little miss sunshine

Coming out of the dark

2012-01-26T11:22:00.000-08:00

Wow. A lot can happen in 3 months. I haven't posted anything since October 11, 2011. And hot damn! It's baffling sometimes to see so many changes happening in your mind set. Sometimes I can't believe how subtly Life works, how intricately woven our lives are. How people are placed in our way for reasons that we cannot begin to fathom. How you can think that something was meant to happen for one reason and come to find out, it happened for a completely different one! It's amazing, isn't it? To think you KNOW why things happen, and then you're proven totally wrong. God has a marvelous sense of humor.
***
That's the thing about lessons. You don't know what they are until you've learned them. Being in the middle of a lesson can be so discombobulating (fuck, I love that word). I've just come out the other end of so many lessons. Like I got stirred up, shaken, mixed, blended and spit out.
I think the reason why we feel this way when we're learning something is because we're coming out of denial. Some would say that all the information you need is within you. That all the wisdom, the awareness, the intuition--it's ALREADY there inside you. Waiting for you. Waiting patiently for you to discover it. And what's standing between YOU and IT is thick layers of accumulated crap. Layers of issues, or trauma, or abuse or confusion or suffering. The Buddhists believe that the Noble Truth is waiting for you to uncover it, and your mind gets in the way. Christians believe that Salvation is there waiting for you, and your sin is in the way. But call it what you will. What's really just there between you and the Truth is some pretty hefty denial.
See that 'shaken, stirred up' feeling, I believe is the sensation that we experience when we are coming out of denial, and waking up to some aspect of the Truth. Like a re-entry. I think it's the same as a space shuttle coming back to Earth. Re-entry is a wild ride, right? There's crazy heat and violent shaking and turbulence and I'm sure that shit is scary when it happens. Well, when you wake up to some new reality, or to some Truth that you've been avoiding, isn't it kind of a similar experience?? Think about it.....
Some of you might understand this because you know what it's like to get sober. Some of you might understand this because you know what's it's like to finally break away from that unhealthy relationship you stayed in WAY past the expiration date (I hate it when I do that). Some of you might understand this because you know what it's like to detox from something, or because you know what it's like to revamp your lifestyle. Shit isn't easy is it?
Here's the thing though. That turbulence is a sign that you're actually doing something right. If you were still just coasting along, unaware, ignorant or oblivious, it's probably indicative that you are still numbed out. Change is uncomfortable. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably trying to sell you something. That turbulence is also a beacon, by the way. Pain and discomfort are both the most amazing beacons that God gave us. Wanna know why? Because if you've got them, there's probably something going on in your life that you need to look at. Something going on in your life that you haven't REALLY dealt with. Something going on under the surface that you're hiding from. So instead of running from it, or avoiding it, you can listen to it. You can see the pain for the big fat sign that it is- saying "Hello! Pay attention. This needs healing!"
We're such funny little things. Trying to avoid pain. Trying to avoid discomfort. I laugh at myself all the time cuz the very things that I do to try to AVOID my pain actually cause me more pain. Hell, I spent a good chunk of 2011 stuck in the mire because I didn't want to accept the unfortunate reality of a relationship I was in. I always forget that trying to avoid the Truth will actually cause you more pain than surrendering to the Truth to begin with. But we still run. We still avoid it. We still try to hide from it or cover it up or find a quick fix to avert our attention. Sometimes I wonder what God must think of us, running around hiding from ourselves all the time. And then I wonder why we have this mechanism to begin with. Why is it that we are able to shut people out, shut our emotions out, keep our feelings at bay, push our souls so far down that we barely recognize ourselves. Why is it that we are able to pick and choose what we want to see and hear? Why don't we just experience Life with full blown awareness?
Then I remember that full blown awareness might actually blow out little minds...Like being fully aware that we are on a rock, hurlding through space, and will eventually die off or destroy ourselves. That everything you do will be contained within the memory of this planet and when this planet dies, everything you've ever done, everything you've ever said, will be forgotten forever. It kind of makes you wonder "Well, fuck. What's the point?" Doesn't it.
So maybe God did us a favor by giving us the ability to go into denial. Maybe he gave us that gift so that we can alleviate the loneliness of KNOWing and actually enjoy our lives. Like He know the Truth was just too much to take, so he gave us the ability to shut it out. It's ironic, though, isn't it...the very thing that we have to make survival a little more bearable is the same thing that keeps us in the dark about our lives. Almost like the mechanism that we use to keep us from suffering, is capable of causing us more suffering.
Interesting...Anyone else see the beautiful irony here? :)

Do I have to 'title' this?

