The greatest gift we can give our country and our fellow human beings is to do our inner work.
Inviting you to step outside of your shell and be the love you seek, be the clarity you seek, if just for today. Carry on
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Tag: awareness
Oh that child
I never lost the child within. She’s right here next to me. Gathering trinkets on walks. Stones that peak interest, pine needles that prickle on my cheek, pods yet opened, full of possibility and promise of another season.
Feathers of hawk, abandoned hornets nests, berries artistically encased in ice – saved in the freezer, crimson leaf pressed in the pages of the Mother Earth catalogue, brown, striped seeds of mystery.
Recuerdos, mementos for recalling yesterdays, telling the earth’s story one tchotchke at a time. Don’t lose the child within. He/she is counting on you.
The Unlikely Christmas Card
Here we are, Christmas quickly approaching. So of course I have no plans to spend time with my family on Christmas Eve. If you’ve been reading any of my earlier bloglets you have a really good idea as to why I choose to remain separate.
Yes, it’s really difficult to stand your ground and distance yourself from those you bonded to. Excruciating at times. But as a child, when your Spirit is slaughtered over and over and over, some of us learn to stand tall in our adult years and fight the fight. Reclaiming our lives from the grips of traumatic memories/physical horrors.
So you can prob imagine the shock in my system when my husband texts me, “Do you think today you can get your mother a card, from me, for Christmas?” I thought to myself – self, well, that’s kind of weird but ok, whatever…just as long as I don’t have to SEE her royal craziness.
So off I go to the store to the cheerful love your Mother Christmas card section. Rolling my eyes, I saunter up to the section of colorful, Christmasee cards, all ooozing and gushing with all-things-Mom-ness. Here it is, the “ I wish my Mom was like this” aisle.
On my left there’s a bright yellow sign which says…“ Hokey Pokey turn your life around card section” COMING SOON. Shucks! Guess I’ll have to come back later for that selection. I start opening and reading. Opening and reading.
“Your love, Mom, reminds us of the love in our hearts this Holiday season…..”
“You are the glue that keeps this family together”
“A special Holiday wish for a special Mother…”
“Mom, all the joyful Holiday memories we share…”
“When we feel the Christmas spirit we remember the love you gave to us…”
Wow, um, nope, not a chance. This is harder than I thought.
I need the AF cards that are a little more honest. Maybe a blank card to write his own message… he’ll kill me lol. I know it’s Christmas and all but I don’t really have a taste for sugar, she ruined that for me…
If I could design a card…
“I hope you have the Christmas you deserve” or “I’m sure you think you did a great job but I am entitled to my truth and my opinion” and “I gave you the first 1/2 of my life, the rest is mine” or “Your energy is toxic so it’s just perfect if you celebrate Christmas at your house and I celebrate it at mine” and “No worries, I’m not angry, in fact, I don’t even think of you anymore, Merry Christmas”.
These MIGHT not exist in card form but I’d be willing to guess that I’m def onto something here. There might be a market for the card that never gets sent. Right?
So, I ended up settling on this generic card, “It’s Christmas, Hope you spend this magical season any merry way you like”. See?, everyone’s happy. Done. Got the card, husband will deliver it tomorrow. The card, consonants and vowels scattered about in a meaningful array of sequence. Recognizable as a gesture of nice from a nameless party and her caring spouse. I’d say we more than covered the bases. Check.
Poor thing, he’s kinda stuck in the middle and sees her rarely but he continues the facade of caring. She’ll hand him a gift for me – which always triggers me… throw it out, unopened? give it away? burn it? bury it in ceremony? So sad that she wants to own me.
So sad that she keeps trying. Refusing to let me have my truth. She holds out hope that I’ll forget that she resembles the witch in Hansel & Gretel. Caging the children so she can devour them. She read that story to us often, not surprising.
Now it’s time for me to read her a story. I hope she likes her card, I hope she hates her card, I hope she notices how much of a non-card it really is, I hope she notices how I did not sign it, I hope she feels how much self-love I have now, without her presence.
Despite all of this chatter, NONE of this really matters. I just simply bought a card. A Christmas card. Nothing more than paper, glitter, a stocking, teddy bear and cursive font… no promises, no agenda, no should haves, no attachments. A card. Merry Christmas Baba Yaga.
In Love #17
I’m in love with the smell of October rain. Arriving upon a cool, warm, wet, chilly breeze. Coating crunchy leaves and crispy flowers. Gathering dusty, dried earth for a communal autumn hug. The rain slowly arrives, moving in on the quiet. Settling into its resting place, lukewarm and lovely.
Making up for Summer drought, it falls. And falls. Smelling like forest floor. Like rich brown soil. Like the underpinnings of fabulousness with a side of mushroom spores and pine bedding undertones. Resurfacing the foundation of new life. Possibilities. Rich mineral magnificence.
The fragrance of possibility. Of spent corn stalks, cold harvest moon mist and pumpkin spice. In the air, previews of icy rains and solid precipitation. The falling away of what is no longer needed. That which weighs us down. Rain showering off the unwanteds, the old, the haggard, tired. The dead crunchies in our lives.
Washed into tomorrow on an endless cycle. Each rain flushing our discarded patterns. The old, worn out becoming new again. Replaced, reset, realigned by fresh new growth. Breathing in a little slower today to fill my empty spaces with the smell of rain in October.
