Monday, May 30, 2011

A Room With A Window

There is a room
waiting just for me
to step into it
prepared
by loving hands

I've not had
a room of my own
for 23 years

There is a room
that awaits
my presence
I can close the door
to the world

open the window
listen to storms

There is a room
I could call mine
lovingly prepared
by someone who
honors me

---

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Home View

Almost 2 weeks ago I wrote about a sense of coming home.  The experience of it was so powerful and real that it is a challenge to even describe it's affect within me.  The only way I know how to put it to you is by giving a contrast in view.  What we feel within us has a direct correlation on what we see around us.  When we are in grief, we tend to perceive life around us as empty, full of loss.  I once wrote a poem that stated:

I know a grief so stark
I recognize it 
in an empty
hummingbird feeder
an aquarium
in need of cleaning
a pen
running out of ink 

By the same token, when we are feeling happy, especially in love, everything in life seems to take on a rosy hue, and we see and notice love in full blossoms, sweet scents in the air, and we experience a lightness in our step and being.

Instead of asking myself what I want, or desire in this temporal world, I have been in the habit of asking myself instead what it is I desire to experience and express.  I recognized years ago the outside form of a thing isn't really what I was after, because in actual fact, for example,  I have lived in a lot of homes, some for many years, yet never experienced a sense of being at home while living in any of them.  So if the actual thing, the building itself I lived in didn't give it to me, I asked myself what would?  I discovered the answer lay within me.  I realized there was a great deal of fear attached to my perception of home, and my viewpoint needed changing, meaning from one of fear to one of love, if I was ever going to experience and express what I desired.  The journey to changing it has not been easy, but well worth the trip in light of what I have been experiencing the past couple of weeks.

My daughter arrived home Wednesday night, ( yay! finally! ), after what was for her a very trying experience.  She has a good sense of home, which oddly enough, I know I helped give to her --- I gave what I needed.  Anyway, when she got home, all she desired to do was sleep, finally being able to rest comfortably in a sense of safety, meaning she could finally let the guard down she had up within herself for the past 4 months.  That is how I felt the first week after I found a sense of home within me, like something in me gave way, and I just wanted to sleep.  I listened to and allowed it, and my sleep has been deep and healing, dreamless.  The more I have slept in this way, the better I feel, and the more energy I have.

There has actually been a great deal of activity in my life and around me.  Same shit, different day kind of thing, yet my view has changed so drastically, and is coming from such a different place within me, all I see and feel is home.  The most fundamental difference I feel now as opposed to before is...I...stopped...struggling.  I gave up the struggle to be anything other than who I am...right now.

I have sat down to write here every morning, and there were some days I realized I had nothing to say, so I didn't write anything, and I was fine with that.  There have been days when I did have something to say, and so I wrote, but didn't feel like publishing it.  I was fine with that too.  I have moved with my spirit, or let it move me, and have actually gotten more done in the past week than I have in a long time.  And with it comes a sense of accomplishment that I haven't felt in way too long.  It is like I move and have my being within this new found sense of home.

Years ago I read this:  "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."  ( Hebrew 11:1 )  Faith is the actual substance of what we hope for.  Meaning the vision we hold within us, which is initially unseen in the physical world, is the very substance that manifests it into being.  It is what our dreams are made of.  The vision of it takes shape, and we hope for it, and and if we believe in that hope, it matures into knowing, which is faith, and the knowing solidifies the shape of it within us, fills it full, and from there it is manifested into the seen.  Everything in this created world was brought into being through faith.  Once faith is established, we can't help but act accordingly.  We will act on what we see, or perceive within us, and bring it to fruition, good, bad, or indifferent.  The law of faith is exact, and every single one of us is practicing it whether we are consciously aware of it or not.  I will say that without the wisdom love holds within its gaze, faith will produce nothing of real lasting value.  It is far better to drop our fear, and express love, than to have our faith be fear based. 

It feels like my hope for home matured into faith, and I am at rest in it, and now I am beginning to see the signs of it being manifested and expressed through me.  There have been things occur within this past week that have amazed me, and it is almost like I am a witness to my own vision being manifested outside me.  I can honestly say it almost appears magical.   

Here's the greatest thing about this sense of home I have been experiencing within me....no one can take it from me.  The vision of it is mine, the experience of it is mine, the expression of it is mine, wherever I happen to be.  It is not attached to anything on the outside of me.  Indeed, the events unfolding on the outside of me are a direct result of where I live on the inside of me.  I became one with the vision I held in hope, I merely stepped into it completely.  I no longer separated myself from it, or perceived myself separate from it...I stopped struggling, stopped finding any reason why it could not be so, and in doing so...

I came home. 

---

At Rest

A couple of weeks ago I stated here that I finally found a sense of home, and while I have more to share about that, and what has been occurring since then, for now I decided to share this video with you instead.

My daughter finally arrived home Wednesday night, ( yay! ), and showed me this video tonight.  In a strange sort of way its message fits with what I have been experiencing lately within myself.  It conveys the freedom of just being, in all our gloriously individual ways.  I found it amusing, fun, and right on with what home is all about....minus the monkeys.  Unless, of course, you like a band of dancing monkeys in your home :).  Enjoy!



---

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Perceptions of a Porch Dweller -- Rapture


I don't watch the news.  In fact, I don't watch TV at all other than when I feel like popping a DVD in to watch a movie, which isn't very often.  I don't go searching for the news on the internet.  I generally receive news about what is occurring in the world from others around me.  My mother watches TV quite a bit, and periodically throughout the day will give me brief news updates.  She's become like a home reporter :), and if it wasn't for her updates I'd be totally out of the loop, which frankly, doesn't bother me.  However, surprisingly, I didn't hear about the whole rapture business from my mother, but from my neighbor....on Thursday morning. 

My neighbor and I sat on my front porch in our jammies, she with her big mug of coffee, and I had my cup of tea.  I head out to the porch each morning to bring in the new day, and when my neighbor saw me step outside she asked if it was okay to sit with me, and I gladly welcomed her.  We chatted about this and that, and then she casually asked, "Are you ready for the Rapture on Saturday?"  I honestly didn't know what she was talking about, and had to ask for clarification.  That's when I first heard about Harold Camping's prediction.  I couldn't help it, I laughed.  Then my neighbor brought up a quote from the Bible, which I had to look up on the internet to find her reference, "For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night."  ( 1 Thessalonians 5:2 ).