2011-10-12T09:45:00.001-07:00

Once again, I have no idea why I'm writing today. It just felt like it needed to happen. So I'm here, tapping away at the keys....driven by that mysterious illusive force that comes and goes as it pleases.

Life is hard. I don't say that in an 'oh, poor me' way. I don't say that as a martyr or a victim. I don't even say that to sound dramatic. It's funny, I remember reading a Buddhist book a few years ago and the opening line read "Life is suffering." And I distinctly remember my reaction: "F-U-C-K THAT. Life isn't supposed to be full of suffering. Life is joyful and blissful and full wonder. I refuse to believe this horse shit. Suffering is for the weak minded and for those who can't take responsibility for their own choices. I don't suffer. I'm beyond it."

Now, today, I can see that this old point of view was riddled with self-righteousness and probably some denial if I'm being honest. But the more Life I live, the more I see. The more I go through, the more real I am with myself and other people, the more I have actually come to agree with the statement that used to make my skin crawl.

Life is fucking difficult sometimes. People die. Tragedy strikes suddenly. One of my best friends died suddenly last week from a simple bicycle accident. There were no cars. There were no dogs running out in the road. His chain popped and he flew off, hit his head and died 12 hours later. People change. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes they self-destruct. Parents fail to show up for you, even in moments when you desperately wish they could. Friends leave. Hope waxes and wanes. I have a fulltime job and I'm still one unexpected expense away from homelessness. I go through life most days trying to maintain a sense of wonder and optimism despite the constant hum of hopelessness that buzzes in the background of my mind. Sometimes I stay in situations longer than I should. Sometimes I am selfish. I am not high and mighty like I once believed I was. I am not better than or immune to pain like I once believed I could be. Some days I wonder what's the point. Somedays I shuffle along as if I'm under water, life seems blurry and heavy and I would rather crawl under a rock than try to smile.

Yesterday, I was having one of those days. When the feeling of morose mediocrity seemed to be swallowing me whole. I spent the morning recovering from a nightmare-induced migraine followed by what I can only describe as an hour of cleansing tears. There was no 'poor pitiful me' involved. It was more a dazed sense of hazy withdrawl from life. I felt like I was wandering through a thick sea of mud, depressed and resigned to my apathy. And do you know what pulled me out of it? It wasn't the phone call to my sponsor, it wasn't the analytical efforts that my mind was making to drag me back into peace, it wasn't the long talk I had with a mentor that rocked me back into the flow. No. It was the light. Literally. I was gazing out of the window at work around sunset and I caught a glimpse of the setting sun hitting the tops of the trees off in the distance. A fiery golden blanket lighting up the green canaopy. And I stood there, noticing how beautiful it all was. Nothing fancy. Nothing mind blowing. Just Mother Nature painting a simple picture across the landscape. And that made me feel alive. In that simple moment, watching the colors change, watching the leaves burn gold, watching the trees standing tall and proud, I remembered. "Oh there's Life. There She is. Isn't She lovely." And I watched myself as my burden lightened. As my cheeks warmed up. As my eyes opened and a smile washed across my face.

So yes. Life is suffering. But there are always hidden beauties waiting around the corner to be discovered. No it's not grand or majestic moments that captivate me. It's simple, humble moments. Like Life's own little built in 'reset' button. Behind the matrix of our day-to-day lives, Life force/God/Beauty/Spirit is always buzzing. Always creating something so simply lovely that you can't help but notice it's charm. Sure the mourning will continue. The hopeless hum will still plague me. The difficult decisions are still waiting to be made. I'll still struggle. The wrestling match between me and God might carry on. The tears will still come when I drop into sorrow. But there will always be that light, glistening off the tree tops. There will always be a smiling baby who lights up a room. There will always be the yin to the yang. There will always be the rose bushes beckoning my attention. There will always be the smell of freshly cut grass and there will always be the happiness I feel when my boyfriend rolls over in the middle of the night to say "I love you."

Life IS hard. Anyone who says it's easy is probably trying to sell you something. But it's the moments of simple serenity that make it a little lighter. The moments of sweetness that bring the joy and the ease. There is a balance. ANd for today, I'll keep my eyes open to the invitations to remember that balance will come as long as I am open to see it.

