self, along with the deep sense of spiritual peace and joy which flow from this experience, balances the psychic pain of the disintegrating and dying of the false self. As the motivating power of the false self diminishes, our true Self builds the 'new self' – the motivating force of divine love.

Ephesians 3:17-19

'[I pray] … that you … may have strength … to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.'"

…

Wisdom imparted at the labyrinth this morning

I am certain it can get no clearer than this for me. I am whole-heartedly searching for my true Self, casting out whatever it not truth. This dream happened yesterday and since, I have experienced the spiritual peace and joy, which balances the psychic pain of the disintegrating and dying of the false Self. I believe that is the pain lifted from my heart and it was real.

This revelation has caused me to question just about everything, including this so-called book I am pushing forward on. It feels oppressive right now. I cling to it merely for identity and to show some amount of productivity. Yes, I am called to spiritual-nurture ministry and the concept of the turtlebox [nurturing space within ourselves to welcome the divine], even teaching and facilitating it. And, maybe completing the book some day. But I think I clutch it because being a writer has provided me an identity for a long time. It’s much scarier to think of myself as a teacher, unacknowledged territory, or an artist with a message. I’ve always said art is what is in my heart. Words come from my brain. They’re easy and the way I have made my living. They buy my way into the business world. What if I want to be part of a different world? One more on the fringes and cutting edge?

Means I have to let go of what is false.

• What moments of truth have I experienced?

• What circumstances allowed them to happen?

• What of my false self was revealed?

• What of my true Self?

• Where am I currently in that dance?

ego props me up

even when I don’t realize

but that’s why it’s ego:

the auto pilot that takes over

unless I intentionally

spend time in solitude,

prayer or reflection

I don’t always have to run

off to a convent for that

regular prayer

Sundays silent worship

the deep companionship of friends

also help my true Self

emerge

Taking my travel self home

 Listen to this post:

What is it about travel that teaches you about yourself? Maybe it’s the interior journey outwardly manifested, making lessons more tangible and visible. Or that you become someone else when away from home. Or more of yourself.

It’s good to get out of one’s element and away from the regular routines, patterns and dysfuntions. Travel is exhilarating, scary, immediate, demanding, forgiving, gracious and a host of other adjectives. And, in my experience, it’s never boring.

It also breaks one’s rhythm, jettisoning soul and spirit too far too fast; confirmed by my massage therapist when I have returned, complaining that I don’t feel all here yet. It also takes me a few days to feel all here, wherever my destination; one or two to release where I have been and another one or so to begin to feel where I am presently.

Being present; that’s my goal in traveling … well, beyond the first day or so.

So when I shake off the sleep of travel, I begin to open to what is before me. New sights, a different tongue or dialect, unusual foods and a reticence to fully engage with language. I am always shy at first, but each time discover that if I can utter the first hello in whatever language, differences melt. Smiles are universal.

I have been trying to define my style of travel: not luxury, or tour group, not quite Rick Steves and not youth hostel. More internet, nearby market, stay with a local and in one place awhile to absorb it, only visit the places and museums that speak to me. Maybe it’s slow travel, like slow food. I like to savor the experience. On my last trip to Italy, I was on art overload. Too many museums and too much art too quickly. As I noticed the burnout, I chose to enter a room, gravitate to the ONE piece that moved me and study only it. There’s always one that calls. Just as there is always one menu choice that grabs me or local food specialty that seems to have my name stamped on it.

When I traveled alone, I wondered how meaningful an experience is if not shared. On solo trips, I especially use my journal and later it jogs memories, but there’s no one with whom to discuss it or help me remember. Having a travel partner also lets me be lazier: all of the decisions are not up to me, neither are the screw-ups. I don’t always have to be the one to ask. I don’t have to eat alone.

I am not certain what I am learning about myself this trip, except just to soak it all in and be present. That’s so much easier away than at home.

• How does travel change me?

• What have been the best experiences?

