Fumbling Around In the Dark

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

As the moon brings sun to those turned from the light, the opened heart brings love to those struggling through darkness.

When we care, we receive the truth that lives beneath words…


It's easy to love those who are already bathed in the light, those whose troubles are small, whose own hearts are light and bathing those around them in the same universal love – those that don't necessarily need love, (though you show me such a person if one truly exists), the real challenge in being a loving human is in caring when the one before you is one of those who are in the dark. They may be there through no fault of their own – though who is to judge what is 'fault' and what isn't? They may be there due to circumstance, or accident or illness. They may be there in the dark purely through the perceptions of others; it shouldn't really matter why they are there. What should matter and drive the behaviour of our hearts toward them, as loving humans, is that they are in the dark, and need our love and care.

What's also important and perhaps the hardest part of being a 'loving human' is to continue to care even when we ourselves are in the dark. Yes my friends, that is the hardest thing…

…and right now, well… I'm past caring. That alone should tell you where I am right now.

Managing the Distance

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

Show yourself
and I will swim to you.

After all the trouble we go through to find each other, we must wait over and over for our loved ones to break through with their wisdom.

This is one of those posts that I don't like to do and try to avoid too many of, so… apologies for that right from the off.

The key word in that up there I think is wisdom - not emotions, not needs, not frustrations… not anything that leads to making value statements or judgements… and I think that's a tough cookie of a challenge sometimes.

Recently making the switch between being there with Mir, and a physical part of our relationship, to being here with Mir when I came back to UK, I found myself taking a step back to avoid falling under my own emotions/judgement and to just fall back into the routines of things. It's been a slow adjustment this time around, maybe because we were together for so long this last time? Not that I'm in any way complaining about that – if I had my way we'd be together all the time like any normal couple – just that it makes a difference to switching from being a couple together, and a couple apart.

I'll be the first to hold up my hand these days and admit that I'm a demanding person, that's demanding of attention more than anything else… it's not necessarily the way I want to be, it just happens to be the truth, and I'm sure if I were not so damned insecure about some things it wouldn't be like that. So yes, when we're together, I take up a lot of time… especially when I'm asked 'what do you want to do?' because there's this little voice in the back of my head that says, …you're only together for so long… you should do something together…. when maybe what I really want to do is to… read a book, or watch something on the TV that Mir doesn't particularly care for… *shrug* just examples pulled from the top of my head, not necessarily things that were what I want/wanted. So I end up demanding of time where maybe we each of us wanted to do things 'together by ourselves.' Is that because I'm afraid to cause hurt feelings by saying I want to do something that doesn't necessarily involve Mir? Perhaps. So yes, I'll own the criticism there that says there were things that Mir or I wanted to do, and because I never said "lets… x, y or z," we never got to do those things.

Now I'm back here, with a five hour time difference, back to the 'how the hell do you do it' distance relationship. Yep, there are certain things that need to be done while it's still light and/or business hours, and that's fine and easy to deal with. It's a different routine when I'm back here in the UK. Yes, I want to spend time online with Mir, doing what we can do together, because hell, how else can we even approximate the normal routines of coming home to each other… finding out about each other's day, all that jazz, but I don't mean to keep her tied to the Skype window or the moo window or any other window we're sharing. It's actually comforting for me to know she's doing her own stuff, and every now and then dropping a comment into whatever window is appropriate. Things are still getting done, and we're still sharing time together. That's the important thing, right, because I love her very much and she loves me. Because of that I do honestly and truly mean to be in bed on time, by midnight (little Cinderella, me), because then it means I'm rested enough not to be dead tired the next day, and that Mir has time to do things in the early evening. That's how it's supposed to work so that's how it's gonna have to work.

I've been reading actual print books (though that's not necessarily relevant – it could just as easily be an E-book I suppose) for those couple of hours of a night time that we're online together, because that's easier for me to stop and go back to after giving attention to the shared windows, so that Mir's not waiting on my response to something, and being held up by me. On the day's I've done that, it's mostly worked to get me to bed on time like I want for both of us… and it means I'm getting some reading done, which is a good thing as I have a lot of reading to do.

We do the best we can – does that explain 'how the hell we do it?'

Songs of Experience

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

A simple fish nosing its way along the bottom is in itself a profound teacher, and like the deepest teachers, it doesn’t even know it is teaching. Yet in its tiny, efficient gill lives the mystery of how to live as a spirit on Earth.

We cannot stop the flow of experience or the need to take it in.


There's a wonderful Pagan chant, about the river and it's flow… about the eternal flow of life and its experiences, and always being as a child in the arms of the 'higher powers' whatever they are to you. I don't know why it comes to mind right now, as I'm contemplating this post… perhaps it's the 'how to live as a spirit on Earth,' part of the quote above. It started me thinking about the nature of singing and chant as a means to guiding action… not just as a tool to reach higher consciousness states.

There are a number of songs/chants that spring to mind immediately, including the one I just mentioned, that include as part of them the wisdom of living as a spirit… of how to experience life. I'm just going to share a couple of my favourite ones… and if I can find them on the net all well and good. If not, you'll have to make do with just the words.

I've long ago espoused the fact that I like Carolyn Hillyer and what she's done with regard to 'Pagan' music. The first song I want to share with you is one of hers… and though there are verses to go with the chorus, it's the chorus more than anything that we take away with us, I think so at least.