...a thief in the night.

Why do you suppose Paul used those words?  He goes on to say:  "While people are saying, 'Peace and safety,' destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.  But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief..."

Night...darkness.  What is he referring to?  There are a lot of superstitious folks out there afraid of those words when it comes to a biblical context.  Some will interpret it as downright evil.  Hell, fear has a way of making us believe anything, starting with imaginary monsters under our beds when we were children.  We were convinced they were real, and we'd put our entire focus on them, making sure our limbs stayed well within the boundary of the bed's edge, otherwise we just knew the monsters would get us.  What did it take to finally convince us that there were no monsters under there?  A light turned on.  There was nothing there, but we acted as if there was.  We were trying to keep ourselves safe from something that didn't even exist.  True safety was found by actually taking a look, seeing that there was nothing there.  The facts.  Then the light of understanding was turned on as well in our mind, and we were thankful, and in that relief we could finally sleep in true safety.  Indeed, we realized there was nothing to fear, so safety wasn't even an issue anymore.  We came to a place of easy rest, no longer feeling the need to protect ourselves from anything.

"The light shines in the darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." ( John 1:5 )   

Darkness equals ignorance.  That's all.  We are in the dark, we don't know.  Clueless, until the light of understanding dawns.  Where the light hits is in our own mind, our consciousness, and when it hits, we will never be the same again.  We cannot fall back on not knowing anymore when now we know a thing.  How insane would it be to find out there are no monsters under the bed, only to continue acting as if there was?! 

We fear what we don't know, what we don't understand.  Fear is born from ignorance, but as soon as we understand, or know a thing, everything in us settles down and is able to rest.  Fear always projects into a future that hasn't even happened, but we act as if it has.  This is caused by our desire to be right about what we know..."leaning on our own understanding."  If we slow down before acting...think...we will be able to see a fear thought for what it is...mostly, in adults especially, it is a projection of the future based on past experiences.  There is no standing in the moment, being consciously aware of what is, in actuality, happening.  Meaning, there really is no monster under the bed. 

When Paul says destruction will come on them suddenly as a woman in labor, he is talking about what happens when we act on our own fear.  Who among you hasn't jumped the gun, projected into a future that hadn't even happened yet, believing you knew what was coming and acted accordingly, only to find out later you were wrong?  I'll give you an extreme example...my ex husband had a deep seeded fear of abandonment, and no matter how much I stated I loved him, no matter how firmly I stood committed to our marriage, nothing convinced him that his fear was not well founded.  He had too many validations to believe otherwise, beginning with his mother.  He didn't understand that, as an adult, he was the one who kept validating it himself by acting on the belief.  He prepared for my leaving that marriage...and he did that by keeping one foot out the door, with one eye steadily seeking another partner, "just in case."  He also saw every little thing that went wrong as proof that I was gearing to leave him.  Yet in his acts he was the one laying the groundwork for the destruction of our marriage...because he would never look under the bed to see if there really was a monster.  Meaning, he never put himself totally in the moment, with me, to actually see that what he feared wasn't even happening.  When he did finally see, when the light was turned on, it was too late...the destruction of our marriage was already done, and there was no going back.  He had given birth to it, brought it into existence by his acting on the fear within himself.  He saw nightmares and enemies where there was none. 

God is Spirit.  And it is within the spiritual realm, which includes our own thoughts and emotions, where our greatest battle is taking place.  The outside is just a reflection of the inside.  The Lord does indeed come like a thief in the night...in our individual night, our darkness, in our ignorance.  We will not know the day or the hour or even the minute...but of a sudden, the light of understanding will be upon us.  There will come an unmistakable Presence that is felt from within, and our lives will never be the same, because our inner understanding, our inner sight, our perception is forever altered.  There is no going back to ignorance.  We can try to hide behind a bush, or under a rock, or in a corner, but we know without a doubt that we have been altered.

I'll leave you with this:  The Day of Judgment is your own.  God is not judging you, yet under the Light of His love you come to the realization, the conscious awareness, of just how much you have erred in your thinking.  It is only we who, for a time, judge ourselves as the light of understanding shines brightly on our dark places within, ( and the time taken through this process is as individual as the individual ).  In every single way you have judged another, you have judged yourself.  Meaning, what you see over there is also in you, otherwise you would not see it.  What you choose to fix your gaze on, whether it be the monster in a person, or the Divine, is a consideration worth some time and effort.  For if you look upon each person you meet as someone who is a potential enemy, motivated by a desire to constantly seek safety and protect yourself, then an enemy you will find.  Yet if you choose to look at another as someone new, take them as they are in the moment, coming from a place of no need to protect yourself from monsters, more often than not you will find friendship and joy in the meeting place.  How they handle things is their business, and entirely up to them.  Your only business is your part.  But know this:  The good you see there in them is what is real.  Everything else is their own fear manifesting itself, because that is what they are choosing to believe, and in believing, act on and express.

I believe a rapture is found when you can finally see, and hold, all the Good that is in you is the only real thing there is.  You are that, and only that, and the good news is that everything else was and is just stuff that was added to you, either said by another and you believed it, took it on, or a mistaken thought put there by your self because of something you think you did, or didn't do.  It is found when you can comfortably rest in the Love of God, and have nothing rise up in your mind to find you unworthy, although the world may think otherwise.  Let them point their accusing finger, because they don't know what it is they are seeing in you.  They see themselves.  Christ rises from within you.  It is the Light of Christ that shines in the dark of your mind and heart, and brings you understanding and enlightenment.  And the Light of Christ is given to abide in each and every one of us.

God's name, that He gave to Moses: 

I am that I am.

Be still, and know that I am, God...

Within you. 

---

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Home

Three events happened this past weekend that brought me home from a journey I've been on since I was five years old, consciously for the past 3 years.  I am now 50.  This on the tail of what I discovered while writing my last blog post about connection.  Three years ago I was putting together a gift for Mother's Day looking for images of my mother to celebrate her life.  As I walked through her life in images starting from when she was just a little tyke, I had a sudden realization I was also walking through my own life.  There I was as a baby, and there again when I was 4, then adolescence, and so forth.  Then, something happened within me, something so profound it had me coming to an all stop, and then I burst into tears.  I'll never forget it...there I sat on the floor, all my picture albums out, and photos surrounding me, and all I could think was this is my life.  I remember gathering pictures to myself and hugging them close to my chest.  It is a challenge to express in words how truly all inclusive and accepting that experience was for me.  There was no part of my life I didn't own anymore.  There was just this profound understanding that all the experiences I ever had, every single moment of my life and relationships, how they affected me, all of it was suddenly, profoundly validated.      