• What did I learn from the worst?

• What do I know about myself as the result of travel?

• What can I bring home from my away-self that will enrich me?

up for hours

on pure adrenalin, excitement

and anticipation

the truncated sleep and protracted

sitting numb my body

my mind races

to the next place

until I can settle into

where I am, who I am

and be myself

somewhere else

then take the new parts

of that person

home

A ravishing tigger

Listen to this post:

It’s day four of my solitary summer adventure, soon to not be so monastic as my family joins me tomorrow. The Amstel beer and bottle of Valpolicella, eating well and meeting a lot of interesting folks, definitely, disqualify this as monastic. Nevertheless, it’s always wonderful to regain a sense of who I am and a more playful rhythm when I am alone.

It helps me remember myself separate from the identities I take on when around people I love and know well. It’s that enneagram #2/helper thing I do and it’s sure a vacation to leave that behind.

I have been working, though not as intensely as I was last January when I visited for a week. It was easier in the bitter coldness and bulging white blanket to remain inside with a fire lit internally and externally and write. This community was almost vacant and lakeside walks turned up little more than birdcalls, deer tracks and crumbled geodes as company.

Right off the bat, I met am amazing woman who is this cul-de-sac’s go-to person. She shares her recreation key with me and we’ve had some nice conversations poolside. She’s a five-year breast-cancer survivor, who takes none of this natural beauty here for granted. Everyone seems to know Donna.

Yesterday, I wore a bright orange skirt and matching scarf, ready to cheerfully greet the day. It was quite the conversation starter and I reverted to just being me, Rosie. Brenda is a costumer who runs a jammed closet-like vintage shop on Bloomington’s square. Her concoctions of new and old are divine. Around the corner, the young guy running the shoe store made me feel like a queen trying on $150 shoes that I did not buy. I can’t remember the last time I was waited on in that manner. I sat on the comfy couch and pretended, knowing full well I would not get this pair. He didn’t seem to care, yet treated me as if I were his best customer.

I had a nice chat with the IU (Indiana University) student in the fair-trade shop, exchanged pleasantries in words and energy with the guy in the holistic space next door and generally enjoyed the day, paying attention to most all I met. Usually I’m in too big of a rush. The cashier in the department store where I did buy a pair of shoes, for $25, had the most stunning aqua eyes and I told her so. I was noticing and noticed.

I ended my outing with an iced coffee, meeting five-month-old Mohammed and his father, who was tending him while his wife was at the nearby salon.

Today, not physically dressed in orange but still feeling swept up, I made my way to the famous Saturday farmer’s market and was not disappointed: brown eggs, fresh cheese, organic meat, Indiana sweet cherries, garlic skeins, lush bouquets, Amish farmers, the guy who sold me black and raspberry bushes, students, starving artists (one from whom I bought a painting), intellectuals, upscale bakers, klezmer musicians and a woman in Laura-Ingalls-Wilder dress doling out just-popped corn from a bloated copper kettle. What a melting pot (ok, so maybe predominantly a white melting pot).

I am beginning to see everyday can be this way: a feast for the senses with many connections. Some deep, others for the moment only. It’s about experiencing each moment joyfully, with an eagerness and openness that so often get left behind in our hurry to the next task.

• When was the last time I really enjoyed being myself?

• What were my interactions like then?

• Was I noticing and being noticed?

• How can I remember that place in myself?

• How can I greet the day as myself, with eagerness and openness, instead of feeling bombarded by my to-do list?

the short orange skirt

and matching beaded shawl

made me feel like a ravishing tigger

I was

the princess trying on the glass slipper

the activist concerned about workers in Ghana

the seamstress interested in vintage costuming

the gardener learning about berries

the artist supporting another

the foodie who bought the local cheese

the visitor who felt welcomed

I was me and

all those I encountered

Climbing back into life

Listen to this post:



What if life is ALL there is? That we don't own life, but are life?

Reading Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks bring me here.

