Stream from Meditation

At the fireside
I want to sing.
At the fireside
I want to call spirits.

Here among you
my body will rest
while my soul travels
to the center of the earth.

When I return, I will sing:
children, here is what
I have learned, here
is what you need to know.

Children, children!
Go with the sun!
Direct your steps to her,
to the mother of morning!

--Siberian shaman chant

The almost imperceptible extension of daylight has barely been noticeable... In the dark, in our dreams, in our deepest selves, we grow and change. Yet these changes are not immediately visible to those around use - or even, sometimes, to ourselves.

Changes both ways, works both way... sometimes we also fail to notice an inexhorable slide into darkness. T happened with me, and like Kore or Persephone I had dwelled too long in the dark - awaiting spring - awaiting the time when I would, when I could ascend again into the light, into the self I long to be.

Today, I notice a ghost of myself reflected in the pale face, strung with resisted tears and silent, casting aside a shield of defensive anger, I offer myself; my shoulder; my hand. I offer my ear and my confidence. This is apart from self pity, self defense, self importances... self, self, self. This is answering another's call, another's need. Another... another, an other. Light glimmers on a far distant horizon, a memory - and I reach.

Breaking bread - literal friend to Maslow - Chicken Noodle Soup of the Soul. Hard earth softens, breaks, and a single snowdrop peeps from my heart. Call me if you need anything - and the words are said not because they are what I should speak, but because they are what I mean.

Grant O Goddess...

She is the one who made the world.
She was the moon when she did that.
I will never forget her.

She is the one who sustains the world.
She is the sun as she does that.
I will never forget her.

She is the one who gives happiness.
She is the cosmos when she does that.
I will never forget her.

She is the one who will destroy the world.
She will be the goddess when she does that.
I will never forget her.

--Indian Tantrasara

But even when she is not beautiful, this winter goddess holds the deepest truth of our existence.

Isn't it always the way that just when you think spring is on the way, winter comes back with bitey cold snap. Just the same, even as I start to feel like I'm getting to grips with things... feeling better... settled or whatever - there's the unexpected - there's the problems - there's the slap in the face. Even while I know it's the cyclical nature of things, and that this too will pass and spring with start to creep in again, it's hard not to sink back into winter. Sounds so dramatic...

What is the 'truth of my existence' that the Goddess knows so well... This is my truth:

I love Mir.

I love Mir and I want to be with her, and while being here is hard, and testing us both in many different ways, I am glad that I can be here to gain experience, improve my prospects and my resume, to be able to say to US employers, 'Look, I have international experience' - and also to earn some money so that we can more easily do the things we want to do.

My truth is:
Though I'm a woman, I'm hopeless with romance, and romantic stuff. And that makes me feel bad.

A couple of days ago Mir moved me to tears with this post. I simply cannot express how special and how loved that made me feel - still makes me feel - always will. The depth of emotion and love expressed in that post is what fills my heart from moment to moment as I think about Mir and our relationship together. I would move the heavens and earth for her if I could, as I know she would, and often does for me. Later in the same day there was a specific point where she was so romantic... such emotion and love in a moment, it will stay with me for ever, just that one simple moment. Our love sustains me, makes me whole and gives me reason.

The truth of me is:
I think too much. Drummed or trained it into myself. Stop - pause - think... and usually from the thinking has come silence. It became one of those pavlovian conditioning kinds of things, because to do otherwise hurt more. Only trouble is that now the opposite is true and I find it hard to go back to the way things where when I just opened up and blurted out all that I needed to say and do... but I am getting better, and thank heaven for small mercies.