Everything I Touch Turns To...

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

When the dark is at rest,
The light begins to move.
--The Secret of the Golden Flower

How do we make our way through the tangle of being confused or sad or blocked in understanding a way to tomorrow?

In thinking about things; in thinking about the whole 'turtling' thing I was talking about yesterday, and the blame I place on one particular relationship for teaching me that 'to have my own feelings and express them' is a wrong thing to do – is like emotional blackmail (and I'm not even going to examine that one right now) – I realise that there were also events before that. One specific comes to mind.

I used to keep a journal – writing down the way I felt because it was the only way I had to do that, no really close friends to confide in. The paper was my 'friend.' One time, however, this document was taken from me, and quite obviously shown to the guy in school that I had feelings for... was obviously written while I was upset, and he got pissed... had a go at me.

To my credit I had a go back – told him that no, he wasn't supposed to see it, that I was in my journal which was supposedly private to me so no one but me should have seen it. Ironically after our little heart to heart we became good friends, the crush faded, because the friendship was better for us than anything else would have been and, I suppose, all was good.

But it stopped me from writing a journal any more (for a very long time), and in essence cut off that connection with myself that I had. And then Alec came along and convinced me that it was wrong to express hurt, and upset etc, only acceptance was appropriate, and just... talk about being stifled.

Now I'm left struggling with all of that, struggling to express verbally the way I feel without making it seem like any kind of accusations. I obviously don't know how to do that. All I can say is that I'm going to try, but that just never seems good enough to me.

Guess this is just another in a long line of anti-Midas days that I seem to be having lately.

Not Good Enough

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

Every crack is also an opening.

Yet once everything it has relied on falls away, the chick is born. It doesn’t die, but falls into the world.

I could do with 'falling into the world' right now. How long have I been chipping away at the shell surrounding me to get out into it? How many stretches and adjustments have I made to try and accommodate everything? Has anything I've ever tried to do, any change I've tried to effect been recognised and appreciated?

I'll leave those as rhetorical questions, because what I don't want to end up doing is using these awakening things as a vehicle for endless 'airing out of dirty laundry.' My feelings, sure... how do I feel right now...? Tired, down and not good enough, but... see... a while ago I was posting in this thing and said stuff that made the guy I love feel terrible, and that's not what this is about, is it?

Or is that just another way of running away to avoid conflict? Should I... as in life, just bite the bullet and just spit it all out and take the conflicts that are bound to arise at some point from something that is said or not said, understood or not understood.

I'm so tired. I'm afraid of conflict. I just want all the things that I evidently can't do. How good that makes me feel. Not.

Naked and Vulnerable

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

We are born with this need
to cry our naked cry
inside each other.

In this daring and fragile moment, the heart rehearses all its gifts: being who we really are, holding nothing back, trusting another, being complete, and witnessing the completeness of another.

I couldn't quote the whole of this post so I chose that part, since it is the most pertinent part of the whole thing and the part that I latched onto. The entry is about intimacy... and while I wouldn't say I was afraid of intimacy, not in the slightest, not in a physical sense, I have been holding back way too much in ways that aren't physical, and I think that's why the post has touched me so much.

I need to just put my action in line with my intent and live in the moments of complete honest and open, naked vulnerability that I share easily on the physical, but not so much on the emotional. So this isn't an explanation, just an affirmation or a promise – to myself, as much as to anyone else. For the time that I still have here, and then afterwards (though of course differently) while I am away, I will embrace that nakedness and vulnerability, and just trust the people to whom it's shown – and that's going to be mostly Mir – to accept everything good, bad and ugly... loving and everything else.

A River of Memories

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

A river doesn’t hold all the water
That passes through it.

Often the most useful gift we can give ourselves is to lay our lives open like a river.

I have been blessed with a wonderful chance in the strangest of ways. Irene prevented me from leaving, and now I can go with Mir, (assuming we can find a photographer) to have the pictures taken at Biltmore House, for our anniversary.