What if it's not something to be used up and gotten through. But something to savor, enjoy, revel in and discover your essence NOW and just be it. No projections. Who and how would we be then?

I would be creating beauty, nurture, love and peace in the world and myself. I would be as compassionate with those that have more than I do as I am already with those that have the same or less.

I would not let myself feel inferior, rage into self doubt or deprive myself of joy and the worldly tools to get there.

I would have ONE system. not a spiritual one AND a secular one. Not an inner one AND an outer one. Not an unmasked one AND a masked one. Not a true me AND a social me.

I would understand that I can and should use the material world to enhance the spiritual one, recognizing that I am the bridge between.

I would see every experience through the eyes of love and wisdom instead of drowning in isolation and defeat.

I would learn to take the harsh realities as moments of spiritual growth and transformation.

I wouldn't judge those moments or my response, but accept them as a part of the process of living.

I would see that living fully is constant change. I would become more fluid and soften into that current.

I would know I am the current. A part that must intimately know and show itself to others in the current, bumping up against, encouraging and nurturing them to do the same. So that we would all shine together as one.

Can you image the power and intensity of that?

I am wondering if that's what life is all about.


• In what dualities do I live?
• What vision of oneness can I create?
• How much energy do I expend being something other than my true self?
• What if I focused that energy on being me?
• What if we all did?


we climbed out fresh and new
open, vulnerable, willing and loving

the more time we spent in this foreign place,
the more it molded us

we forgot our origins, replacing
the sense of connection with isolation

working hard at being our own person,
separate, distinct and removed

we walked sleeping through life
swayed by what lay on the surface

until that thing in us
called out, demanding
we pay attention

sometimes it was pain,
discontent or just plain lonliness

we were created to be connected
and that urge will propel us

back into the flow of life,
just being

being where we belong with each other

Running amok as myself

Listen to this post:

I am tired of stumbling through growing pains. The kind that happens as I move from one stage of myself to the next. It seems like a constant process these days: layers peel off, wounds rise to the surface demanding attention, examination delivers new insight, I feel positive about my direction and then it starts all over again. In the long run, I know [or at least I tell myself] this is all good and leading somewhere. Otherwise, I'm not certain I could stand any more of this shedding, cleansing and rebirthing. It's exhausting work. So, in the midst of this, I cynically and not too seriously scribbled down what I thought could be the opening of an autobiography [you know, for when I'm known and remembering when ...] written now. Here goes:

...

Ima Mess. A new moniker to name my persisting condition. It's just too much work, too much energy expended to pretend.

I really can't think I'm alone in this charade. At Monday night's neighborhood book club, we discussed whether any of us has hidden behind stereotypes. Easy talk about politicians, sales people and celebrities. Yet, I pushed the "us" button, hungry to understand if there were any universality to my current state of mind.

One brave soul volunteered her occasional jaunt into invisibility, attributing it to many moves during childhood, creating a constant "new-kid" syndrome.

There were gasps at the revelatory question that escaped from my lips: "Don't we all feel like that?"

Apparently NOT, the awkward silence responded. Some discussion of the difference between introverts and extroverts ensued and it dawned on me that, actually, it does not occur to everyone. A JOLT.

...

That's as far as I've gotten it on paper. Maybe that's all it will ever be, but the mother of all questions remains: "How many people show – consistently – who they really are to the world?"

I've been reading about inner selves and social selves, the tension, how to create balance, when to let your inner self out and how to effectively use your social self. All I really, really want to do is let my inner self, probably a child, run amok with no worries. Just let it happen. My pastoral counselor says my age gives me permission to become even weirder. I think he's saying the same thing.

My sleep has been deeper lately; I know because am dreaming. Dreams laced with messages that are freeing me from the yoke of how I see myself, the patterns I have inherited and social conditioning. They're providing the same message, which reminds me of a verse that flew out of my pen and onto the paper several years ago for my youngest, but that seems to be especially useful right now:

MORE OF WHO YOU ARE

Be MORE of who you are.

