On Sunday, two things converged in my consciousness resulting in my post, “Home Sweet Home.” First, I realized that it has been almost exactly one year since the wildfires destroyed much of the area where my son and I had lived a mere 4 months prior. Secondly when I looked out the window that opens up to my porch, I noticed that Lonci (my 90-year-old Hungarian landlady) had gifted my son and I (yet another!) cut rosebud from the section of her beloved rose garden that lives outside my bedroom and living room windows.
I found my Self filled with gratitude for my home and the people in and around it.
I am still on the cliffs of my consciousness, but I have stopped worrying about how to be Gumby (in a red wig). I recognize that this is where I live now. This is my new internal home. I have absolutely no desire to leave.
I have also come to understand that I created my internal home on the cliffs in much the same way that I created my environment within my Lonci home: slowly, patiently, and with a deep knowing that what I desire to manifest in my home is already there waiting for me to discover through relationship with others.
When I began to furnish my Lonci home, I was aware that I wanted comfortable and beautiful pieces to surround me, and that I wanted them to somehow come together from a variety of sources creating a universal feeling of home that was unique to me. I didn’t want to buy “sets.” Honestly, I didn’t even consider buying anything new. Not because of the expense but because (and maybe this is the New Englander in me) I revere (no New England pun intended) furnishings that have a history. To me, there are few household items as special as those that have been touched, loved, used and infused with the hearts, minds, and souls of others.
I furnished my home with pieces that I love from the people who love them.
Similarly, I know that my recently discovered internal cliff home is a universal experience uniquely furnished by my new willingness to enter into relationships with others where love is offered and exchanged. Just as the safety, clarity, and gratitude I feel within the walls of my Lonci cottage generate love of my home, of the people in and around it, and of the world I see outside my windows; the Self that I experience within the walls of my bodily home is learning to experience a world generated from the window of my soul.
In my search for a new home, why did I really, really, really want to have
1. Lots of light
2. Lots of fresh air
3. A feeling of warmth, a feeling that “love lives here”
4. A feeling of being surrounded by feminine energy
5. Big enough for my son and I and our friends?
Because from the window of my soul, I now see that they are the things that I really, really, really wanted to have in my Self.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Home Sweet Home
I’m not sure if this is whack-a-doodle or not, but I can honestly say it is all true.
A year and a half ago, my son and I lived in a cute little cabin high above the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in California. I used to meditate very early every morning, often while it was still dark, outside on the porch. I absolutely loved the serenity, the peacefulness and the beauty of the location.
During January 2009, I experienced several weeks of meditation where images of raging fires came to me. Thinking I knew how my mind works (everything is a metaphor to me), I began to go into inquiry about what the fires might mean symbolically: Was I enraged about something that was coming into my conscious awareness? Was I “on fire” with a new passion about to be released? Was my fiery red hair out of control and in need of a haircut?
As I pondered these options over several days, my visual images became aural. Yes, I started hearing voices, or more accurately, I started to hear one insistent voice…everyday…for a week. This voice told me that fires “were coming” and that I “needed to physically move.” (Yes, my friends…welcome to my world of my inner knowing correcting my conscious mind.) This was no metaphor. I needed to go.
As nutso as it may sound, I decided to go with my inner knowing and, despite my love for my current locale, look for a home in the foothills.
I scoured Craig’s List on an hourly basis; I devoured the local newspaper everyday, I “lived” on on-line home rental sites. I finally found a home (still in the mountains but closer to the foothills). I loved it. It was perfect. All was arranged with the new landlord until I went over to give my first month’s rent and deposit. He told me that he had rented it to someone else. You see, I had some credit issues that I was very upfront with him about, but in the end he decided I was too much of a risk. I was heartbroken. I really, really, really thought this was “my home.”
In resuming my search, I decided I needed a strong vision so I could focus more on what it was that I really, really, really wanted in a home. Here is my list:
1. Lots of light
2. Lots of fresh air
3. A feeling of warmth, a feeling that “love lives here”
4. A feeling of being surrounded by feminine energy
5. Big enough for my son and I and our friends
It was back to Craig’s List, the newspaper, and the on-line sites. Nothing…for weeks. I had just about given up hope and resigned myself to the fact that my meditative thoughts were, frankly, just a wee bit coo-coo when, suddenly, I looked up and saw “it” while I was sitting in my car in a strip mall parking lot waiting for my son. "It" was tacked to a telephone pole. “It” was a half-sized piece of paper on which was a brief handwritten description of a home rental.
Who posts For Rent signs on telephone poles anymore????
Since my son was going to be late, and I had nothing else to do, I called the number. A woman answered and described the house to me. Two bedrooms, one bath, the square footage (more than my cabin), lots of light, her childhood home, new windows, the street address (a GREAT neighborhood!)…hmmmmm. It sounded promising! It had the potential to satisfy everything I was looking for in a home or so it seemed. I was VERY intrigued.
Then she told me the price.
It was $600 less than what I had been paying?? And my credit problem? (a long disputed issue with the electric company, which barred me from getting an electric bill in my name, so I had to convince my potential landlord to use their name and include the electricity charges in the rent).
This house??? The electricity was included in the rent.
Now, I’m thinking to myself, I know the area this house is in, and rents are far from cheap. This house is significantly below the current rents in that area. Therefore, I told myself, either this place is a DUMP or she is bullsh*&%ting me about just about everything to do with the house. With very low expectations and not a lot of hope or excitement, I decided to go ahead and see it.
When I met Ava outside the house, there was an immediate connection with her, and when we entered the space, there was an immediate connection with the house. It had absolutely everything I wanted.
There was one caveat. I had to get the approval of Ava’s 90 year old Hungarian mother because she owns the house, and, oh yeah, she lives in the back house on the property. We walked back so I could meet her, and the moment Ava’s mother (Lonci) and I laid eyes on each other; we embraced with the kind of love reserved for family members. We had each other from “Hello.” I didn’t know, at the time, what it was about me that she responded to, but I knew exactly what I was responding to in her…
She is the spitting image of my mother (with an Hungarian accent).