A Beautiful Mind

2011-08-18T11:21:00.000-07:00

Have you ever thought about how amazing the human mind is? I mean REALLY thought about it. Think about how baffling it is that we can even have a memory. That we can time travel back through the sea of moments that define our lives. That I can still remember the way the breeze felt on my face that day in the fall, sitting on a pile of lumber in front of the house I grew up in. That I can still remember the way my favorite pink jacket felt against my arms, the texture of the polyblend still palpable to me 30 years later. I was riding in my boyfriend's old pick up truck the other day, and the sweet musty smell shooting from the vents rocketed me right back to all those times I would sit beside my Granddaddy Tucker, nestled in the passenger seat of his truck, bundled up in my boots and my winter coat, feeling confidently peaceful knowing that I was his grandchild.

How amazing is it to have the ability to download any particular combination of sensations like that? Or to question yourself? To be able to watch yourself move through your day, noticing the subtle nuances of feelings and memories that come up? How amazing to be able to have an experience in the present moment that somehow makes sense out of a moment that happened decades ago, or to see the pain in someone's eyes today that floods you with compassion for another someone who broke your heart 15 years ago. Does anyone else think about how down right unbelievable this is?

And then to consider all of those moments when your mind is capable of playing tricks on you. In the same lifetime. Moving from a Wizard of Magical Processing to a Warlock of Mayhem. It can become a tormentor, ravaging you with illusive perception. Taunting you with doubt and confusion and forcing you into a battle with yourself. The same mind that recalled beautiful rainbows in the sky can make you feel so unsafe, spiraling into a paranoid abyss where nothing is sacred and everything is out to get you.
Does our mind really have a mind of it's own? Or is something else going on?
Could it be that your mind is almost like a living breathing organism...and that perhaps the shape it takes depends upon the food you give it...If you feed it well and nourish it, it produces lovely leaves of wisdom and fragrant flowers of insight. But if you poison it, undermine it or ruin it's soil it becomes withered, weak and worn down. Now you can't control what kind of poison crept in when you were little. I couldn't control the conditioning that I got from my mother or my father or my school teachers. I couldn't control the fact that my father became psychotic before he died. I couldn't control the mid-night trips to my grandmother's house, the unexplained uprooting that my mother had to do to keep me and my sister safe from his insanity. I couldn't control the abuse or the teasing or the bullying in school. Blah blah blah, I could go on and on. My point is that none of us could control what happened to us as children. None of us could control the insidious mind alterations that went on. None of us could control the way our sweet little minds were fashioned back then. If you were born with beautiful, intricately woven, royal gowns, and shit happens---then you end up with frays and loose ends, tattered sleeves, rips and tears. Sometimes the rags that are left are almost unrecognizable in comparison to the original form. Isn't your mind the same? At some point most of us become unrecognizable to ourselves. Some of us experience this early on, some of us later in life. But it's bound to happen. Some of us go down hard and fast, swirling at the speed of light into self-destruction. Some of us tip toe into oblivion. Some of us crumble in spurts, one step forward two steps back. Some of us creep along down the detour so slowly that we almost don't know we're veering off track. Now you might consider this a defect. But after all that I've been through, I have come to see that the temptation to get hooked into self-destruction is always ripe with the opportunity to save yourself. In fact, I believe that self-destruction is one of those most powerful energies out there, because it's teaming with desperation and rooted in the primal desire we have to transcend. Within each moment, there is a Potential. It's alive and pulsing with the breath of the universal desire to change.
The mind IS a beautiful thing. One of my most favorite parts about the human mind.....it has a built it homing device. A built in mechanism that, once activated, literally has the capacity to unwind years of bad wiring. Our minds have the capacity to spin wildly out of control, BUT they also have an innately lovely capacity to wake themselves back up. Isn't that incredible. An Inner Wake Up Call, so to speak. It's really frickin remarkable when you think about it. I mean really. Stop for a moment and think about how AMAZING that is. Your mind can capitulate your demise AND it can catalyze your salvation. That's nothing short of magic.
In the same way that your body KNOWS when it's under attack, and KNOWS the exact moment that it needs to start producing the antibodies, a part of you always knows when you've gone too far, when you need to reel yourself in and come back. And in the same vein, your body doesn't just say "Okay, bacteria be gone." The healing process is always more painful than the initial onset of infection. You can't actually FEEL the moment when your body is invaded. You only feel your body's reaction to the invasion. The swelling, the snot, the sneezing, the headache, the lymph node inflammation...that's all your body's way of healing and flushing the foreigners out. Right?
So naturally everything works the same way with your mind. You may not FEEL the mental cling-ons, the negative beliefs or insane legacy when it's created, but you sure as hell feel it when they're on their way OUT. And you probably have felt the long term affects of shitty thought patterns and negative thought cycles. The fatigue, the hopelessness, the depression, the weirdly dysfunctional behavior, the counter-intuitive isolation. Physical pain is the body's beacon, an internal alert system trying to get our attention. "Alert! Alert! Something's wrong. Please act accordingly." Mental pain, in my opinion, is the same thing. "Hello! Something's not right here. What you're doing is not okay!" Pain is a built in alarm system, designed to activate your internal police officers so that you can get help. Thank God for your pain. It works. It gets your attention. Your pain might be your salvation.
After all is said and done, there is a part of You that is always leading you, guiding and mothering you. There is always a Bigger You watching over, knowing exactly when to step in and say "Enough, now." Are you listening?
One of the most intriguing, mesmerizing, ineffable attributes of being Human: We still have Free Will. We can listen to that silent voice, inviting us back into wholeness. Or we can ignore it.
But we can never destroy it. We can never really drown it out, despite our best efforts at covering it up, avoiding it, badgering it, smashing it or suffocating it. It always there. And it's always waiting for you to listen. The amazing part is that ignoring this Calling will create more havoc, it will make the insanity louder, it will make your suffering more severe. Life will become unbearable unless you listen. I don't know about you, but I think that's pretty fucking fantastic. If that's not a demonstration of Divine Re-direction I don't know what is.