As I'm sitting here, thinking of all the things and memories of the time we were there before, on our wedding day, and even before that really, the river of my life becomes full to overflowing with the wonderful feelings, and memories of those feelings, each connected to a thing or to a place. I mention here only a few of those... or I would be here forever...

Glassmine Falls Overlook – I fell in love with that place the moment we went there together. It was an easy decision to make as to where we wanted to have the actual ceremony and whether or not there was water in the fall didn't really enter into it. It was the sense of peace among the vastness of the world. A peace I wanted to permeate my heart the day that Mir and I got married to each other.

Biltmore House and Estate – I always thought it was a beautiful place and the prospect of having our reception there was both exciting and frightening at the same time. How could I possibly hope to fit the majesty and beauty of the place, little old me? And then on the day, just how perfect everything way, from the weather to the environment, to the people in cars, stopping to congratulate us... complimenting us... not that I'm normally so vain as that, just... to feel that... to feel like a princess for just that one day – and now I am going to be able to experience that princess feeling all over again... It's so exciting...

And the dress.. I had my heart set on this dress from the beginning, so when it arrived and was basically unwearable, I was heartbroken. I didn't want any other dress. I wanted the long train, the purple panel, to look beautiful for Mir – especially on that day. The thought of getting into the dress again is special, not only because of being a reminder of our special day, but also because I want to show Mir that kind of beauty again... to transcend anything else that might be going on at the time and just present myself and all the love I feel for her, to Mir. It is all for her and no one else.

All these thoughts and memories flow with the others on my river of life; of memory, and as they bubble and flow, and create new memories of themselves... new memories to share.

To Be...

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

Beneath what I try to see
is all I need.

and there in the sun, a good ten yards out, was a duck curled into itself, asleep. With its slick tufted head tucked into its body, it bobbed peacefully in the lapping of the water.

There's a peace that comes with lying in a hammock between two trees... we came out here to read, to experience the outside, to just be Then one afternoon that we did this I didn't go back inside, instead I stayed outside... I was going to read, or I was going to bring the computer outside to use out there, but in the end I did neither. In the end I just simply lay in the hammock, swinging between the two trees, and fell asleep.

It was a surrender to peace, a surrender to nature, just a surrender, and I need to surrender more. I've been fighting so much with fatigue – and it is a fight... one I often lose and fall asleep in the chair... or wherever... and then I feel guilty for doing that because of all the things I haven't done because I was asleep... but it just happens and there's nothing I can do about it.

There always seems to be so much to do, that simply 'being' is hard to find even a few minutes... a few minutes where I'd just like to lie down with my head resting somewhere on Mir, either her shoulder of her lap or something, and just be. Not worry that neither of us are doing anything (though I know that drives Mir crazy), just the chance to be...commune...rest...

Reflections on Vegas

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

So long as you haven't experienced
this: to die and so to grow.
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth.
--Goethe

We double the pain of living when we try to stop the emergence that all life goes through.

Though this is true it's often difficult to embrace change. It's too easy to get used to something and feel comfortable with it. Is that what we have all done over Vegas? It's a question I've been thinking about on and off ever since we got back, and then of course with the added eye-opener of the trip to Dragon-Con in Atlanta, (oh what madness that was – in a good way)

Yes, there were things that didn't work at Vegas (see vegawriters I fixed my boo boo) – like the fact that the room was too damn big, the screens too damn small and fuzzy, and the security too officious even for the rep that Creations 'security' people have. It wasn't good to have to walk through several other meetings/conventions to get to the dealers' room either. If you didn't know where it was you might also have thought they didn't have one...

But... is that cause enough not to like the new venue quite so viscerally? Are we all being unfair?

I don't know the answers to those questions; I just know that this is a change that I'm resistant to. For all that there were lots of first time attendees, for all the excitement of trying out a new hotel (and we'll be going back to our regular one now that we know we can get to the Rio by foot).