Ava’s Hungarian-speaking older sister was also there visiting from Hungary. She responded to the interaction between her mom and I by standing close to me, smiling, looking into my eyes, stroking the entire length of my left arm (over and over again), and speaking to me in Hungarian as if I could understand her perfectly. I was surrounded by the feminine energy I asked for. I felt totally and absolutely bathed in love.
My son and I moved in a month later (May 2009), and I have lived in this home with these women and with my son (happily and gratefully) ever since.
Oh, and four months after I moved, the home I “left” and the home I “lost” to a “more qualified” tenant were both in the fire zone when the wildfires hit.
So, in response to the question, “Who posts For Rent signs on telephone poles anymore????” To me, the answer is simple.
God.
A year and a half ago, my son and I lived in a cute little cabin high above the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in California. I used to meditate very early every morning, often while it was still dark, outside on the porch. I absolutely loved the serenity, the peacefulness and the beauty of the location.
During January 2009, I experienced several weeks of meditation where images of raging fires came to me. Thinking I knew how my mind works (everything is a metaphor to me), I began to go into inquiry about what the fires might mean symbolically: Was I enraged about something that was coming into my conscious awareness? Was I “on fire” with a new passion about to be released? Was my fiery red hair out of control and in need of a haircut?
As I pondered these options over several days, my visual images became aural. Yes, I started hearing voices, or more accurately, I started to hear one insistent voice…everyday…for a week. This voice told me that fires “were coming” and that I “needed to physically move.” (Yes, my friends…welcome to my world of my inner knowing correcting my conscious mind.) This was no metaphor. I needed to go.
As nutso as it may sound, I decided to go with my inner knowing and, despite my love for my current locale, look for a home in the foothills.
I scoured Craig’s List on an hourly basis; I devoured the local newspaper everyday, I “lived” on on-line home rental sites. I finally found a home (still in the mountains but closer to the foothills). I loved it. It was perfect. All was arranged with the new landlord until I went over to give my first month’s rent and deposit. He told me that he had rented it to someone else. You see, I had some credit issues that I was very upfront with him about, but in the end he decided I was too much of a risk. I was heartbroken. I really, really, really thought this was “my home.”
In resuming my search, I decided I needed a strong vision so I could focus more on what it was that I really, really, really wanted in a home. Here is my list:
1. Lots of light
2. Lots of fresh air
3. A feeling of warmth, a feeling that “love lives here”
4. A feeling of being surrounded by feminine energy
5. Big enough for my son and I and our friends
It was back to Craig’s List, the newspaper, and the on-line sites. Nothing…for weeks. I had just about given up hope and resigned myself to the fact that my meditative thoughts were, frankly, just a wee bit coo-coo when, suddenly, I looked up and saw “it” while I was sitting in my car in a strip mall parking lot waiting for my son. "It" was tacked to a telephone pole. “It” was a half-sized piece of paper on which was a brief handwritten description of a home rental.
Who posts For Rent signs on telephone poles anymore????
Since my son was going to be late, and I had nothing else to do, I called the number. A woman answered and described the house to me. Two bedrooms, one bath, the square footage (more than my cabin), lots of light, her childhood home, new windows, the street address (a GREAT neighborhood!)…hmmmmm. It sounded promising! It had the potential to satisfy everything I was looking for in a home or so it seemed. I was VERY intrigued.
Then she told me the price.
It was $600 less than what I had been paying?? And my credit problem? (a long disputed issue with the electric company, which barred me from getting an electric bill in my name, so I had to convince my potential landlord to use their name and include the electricity charges in the rent).
This house??? The electricity was included in the rent.
Now, I’m thinking to myself, I know the area this house is in, and rents are far from cheap. This house is significantly below the current rents in that area. Therefore, I told myself, either this place is a DUMP or she is bullsh*&%ting me about just about everything to do with the house. With very low expectations and not a lot of hope or excitement, I decided to go ahead and see it.
When I met Ava outside the house, there was an immediate connection with her, and when we entered the space, there was an immediate connection with the house. It had absolutely everything I wanted.
There was one caveat. I had to get the approval of Ava’s 90 year old Hungarian mother because she owns the house, and, oh yeah, she lives in the back house on the property. We walked back so I could meet her, and the moment Ava’s mother (Lonci) and I laid eyes on each other; we embraced with the kind of love reserved for family members. We had each other from “Hello.” I didn’t know, at the time, what it was about me that she responded to, but I knew exactly what I was responding to in her…
She is the spitting image of my mother (with an Hungarian accent).
Ava’s Hungarian-speaking older sister was also there visiting from Hungary. She responded to the interaction between her mom and I by standing close to me, smiling, looking into my eyes, stroking the entire length of my left arm (over and over again), and speaking to me in Hungarian as if I could understand her perfectly. I was surrounded by the feminine energy I asked for. I felt totally and absolutely bathed in love.
My son and I moved in a month later (May 2009), and I have lived in this home with these women and with my son (happily and gratefully) ever since.
Oh, and four months after I moved, the home I “left” and the home I “lost” to a “more qualified” tenant were both in the fire zone when the wildfires hit.
So, in response to the question, “Who posts For Rent signs on telephone poles anymore????” To me, the answer is simple.
God.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
I Can See Clearly Now (The Fog Is Gone)
I came out of a fog this morning and realized the hericane was over.
I am still on the cliffs, but I feel strangely at peace and unafraid. Both of my parents are very strongly present in my consciousness, and, there with them, I feel an extended family behind and all around me made up of persons from my past, my present, and my future.
And, (batten down the hatches ‘cause I’m gonna say it) I feel God with me for the first time since I was a little girl.