Not less or who anyone else says you are.

Listen deeply, inside, to know who you are. 

Not outside.

Listen to your heart.

To me.

To love.

Love is always the answer.

Live in love.

Respond in love.

Act in love.

Love.

• How much energy do I expend trying to be somebody?
• Who is that somebody, exactly?
• How has it felt when I have been able to let myself out?
• Who serves as an example of that for me?
• Is invisibility any better than being someone else?

Holding me back from myself

Yesterday morning as I was unloading the dishwasher while my girls were setting up the snack they volunteered to bring to our Quaker meeting, the metaphor of me working in the kitchen during worship was too powerful to ignore. But it's also painful to consider what action the meaning may spark.

I am so spiritually wiped out that I can barely feel God. Enough that I asked my spiritual friend of several years for a large dose of help this morning. She lovingly and caringly doled out what I so desperately needed: a practiced ear, a big heart, a knowingness and affirmation I have not often received and, as a result, need.

I seem such a far place from mid January when I spent a week alone writing in the woods and snow at another generous friend's condo. I was full of energy and joy, working on my work and sailing toward some imagined (though I suspect Divinely-inspired) bliss. Two events have intervened to take me somewhere else. Situations that fall into my pattern of giving myself away in exchange for something less than I am worth. I was prayerful on both counts and felt as I was doing what Spirit asked. I don't doubt that now, but am smarting from the dark hole into which I've fallen. I've been here before, but this time I seem to have tools I didn't earlier: awareness, a light to shine in the dark and the wisdom of a real friend.

I am supposed to be here, hard as the road was.  I have some excavating of old wounds to face instead of letting them scab over and grow deeper. I opened those wounds last week, journaling them. Today I exposed them, some for the very first time, to another human. And this time, I received the response I have so often missed.

I am becoming increasingly aware, however, that to move toward wholeness, I have to make a major change: unearthing myself from a previous source of nurture and growth. It seems I am only seen there for the light, bright parts of myself that I can give and not the dull, dirty parts that need attention. But for my spirit to shine, I MUST wade into the muck and reclaim those hidden pieces ... with or without my faith community. In not encouraging and nurturing the journey into darkness, I am suffocated and called to venture on accompanied or unaccompanied. This journey can not be stalled, neglected or delayed. My soul is at stake.

And I won't be alone.

• When have I been called away from something that no longer fits?
• How has a previous journey or awareness eased the transition?
• How do we recognize that finding our True Selves is a constant evolution and may mean leaving ideas, concepts and people behind.
• How do I nurture myself through those times?
• How can I be sure not to miss any new doors or openings?


the patterns from childhood
are so strong that it takes
something bigger than I to
shake them loose


that shaking can be brutal,
uncomfortable and tear
me from things and places
I hold dear


and yet, they are
holding me back
from
myself

Upsetting the social script

Meeting with wonderful old friends – from my first job – Monday night and realizing, other than aging somewhat, no one has really changed, I wondered out loud on the drive home if it's possible at 25 we have already become primarily the person we will be for life.

It seemed a rather profound thought to explore. I know in some ways I don't feel very different; in all of the essential ways I believe I am the same person, sans some of the baggage and experience I have accumulated along the way.

Or were we just putting on our best faces? In this group, we have all witnessed each other at our worst: nursing headaches at work after a Sunday night galavanting; playing grownup in newspaper jobs that practically paid play money; living large because we didn't know any better; and loving hard for the same reason, sometimes rewarded with heartaches, yet also with relationships that have survived and grown. It stymies me to think that these people sailed out of my daily life when they had been such an important part of my maturing. I guess we all grew into other things: different careers, marriages, relationships and families.