In nature, the remedy to a poisonous plant is usually located in the chemical make-up of a neighboring plant. Sometimes these plants will even be growing side-by-side. Inherent in Mother Nature's design lies the poison and the medicine. Well, we're not very different are we. The solution to your problems (the medicine) is always waiting close by, patiently awaiting the invitation to heal you....Life will ALWAYS show you the remedy. If you open your eyes you can see that Life will ALWAYS give you subtle hints. Life will always put someone or something in your life to save you. If you truly want to save yourself, you can't help but reflect that desire, and Life can't help but mirror your desire right back to you. It might take the form of another person, a relationship, a child, a colleague, a book or even a facebook post. When you decide to call yourself back into holiness, Life will answer in the most unusually beautiful ways.
You should try it sometime. :)

The Art of Forgiveness

2011-06-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

Forgiveness is such a strange, illusory thing. Really, when you think about it, it's the most intangible experience out there. For me it is anyway. I mean look at Love. When I think "Okay, what does Love look like?" or "What can I do that's loving?" Several acts automatically spring to mind. Love means being honest, and compassionate and taking action in a way that's in someone else's best interest. Love is selfless and sometimes ruthless and heart opening. Or Kindness. I know what it means to be kind and I understand what an act of Kindness looks like. It's holding the door for a stranger, or buying a cup of coffee for the person behind you in the line at Starbucks, for no reason. (One of my favorite things to do...) Compassion makes perfect sense to me, it comes when I see the pain in someone else's eyes and something in my heart opens up to them.
And then there's Forgiveness. It never happens when I want it to, I can't force it into existence or will it into happening. I can't just snap my fingers and say "Forgive!" But I can make myself be Patient, even when I don't want to be. I can make myself be Kind, even when I don't want to be. I can make myself be Honest, even if every bone in my body wants to lie. But Forgiveness....think about it for a minute...
What I've come to realize is that Forgiveness comes when I have experienced a series of events that allows me to see life through the other person's eyes. When one thing happens, that causes something else to happen, which puts me in a position to experience something else, which magically places me right in the middle of one of those 'ah-ha' moments....the kind where a light goes on and suddenly you see things in a totally different light. I can never plan that moment. I never know when it's coming. In fact, it must be spontaneous. If I tried to force it, it simply wouldn't happen. It's the epitomy of irony: if I try to orchestrate it, it won't happen.
So how does it happen then? Well, I have no idea how it happens, but I can tell you what I do to open myself up for it's possibility. This is what I came up with years ago when I started to notice that Forgiveness is the result of an alignment of experiences for me. (Well, it's actually just nature's way of changing my point of view about someone or something, and it just happens to feel like an alignment to me.) I use the word alignment because that's what it looks like in retrospect. Ever find yourself having had some profound realization and then your Mind's Eye starts to trace things back? And you feel so overwhelmed, befuddled and grateful at the same time because you can't help but think "Wow. I had to experience ALL of that to get here. If I would have missed any of it, I wouldn't have wound up where I am right here, in this very moment." Life is just so quagmirically amazing to me. (I think I just invented a new, and might I add awesome, word.)
And one of the coolest things that happens to me in the land of Forgiveness...when I find myself having a conversation with someone else that someone has just had with me.