My amorphous black blob is still in the boat below me but it looks strangely out of place and pathetic. You see, I realize now that every time I looked down from the cliffs those days before the fog lifted, I saw a magnified version of my boat and my amorphous me as if I were looking through a high-powered telescope. I saw it as grotesquely large, isolated, alone, dead in the water, an overpowering and sole form of life in a vast, magnificent, and beautiful but empty ocean.
As I look down now on the fog-less expanded visual field, I see that the regatta (that I was so afraid was taking place without me) was here all along. My relationship with my amorphous-ness had created a veil, a mist, a “pea soup” (as my mother used to call a thick fog) through which nothing was visible and every second was (justifiably) filled with a vigilant concern for potential danger. The fear that resulted from my black amorphous fog put me on constant watch at my marine GPS station for small craft warnings, gale winds, and more. So much so that everything else in the world receded into the background and disappeared behind the veil. I interpreted each ramming or collision as a deliberate attempt to attack me without warning when, in reality; my fellow travelers were probably just as surprised and frightened as I.
I understand that despite the pronouncement from my black amorphous self that it was the manifestation of my deepest, darkest fears and despite the fact that that its presence filled me with terror, “it” was the sole relationship I trusted to accompany me on my journey…
My very own, very personal frenemy.
As I look down from my cliff perch, I can recognize how the Greater Field of Life, inclusive of the past and present and future of humanity, is the soul relationship I can trust to accompany me on the remainder of my life’s journey.
With the Greater Field of Life, I am not alone, nor am I being attacked. Therefore, I have no need to attack back or be on constant collision watch. I can now navigate these friendly seas and skies knowing that the universe has my back, the universe has my present, and the universe has my future. It’s a new and comforting feeling to co-captain my life with a clarity and connectedness to all that is.
Yes, my friends, I know that God has taken up residence in my small vessel.
And I know that He/She/It has taken up residence in yours too.
I am still on the cliffs, but I feel strangely at peace and unafraid. Both of my parents are very strongly present in my consciousness, and, there with them, I feel an extended family behind and all around me made up of persons from my past, my present, and my future.
And, (batten down the hatches ‘cause I’m gonna say it) I feel God with me for the first time since I was a little girl.
My amorphous black blob is still in the boat below me but it looks strangely out of place and pathetic. You see, I realize now that every time I looked down from the cliffs those days before the fog lifted, I saw a magnified version of my boat and my amorphous me as if I were looking through a high-powered telescope. I saw it as grotesquely large, isolated, alone, dead in the water, an overpowering and sole form of life in a vast, magnificent, and beautiful but empty ocean.
As I look down now on the fog-less expanded visual field, I see that the regatta (that I was so afraid was taking place without me) was here all along. My relationship with my amorphous-ness had created a veil, a mist, a “pea soup” (as my mother used to call a thick fog) through which nothing was visible and every second was (justifiably) filled with a vigilant concern for potential danger. The fear that resulted from my black amorphous fog put me on constant watch at my marine GPS station for small craft warnings, gale winds, and more. So much so that everything else in the world receded into the background and disappeared behind the veil. I interpreted each ramming or collision as a deliberate attempt to attack me without warning when, in reality; my fellow travelers were probably just as surprised and frightened as I.
I understand that despite the pronouncement from my black amorphous self that it was the manifestation of my deepest, darkest fears and despite the fact that that its presence filled me with terror, “it” was the sole relationship I trusted to accompany me on my journey…
My very own, very personal frenemy.
As I look down from my cliff perch, I can recognize how the Greater Field of Life, inclusive of the past and present and future of humanity, is the soul relationship I can trust to accompany me on the remainder of my life’s journey.
With the Greater Field of Life, I am not alone, nor am I being attacked. Therefore, I have no need to attack back or be on constant collision watch. I can now navigate these friendly seas and skies knowing that the universe has my back, the universe has my present, and the universe has my future. It’s a new and comforting feeling to co-captain my life with a clarity and connectedness to all that is.
Yes, my friends, I know that God has taken up residence in my small vessel.
And I know that He/She/It has taken up residence in yours too.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
The Gumby Challenge
As I sit here on the cliffs and look down at my human self in the boat, a plethora of thoughts stream through my mind.
“I look so pathetic down there all alone in my boat.”
“It’s a big ocean; where is everybody?”
“Why aren’t there any other boats around?”
“Is there a regatta going on somewhere that I wasn’t invited to?”
However, at the moment, the most important thought for me is…How can I stay rooted in this Self point of view, this expanded consciousness, and, at the same time, reconnect with the part of my self which I left in the boat?? The part that exists in the ebb and flow of the main stream of life?
And to be honest, I don’t even know if that me in the boat is:
a. a part of Me
b. an aberration of Me
c. a transformable Me
d. a mini Me
e. none of the above
I feel disconnected from my human self up here, but not disconnected enough to leave this God Self I have discovered. Problem is that I don’t know how to gather up my God Self and bring It back to watery terra firma with me. I don’t know how to live in the ocean of devotion with humanoids and maintain my centered, peaceful, and (dare I say) spiritual perspective.
Like most of you, I have experienced peak moments where It all comes together with the internal stretch, the expansion of self to Self…those moments of awe and wonder and miracle that we all experience on occasion and look back on for the rest of our lives. I think it is possible to live that experience on a daily basis. Therefore, I am hesitant go back, raise the sails, and get on with my life without first anchoring into some kind of beginning awareness that I am navigating from a place that will eventually blossom into a full-time, full bodied mind/body connection: Me connected to me.
I wonder; is it possible to physically extend myself from my cliff Self to my boat self and remain on the cliffs? Can I stretch enough to generate a connected, whole and integrated fountainhead of flexibility, extension, and expansion with all of humanity and the Greater Field of Life via a deep, unbroken and fully integrated connection with my Greater Me and my human version of me?