Don’t I Know You?
I feel a little piece of myself in everyone I know, everyone I meet. We are all a mixture of light n dark. A fine recipe of delicious complexity.
I am joyful and depressed, I’m hateful, I am optimistic, I’m a killer, I’m jealous, I’m content and curious, wild, responsible, disengaged, entitled, invisible, enraged, tired, discouraged, complacent, magnificent. Big breath in….. real, lost, embarrassed, hopeful, dreamy, open, humiliated, passive, judgmental, honest weird, eccentric, lonely, pissed, accepting, blank, spiteful, alive, proud, blessed, dismissive and aggressive.
If we’re honest, several of these are living within us. Sure the positive traits/experiences are easy to embrace and recognize. The darker, shameful, maybe even shocking tendencies we def try to conceal, deny, excise. They need love and compassion too. They’re looking for recognition and expression. To be lovingly surrounded with safety, protection and containment.
Can we privately bring LOVE
and understanding
to the parts of ourselves
that we hate?
If just for this
moment
If just for today
How To Stay Alive
Getting well, I held all of you OUT
To spite you
To let you feel and see
That you could have NONE of me
So you could feel unworthy/unwanted
Dirty and discarded
To show you I was in control of YOU
That you held no power over me
That I was always never totally yours
Never totally under your control
There was always a piece of me you (3) could not devour
My magnificent SPIRIT
That which kept me alive
It had to leave my body
I had to leave my body
A body being ravaged by your violence
By your sexual agenda
Your mind fuck
Tricking me into being loyal
Surviving on autopilot
Aliveness and light snuffed
Slaughtered by your fake love
How I wished you all would stop
How I wished I could stop living
But your abuse allowed my gifts to surface
Oh integrity, perseverance, grit, tenderness, pin-point intuition
Just little ole me
Detecting entitlement, control and lies
All delivered with a smile
A big FU arises
But how wrong of you to choose me
Very dumb choice
My Spirit fueled my mission
I was never totally out sold to you
My healing journey
An agonizing one
The deep hate and rage simmering
Building on itself
Spirit returning little by little
Empowering, driving me
I gutted you with truth
My duty, a healthy revenge
Shoved your nose in shit
Publicly mmmmm deliciousness
I‘ll forever hold YOU out
Leave you with your own open wounds
Because my self love is solid
Because my sanity is important
Because my allegiance to your cause has expired
Because life is joy
And an uncluttered mind
A calm body
Tender lovemaking
Truth
Sensual pleasures
Freedom and expansion
It’s always been the same destination
But instead of fighting against
I’m fighting FOR
A different highway
Less traffic
Better air quality
Pleasant, sunny, freedom
Arriving HOME to myself
Effortless
Today
I am letting go
of who I thought
I was
Who I thought
I should be
Who they told
me
to be
Landing in a softer
more supportive
place
of self acceptance
Landing in a softer
more supportive
place
of allowing
Landing in a softer
more supportive place
of wonder
By pausing
the seeds of overcoming
are sewn
The transformation
set into action
Effortless
Today
I am letting go
Movement In Stillness
My happy little mung bean sprouts strive to go higher. To be more. Transcend the limits. Problems. Reach toward the light. But wait… how about we just stay in this moment, in this jar.
Not caring about what’s next, what’s due, who’s waiting…stay right in this space. This moment. And this one. And this one. Without expectation. Without movement.
Sprout your stillness. Name it. Breathe.
In Love #15
I’m in love with deep breaths. The boundless kind refilling my sails. Conscious sips of love welcomed into my chest scape. Dismantling an anxious foundation fortified with last weeks sludge. Thought by thought, I see them to the door. Some reluctant, but soon completely evicted from this wisdom pipeline of the soul.
Conscious or unconscious. I breathe. Resetting the tick, time, tock. Slicing up deadlines and have-to’s. Making manageable the most tangled armor. This luscious, quenching air filling the deep crevices between uptight and spacious. Grounding the body right here, right new
The holy rolling of chest. Breath enters and exits on two lane highway traveling South. Drawing in fuel, to our receptive muscles. Once again, saying yes to life. Then the exit North. The release of rib cage tension allowing drainage of all that is not serving us. All that has expired within us. Each cycle bringing us closer to ourselves.
In an endless cycle of fresh. An endless cycle of Peace. An endless cycle of Presence. I’m in love with deep breaths.
Thursday I Am New
Today I will be open to all possibilities.
Today I will start fresh.
Today I will know that I am worthy of greatness.
Today I will accept my body and thank it for all I am able to do with it.
Today I will take baby steps and say NO to one thing that no longer serves the new me.
Today I will say YES to something nourishing I want in my life.
Today I will stop and notice my breath as it enters, then leaves my body.
Today I will imagine a shield between myself and whatever it is that offends, scares or repulses me.
Today I will imagine a place of safety for myself and my inner child should things get rough.
Today I will know in my heart that protecting myself from what feels bad, is the most loving thing I can do for myself right now.
Today I will know that even without asking for it, I am being supported Spiritually, in ways that I have only dreamt possible.
Today I will know that I can take in that support and know that someone has my back, always.
Today I will know that I am loved a thousand loves.
Today, Thursday, I am new.