So is the person who laughed, reminisced, stirred fond memories and totally enjoyed herself with this group the real me or is the one who has not-so-gracefully navigated a harsh winter and feels lost, even desolate, me? I don't recall these spells of hardness during my tenure with these friends. But then, life was simpler. Only me to care for, no worries, no lingering expectations or disappointments, only living in the moment as we all did. AHHHH living in the moment. That may be the difference.

How did I stray so far from that earlier time? I felt new, alive and my own person then. Now I feel governed by some pretty deep ruts not necessarily of my own making, but trenches – family and cultural patterns, philosophies and tenants that run counter to my essential self – from which I am attempting to emerge  The first step has been to recognize them. Now I am working to extricate myself. And it's really hard. I feel like I am the only screwed-up person as well as the only one trying to do something about it. It's not something that pops up in the daily course of conversations, e-mails or facebook posts. And, when in passing, someone asks how I am, I know they don't want to hear "crappy or demented," so I suck it in, force a winced smile and reply, "OK," which is a blatant lie. But the truth would upset the social script.

Deep down, I know this is imperative and what I am supposed to be undertaking right now, in this moment. Last week, I was beginning to wonder if God were an invention, but that's because I am conflicted about my faith community. I have been giving there what I have needed all of my life, spiritual nurture. My wise shamanic counselor says they can't provide what I need. So where, I ask, do I get it?

Certainly at age 25 I did not suffer from this dilemma. I did not examine issues this deeply. Was I living more superficially? It was surely an easier way.

Perhaps my lesson is to meld my earlier ability to live in the present with the harder course right now, including talking about it, even making people feel uncomfortable.  And to take it one day at a time and see where it leads ... hopefully into God's loving embrace. But I am not so very sure.

• What does renewing old friendships mirror about who we have been? Who we are now?
• How does dealing with the complexities of life as we grow older contribute to our maturity?
• To our spiritual growth?
• How is it possible to have felt so very close the the Divine, only to feel so far as to question its existence?
• How can we open a healthy conversation about the darkness, which is also a part of the lightness?


they held the mirror
and when I looked back,
I saw joy, frivolity and an easier way


I am afraid to look presently


because the ride is steeper, twisting and taking
me deeper and darker away


from the light I only so
very recently seemed to find


something tells me it's okay and
if I were to peer ahead, I would be pleased with the view


I must hold that hope, along with the reflection
of the past, and let it light the darkness now

Frozen by what's NOT in my heart

It's been a rough and tumble couple of weeks as I attempt to figure out what I want to be right now, not just when I grow up because I'm not sure I'll ever be in that place. Nor do I want to be, unless, maybe, when it's time to transition from this life.

My blog, among other things, has suffered as a result. It's not that I haven't tried, it's just that it has come out in fits and starts that never seem like a whole piece or even finished. Yet that's been my life of late. Perhaps stringing these chunks on one strand may make a whole something. Here goes:

1.

Wish the world would let me in on its little secrets sooner. Ones like:

• You can have a career and have a family, but if you have the family later and take time off, you're in for a BIG surprise if you think you can return on your terms.

• If you decide you have a spiritual side and prefer to live in that place, the rest of the world doesn't hold much of a place for you.

• You can have a chronic disease and pretend you don't, but sooner or later the world will trigger something to remind you that you do.

• You can give yourself away and the world will ask for more.

• You can show your soul to the world, thinking you're ready, and it will still get stomped on.

• You can "think" you're in a spiritual environment and still be subjected to the demands of the secular world.

• If you are creative in any way, you will have to carve your own path.

• Ha, ha, ha; there IS a glass ceiling.

[You can CUT the anger and frustration, can't you?]

2.

After feeling defeated, now I am rebellious; tired of the restrictiveness of the norm and anxious to break out into something more creative, joyful and ... well ... me.

[Something's at work in this shift – creativity?]

3.
I tried an office job because people I love and respect asked and I thought I should give it a go, which they graciously let me do. It was not a fit for many reasons. But primarily because that's not where my essential self calls and it spoke petty loudly. I ignored it and fought on. Which is what I have typically done in life when I let my social self tell me what to do and I let myself be dictated to by "everybody's opinion," that I have learned is not real thanks to reading Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You were Meant to Live by Martha Beck.