You all may remember the abysmal emotional rut that I was in about six months ago, how bitter and recoiled and frustrated and cynically anguished I was. Good grief I was miserable. But the delicious kind of miserable, I must add. The kind of misery that spawns an enormous breakthrough. The kind of misery that's alive and full of rich, meaty wisdom. At the edge of the breakthrough, almost like standing at the edge of a proverbial cliff, I reached out to an old friend of mine. And do you know that the exact words that she delivered to me three months ago were the words that came out of me last night. Someone in my life might be standing at the same precipise that I found myself dangling from. And I could appreciate the anguish the frustration, the grouch, the anger-wrought pain in such a lovely way because I remembered mine so well. "You're either about to have a breakdown or a breakthrough. The breakdown will eventually lead to a breakthrough as well, actually. So strike that statement. You're headed for a breakthrough no matter what you do. All this kicking and screaming that you're doing is good. The more frustrated you get, the better the surrender will be. This is all a blessing."
Last night I could see the same tension and fuck-it-all in this person's eyes. I could see the same torment, the same lack of faith in humanity, the same if-God-was-standing-in-front-of-me-I-would-kick-him-in-the-nuts attitude swirling all over their words and thoughts. I could see myself. And therefore had SO much compassion and love pouring out of me, to see another person suffering through the same lesson you just learned is one of the most amazing experiences you will ever have. Every time it happens I'm amazed and grateful.
So my point here, if it's even necessary to make a point, is that when this alignment happened bewteen me and my friend last night, an unexpected waze of forgiveness washed over me. Like my compassion for my friend helped me reach another level of acceptance for myself. We're all trudging through the same life lessons, the same fears haunt us, the same growth awaits us, the same enlightenment beckons us. So it's really all the same work that we're all doing together. But isn't it magical when you find yourself looking into someone else's eyes and seeing your life in there? Seeing your struggle, your breakthough-about-to-happen written all over their face. It's difficult to describe that sense of connection, but it's there. And it's amazing. I firmly believe that when you're ready to start seeing all of this wild inter-connectedness, God will present it to you. And when you have truly faced your demons. Faced your demons so many times that you actually come to a point where you love and embrace them, where you don't push them away but welcome them because you know they're about to lead you towards an ever deepening sense of yourself. When you ACCEPT the good and the bad as blessings, that's when God shows himself to you again and again through other people's suffering. When you face yourself, you are truly able to look into the face of another and see your lessons staring back at you. I had so much love for my friends frustration, I could barely contain it. That might sound weird to some of you, and it might sound very familiar to others. But that's exactly what it felt like to me. I wanted to hug and squeeze all of their pain, because I was already grateful for it. I didn't shower them with fear or worry or judgment. Yes, those all came up. Of course they come up when someone's telling you they don't care about anything anymore. My fear came up, but my gratitude and compassion were stronger. I'm kind of just now realizing what an incredible moment that was last night as I'm typing these words right now. (So pardon my ecstasy.) I sat there, in the little epiphany egg we were creating, and unconsciously and intentionally (yes, both at the same time. It's totally possible) showered this person with all my love. Who knows what kind of effect that had. I might never know what that felt like to them. But it doesn't matter. It's the most honest kind of reflection that stares back at you in those moments. I SAW them, and they SAW me. What and who we see isn't even important. It's the fact that you open yourself up to truly see another person that's important, I think. What they see in you isn't really any of your business, it's the fact that you were brave enough to be transparent in front of someone else. Just as what I saw in my friend's experience isn't REALLY any of my business either, it's the fact that I know that I was fully and completley present as a reflection for them that matters. Aren't we all just mirrors for each other anyway?
:)