Maybe next year they'll have ironed out the teething troubles, though I'm not sure how they'd do that. Maybe they need 2 sets of screens, some set further back in the hall to at least give the illusion of caring about those who are not Gold or Captain's Chair attendees – because let's face it, those numbers are finite, and won't support the continued operations of the convention by themselves. They need the masses, so they need to make it worth their while to attend. And while it's all very well to say, yes well they can get photos, and/or signatures, if you come to a convention to see someone speak, perform or whatever, you don't expect to spend the whole convention only able to hear what's going on...

And when you're someone like me, that's afraid of 'authority' and uncomfortable breaking the rules, then doing as we did and moving up to sit in the Hallowed Gold chairs for the performances at least, doing that, while it lets you see, leaves you feeling uncomfortable and on edge the whole time – and having to sit strangely to cover your wrist band so the over-officious security folks don't chuck you backwards again.

There's a lot of stuff that Creation need to rethink for the future conventions at Vegas. I hope they get that thinking right.

Random: Cars With All Four Wheels Off the Ground... Not Horses

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

Random is the instant a horse at full speed
Has all four hooves off the ground.

We flow to each other's aid, often without knowing where we are headed.

How's this for a random moment...?

I'm a short arse... I make no bones about it, I am short, I find it difficult to reach things and to do things, simple things, because I'm too small to be able to reach. That's what we have tall people for right? That's why we call out hubby over to reach that can of corn down from the top shelf... I love to do that, btw... it makes me feel all protected and lovely. Anyway, I digress...

I recently had cause to go and wash the car at the local Autobath – and yes, it was terribly dirty, because being parked under trees all the time the sap drips on it... the wind blows leaves onto it and so on and so forth... so... because we were intending to go in the car to Biltmore for our anniversary pictures, decided it needed to be clean. Great!

Except it's a deceptively tall car, so... I'm struggling very clearly with a squiggly hose, trying to soap and scrub and rinse the car in the amount of time that I had the quarters to pay for... and I was struggling. The next thing I knew was the attendant for the car wash was beside me offering to help. It was help that I gladly accepted.

Only... once my quarters ran out, with his 'help' the car was still covered in soap... but he went to get his little remote control thingy, set the machine to 'test' and finished cleaning the car. Maybe he was bored... maybe he was not wanting a partly clean car to be coming out of his Autobath... but it took him almost an hour before he was satisfied enough to let me get in my car and leave the car wash... but the car was clean.

Hear Me Squeak

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

To see takes time.
--Georgia O'Keeffe

I came upon a slim fountain gushing from an unseeable center, as high as it could, reaching without arms until it ran out of reach, and at its closest to the sky...

It does not only take time to see, but also to hear and understand. It also takes an abandonment of preconceptions and your own expectations to do so properly... to see and hear something for what it is, not for what you think it is, (or want or don't want it to be), because we live our lives in the wake of our own experiences, and sometimes they bring false or erroneous impressions or understandings to what is actually being done, said or intended..

I'm sick of being second guessed. I'm tired of being misunderstood, and I don't need words or actions or intentions to be put into my mouth... because the ones I intended are already there.

It just takes a moment to see them, hear them and feel them, otherwise all my reaching and the goodness that I'm trying so very hard to give becomes lost – falls to the muddy ground instead of reaching the bright sky.

Human Malady At Large

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

We are here to live out loud.
--Balizac

-Go outside, if you can, and listen to the birds. Hear the clearness of their song.
-Note how there seems to be nothing between their impulse to sing and what they sing.
-As you breathe, note what you are feeling and note whatever hesitation keeps you from sounding it out loud. This is a human malady.
-Work on removing your human hesitation. As you inhale, feel what rises in you. At the top of your breath, blink the mind shut like an eye. As you exhale, let the feeling sound from you, no matter how softly.

I know what makes me hesitate from sounding my feelings out aloud, It is the thought of the conflict that will ensue. Yes a learned response, yes a 'human malady' but it's also a very real one. I know that. I have seen and had it reaffirmed within me within the past few days that honestly, it's better if I temper what I say about what I feel.