How can I express the contrast of the before and after a certain moment?  How can I put my life, and what has driven me, either in an attempt to run away or toward, from the time the moment occurred to now into one blog?  How can I tell you that money, career, all the things the world is obsessed with having, and define themselves by, hasn't been what's important to me?  Oh, at one time they were, but I knew there was something getting in the way.  There was something definitely wrong.  For many years I pointed outside myself as to the reason I felt the way I did.  I took no responsibility at all for what was within my cup.  Then 20 years ago the tables were tipped inside me, and my gaze began to go inward...along with my footsteps.  I began traveling backward in time...into places I didn't want to go.  Yet the farther I went the more I awakened to just what was driving me, what was wrong with the picture, what I felt I was missing.

It led to a child so wounded I'd tried cutting her and her experiences out of my life by disassociation.  I left myself behind the way I felt I'd been left behind by others.  I was abandoned, and what happened after that was horrific, and even though I was eventually brought back home I can't say I ever went back home again.  In one moment, home was no more.  And for the rest of my life until this past weekend I can honestly say that I have never experienced a sense of feeling at home anywhere...ever.  This isn't a "oh have sympathy for me" piece, nor do I desire understanding.  Although it may not appear as such, it is a celebratory post.

I am not unaware of how others think I go too deep into shit, and how they mistakenly think I'm trying to change them, or whatever else they come up with.  I've heard it all, "Let it go...why can't you...do this...be this way"...etc.  But all that doesn't mean squat to me if I can't feel it.  If it ain't felt, it ain't authentic.  For a long time the opinions of others confused me, and I didn't understand their reactions to me, because honestly nothing I do is about them...its about this journey of healing I've been on for the past 20 years.  It's been about me finding my way home again.  Unfortunately, I had to dig deep to find it...I had to journey deep within the core of my being to find the moment, one moment, to get to the root of one thought inserted by a wounded child that turned into a belief, and would impact the rest of my life. 

Months after I sat on the floor with those ancient pictures I wrote a blog.  I won't share all of it with you, but a few paragraphs:

I have a couple of pictures of when I was a little girl.  One is when I was 4 years old, the other is when I was closer to 6.  In the image of the one when I was 4 is a beautiful, very happy child.  There is a light that shines from my eyes, from my very being.  In the other photo, and subsequently all other photos that follow, is evidence that something changed.  Reflected in my huge eyes are shadows, and the openness that was in evidence before no longer exists.  The eyes look at the world accusingly, and with distrust.  No smile, no light, exists in the eyes of that child while she holds her Drowsy doll loosely in her arms.

Someone looking at the photos may assume that it was just a case of a child having a bad day.  Yet if you continue looking at the images of this child growing up over the years the light and joy that was there in the child at 4 never quite returns.  There is a great deal of suffering instead, a haunted look, and anger.

Not long ago I finally found that child left standing on the side of the road watching her mother leave in silence, and I stood there with her watching the same scene, but this time from an adult perspective.  In me compassion rose up like a tender promise for this girl whose heart and mind were shattered.  I watched my mother and let her make her choice, and I looked down at this beautiful child who would grow to think that no one wanted her, but I knew that I did.  I reached out my hand to her, and for a moment she looked at me with that haunting distrust filled with shadows.  I just waited.  Then she tentatively took my hand and I said to her, "Come on Cindy, it's time I take you home."  I cannot change what was done, but I can turn the tide to good somehow. 


I know its nothing to anyone who hasn't experienced what I have...and I have to say truthfully, I'm glad they haven't.  I wouldn't wish for the things that have happened in my life on my worst enemy.  I don't expect anyone to understand who hasn't been there, done that.  How can they?  I also know there have been times in my life when I didn't think any of it was fair that other people seemed to have what I didn't...something as simple as feeling a true sense of home.  I desired it so desperately.  All I can say is I knew, somewhere in me, that once I experienced, truly felt, a sense of home within me, it meant the child within me was truly healed, and maybe she could play again.  The past three years have been no walk in the park in integrating this part of me, this wounded child, back into the fold.  I allowed every emotion, I listened, I loved that part of me as if it were my own child.  Much of the grief I have talked about here was in part having to do with all of this coming to the fore. 

What were the events over the weekend?  I found out my best friend's step mother died...a woman I knew.  At the same time, I found out a woman who lives across the street is dying, who has been cared for by her daughter, who is the only one in the neighborhood that came by and brought food for us, and checked on us for months to make sure we were all okay after my mother had a stroke.  They were as poor as we were, yet she cooked for us, gave what she had, helped where she could.  Finally, a gentle friend I made shortly after I got here in December had a major crisis, and was left homeless and uncertain.  The next day or so revealed why these things had taken place and it broke my heart to find out she had been living and feeling homeless anyway...now it was manifested.  I am the one she asked to drive her to a corner and drop her off with nothing but the clothes on her back, and a few bucks.  I cannot even express to you what that did to the inside of me.  I begged her to reconsider.  She refused to listen...and stepped out of my truck and I watched her walk away.  I even went back to see if she'd changed her mind, but she was gone.

I came back here and just sat, letting all of it sift through me.  How it all came together to bring me a sense of home I'm not real clear on, I just know it did.  One moment I was feeling as disjointed as my friend's father must be feeling over the loss of his wife.  He's not only lost his wife, but will have to move out of his home, sell his horses, everything.  I felt as lost as I know the daughter across the street must be feeling at the thought of losing her mother.  Her world will be turned upside down too.  And I felt what my new friend must be feeling, out there, not knowing what will come next, not feeling any sense of home...and the safety it represents.  She was exposed...naked out there in the world.

The last piece of the puzzle slipped almost imperceptibly into place...and I felt a sense of home warm me.

I have said our relationship with others is our relationship with self, because I have found through experience that this is true.  Perhaps what I felt for these people finally broke through to my own consciousness, I honestly don't know.  All I know is I now feel a solid sense of home I've never felt before.  Before, I felt a disconnection to the reality of home...and after, I felt connected in a very real way.  With that sense bloomed ideas, and creative thought in how to go about expressing this new found sense.  Making a home.