Black holes..and the Art of Reinvention

2011-03-09T19:50:00.000-08:00

You know when you sit down and have a conversation with someone, totally out of the blue, and during the conversation you can't help but think "Damn. This is amazing. I feel like can breathe again. It's such a relief to know that I'm not the only one who feels this way. Yay!" Well that's exactly the kind of conversation I had with one of my most favorite people in the world on Friday night. I've been having such a tough time lately, wondering why I am the way I am, wondering why things are the way they are, finding myself mad at God pretty much everyday. Wondering when I would finally be able to stop, relax, breathe and find myself out of the existential woods I've been wandering through.
Well I'm coming out of the woods. And right on time it seems. Walking out of Winter's murky hibernation just in time for Spring's colorful explosion. I haven't completely 'switched over,' I'll admit there's still some part of that wants to sleep a little longer, who's not quite ready for the bright light and red bud blossoms. Just like the month of March and it's notorious indecision, I'm a little shaky. But I can feel things changing. Finally.
I can't even begin to describe how ridiculously synchronistic these last couple of weeks have been. It's like one serendipitous opportunity after the other. All hokeyness aside: things have been lining up quite magically lately. Not in a Boom! POw! kind of way. But in a much more quiet, simple, fluid kind of way. It's not been a fast and furious river of guidance. It's been, hahaha, more like a sweet little brook carrying me in the right direction.
So, back to this amazing conversation----
I poured my guts out to my friend Jp over the weekend. We sat there, in the smokey corner of the Goldrush, and wandered through a conversation about Life, Death, Love, Art, Heartbreak and the Big Black hole of Loneliness. God I love those talks. I am not the only one who feels the way I do. I am not the only person who knows what the "Big, evil, blackhole" feels like. Do you know what a relief it was to sit across from someone and describe the emotional abyss that I fall into and have them know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. Good grief.
Now if you must know. The "Big Black Hole of Abysmal Darkness" (yes the descriptive is growing) that I'm talking about opens up a few times a month and swallows me whole. Like light slipping past the event horizon, there's not much I can do once I start sliding in its direction. I usually end up in a ball, curled up in some random corner of my apartment, weeping. No not one of those dramatic, sobbing kind of weeps. An honest, to the core, kind of mourning. I feel totally alone, I feel totally disconnected, like I'm floating in a sea of black light. It feels like dying. It feels like I'm grieving all the illusion around me. I don't fight it anymore, I just surrender and let it take me into whatever secret corner of strange wisdom it wants to show me.
And Jp knew exactly what I was talking about. He knows what the black hole is like too.
"If we're the astrological babies, then maybe we have the closest relationship to Death. We understand how fleeting it all is." Man I love that kid.
See what we have decided was that this might be an Aries thing. I don't know anyone else who understands it quite like we do. Now I don't buy into all the mumbo-jumbo that astrology tends to peddle, but I do believe in my own personal experiences. And I believe in the experiences of other people. And the semblance of our points of view is uncanny. We are the little babies, the ruthless pioneers, the outlandishly creative and inventive people. Its tragic to see an Aries 1) without an audience or 2) without passion in her life.Like toddlers, we thrive on affecting our environment. On touching and seeing and feeling and grabbing and pushing and pulling everything around us, always molding and creating and perceiving in the fleshiest of ways. I adore perception in the flash. I love building things, either in my own mind or right out in the open. I love taking an idea and making it a reality. Taking a desire and watching it come to life. That's everything to me. I am a cacophony, and I always will be.
Now, the catch 22 of being this creative, of being this spontaneity-driven, is the looming trap of stagnation. Hold me back, (or hold myself back) and I feel like I'm dying. See, my demise: boredom. It's always the boredom, or uselessness that hurls me into the black hole. It's always the idle time that flings me into depression. If I'm not accessing a creative outlet or affecting my world in some way, talking about my ideas or fashioning new ways to express myself, I will start to shrivel. Hence the blog, the burlesque dancing, the costume making, the singing, the photography, the adventures, the exploration, the energy work, the spiritual conquests, the poetry, the travel....