Tread gently on the Earth
Breathe gently of the air
Lie gently in the water
Touch gently to the fire.

http://youtu.be/IN3a3fBFpUg

I think it speaks for itself in respect of trying to make as little impact (negative impact that is) on the environment that supports us.

And I just had to share the one I first mentioned.

The river is flowing
Flowing and growing
The river is flowing
Down to the sea
Mother carry me
Your child I will always be
Mother carry me
Down to the sea

http://youtu.be/jvp77Twadt8

Experience life with the joy and curiosity of a child, and don't be afraid to ask for the help that you need to reach the wider ocean of life.

Around the Story Tree

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

When was the last time you told your story?
--Question put to the sick by a Native American Medicine Man

… did so, most likely, because with each telling, he was brought deeper into revelation.


Sitting here, I'm wondering if this is the vehicle by which hindsight works. We tell a story of something that happened in our past (and it doesn't have to be to another person, it can be just retelling the story to ourselves), and in doing so we suddenly understand what it is that was meant to be the lesson in the experience.

Of course though, we have to be able to let go of our own preconceptions and expectations in order to do that with any amount of integrity or objectivity. Don't know that I could do that – let go of a sense of self in the retelling, especially not because, as they said once in UC: Undercover (great show by the way, if you didn't see it, you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/user/FoxyMeglet#p/c/326CEEF8E28503FC ). Stories grow with time.

Bears some serious thought – pardon me.

To Find Love

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

I have been born again and again
and each time, I have found something
to love.
--Gordon Parks

“Our ability to find something to love, and to love again for the first time, depends greatly on how we resolve and integrate where we’ve been before.

I'm going completely 'out there' with this entry, and for that I make no apologies.

While a believe in reincarnation is not necessarily a prerequisite requirement for following a Wiccan faith, many Wiccan's – me included – and other Pagans as well, believe strongly in reincarnation, and along with that goes hand in hand the notion that, in the next life we have we might come across those that we have loved before, perhaps in a different life-role in respect of our relationships, perhaps not at all. I believe this because I have experienced that sense of 'have I met you somewhere before' with many people whom I know with a certainty I have never met, and it's not just that they remind me of someone I do know. It was always that tummy churning sense of dislocation that ends with the 'I know you' revelation. But the question is – is it always a good idea to act on that sense of knowing, especially when it has been in a 'love' sense of relationship.

There's a line in one form of the Wiccan Handfasting ritual that says: …and you shall meet, and know, and remember, and love again… I think that bears a great sense of responsibility – and honestly, not sure it's necessarily right even for the most evolved of souls.

The idea of being linked with others you have loved before (even in terms of platonic, filial or parental) love is explored in several media, including books and television. Perhaps the most familiar of those to me at least, is in Star Trek, where in DS9 Dax is faced, more than once with circumventing or just plain breaking the Trill interdiction of re-association. (There's the famous 'lesbian' kiss for Jadzia, and of course Ezri hooks up albeit briefly, with Worf). There's also the whole backstory in Katherine Kerr's Deverry series: (starts with this one). The one thing both of these things have in common is that they highlight the problems faced in such associations.

Let Fall Our Ivory Towers

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

The God in us is not a half-presence.
There is no screening who we are.

…dis-ease begins the moment all of us is not played.



Two things come out of this particular entry for me. The first of which I can't speak about as much as I would like because I can't find the text I want to refer to anywhere. I know I used to have it – should still have it somewhere – but it was a book that dealt with the notion that each of us is god. "Thou art god…" the book taught that in an interesting and thoughtfully spiritual way – and yes, you really did need to think when you read that book… particularly about the nature of 'Hu' in the question/statement "Hu are you?" It's going to bother me now until I can find the book.

The second is the origin of words and their meanings. Say the word 'disease' to anyone and they will automatically think of being ill, or having a sickness, virus, etc… but look up there… look at the word. It's made up of a prefix (dis) and the word, (ease). Anything that puts us not at ease… is disease. This has to be one of my favourite – and in my opinion the most profound – example of the change in meanings and understanding of words down through the millennia that we've used language… and that brings me a nice segue into a show I recently saw with Mir at Memorial Hall. The show was called Babel… (http://youtu.be/Sz7UY5DEVhQ), and really defies description, but begins with a 'robotic doll' kind of character talking about the evolution of word and language and communication. Seriously see the show live if you get the chance, and if not, watch the clips on Youtube. I came away from the theatre both babbling with excitement over what I'd just seen and totally speechless about it both at the same time. I've not seen anything quite as breathtaking and meaningful for a long, long time. It was jsut astounding!

Even When I Get It Wrong.

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

We don’t let go into trust
until we’ve exhausted our egos.
--Rob Lehman

…and [God], perplexed, replied, “I tried."


It's my mantra it seems… or seems to have become that way. The thing is, my ego won't allow me to mention a thing until after it's done, and that becomes a problem, because all those time that I try and fall flat on my arse, it never gets mentioned, and therefore it never gets recognised.

But every once in a while, I'd like to be acknowledged for the effort – whatever that effort might be… even if it's only by myself and no one else… because how can I expect anyone to acknowledge what I've kept to myself for fear of failure.

I need to be able to pick myself up, dust myself off and say – "Well, Eirian, you fucked that up, didn't you, but you tried. Well done!"