Wings and Arrows ~ A Year in Review

In more ways than I can even possibly express, the decision to create this blog last February was just the thing I needed to help me walk through this year.  I've written it here before, and I'll write it again...Life, is strange and beautiful.  There is no way I could have foreseen what would come from a decision made from the stance of a Last Hurrah.  A kind of "Cindy's Last Stand" kind of thing.

While I've actually been writing for many years, I couldn't find the courage within me to put what I write "out there" for public consumption, even though I held the dream of it tucked, unseen, inside my heart.  I don't know that it was any one thing in particular that finally had me sitting down and going for it. Where do you look for the beginning of a thing?  Was it a friend giving me a space to write, allowing me to pour myself out onto page after page, never having exposed any of what I felt and believed to other eyeballs, until I could finally find my voice?  Was it author Tom Bird, who so generously offers free webinars, providing inspirational food for the hungry writer's heart?  Or was it the love for my daughter, seeing she was beginning to give up on her dreams, and the only thing I could think of to help her was to be an example...by going after my own.  I don't like saying a thing to a person without having walked it, or at least in the midst of walking my own talk, and I heard myself saying to her, "You can do it!"...and thought....Yeah...about that...

What I do know is where I was inside myself, and in my life.  I was at the end of my rope, hanging on by a tattered thread.  My decision to jump probably came more from desperation than anything else.  With no where to go, no money, no job, nor even the glimmer of hope for one, my life having literally fallen apart and upside down, I took what felt like an insane, flying leap off a very steep cliff, not having the slightest inkling of where it would land me.  If I was going down, then I was goin' down singin' my song.  I felt like I was flinging myself into my own sunset.  Life, as I knew it, was coming to an end.  I know that sounds dramatic, but truthfully, I had run out of options.

I can still remember how I felt, the very first time I published my blog.  I didn't think I'd ever stop shaking.  If I felt exposed and vulnerable before, publishing this blog sent me to a whole new sense of nakedness.  I thought, "Well, since I've lost my mind anyway, might as well go the distance and expose myself to public and family alike!"  I put a link on my Facebook, where family and friends could take a gander at tarring and feathering me if they so desired.  My having little faith in the moment, I remember gearing myself up for the backlash.  It never came.  I got support instead, from the most unlikely places. 

Then, like an arrow pointing, my friend who had allowed me to pour my heart and soul out on a page, also led me toward one of the most loving community of writers there is on the web.  ( I'm still not quite sure if that was his intention or not.  Either way, he was again instrumental in providing a safe place to land on the Great Big Web :).  The most important one, for me, was j's Love Project from Zebra Sounds. 

While my blog didn't necessarily reflect my dedication to the project, I can say in all truthfulness that I've not missed one blog she has written since I joined her project in early March.  (See here)  Whenever I got behind, mainly because of a lack of internet connection, or because there really was just too much goin' on, I made sure to catch up when I could.  The funny thing is, whenever that happened, I generally found it was in that moment I needed to read what she shared most.  Or a comment made by one of her readers, the majority of them also writers who inspire, was just the thing I needed to hear that day.  Sometimes, it was a link she provided to someone else whose blog she wanted to share that made the difference.

What I needed, and what j and her readers provided more than anything else was a reminder.  She helped me remember what I'm all about.  She helped remind me of what I already knew within me.  She helped me stay true to my course, by staying true to her own.  She provided stability by being stable, in her steadfastness to her project, and in herself.  I found a kindred spirit, a person as dedicated to Love as I have been.  I needed the grounding exercises she gave, and I did them, because there's nothing more important than connecting our Love with the world around us.  I needed to sing along, write here, because by singing along, it kept me true to my faith, providing an anchor in a world that had gone mad.  I needed to stay in my practice when it would have been so easy for me to chuck it all in the fire.  Being loving instead helped me ground love in my life. 

But the most crucial moment, and most powerful lesson for me was during the Month of Self Love, when j asked us to write a Love Letter to Self.  That simple act opened my eyes more than anything else ever could. Who would have ever thought writing a loving letter to self could be such a challenge.  Yet, we all struggled with it.  That truth had me seeing the profound necessity for all of us to open ourselves to receive love.  We are taught that it is better to give than to receive, and perhaps that is true, but we must never forget it also means giving to ourselves.  I knew this, up here (pointing to my head), but had not really made any decisions, acted on it, based from that knowledge.  In the heat of a moment of decision, I habitually went the other way...giving, giving, giving until I was spent. 

A week later, with all of it shifting through my consciousness, ( think tectonic plates moving the earth ), I had a blinding moment of clarity that brought me home from a journey I'd been on my entire life.  I came home.  Home clicked into place within me, and I haven't left it since.  From there, from the love "home" represents, and has always represented, came a merging of idea and earth as one.  The fountain of love I knew to flow through me, I finally allowed to touch me, opening to include myself in it's healing waters.  No longer did I feel separated from it.  I saw with an astounding simplicity that love has always been there...available, ready to support, ready to give, and deciding to take that step and trust it, I haven't looked back. 

I moved toward love.  I handed myself over to it.  I sent prayers on wings, and Love answered, with arrows pointing the way, and open arms to receive me. 

I'm home.

I felt inspired to make a video last night.  I was up all night creating it.  I've only made one other before in my entire life, so please forgive me, being such a noob.  I just wanted to share a bit of my journey in pictures.  Thank you all for all you have given of yourselves.  You are the reason my faith still stands.  Happy Holiday wishes to you all.