But the tricky part is that I will get bored with each and everyone of these things at some point and I'll have to keep going, keep inspiring myself, and find something new and novel to channel all that passion. And let's face it, to stay sane. A stagnating Aries is a beast you never want to meet. SO I have to change things up constantly. I have to find ways to make my life novel and new and exciting.
(No I do not have a problem with commitment, for those of you who have been psychoanalyzing me.)
I am not commitment-phobic as I once believed I might be. When I commit, I do it fully and completely and with everything that I have. The problem is not in committing to things, the problem is the inevitably I will grow tired of even the most exciting endeavor and wind up bored and tired and stagnant if I don't constantly reinvent or inspire myself. The idea of doing ONE thing forever, or walking down ONE path makes me feel like bending iron, or throwing something breakable. But the idea of living spherically, in many directions at once, makes me want to smile so big my cheeks hurt. The idea of pouring myself completely into one idea or project, then just as fervently pouring myself into something else is freedom to me.
I've had so many people ask me lately "But don't you want to master something? Don't you want to pick one path? Isn't it a relief to find your calling and know that you don't have to keep looking for something else that you're good at?"
My response: Fuck no.
When someone asks me these questions, I feel nausiated. (Seriously. Even now, writing about it, my face is all scrunched up and my stomach has cramped up.)
For me, choosing ONE thing and spending decades "mastering" it feels like a death sentence. I'd rather be shot. See, I've found many callings. I've found many things I'm good at, that I love and enjoy. But that's never satisfying to me. Quite honestly, even picking three or four things feels like the electric chair. But the Art of Reinvention. The idea of dreaming up new dreams, new off-the-cuff ways for me to express myself. That's what gets me. One purpose? One calling? No. For me it will be a swirling, dancing vortex of change all my life.
(Oddly enough it doesn't apply to relationships. The idea of committing to one person for a long period of time makes me feel comforted and peaceful. Almost as if I'll be relieved to find that kind of a playmate :) See even my ideas of consistency are inconsistent. Ha!)
***
All that being said. I think everyone must have their own particular place on the wheel. If I'm an Idea Maker, a Curious, Creative little Pioneer, then there must be some of you out there who thrive on carrying ideas into fruition. There must be some of you out there who love the idea of settling into one career, who take great comfort in knowing and realizing one dream. There must be some of you out there who are in love with the idea of revision, of editing and tweaking ideas so that they translate into application. Some of you might really enjoy supporting, being behind the scenes as silent nurturers....Right? So here's my idea of utopia: why not LET the idea makers be the idea makers. And let the Appliers apply. Let the Editors edit. Do you know how utterly miserable it is for me to pretend that I'm okay with supporting someone else's ideas at work? Or to pretend I'm still motivated once I've figured everything out? Ugh. Once I know HOW to do something, once I've figured out the game, I'm done. And it doesn't take me long. I started a new job a month ago and I've already figured out the ins and outs of the system. I'm already bored. Imagine that. Wouldn't it be grand if I could just go around sprouting ideas for people, hang out for a little while to see the response, and move on. Or metaphorically build something, smooth it, sand it, decorate it, revel in it, and then move on and create something else. Oh my god. That would be amazing. (Yes yes yes, I realize that these blogs of mine are as much of a brainstorm as they are an outlet...)
***
So perhaps I am coming out of the limbo that I've been inhabiting for the past year or so. Perhaps I am on the cusp of something new and exciting and fresh and whimsically divine. It sure does feel like it. The other night I decided to start a mural on my living room wall--didn't see that one coming. But the wall was just waiting for it, asking it for it, staring at me blankly as if it wanted to get all dolled up. So maybe I'll have to add 'painter' to my list. Who knows. But something's there, waiting for me to unleash it. Can't wait to see what happens next...