Judy, at Zebra Sounds, gave us all another assignment to practice this week if we choose to do so:

Monday: Indulge in at least one guilty pleasure.
Tuesday: Express yourself. (Have fun with this one.)
Wednesday: Reward yourself.
Thursday: Take 15 minutes (or more) and wander (mentally or physically)
Friday: Sip something delicious.
Saturday: PLAY.
Sunday: Love someone - fearlessly, consciously, as only you can.

Today, I began expressing my new found sense of home, puttering around touching everything, connecting.  Yesterday, I began installing the SIMS 2 game, which is my guilty pleasure, where I can build a home and a family, in a sense painting what I want in real life :).  It is said that without vision people perish.  I am thankful I am being filled with vision again, and grateful beyond words that I can actually step into it.  Wherever I stand, I am home, because now I have it solid inside me.

---



Friday, May 13, 2011

Blogger Issues


Well this bites...Blogger had maintenance issues, whatever that entails, and the last post I wrote and published Wednesday night, Earnestness In Connection, is gone.  EEP!  Guess I'll have to make sure I back up everything I write.  Which is kinda profound in a way....maybe its a sign :).

Sorry folks, you weren't seein' things, it was indeed there, and Blogger doesn't know if it will be able to bring it back.  So the lesson for the day is:  Take your losses with your gains and move on, 'cuz when it's outta your hands there's nothin' you can do otherwise.

Hope y'all have a good day, and great weekend. :)

[ Saturday, May 14, Update:  Yay!  The blog I was talking about here is back.  Blogger rocks. ]

---

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Earnestness In Connecting


Judy Clement Wall at Zebra Sounds provided a link this morning that led to this article, The Age of Earnestness, which I have to admit, evoked such a powerful reaction in me its taken me all day to come to grips with it, and frankly, I'm not sure I'm still clear on what its telling me.  Perhaps writing here will enlighten me.  I had a slew of emotions rip through me, and so I got quiet and listened to what they had to say within me.  I've learned to value any reaction within me, because I discovered years ago there are golden lessons to be learned within them if we will listen instead of act on them blindly.  They give clues to what makes us tick, and can lead to healing if we are willing to sit in them until we find clarity.  This particular reaction brought anger, and I felt something old stir within me.  Yet the more I sat with it, the more I realized there was something more laying behind it.

What is earnestness?  What does that look like, and feel like?  What is it to be earnest?  I know what the dictionary says it is, but what is it to really experience being earnest?  The article I mentioned above is relating it to "the deep desire to honestly connect with someone."  And the more I think about that, the more I find it is absolutely true, and at the heart of my personal emotions.

Throughout the day I realized there was one example after another flashing in at me of people throughout our history who expressed an earnestness in varying degrees.  The one common element within them all was an ideal, a dream they were willing to give their very lives for.  Their ideal, their dream, had become way bigger than their very lives!  Their lives were nothing compared to their earnest desire to connect with people.  They went up against incredible odds in their attempt to connect with their message.  They swung everything they had within them, the full force of their entire being and more, into giving their ideal a chance to connect.  And they showed up.  They were willing to put themselves out there, expose themselves, with the full knowledge and understanding that they were going to make themselves a target.  That didn't stop them.  Can you imagine putting yourself in such a vulnerable position willingly?

All of these people valued life, and the quality of life was uppermost in their mind.  Folks like Bin Laden and Hitler don't even compare!  Their ideals, the dreams they said they served, were nothing more than self serving and destructive, and for sure they weren't willing to expose themselves, risking their own lives for what they believed in.  No, they gave that job to others, and went and hid, valuing their own life above others.  Nothing more than cowards in the end.

There are countless men and women who were, and still are, willing to lay their lives down for the ideal of freedom over tyranny.  They will do whatever is necessary until one day, hopefully, what they have fought for, died for, will finally connect with a world.  Let freedom ring.

There's Martin Luther King who had a dream of equality, to connect all people, and spent his life earnestly trying to break through the wall of racist thought in his attempt to connect his ideal with people.

There's Mahatma Gandhi, who King was inspired by to follow his non-violent methods for connecting his ideal vision with a people.  Gandhi willingly experienced imprisonment, starvation through fasting, and many other means in his attempt to break through the wall of tyranny.

And lets not forget Jesus.  Whether you believe in Him or not, the man had a sincere, earnest desire to connect with people.  He had an ideal, a dream of love so big that it goes beyond anything anyone has ever done to this day.  His desire and love for people was so intense that He bled from his very pores as He wept, before being tried and convicted and tortured and put to death.  People focus on His death when they need to be focusing on His dream, the ideal He was living.  Love all.

There are countless examples of folks with an earnest desire to connect.  We all have that desire.  I find it amazing how so many people desire something so simple, but can't seem to go there.  What stands in the way?  If you desire to connect, then connect!  Isn't it amazing that a few of these people I just named actually lost their lives just talking about connecting?! 

I think about these people...we make them out to be bigger somehow than we are.  But they had to have started in the same place as you and me.  They were living their lives, and while living it they saw a gap, and it probably began in their very homes.  They desired to bridge that gap, to connect, and then found themselves up against some sort of invisible wall blocking the bridge they desired to build over the gap.  They tried in earnest to connect with that person.  Then maybe the more they looked into it, they saw it went wider, then wider still, and their earnestness to connect went wider with it, leading them along a path that led to where they ended up.  When, quite simply, it could have all started with just a simple desire to connect with one person. 

Which leads me back to my reaction this morning.  In writing this I can see why I reacted so strongly.  It feels like my entire life has been centered around my earnest desire to connect with one person.  I recently stated to a friend, "I want to go home."  More important to me than writing, more important than any other thing in my life, is a secret dream to connect with this one person.  Every other thing I've ever done in my life was born from this simple, earnest, all consuming desire to be able to find a way around that wall erected, to be able to bridge the gap created a long, long time ago, so I could connect with this one person so she can truly know she is loved.  Guilt is the wall, the tyrant that enslaves from within.  Until this person finds it within to forgive self there will not be a connection that we both desire.  I would see her free.

Let Freedom Ring.