I mean it probably isn't, and I'm sure it's not healthy, not for me, or for my relationships, but when it's perceived that voicing my feelings and/or concerns is whining, when my feelings are incompatible with caring for others who are important to me, isn't it the altruistic and noble thing to do to sacrifice one's own needs for the good of others.

And yet – I hear the birds singing out their joy at being alive, and I am envious. I smile as the squirrel scolds me for coming anywhere near to him... (or her)... and we all know how much I love the sound of the 'cheepy-tree-bugs.'

Lady nature lead me onwards... teach me to speak even when I would, for fear, stay silent.

One More Step

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

Maybe that's why I want to touch people
so often-it's only another way of talking.
--Georgia O'Keeffe

For those who have suffered, tolerance is not a political position of even a principle. For those of us who have suffered, who have hauled ourselves into the sun, anything exhausted beside us is family.

I struggle with depression... and I'd like to remind people at this point in the 'proceedings' that depression is an illness, it's not just about 'feeling blue' or 'being down.' It is an illness, a complicated illness born of many things and experiences.

Mine first began during my struggle with infertility... I know that now, I didn't at the time. It was exacerbated by the stresses and pressures of everyday life, but that was at the root of it. The question of 'what kind of woman am I if I can't even do the most fundamentally female thing and bear young?

So I sank into depression, was really quite ill... took anti-depressants for a time, but stopped because I didn't like the out of control way they made me feel, and I was out of work with it for a long time. I mention this because one of my greatest 'destressing' pastimes, one of the things I enjoy that has become a passion for me, came out of that time –by a rather roundabout route which I will discuss some other time than here.

After that first, most serious bout of depression I have suffered a couple of 'relapses' and still struggle off and on with it. I know the warning signs, and know some methods for getting through the rough patches, thanks to the doctor I saw the most recent time I buckled under it all... who suggested CBT as a means to help.

I'm not cured, nope... but I'm a survivor. I survive through being positive, and sometimes that's hard when people around me aren't always, but I stick to it as much as I can... and my 'family' is many and varied... those who lie exhausted beside me. One more step... we'll get there.

Hello Earth... Hello Earth...

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

I thought I could become wise, but it is much
beyond me. Far away is all that has come into
being and very, very deep. Who can find it?
--Ecclesiastes, 7:24-25

The wind grew stronger, whipping in the little holes where native spirits lived, and they began to sing beneath the wind, and I thought of Carl Jung confessing that only in terms of the centuries did his life have meaning, I realized that everyone who ever sought the truth of spirit has lived like this, looking out from their dark hallowed cave into the majesty of all there is.

There is nothing more... powerful to me, more moving than ancient sites, especially when visited at hours outside the norm. It brings to me a connection with Earth that I sorely miss... that used to be a part of me – still is, but deeply buried somewhere.

I've visited many sites in England at such times, hours of the day the sites were technically closed... slept at the foot of Glastonbury Tor many a time... Tintagel... Arbor Low – my Dragon-knight site... Avebury... Silbury Hill, where I was scared to death by a pheasant... the Rollrite Stones... Wayland Smithy....

Now there was a site... it's actually a long barrow, not a smithy at all, but the feelings, the sense of awe in the very air around the site was something special. The kind of place where you walk a step or two and feel the tingling in every pore of your skin and all your hair stands on end... There's power there that has been lost in so many other sites.

So much has been lost.

I was recently driving back talking to Mir – I think it must have been when we were coming back from Atlanta, and I started talking about this loss, this... lack of feeling in the people, the lack of connection with our sacred sites, and I started crying... it was as if a great sadness had swept over me.

In the days since, I've realised my own loss too, of these things, and I miss them, and of the connection I have with a guide that used to visit me often – frequently, but who is currently so hidden from me that he will not even allow me to remember his name. And I feel a sense of urgency that I do.

I need to find us again, I need to find that sense of place... I feel a little but like Will in Susan Cooper's children's novel, The Dark is Rising and my mind and thoughts and memories are turning to people that once held places of importance in my psyche... friends... fellow pagans... even acquaintances...

Just what is going on?