Does any of this even make any sense?
Sense or non-sense, until I know how to deal with that me in the boat, I’m going to stay here and practice spiritual yoga by stretching through time and space while holding my position to remain faithful to the universal unknowns.
In the meantime, just think of me as Gumby (in a curly red wig).
“I look so pathetic down there all alone in my boat.”
“It’s a big ocean; where is everybody?”
“Why aren’t there any other boats around?”
“Is there a regatta going on somewhere that I wasn’t invited to?”
However, at the moment, the most important thought for me is…How can I stay rooted in this Self point of view, this expanded consciousness, and, at the same time, reconnect with the part of my self which I left in the boat?? The part that exists in the ebb and flow of the main stream of life?
And to be honest, I don’t even know if that me in the boat is:
a. a part of Me
b. an aberration of Me
c. a transformable Me
d. a mini Me
e. none of the above
I feel disconnected from my human self up here, but not disconnected enough to leave this God Self I have discovered. Problem is that I don’t know how to gather up my God Self and bring It back to watery terra firma with me. I don’t know how to live in the ocean of devotion with humanoids and maintain my centered, peaceful, and (dare I say) spiritual perspective.
Like most of you, I have experienced peak moments where It all comes together with the internal stretch, the expansion of self to Self…those moments of awe and wonder and miracle that we all experience on occasion and look back on for the rest of our lives. I think it is possible to live that experience on a daily basis. Therefore, I am hesitant go back, raise the sails, and get on with my life without first anchoring into some kind of beginning awareness that I am navigating from a place that will eventually blossom into a full-time, full bodied mind/body connection: Me connected to me.
I wonder; is it possible to physically extend myself from my cliff Self to my boat self and remain on the cliffs? Can I stretch enough to generate a connected, whole and integrated fountainhead of flexibility, extension, and expansion with all of humanity and the Greater Field of Life via a deep, unbroken and fully integrated connection with my Greater Me and my human version of me?
Does any of this even make any sense?
Sense or non-sense, until I know how to deal with that me in the boat, I’m going to stay here and practice spiritual yoga by stretching through time and space while holding my position to remain faithful to the universal unknowns.
In the meantime, just think of me as Gumby (in a curly red wig).
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Sun, SUn, SUN Here It Comes!
It’s been 16 days, 15 hours, 9 minutes and 43 seconds, and the sun is finally starting to come out.
Yes, I ‘m still here on the cliffs. My mom finally said her goodbyes and left to get ready for her birthday party. I’m not worried. I know she will come if and when I ask.
I gotta say, I am really enjoying being way up here on my home cliffs. I’ve learned (and nothing against gurus), why some of them stay on the mountaintops, and we have to make the trek to them. Yes, the trek is probably the point for us, but I also have to say that life is easier (albeit a bit lonelier) up here. Sitting in my new and improved guru-ish perspective without the internal and external pulls and pressures of the world “down there,” even yours truly could probably come up with a couple of catchy universal pithy statements (perfect for bumper stickers) about how to live in the world (especially when I’m not doing it). It just strikes me as a little “Do what I say, not what I am not crazy enough to do.”
We all know how difficult life can be in the world. Even one-on-one relationships can be a challenge depending on the circumstances, but if that was all we had to deal with – navigate our lives one person at a time – it wouldn’t be too bad. Line up and take a number. Next!
It’s the immersion back into life and life’s mainstream of relationships where it gets tough for me. Juggling multiple relationships with multiple personalities at multiple times with multiple results for me often multiplies out to sketchy success.
If I am recalling correctly, it was on the Bill Moyers interviews with Joseph Campbell (that amazing PBS special called The Power of Myth) that Campbell said the real hero's (or heroine's) journey doesn’t lie so much in the challenges of that trek up the proverbial mountaintop to our intended transformation; the hero(ine)’s journey is returning home back to a life that probably hasn’t changed all that much AND staying IN the transformation.
I have the fortunate opportunity of being in a profoundly transformative process while being deeply related to an amazing group of women who intend the highest and fullest flourishing for ourselves and each other. I know I can rely on them to keep me in this new perspective after I have left the penthouse and returned to the ground floor.
Despite that, however, I think I am going to stay up here a little while longer. I need to give this perspective, this calmness, this peace, this expansive me time to penetrate through my epidural pores, absorb into the calcium in my bones, sink into the nuclei of my cells and re-absorb into its pre-assigned place in the matrix of my DNA.
God View re-acquaints with God Self.
The seas are calm; the skies are blue; and all is feeling pretty right with me and the world.
Sun, Sun, SUN. Here it comes! (and not a moment too soon!)
Yes, I ‘m still here on the cliffs. My mom finally said her goodbyes and left to get ready for her birthday party. I’m not worried. I know she will come if and when I ask.
I gotta say, I am really enjoying being way up here on my home cliffs. I’ve learned (and nothing against gurus), why some of them stay on the mountaintops, and we have to make the trek to them. Yes, the trek is probably the point for us, but I also have to say that life is easier (albeit a bit lonelier) up here. Sitting in my new and improved guru-ish perspective without the internal and external pulls and pressures of the world “down there,” even yours truly could probably come up with a couple of catchy universal pithy statements (perfect for bumper stickers) about how to live in the world (especially when I’m not doing it). It just strikes me as a little “Do what I say, not what I am not crazy enough to do.”
We all know how difficult life can be in the world. Even one-on-one relationships can be a challenge depending on the circumstances, but if that was all we had to deal with – navigate our lives one person at a time – it wouldn’t be too bad. Line up and take a number. Next!
It’s the immersion back into life and life’s mainstream of relationships where it gets tough for me. Juggling multiple relationships with multiple personalities at multiple times with multiple results for me often multiplies out to sketchy success.