---- 

Must Be Nice

Must be nice
to live without
any accountability
never having to
say, "I'm sorry"
because you do
nothing wrong

Must be nice
to live a life
with no feeling
of responsibility
for the impact
you made on
another life

Must be nice
to have no
conscience prick
when you've done
unkind acts
said unkind words
while showing
your hands clean

Must be nice
to have those
clever excuses
at the ready
covering all
your bases
leaving your mark
but you were
never here

---

Monday, May 9, 2011

j's Love Project - Love Letter To Self

[ Its a funny thing...some years ago, I heard Spirit tell me it was now time to tell my story.  I refused.  My journey since then has been one of coming around to it, and I find it highly ironic that the telling of my story came to be in a letter to myself.  The following is an assignment I decided to participate in, and in writing it just now, I am surprised at what I revealed...even to myself.  God is awesome like that...and wiley.  I can feel Him chuckling and hear Him say....."I win."  He does indeed. :]

j, over at Zebra Sounds, as part of the Love Project she has going on for the year, gave all her readers a homework assignment last week to write a Love Letter to self, which is due today, "to counteract all the negative shit we tell ourselves daily," ( using her words :).  This month is dedicated to self love in the Project, and j asked us to post the first assignment, our love letter to self, either in our blog, or in her comments section.  I opted to post mine here, mainly because I found the idea of posting here in front of family and friends kinda scary.  There is something in me that desires to hide my love for self, and that's just...well...not right.  I realize I have a great deal of love for me, thanks to God's reflection, and this exercise is a declaration of that love.  So I'm singin' it loud -- here goes:

Dear Cindy,

I know you hardly recognize yourself these days.  You were born a beautiful little girl, and then too early, hammers of darkness began pounding you to try to shape you into something else, threatening to steal the light of your being.  You came to know, and experience first hand the evil of mankind at a tender age, and it didn't stop there.  The hits just kept coming.  Not only from mankind, but from a spirit world you didn't understand, only knew that it was dark, and scary.  You raged at the injustice of it all.  Until finally...you quit.  Gave up.  Flopped yourself in a chair on a porch, and decided death was better than the life you were living.  You were absolutely convinced that you had no love inside you to give.  You believed you walked under the shadow of a heavy dark cloud, with no hope of ever getting out from under it.  You despaired.  You were tired of the pain, the fear, the abject terror.  You quit, and all went mercifully numb...

Yet...in the pitch of night you found something within you to reach out a hand in the dark.  In the dark night of the soul you reached up.  Never in your wildest dreams did you believe there would be a response.  You reached.  What was that in you?  You had no conscious awareness of what it was, you only heard something within you yell...a voice, your voice?, tiny and far away, from somewhere deep.  You heard it, and reached...for what you didn't know, and didn't care anymore.  You heard that voice from deep within, and listened to what it said.

You weep now in remembrance, but the tears you cry now are those of such a profound gratitude it reaches the stars with it's incense.

Now you know the voice you heard that night long ago was the light given to abide in you.  A tiny flame of your true self placed there by the Divine.  God remembered who you were, for He created you, and placed the memory of it deep within you for just such a night.  Yet you were alone in your choice to listen to it or not, given free will, where even God cannot go.  You listened, and it is that more than anything that speaks volumes of who you truly are.  When all went dark, you chose to listen anyway, reach anyway, hope against hope anyway.  And that is who God knew you to be.  He knew, and had faith in what He created.  He never doubted your choice.

You reached, and He answered...and began the journey and conversation with you to show you who He created you to be, who you are.  The light of you grew bigger and stronger, quickening to life, to be expressed, brought forth into the world.  Along the way, in overcoming the darkness, you've been rebellious, resistant, and downright stubborn at times, shooting yourself in the foot, yet through it all was a small willingness to open your mind to another view, to possibilities, not just lean on your own understanding.  God even knew you'd listen to that willingness when push came to shove.  The Light of His Love brought forth your own, and finally, you saw the Truth.  You are a beloved child of God, and under His tender love you found the courage to free your own...the Love He placed inside you.

There have been more hits since then, but now you know the Truth.  Whatever is thrown your way, you know the answer is to love anyway.  For you know now the love you shed forth from within you, the gift of love God placed within you, the light of it grows ever brighter.  You know now that when you set your love free to be expressed in the world, to be given to all things, you are set free.  That is the Truth that will set you free.

All that you love, from your daughter, to thunderstorms, to dancing, sunrises and sunsets, the light that plays in the wind, the joy of life felt in your very bloodstream, the scent of horses, the touch of a hand, the music of crickets, and so many more things, is all expressed to the fullest.  You hold nothing back, from tears of gratitude, to grief over another who does not know.  Are you perfect in this world?  Hell no!  Nothing is perfect in this world, and never will be, for it is just a shadow of the real deal.  Only in spirit are you perfect.  God is Spirit, and created your spirit, and the spirit of all things, where you are returning.  To your Source.  You know the dream God gave you that is secreted within your own heart.

And finally, you know now that it doesn't matter if the love you shed forth has the appearance of being returned or not.  You've learned not to take anything personal that another does.  You know that love expressed is Cause, and the gift of it, the beauty of it, is the promise it holds.  It holds the key.  The key to the Divine spark within us all.  You know your love has purpose, even if it isn't received, or even seen.  It is footprints in the sand.  Bread crumbs left along the way.  Your love has value, because all love has value, even the tiniest spark. You may continue to experience little tremors of fear, but you do not listen to it.  You continue to reach...

...and you love anyway.  You set your love free.  Within that love...

I AM. 

---          

Sunday, May 8, 2011

A Daughter's Song

                                                         My Mom

           The following is a piece I wrote for Mother's Day in 2008.  It stands eternal.


It is said that before we come into this world we choose the family we will be born into, receiving the foundation for the lessons our souls need to learn during this lifetime.  I think this is only partly true.  The part I find untrue is the implication that it is all about the individual.  If I chose to come into my family, they also chose to have me.  There is a bigger picture that most of us fail to see.

I wrote a letter to my daughter once letting her know that she was an answer to a call for Love deep within the hearts of her parents.  Yet, I think it goes wider than this.  I think each child born to a family line is an answer to the hidden hopes and dreams of all the hearts in a bloodline.  I think this is why there is that boring chapter in the Bible called Chronicles.  All those people, generation upon generation, eventually brought into existence Jesus Christ, Son of God.