Interesting how I came across this book. It was "recommended" by the New York agent who flirted with me for a few days to quickly dash my hopes of her representation after  a lot of blood, sweat and tears.  She said my book was too similar to North Star, among others. I was shocked because my research had not turned up anything quite like I was proposing: my journey of the past 12 years in journal entries and art, wrapped with meditations, queries, affirmations, exercises and explanations I've developed in training and leading spiritual-nurture groups and workshops. And, because North Star was ten years old, it wasn't even on my radar.

So, being the curious sort, I borrowed a copy of the book. Our titles are similar [mine was Finding Your True Self: A Map of Self Spiritual Exploration and Nurture, which I will change], even the chapters follow common themes, ending with exercises. That sounds like a lot, but the commonality ends in that her approach is more a life process of finding your calling; mine is about re-discovering the Divine within.

And then I began reading it. BINGO. I needed this book and am not sure I'd ever have found it otherwise.  Coupled with a rejection, which I usually take pretty hard, I began to explore how and why someone else's judgment can be so personally damaging and damning. 

This probing has been also been facilitated by a convergence of experience, awareness and provocative, loving souls who have witnessed my pain and frustration. The North Star book delineates our essential self [the one we're born with] and the social self [the one that conforms] and theorizes that balancing the two opens new and greater possibilities. For most people the social self is in charge ... often without any awareness.

I understand I am not meant to live a conventional life and can surrender into that acceptance, while leaving "what everybody thinks" behind. Everybody, according to Beck, boils down to those influential in our lives, the media, our educational system and those who have been critical of us ... especially those.

The intensity of recent events in my life was almost crushing until someone shook me up and made me see what I passively let happen. Maybe not so passively. I took a bold step and the immediate release was unexpectedly wonderful. In North Star, Beck says that siding with the essential self makes one feel like Scrooge the morning after the ghosts have visited: free and full of love and gratitude.

I was certain I'd crash the next day with the flu/cold one daughter and my spouse shared. Instead, I arose very early, cooked large breakfasts and saw each daughter to her bus, took a yoga class, visited on the phone with a close friend and prepared to have appliances delivered the next day [i.e. cleaning out the old food and old fridge]. And, in between, dreamt of all the new possibilities for MY work, with the emphasis on my and not someone else's.

I have re-gained some energy and a new vision is emerging, one that flows and does not require me to fight. I am tired of fighting, pitting my selves against each other with my body and psyche as the battlegrounds.

4.
I am dealing with the lost-energy aftermath, but my spirit is more than in tact; it feels free again. Free enough to put itself out there with this "in-process" blog post. One person whose opinion I respect rather strongly suggests it's time for me to go out into the world and I wonder what, exactly, that means right now.


• How do I know what I am currently doing is my real work?
• How can I use blinders to let rejection and judgment fall away as I find my path?
• What lessons do those difficult encounters create?
• What is the real, true me?
• How do I remind myself gently that I am a work in progress and extend that to others?


frozen by what's not in my heart,
but rather on my mind or in untrue voices


thoughts and whispers that have imbedded a deep and binding
culvert I am attempting to dig out and re-channel


thus connecting my heart to the rest of me and ...
working toward wholeness

Undoing myself or doing unto myself

Back to reality: days of marching to the schedules of others, finding the sugar secretly spilled and left behind the canister, cats who circle my feet waiting to be held and I, trying to hold off so I can breathe. No going to bed when I desire, waking, hitting the coffee, then the computer. No long spurts of uninterrupted creativity. Back to buying pounds of store-brand cheese, not exotic nibbles of whatever strikes my fancy.

I am acutely aware of how I let others influence my rhythm, pace and mood. I understand that I gave up the life of solitude when I married and bore children. What I have not realized until this recent week away and alone, is how completely I give myself away mothering, volunteering, freelancing and tending others so that there's nothing left for me. I know those in my circle of care would not want it that way.