If I am recalling correctly, it was on the Bill Moyers interviews with Joseph Campbell (that amazing PBS special called The Power of Myth) that Campbell said the real hero's (or heroine's) journey doesn’t lie so much in the challenges of that trek up the proverbial mountaintop to our intended transformation; the hero(ine)’s journey is returning home back to a life that probably hasn’t changed all that much AND staying IN the transformation.
I have the fortunate opportunity of being in a profoundly transformative process while being deeply related to an amazing group of women who intend the highest and fullest flourishing for ourselves and each other. I know I can rely on them to keep me in this new perspective after I have left the penthouse and returned to the ground floor.
Despite that, however, I think I am going to stay up here a little while longer. I need to give this perspective, this calmness, this peace, this expansive me time to penetrate through my epidural pores, absorb into the calcium in my bones, sink into the nuclei of my cells and re-absorb into its pre-assigned place in the matrix of my DNA.
God View re-acquaints with God Self.
The seas are calm; the skies are blue; and all is feeling pretty right with me and the world.
Sun, Sun, SUN. Here it comes! (and not a moment too soon!)
Thursday, September 9, 2010
The (Third) Eye of the Hurricane
It’s wonderful to be with my mom. I miss her. The last time I saw my mom was in January of this year right around the anniversary of her death. She’s been gone now almost 12 years and with her birthday coming up tomorrow (she will be 88!), I appreciate her coming to help me move to higher ground. I am especially grateful because (knowing her) she still needs to buy a new dress and matching spiked heels for dancing, and save some time to torment my dad by taking an excruciatingly long time doing it.
As I sit here on the cliffs around the Drive with my mom, I feel calm, safe, and loved. What a relief to feel connected to my mom and released from my current internal hericane-like elements, to be able to see a horizon that was not visible to me while in the storm of myself, and to recognize the potential of self-radiated sunlight behind those storm clouds.
When I was a child, I loved hurricanes because of what they offered me. It was fun to challenge the weather by boarding up our bay windows. It was a major treat to be allowed to buy more than one comic book at a time. And, it was really cool reading those comic books by candlelight.
I depended on my home in Newport for its strong foundation, its horsehair and seaweed wall insulation, and its sturdy roof over my curly red head to remain intact while the winds and rains made its way through my town. Maybe it was naïve, but I had absolutely no doubt that my home would remain intact.
But hurricane season was much more than that.
Our three story Colonial home on Ayrault St, which was often (for me) a place of sadness and confusion, became a place alive in silence, electric in the expectancy of something much bigger than me or my family or my current circumstance, and a charged deeply cushioned and unfamiliar comfort knowing that, no matter what, my house would weather the storm.
I loved hurricane season for giving that to me.
Now as I sit here on my internal higher ground with my mom, I feel that same sense of protection, but this elevated perspective also allows me access to seeing that the safety and the silence and the expectancy and the charge I feel is not generated solely by myself or the structure of my internal or external home.
I can see how the Greater Field of Life navigates the storm by entering the flow with it. The trees, ancient, experienced, and deeply rooted in the earth stand as sentinels of protection simply by remaining rooted while simultaneously giving way to allow the winds to travel through them. These very cliffs prevent great washes of waves from overflowing to the homes behind them simply by doing what cliffs were created to do…stand their ground and offer no resistance.
Similarly, I now see, my dependable inner home is generated by being in the con-current flow of relationships: with the part of my Self which my third eye of the hurricane gives me access to, with other loving relationships I have co-created on this planet, and with the Greater Field of Life.
And simply (though not easily) doing nothing else.
As I sit here on the cliffs around the Drive with my mom, I feel calm, safe, and loved. What a relief to feel connected to my mom and released from my current internal hericane-like elements, to be able to see a horizon that was not visible to me while in the storm of myself, and to recognize the potential of self-radiated sunlight behind those storm clouds.
When I was a child, I loved hurricanes because of what they offered me. It was fun to challenge the weather by boarding up our bay windows. It was a major treat to be allowed to buy more than one comic book at a time. And, it was really cool reading those comic books by candlelight.
I depended on my home in Newport for its strong foundation, its horsehair and seaweed wall insulation, and its sturdy roof over my curly red head to remain intact while the winds and rains made its way through my town. Maybe it was naïve, but I had absolutely no doubt that my home would remain intact.
But hurricane season was much more than that.
Our three story Colonial home on Ayrault St, which was often (for me) a place of sadness and confusion, became a place alive in silence, electric in the expectancy of something much bigger than me or my family or my current circumstance, and a charged deeply cushioned and unfamiliar comfort knowing that, no matter what, my house would weather the storm.
I loved hurricane season for giving that to me.
Now as I sit here on my internal higher ground with my mom, I feel that same sense of protection, but this elevated perspective also allows me access to seeing that the safety and the silence and the expectancy and the charge I feel is not generated solely by myself or the structure of my internal or external home.
I can see how the Greater Field of Life navigates the storm by entering the flow with it. The trees, ancient, experienced, and deeply rooted in the earth stand as sentinels of protection simply by remaining rooted while simultaneously giving way to allow the winds to travel through them. These very cliffs prevent great washes of waves from overflowing to the homes behind them simply by doing what cliffs were created to do…stand their ground and offer no resistance.
Similarly, I now see, my dependable inner home is generated by being in the con-current flow of relationships: with the part of my Self which my third eye of the hurricane gives me access to, with other loving relationships I have co-created on this planet, and with the Greater Field of Life.
And simply (though not easily) doing nothing else.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Hericane Season
I love the rhythms of water, salt water, Atlantic Ocean salt water, Atlantic Ocean salt water that surrounds the island town where I grew up, Newport, Rhode Island. Google Image it. It’s beautiful.
When we were young, my brothers, my mother and I were beach bums. My mother started taking us to Third Beach at Eastertime and every possible day after that at 3:00 p.m. until school was out for the summer. During the summers, we arrived everyday at 7:30 a.m. (a bit later on the weekends) for our daily swimming lessons. We spent the entire day there. Often my father would join us after work for a cook-out or clambake on the beach.