God is doing his work, and with each child is the hope of lifting a bloodline to new spiritual heights, bringing us ever closer to Him Who truly calls to us.

If we choose to look upon the family, or conditions, we were born into with disdain, or shame, and to see ourselves as victims of circumstance, then we do our families a great disservice, and are repeating the same mistakes they made.  The mistakes are what need to be overcome.

If we look at our parents and blame them for the unhappiness in our lives, because of the way they raised us, because of the mistakes they made, do we, even for a moment, consider where they learned to be that way?  If each generation is busy pointing their fingers backward then we continue to carry the mistakes forward.  How far back do the errors go?  Where did the first error occur?  Who knows?  We only know that which was given to us to overcome, and if we can overcome, which to a large extent is to let go and forgive, even one error made, and pass the wisdom and good we learned from it onto our children, then we have helped to lift a family line into something better, and helped make the world a better place.

I don't know any parent who, deep in their hearts, doesn't look upon their child and hope, sometimes against hope, that their child will not make the same mistakes they made. Deep within the heart of every soul is a call for Love, and deep within that call is the prayer for one to come who can bring Love where they are afraid Love is not.

I awoke one day to the call for Love in my Mother's heart.  I saw and felt her love for me, and her hidden hope against hope that I would return that love in spite of her mistakes.  I saw that the very mistakes she made was the call.  And from there, slowly, I could see the call in my father, who I had blamed for abandoning me.  I could see the call in my grandmother, who I blamed for and believed hated me.  I could see the call in my grandfather in his alcoholism.  They meant no harm, and it was nothing personal against me.  I saw the need for forgiveness in them all.  If I did not forgive, then I ran the risk of making the same mistakes, or new ones.

I saw that, yes, my mother made mistakes, and I carried the burden of them.  Yet, for the first time, I also saw that she gave me something else.  She gave me courage, determination, persistence, honesty, strength, and a fierce loyalty and protectiveness to those we love.  She gave me perseverance, and kindness, and the ability to give beyond oneself.

St. Paul said to "Lay hold of the best gifts."  For many years my focus was on the poor ones.  Ones born from my mother's mistakes.  But here, I could finally see what she had given me instead of what I thought had been taken.  And seeing what was given, I could use it to turn my gaze backward, not to blame her, or any of my family, for the burdens from their mistakes, but to forgive what was done and to finally bring the light of understanding and Love into the dark places of ignorance where they believed Love was not.

My mother gave me the very gifts I needed to overcome!  And as I have traveled this journey she has been by my side, sacrificing, for many years being blamed in anger and rage for the miseries in my life.  Why did she stay with me?  Because she saw in me what I could not see in myself.  That I was an answer.  She had Faith that the answers she sought lay deep within me.  That in my struggle to overcome the burdens placed on me, she also would be freed of the same burdens.  How could I not honor her?  How could I not honor all my family?  If I struggled to be free, I also desired their freedom.

I love my mother with a love that has grown everyday.  Not so long ago I never would have believed that I could make such a declaration.  She and I, if we chose to be together before we came into this life, chose a rough road to travel.  But if I can reach back and find the light of understanding in what she did, or didn't do, and pray that in me it be turned to good, then the evil I thought I saw there is nothing more than a spring board to use to strengthen a family line that believed it was weak.  And in turn I can pass forward that good to my child, and perhaps my grandchildren, with the secret hope of each generation evolving into something better.  Bringing to the world something better.  Bringing to the world a little more Light, a little more Love, to shine and bring warmth to those in the darkness of ignorance where they believe Love is not.

Thank you Mom for walking with me on this incredible journey.  Thank you for the mistakes you made with me, so I could learn from them.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the Love and Faith you had in me.  I will continue to give my best effort to honor you and your beautiful life, and the sacrifices you made for me.

Maya Angelou said, "We do the best we can with what we know, and when we know better, we do better."  I know better now, mom, because of you.



---

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Consider...A Marriage of the Paradoxes

I love a mystery.  Correction -- I love solving mysteries.  I tend to be solution oriented.  If there is a question, then I am of the belief that there must be an answer.  In fact, I have learned that if a question arises, then the answer is already there waiting.  It's just a matter of time before the answer is revealed.

The nature of the paradox has always fascinated me.  It is a mystery I felt compelled to solve.  Take, for example, the question of the chicken or the egg, or Adam and Eve.  Which came first?  And seriously, who even thought of those questions?  And in the end, does it really make any difference to the whole scheme of things?  Yet someone did think to ask, and when I stumbled upon them with my probing mind, I was hooked on solving their mystery.  Whether I was successful or not is moot, and so is whether we can ever really, really know.  The journey to finding answers to those questions led to an adventure in spirit that has been nothing short of fascinating.

Let's go with the chicken or the egg question first.  Both were there at the same time.  The egg was inside the chicken.  End of story.  If you don't believe me, ask any woman who ovulates.  Our children sprang from one of our eggs, and it makes no difference at all whether they are on the inside or outside of us, we know the deal.  They came from an egg that was inside us, which makes them a part of us still.  Because we have creative power like that.  :)  But then again, so do trees.  We could even say the same thing about Adam and Eve.  Eve was inside Adam as his rib, or so the story goes.  ( The only time in historical records of mankind, I might add, that a man sorta gave birth to something ).  They were both present and accounted for at the same time and place.  There was no "first." 

So once that was solved, in my way of thinking anyway, I moved on and applied what I learned to see if my answer fit for other paradoxes.  ( I get this mental image of me wearing a white lab coat, doing experiments, mixing elements and stuffs in little jars, making sure to step back in case of explosion...).  Oddly enough, it fit.  One thing that has bothered me throughout this life is the question of duality.  Opposites.  I don't really care for them.  Here's my reasoning -- it creates conflict within me and on the outside of me, ( see chickens arguing above ), and I'm all about Unity.  To have unity -- which come on, is peace producing -- to even have the concept of Unity, there cannot exist the belief in duality.  Lets face it, many people think of Unity as coming together to unite against something else.  That's not Unity.  To experience Unity, which is experienced within you, we must do away with the concept of two.  Where there is two, there is separation.  The feeling of wholeness we all desire, that feeling of oneness, comes only when we get rid of the idea of two. 