So, existence for me – something richer than merely tolerable – lays in the balance of where and how I tend myself and others. With fibromyalgia, I have been so busy catering to my physical needs, I didn't seem to notice that others existed. Regular swimming and yoga, a vitamin-and-supplement regimen, Sunday worship, avoiding a host of foods and daily sinus dousing does not a complete life make. Yes they are things I must do to care for myself, but so is regular meditation, time in my studio, being in nature, basking in the sunshine in all seasons and writing daily. OK, I am an introvert, but have not articulated it until more recent years.

I re-learned that last week and it totally fed my soul. Interestingly without some of my physical necessities and eating foods I usually steer clear of, I experienced no pain. Two days home and it has returned.

Makes me do more than wonder; I need to change my life to work in things my soul requires before some of my other efforts. A few years ago, when looking at Jesus' words [and universally those of so many other traditions and cultures] to do unto others as you would do unto yourself, I realized I had practiced it backwards. "Do unto others before or better than you do unto yourself."As a mother and nurturer, that's the natural inclination.

I will do unto myself as I do unto others, which means I may come first occasionally. I know no one else will mind. It's myself that must grant the permission.

• Have I ever craved time away or for myself that I have not taken?
• Why not?
• If I have, how do I function solo?
• How is my rhythm or pattern altered?
• How do I incorporate that into my regular life?


the kids, the kids, the kids


yes, yes, yes


then exercise, so I may function for others


go, go, go
do, do, do


collapse


then start all over


wait a minute ...


I want more from life.


I desire to be fed, nurtured and truly alive
in my own right and just for myself


me, kids, exercise?
me, exercise, kids?
exercise, me, kids?

Arriving at myself

I seem torn between being by myself and seeking companionship. Introversion and extroversion. Being mother and not wanting to be mother. Knowing who I am and being unsure who I am. Being happy and being something else I can't quite define. Meeting obligation and seizing the moment.

Is this the human condition or just mine?

Younger, my life seemed more on an even keel, but I was also spiritually asleep. Now I am spiritually  – mostly – awake, but I can't find the zone of enlightenment where nothing matters. I think that place is a mythical Shangri-La or reserved for those who don't feel with their hearts.

Either that or I have light years of soul work to accomplish.

You'd think that well into midlife I'd have something figured out, but the real truths as I know them are:
• The only constant IS change;
• The more I know, the more I recognize how little I comprehend;
• I am continually growing into who I am;
• The mysteries of life are vast;
• Something so much bigger than we are exists and is capable of more love and creativity than we can fathom and is just waiting for us whenever, however we are ready;
• The world is bigger than ourselves, yet we can permeate those divisions and oneness is the state of true reality;
• Our biggest job is to act as conduits of love.

Okay, so there are probably more, but this is what my brain radiates at this moment. It's a passable list; one I would not have written half a lifetime ago.

I had dinner tonight with someone just turning half my age. Someone struggling with who he is, how he is in the world. With bigger issues than most, but a surer sense of who he is than people twice his age.

He seems so wise for just turning 26. I can't imagine I was that aware at his age. Maybe I've just forgotten. But he's still questioning, pushing and probing just like I am all these decades later. The ONE bit of advice I offered is that it's our life's work to figure out who we are and remind him that he already knows.

And then the mirror reflects that back to me. Do I already know who I am or is that the task of a lifetime? Maybe the answer is both.

• Who am I in this moment?
• How is that different from who I was yesterday or will be tomorrow?
• How am I reflected in others?
• They, in me?
• What are my life's truths?


young and
so very sure


more answers
than questions


now, decades
older and less sure


downright confused
at times, yet


striving to be
the person I am
meant to be


living into myself
my soul
my destiny


will I ever get there
or is getting there
the real lesson?


what happens
when I arrive
if I arrive?