My brothers and I spent every second in the water. Ever swim out to a raft in the middle of an ocean in the reflection of a moonbeam? (so our parents could keep a head count)
Heaven.
I live in California now, but growing up in New England, I learned to resonate with the rhythmical changes the ocean evolves through as it cycles with the seasons.
I’d say that right now my ocean of inner devotion is experiencing what we used to call Indian Summer…that transition time between summer and fall. The water is often the warmest it has been all summer but the tides change drastically. The waves take on a power from further out to sea and that power carries it, like huge castles of sand, sea and foam, to the coast. Those warm and wonderful Indian Summer waves originate from very deep in the ocean. As the individual tidal vibrations rise to the surface, they join and morf into a beautiful never-ending cacophony of pounding surf. For a child who summered at one of the more sheltered beaches, being tossed and thrown about by that force was a fun and exciting wrap-up to the summer.
On those days of high winds and dangerously active waves, my mother packed sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies and drove us not to the beach, but to the cliffs around Ocean Drive. We sat warm, snug and safe in the car, ate our lunch and, from a higher and more expansive view, experienced the awesome power of the surf.
She would remind us that often those waves ushered in something more ominous and dangerous…hurricane season.
Since this black amorphous me has (generously) released itself from the darkness and made my acquaintance, I recognize that its inherent shapelessness is actually fluid and respondent to the vibrations that are deeply active in me just as the ocean swells respond to the tides and currents at the bottom of the sea.
And, I am just now coming to know, the locus of control of the various shapes my amorphous me takes is most often just as difficult to pinpoint as the beginning of a new wave.
I have felt my own internal “hericane” season approaching the last several weeks because of at least two encounters where I had every intention of being vulnerable and transparent but just couldn’t accomplish it. In preparation for these conversations I recognized that fear was moving deep inside me. I ignored it, and my amorphous me stepped in to raise a storm of protection.
It is still active and taking everything I have not to further react, not to go into blame, not to do everything possible to completely annihilate the exposed, coastal homes of those in front of me.
It is a very old feeling to be sure, but one that has not arisen from the depths of my oceanic floor for almost a year. I used to call it “my train.*” Now that I have been told by “my black amorphous entity” that its presence represents a compilation of my deepest darkest fears, I have also recognized that this part of me is a shape shifter with an infinite cacophony of inner swells and waves.
To attempt to find a source for this or any upset is as elusive and impossible as trying to contain one of those wonderful, warm, wild Indian Summer waves in my hands.
In an effort to get a bigger perspective on this storm, I am, for the time being, dropping anchor, leaving my amorphous mate in the boat, making sandwiches, and meeting my mom in the car on the safety of the cliffs.
I hope she remembers to bring the chocolate chip cookies.
* To chronicle my “train” adventures go to www.theyearoftheboy.blogspot.com
When we were young, my brothers, my mother and I were beach bums. My mother started taking us to Third Beach at Eastertime and every possible day after that at 3:00 p.m. until school was out for the summer. During the summers, we arrived everyday at 7:30 a.m. (a bit later on the weekends) for our daily swimming lessons. We spent the entire day there. Often my father would join us after work for a cook-out or clambake on the beach.
My brothers and I spent every second in the water. Ever swim out to a raft in the middle of an ocean in the reflection of a moonbeam? (so our parents could keep a head count)
Heaven.
I live in California now, but growing up in New England, I learned to resonate with the rhythmical changes the ocean evolves through as it cycles with the seasons.
I’d say that right now my ocean of inner devotion is experiencing what we used to call Indian Summer…that transition time between summer and fall. The water is often the warmest it has been all summer but the tides change drastically. The waves take on a power from further out to sea and that power carries it, like huge castles of sand, sea and foam, to the coast. Those warm and wonderful Indian Summer waves originate from very deep in the ocean. As the individual tidal vibrations rise to the surface, they join and morf into a beautiful never-ending cacophony of pounding surf. For a child who summered at one of the more sheltered beaches, being tossed and thrown about by that force was a fun and exciting wrap-up to the summer.
On those days of high winds and dangerously active waves, my mother packed sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies and drove us not to the beach, but to the cliffs around Ocean Drive. We sat warm, snug and safe in the car, ate our lunch and, from a higher and more expansive view, experienced the awesome power of the surf.
She would remind us that often those waves ushered in something more ominous and dangerous…hurricane season.
Since this black amorphous me has (generously) released itself from the darkness and made my acquaintance, I recognize that its inherent shapelessness is actually fluid and respondent to the vibrations that are deeply active in me just as the ocean swells respond to the tides and currents at the bottom of the sea.
And, I am just now coming to know, the locus of control of the various shapes my amorphous me takes is most often just as difficult to pinpoint as the beginning of a new wave.
I have felt my own internal “hericane” season approaching the last several weeks because of at least two encounters where I had every intention of being vulnerable and transparent but just couldn’t accomplish it. In preparation for these conversations I recognized that fear was moving deep inside me. I ignored it, and my amorphous me stepped in to raise a storm of protection.
It is still active and taking everything I have not to further react, not to go into blame, not to do everything possible to completely annihilate the exposed, coastal homes of those in front of me.
It is a very old feeling to be sure, but one that has not arisen from the depths of my oceanic floor for almost a year. I used to call it “my train.*” Now that I have been told by “my black amorphous entity” that its presence represents a compilation of my deepest darkest fears, I have also recognized that this part of me is a shape shifter with an infinite cacophony of inner swells and waves.
To attempt to find a source for this or any upset is as elusive and impossible as trying to contain one of those wonderful, warm, wild Indian Summer waves in my hands.
In an effort to get a bigger perspective on this storm, I am, for the time being, dropping anchor, leaving my amorphous mate in the boat, making sandwiches, and meeting my mom in the car on the safety of the cliffs.