I'm not talking about being assimilated into the Borg...you still get to keep your uniqueness.  Look at snowflakes!  Or fingerprints...so bear with me...

Giving and receiving cannot exist separately.  It is an impossibility.  So its not giving and receiving, its giving/receiving.  They are from the same coin.  One coin.  To think of them separately, as two different entities or concepts is, in my book, to err on the side of conflict, ( if there was a side :).  If we just had "giving," who would we give to?  There literally has to be someone receiving what we are giving, and vice versa.  The very act of giving/receiving is oneness.  The act itself unites.  As soon as you put both together, make them one, you can move on to other seemingly opposites -- male/female, win/lose, right/wrong, good/evil, love/hate.  The idea is to practice oneness in thought.  Put them on a scale, one line, although they aren't quite linear, but its an exercise in the mind, so we can do what we want there, you standing in the middle, arms stretched out, joining them...dearly beloved...

What you will find there is an all inclusiveness.  What you will find there, within you, is an embrace for all things in between.  You may not ever see Unity outside yourself.  Yet you will know and experience it within you, and you will find a rich understanding and tolerance for differences, because in the concept and practice of oneness, within you, there is no me and you.  There is only we.  One.

---

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

And All The Kings Horses...

I recently had a conversation with a young woman who I've known since she was a child.  She is my daughter's age now, married, with two children.  I know she used to cut herself when she was a teenager, and the parents had everyone believing she was a "problem," and needed counseling.  She was the only one in the family who went to counseling.  I remember watching her, and there was something I identified with in her.  I knew that it wasn't just she that needed counseling, it was her entire family.  In our conversation she revealed how she'd always felt a great responsibility toward her mother, felt it was her job to watch over her, and make sure she was okay.  She made sure to always be present to ensure her mother's safety.  One day she decided to do something for herself, she went to church, and when she came home, she found her mother on the floor after an attempt to commit suicide.  It validated for the young woman that her mother's life was in her hands.  The pressure to remain by her mother's side, to be responsible for her very life, was a heavy, heavy burden.  

Choices.

Was her mother evil?  No.  She was in pain, and couldn't see anything but her pain.  She couldn't see past her pain to be able to see the impact her choices and actions were having on another.  I have often been shocked at a person's absolute belief that what they do has no direct impact on anyone else.  Feeling isolated and alone in their pain they refuse to see they are indeed connected, and everything they do creates an effect.  But I have also found that most people don't want that kind of responsibility.  They don't want the burden of accountability, and would rather blame it on something or someone outside themselves.  There is nothing outside themselves regardless of what they believe.  They are not separate because there is no such thing, regardless of appearances.

Look at Bin Laden.  There was a man who also refused to believe we are all connected, alone in his pain and rage, wanting to strike out away from himself so he wouldn't have to face his own accountability.  He sought to make others pay, carry a burden that belonged only to himself.  He blamed everyone else but himself.  What makes him any different from the person who, instead, goes to destroy their own life?  One struck outward, the other inward.  But both blamed others outside themselves for being in the pain they were in.  Both saw and believed in enemies.  Believed they were alone.  Look at Hitler's history.

Choices.

All these people had a choice.  Hitler had as much capacity for love as he did for hate.  Bin Laden had just as much capacity to build and unite as he did to destroy and divide.  This young girl's mother has the same capacity to make the choice to value all life, including her own, as she does to destroy it.  Yet what happens when they've gone too far?  Indeed, what is the measuring stick on that?  Who says when enough is enough, and these people who are insistent on making choices of destruction and division are causing wide range effects.  Even the mother who tried to commit suicide made an impact that will be felt for a very long time in her family.  Who has the final say of when enough is enough?

Choices.

We do.  We are the ones who decide within ourselves that patterns and thoughts and beliefs of division and destruction stop with us.  The buck stops here, with me.  Or otherwise we go on carrying the same old routine, same old family dysfunction, same reactions, same old, same old.  We have the power to choose differently.  It has been my message here from the creation of this blog.  We choose.  We are always choosing, every moment, every day, every sunrise.  We are choosing whether we will love or hate.  Fear or trust.  Build or destroy.  We are choosing...whether we think we are or not.

Choices.

Through those choices we reap what we sow.  ( Which isn't the same as an eye for an eye.)  That law of cause and effect, what you give out will return to you, is for everyone, good, bad, or indifferent.  And no one can escape it.  We are all accountable for every act, every thought, whether we like it or not.  We can ignore it, we can deny it, yet its true regardless.  Bin Laden chose.  Those who choose to celebrate his death are choosing.  Bin Laden was one of us.  He was connected.  Hitler was one of us.  You are one with all of us.  There is no separation.  What you do is significant, and has an impact.  Think you that you do not have the same capacity within you to make the same choice Bin Laden or Hitler did?  Think again.  We all have the full range scale of humanity within us.  We are the one standing in the middle of that scale of negatives and positives...at zero.

Making choices.

---

Monday, May 2, 2011

Ride A Dream


Isn't she awesome?  That's my daughter in the picture above working a horse for a client she had several years ago.  I read a recent post by a fellow blogger this morning, Kidstuph, and got to thinking about how all this began for my daughter.  She expressed a desire to ride horses when she was around 10 years old, and so I moved to fulfill that desire.  I had no idea where to start, and wasn't in the position financially to buy her a horse, yet my intention to bring this to my daughter was clear, and as soon as I made the decision that it would be so, people began showing up who would lead her the way to manifesting her dream, her desire.  The first person to show up lived just a few houses down from me, but I met the woman at a horse arena I went to check out.  She just happened to be sitting down from me where we sat on the bleachers, and after we got talking we realized we lived in the same neighborhood!  She invited me to meet a friend of hers who ended up being my daughter's first teacher in learning how to ride a horse...and the ball got rolling, and continues on to this day.

I think about desires and dreams I had for myself, and look at the difference in energy, intention set forth in decisive action, compared to what I put forth for my daughter.  I love my daughter with a passion, and would see her dreams and desires fulfilled.  I consider our dreams and desires gifts from Spirit, yet I can see where I considered my own as less important somehow, and kept putting them on the back burner, finding one reason or the other to not go there.  Is it any wonder I found myself in a place later where I felt like I'd lost any sense of a dream within me to reach for?