I hope she remembers to bring the chocolate chip cookies.
* To chronicle my “train” adventures go to www.theyearoftheboy.blogspot.com
Saturday, September 4, 2010
I Gotta Have Faith
I kinda sorta (unintentionally) misrepresented myself…over there to the right of this post where I wrote an explanation about the title of this blog. At the end I wrote that I planned on using experience, intuition and faith to guide me. And while I absolutely 100 super duper percent had every intention of doing so…
I kinda sorta forgot about faith.
Faith that despite my fear of looking in the stern, my truth is there all lit up and waiting for me. And it is up to me to center my Self in that.
The realization of it hit me like a bolt from out of the blue. I'm, honestly, not sure I even know what faith is or what having faith means, but I decided I already must have it (whatever "it" is). So I tried to feel faith right there beside me (with courage as my wing woman on the other side) and have an encounter with the gargoyle-ish monster.
In the meditation that followed, I turned around, walked to the stern, and sat on the floor of my lifeboat so that he/she/it and I could look directly into each other’s eyes (it was still under the rear bench). After several clunky, awkward and, yes, fear-filled minutes (I think for both of us) our eyes tentatively connected with each other. He/she/it told me that I was looking at my deepest, darkest fears about myself and others, but it could not find the thoughts to articulate any more than that.
I asked it to come out into the light so we could sit on the benches and take each other in with our eyes. It obliged me. What emerged from under the bench were two clear and vibrant eyes surrounded by a black, amorphous, undefined shape.
I had absolutely no idea what to make of this entity, and since it was having trouble telling me anything further, I accepted that we would not be going any deeper in our discussion for today (at least we were eye to eye…it’s a start).
At the same time, I started growing very concerned for both of us because the sun was quite bright and we were sitting vulnerable and unprotected. My Irish skin can’t take that kind of sun exposure and my counterpart was (excuse me for saying this ) basically a black blob…not good either.
After I finished putting SPF 75 on myself, I leaned over to put some on my new sailing partner. The touch of my hands on its “face” brought all my senses to life. I could smell and taste its hot decaying breath, hear the rattle of its inhale and exhale, see the blackness and decay of its skin on its now revealed form, and feel rough calluses all over its body under my fingers. But, most importantly, I felt its sadness and feelings of complete and utter abandonment…by me.
This isn’t a he, a she, or an it. This is a me: a compilation of all those ugly, or unacceptable, fearful human parts of me that I don’t want to own, so I pretend they don’t exist.
My heart went out to me. Without a second thought, I reached across the seemingly cavernous divide between us and put my arms around my deepest darkest fears.
I kinda sorta forgot about faith.
Faith that despite my fear of looking in the stern, my truth is there all lit up and waiting for me. And it is up to me to center my Self in that.
The realization of it hit me like a bolt from out of the blue. I'm, honestly, not sure I even know what faith is or what having faith means, but I decided I already must have it (whatever "it" is). So I tried to feel faith right there beside me (with courage as my wing woman on the other side) and have an encounter with the gargoyle-ish monster.
In the meditation that followed, I turned around, walked to the stern, and sat on the floor of my lifeboat so that he/she/it and I could look directly into each other’s eyes (it was still under the rear bench). After several clunky, awkward and, yes, fear-filled minutes (I think for both of us) our eyes tentatively connected with each other. He/she/it told me that I was looking at my deepest, darkest fears about myself and others, but it could not find the thoughts to articulate any more than that.
I asked it to come out into the light so we could sit on the benches and take each other in with our eyes. It obliged me. What emerged from under the bench were two clear and vibrant eyes surrounded by a black, amorphous, undefined shape.
I had absolutely no idea what to make of this entity, and since it was having trouble telling me anything further, I accepted that we would not be going any deeper in our discussion for today (at least we were eye to eye…it’s a start).
At the same time, I started growing very concerned for both of us because the sun was quite bright and we were sitting vulnerable and unprotected. My Irish skin can’t take that kind of sun exposure and my counterpart was (excuse me for saying this ) basically a black blob…not good either.
After I finished putting SPF 75 on myself, I leaned over to put some on my new sailing partner. The touch of my hands on its “face” brought all my senses to life. I could smell and taste its hot decaying breath, hear the rattle of its inhale and exhale, see the blackness and decay of its skin on its now revealed form, and feel rough calluses all over its body under my fingers. But, most importantly, I felt its sadness and feelings of complete and utter abandonment…by me.
This isn’t a he, a she, or an it. This is a me: a compilation of all those ugly, or unacceptable, fearful human parts of me that I don’t want to own, so I pretend they don’t exist.
My heart went out to me. Without a second thought, I reached across the seemingly cavernous divide between us and put my arms around my deepest darkest fears.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Fear Factor
I’m going to admit right at the top that I am processing from my head now cuz I need to let my thoughts sift internally from the top down through my body (before I turn around).
I envision something scary behind me, and to be honest, a few days ago I did sneak a quick peek. Whatever it was had crouched under the wooden seat at the back of the boat. There was something looking up at me, but all I could see were its eyes. Those eyes sent chills up my spine and infused me with so much fear that I had to turn away.
Today, after thinking about that experience, I wonder if fear has been having its way with me. Is it possible that whatever is in the stern is actually benign, harmless, possibly friendly, maybe even full of fear itself, and it is my fear that is perceiving it as a gargoyle-ish monster?
Is it all an illusion created by my fear meeting its fear?
Am I seeing this gargoyle-ish monster because I am afraid?
Or am I afraid because I see this gargoyle-ish monster?
And how is this gargoyle-ish monster seeing me?
Only problem is I have to get up the gumption to turn around again and honest to G look at it without my fear which I fear is now running willy-nilly through my body.
Yet, if I don’t get a handle on my fear, how can I trust that anything I experience is reality?