I know the power of manifesting a dream is within me, because I have done it time and time again.  Rather quickly I might add.  I do know the power of decisive action.  Yet I've spent that energy on others way more than I have given it to myself.  I have no regret whatsoever spending that energy for the dreams of others.  I believe what is for their highest good is for the highest good of all, so it benefits me in the long run.  The benefit I am receiving now is the realization I am putting forth here.  I can give my dreams to myself.  They are worth the same passion and love and dedication as I gave for my daughter's dreams.  I also see that if the dreams and talents we are given, born with, are not put to use, then its kind of a slap in the face to our Creator.  In essence we are doubting the perfect gift given, and saying, "Uh, that's great and everything, but no ty...its not for me."  I can just see our Creator shaking Its head, arms folded, and chuckling, waiting for us to get a clue. 

I've mentioned Judy Clement Wall from Zebra Sounds and the Love Project she has going for the year, and this month is dedicated to the practice of self love.  For me, giving myself my dreams and desires is a part of that practice.  Well, at least taking steps toward them, gathering the forces within me to solidify the ideas, filling my bucket to be poured into the world. 

Do you remember the movie Field of Dreams that came out years ago starring Kevin Costner?  It's like that.  I remember once I got an idea to build a chicken pen in the back yard.  My daughter was very young, and I dreamed of giving her a country life.  We lived in a part of town that was zoned as county, but it was in a neighborhood full of houses close by, and concrete.  Me and concrete don't really get along. :) Anyway, I wanted her to experience a love for the earth and nature, and couldn't afford to get a house in the country, nor did I see that happening in the near future.  I thought if I couldn't take her to the country, then the least I could do was bring a bit of the country to her.  And that's when I got the idea to build a chicken pen.  Kinda like the idea was whispering to me, "If you build it, they will come."  I'd never built anything like that in my life.  Once the decision was made and I began acting on it, a neighbor of mine found out what I was doing and showed up with tools, chicken wire, and helped me build it.  I felt such a sense of accomplishment after it was done!  It still stands to this day, although the chickens are gone, with only the goose remaining.  Oh yeah, 5 chickens came, with the bonus of a goose who ended up teaching me my first powerful lesson on trust.

Amazing things have come since that decision, and the enactment of it.  In fact, it was probably that decision that led my daughter to her love of horses and being a country girl, although she grew to dislike the chores associated with having chickens, like all kids do :).  My daughter rides her dream, and while she may have stepped away from it temporarily, perhaps believing she needed to put it on the back burner, she is now more focused than ever in realizing, and giving herself a dream where horses, and living a country life are very much a part of her landscape.

Now I am busy painting my own, getting ready to ride, and will not ignore, or put on the back burner the dreams I have within me.  When an idea, or inspiration strikes toward that dream, no matter how small the step may seem, I will swing all that I have within me toward enacting it.  Because simply, that is my desire, and if I don't put value on my dreams, no one else will either.  I am the only one who can begin building them.  And I will.

----

Perceptions of a Porch Dweller -- Service


Years ago I put forth a question to the Universe, "What precisely is service?"  I realized I didn't think I knew what that meant.  Oh, I knew what the world thought it meant, but the more I thought about it the more I was convinced I was missing something important.  I am of the belief that whatever question I put out there to the Universe the answer will return to me eventually.  "Ask and it shall be given you."*  The form in which the answer comes will vary, and really doesn't matter, only that I receive it.  More importantly, that I am open to receive it.  It took years, but the answer finally came.  It took that long for me to open myself enough to receive the fullness of the answer.  I didn't realize that I was actually walking through the answer in practicing love and gratitude.  In essence, I was becoming the answer to my own question.

The only way I know how to express what I have learned service to be is to say what I am in service to.  I am in service to Spirit, the Universe, God, whatever you desire to call It.  What Spirit represents to me is best said in these words, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."**  I serve these fruits by putting them into action with you, with myself, with all my relations. 

Along the way of my spiritual journey I came to the realization that all these fruits have been in existence long before I came to be on this earth.  The more I pondered this realization, the more I realized I could not truly claim them as completely mine even though I had expressed them from within me.  If that is true for the fruits, if they belong to Spirit, then that goes for the opposite end of the scale as well...fear, hate, etc.  Those things have also been in the world long before any of us came to be here, and it is for certain I have expressed them from within me as well.  Yet I cannot fully claim to be either one, but I'm aware they are found within me.  So what does that make me?

The one who chooses which side to express.  Co- creator.  They belong to Spirit, and Spirit lives within me.

I cannot even tell you the sense of relief that realization brought me.  The reason being is because it meant I wasn't enslaved to that opposite side of the scale.  It meant I was not that.  I had a choice!  And within that choice I found freedom. 

Love is the greatest of these fruits because when love is expressed all the rest of the fruits follow automatically.  They are all basically the same.  Choose one to put into practice and you will find all of them.  Yet within love is found a wisdom that is beyond this world.  Way beyond my limited understanding.  The wisdom inherent in love is profound, and will provide all the answers we seek.  Within love is found healing and regeneration.  Yet love must be expressed through us to understand and gain that wisdom.  Love must be something we do, that we put into action, not just some airy fairy notion floating around in our head.  How do we practice it?  Where do we find it within ourselves to put it to practice?  Right inside our own heart.  If the only love you find right now in your heart is for a plant, express it.  If you have love for a pet, express it.  Surrender to the love you find in your own heart, and let it shine forth.  Decide to be in service to It.  Then let it expand, move ever outward from within you.  When fear crops up, decide you serve love instead, and follow through.  When dissension crops up, decide you serve peace instead.  It takes practice, and decisive thought within the moment.  Yet it is an exercise in faith well worth practicing.

Let your service to Love take you on a journey beyond anything you can imagine.  I recently wrote this to a friend:  Love seems to be the most powerful, miraculous force to break through a person's defenses.  Like water, it is consistent, persistent, its steady gaze and hand and movement caressing stones over time, and in time it changes the picture, subtly, without notice, until one day there stands the Grand Canyon shaped and drawn by a Master's touch.  One of the Seven Wonders of the world.

That is what I discovered my service and surrender to the Spirit of Love did for me.  It melted me, broke the hard stone around my heart.  The more my heart was opened, the more my mind was opened to encompass its wisdom.  Through my service, through my practice, Love changed me.  And now...now I willingly, openly, consciously, let Love shape me.
---


*Mathew 7:7
**Galatians 5:22