See I told you I was in my head.
I’ve watched the television show Fear Factor twice (it made me too fearful so I never watched it again) and, from what I could see, the competitors were presented with increasingly more difficult (and let’s face it, dangerous) challenges as they attempted to overcome their externalized fears to win a boatload of cash.
I wonder if anyone has ever considered a television show where we had to face our fears in our own personal internal world? To win what? Our real Self? Sans illusions?
Is that what I am afraid of?
Fear Factor.
The only thing that keeps me in this sometimes terrifying game is my intention to secure a boatload of me.
That’s something I can begin to get my head around.
I envision something scary behind me, and to be honest, a few days ago I did sneak a quick peek. Whatever it was had crouched under the wooden seat at the back of the boat. There was something looking up at me, but all I could see were its eyes. Those eyes sent chills up my spine and infused me with so much fear that I had to turn away.
Today, after thinking about that experience, I wonder if fear has been having its way with me. Is it possible that whatever is in the stern is actually benign, harmless, possibly friendly, maybe even full of fear itself, and it is my fear that is perceiving it as a gargoyle-ish monster?
Is it all an illusion created by my fear meeting its fear?
Am I seeing this gargoyle-ish monster because I am afraid?
Or am I afraid because I see this gargoyle-ish monster?
And how is this gargoyle-ish monster seeing me?
Only problem is I have to get up the gumption to turn around again and honest to G look at it without my fear which I fear is now running willy-nilly through my body.
Yet, if I don’t get a handle on my fear, how can I trust that anything I experience is reality?
See I told you I was in my head.
I’ve watched the television show Fear Factor twice (it made me too fearful so I never watched it again) and, from what I could see, the competitors were presented with increasingly more difficult (and let’s face it, dangerous) challenges as they attempted to overcome their externalized fears to win a boatload of cash.
I wonder if anyone has ever considered a television show where we had to face our fears in our own personal internal world? To win what? Our real Self? Sans illusions?
Is that what I am afraid of?
Fear Factor.
The only thing that keeps me in this sometimes terrifying game is my intention to secure a boatload of me.
That’s something I can begin to get my head around.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Turn, Turn, Turn
I didn’t do it. Turn around that is. I was too afraid. I kept telling myself that I would do it later when I had more time or more interest (or more courage). However, we all know what happens when we continue to ignore what is knocking on our door, tapping on our shoulder or breathing down our necks.
It eventually bites us in the ass.
My stubborn insistent refusal to turn around has, perhaps, cost me a relationship (possibly with one of more of my beloved Mastery sisters). Without going into a long-winded story, let’s just say that I wrote an email that was my honest to G feeling. I meant it to be generative but I wrote it from a place within myself that I was blind to (because it was behind me in the stern and I couldn’t find the courage to look it in the eyes).
I didn’t turn around because I was afraid of what I was going to see about myself. And from what I could hear of the slow deep inhales and exhales behind me, I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. Honestly, it sounded downright grotesque …a living breathing gargoyle.
And it wouldn’t stop talking to me with its breath.
Its breath was daring me to turn around. Its breath was taunting me with its smell. Its breath was steamy, hot and sharp on the back of my neck as it electrified my spine. Its breath rolled and rasped and coughed and sputtered like a big engine waiting for the brake to be released.
It was full of its own terrifying power, waiting for me.
Knowing that I felt small and tiny and boneless.
So I let this part of myself do what it has done many times in the past. I allowed it to wear down my resolve and courage and Love for myself and all things. Then it snuck up on me when I was busy adjusting my sails, or looking desperately for an escape or surrendering into its incessant, insistent, insipid breathing.
It silently, skillfully, and without my conscious awareness took me over.
I wrote the email, clicked on the Send button and let it fly unfettered to its appointed destination. The response to my email was immediate, sure and swift.
And I was broken by the experience of being categorically silenced and being seen as someone who undermines and sabotages.
I was deeply confused. So I went back to the email, read it again, and crumbled into bonelessness. My grief about what I had said in my unconscious but all-consuming state was more than I could bear alone.
I turned, not around, but in. I turned in, to my Self, and asked Love for help.
It eventually bites us in the ass.
My stubborn insistent refusal to turn around has, perhaps, cost me a relationship (possibly with one of more of my beloved Mastery sisters). Without going into a long-winded story, let’s just say that I wrote an email that was my honest to G feeling. I meant it to be generative but I wrote it from a place within myself that I was blind to (because it was behind me in the stern and I couldn’t find the courage to look it in the eyes).
I didn’t turn around because I was afraid of what I was going to see about myself. And from what I could hear of the slow deep inhales and exhales behind me, I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. Honestly, it sounded downright grotesque …a living breathing gargoyle.
And it wouldn’t stop talking to me with its breath.
Its breath was daring me to turn around. Its breath was taunting me with its smell. Its breath was steamy, hot and sharp on the back of my neck as it electrified my spine. Its breath rolled and rasped and coughed and sputtered like a big engine waiting for the brake to be released.
It was full of its own terrifying power, waiting for me.
Knowing that I felt small and tiny and boneless.
So I let this part of myself do what it has done many times in the past. I allowed it to wear down my resolve and courage and Love for myself and all things. Then it snuck up on me when I was busy adjusting my sails, or looking desperately for an escape or surrendering into its incessant, insistent, insipid breathing.
It silently, skillfully, and without my conscious awareness took me over.
I wrote the email, clicked on the Send button and let it fly unfettered to its appointed destination. The response to my email was immediate, sure and swift.
And I was broken by the experience of being categorically silenced and being seen as someone who undermines and sabotages.
I was deeply confused. So I went back to the email, read it again, and crumbled into bonelessness. My grief about what I had said in my unconscious but all-consuming state was more than I could bear alone.
I turned, not around, but in. I turned in, to my Self, and asked Love for help.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)