Am I missing something?

2011-02-22T17:55:00.000-08:00

Okay. So. Everyone always talks about the inevitable bitter cynicism that often comes with age. The inevitable grouch that follows years of sour experiences. And, funny enough, I used to be one of those girls who baulked at it. Who tossed her hair and flung her hands in the face of all the grumpy sods who said "Just you wait. One day you'll get it. One day you'll understand why we're so bitter."
And ha-ha. Here I am. A self-admitted cynic. Well, a playful smiling cynic, but a cynic nonetheless. (Did I just admit to being an oxymoron?) But I can't help but wonder, from this place of semi-resignation, what comes after bitter and cynical? Honestly. I'd like to know if there's something else coming along.
It's a strange place to be in. Past the Rebellion of my teens, past the insatiable Idealism of my 20's, and now I'm sitting in the Realism of my 30's, which of course usually translates in Cynicism to be quite honest. But I can't help but wonder what comes next...Or maybe I'm missing something.
See for someone who's spent so much of her life always being the voice of Optimism, the voice of Idealism or the cheerful, smiling girl who always wants the best for everyone, it's a little strange that I find myself here- shrugging my shoulders at Life and simply seeing things as they are and not as they ought to be.
I suppose most people my age are either married, in a serious relationship or have kids, and perhaps that's where their renewed sense of vision might come from- a desire to love and nurture their loved ones, and provide a Life for them that exceeds the results of their own. Is that how it goes?
But seriously. I'm actually quite curious about this. Is this just a jumping off point? Or is this where the boat docks for good. I just came across a quote: "Idealism is what precedes experience, Cynicism is what follows."
And I have to say that I agree. At least, so far I agree. I mean, all cynicism is is a way of saying the truth, perhaps it's an unpleasant way of saying it, but it's still the truth. So why does it get such a bad rap? Wouldn't you rather hear the truth than some candy coated version of semi-truth?
Maybe the Greeks had it right to begin with when they said "Cynicism is an ethical doctrine which holds that the purpose of life is to live a life of Virtue in agreement with Nature." I can dig that.
So how did I get here.
Anybody else remember what it felt like to be standing at the culmination of your adolescence? Bright eyed and hopeful for your future. "You can do anything you set your mind to. You can be anything you want. The world is your oyster," I remember being told. There was so much promise and so much hope and so much dizzying optimism in my eyes. There was a momentum behind everything that I did and said because I felt like I was moving, searching, going forward full-steam ahead. Ready to march out into the world and find my Love, reach for the stars, make my dreams come true....And then I got into the world. Without the security blanket of innocence and naivite to shield me, the world didn't really measure up to the expectations I was spoon fed for all those years.
The truth is that Society kind of sucks. Being a grown up is annoying. The rules are shady. Well, let's face it, the rules are just plain WEIRD. Most 'grown ups' are either overly medicated, delusional, dishonest or some combination thereof. The hampster wheel that we all swore we'd never get on is actually a necessary evil unless you're independently wealthy. And once you've signed onto this 'world' it's pretty difficult to find a way to sign off and still feed yourself. So what's up? Were all the adults in my life lying to me? Were they all shoving optimism down my throat in hopes that I wouldn't make the same mistakes they did? Or did I innately breed my own sense of optimism? And is this just natural. Is Youth a natural nurturer of optimism and Age it's counterpart- wearing it down, slowly beating it to a pulp and through years of simmering rejection, hurt, disappointment and general dissatisfaction?
Or perhaps I'm missing something.
I haven't completely settled into cynicism, but I can feel myself slowly easing into the dock, wondering if it's easier to accept this point of view and grumble around for the next decade or so. But then there's still the little shimmer of hope left. The little spark of "no, not yet" that whispers in my ear every morning. It's quite entertaining actually. Hearing the battle in my head between the "Ugh. Another day. Oh the monotony. F" and the "Come on. Push through it. All of those Tibetan Monks can't be lying. What you're after is out there, just keep going, a little farther. Come on." And inevitably, I'll listen to the second voice. Begrudgingly of course. :)
And yes, you might say, "Well suck it up. Just go find things that make you happy." And to that I will reply "Hello! Have we met? How many happy-producing things does one girl need to tip the balance." I have crazy moments of joy throughout my day, but they don't seem to wipe away the other thing- that heavy, looming "Ugh" voice is always there, tugging on me.
Now I understand why some souls would find reincarnation so appealing. It's a chance to start over and try again. An opportunity to say, "Well, maybe this time I'll get it."
And so here I am, crushing the wide eyed youngsters who're reading this blog. Sorry kids. I wish someone would have told me. And then there are all you 'older' folks out there, who I'm sure are rolling in your chairs laughing at me thinking "Hahaha. If she only knew what happens next. Silly little 30 year old. Just you wait."
Either way, I'm open to someone shattering my delusion. If that's the case. Shatter away. Tell me I'm missing something. :)
Well, that's all for today. Welcome to my rant. I hope you had a pleasant stay.

You can teach an old dog new tricks: Part II

2011-02-10T16:36:00.000-08:00

It's funny how people change. It's funny how you think you've changed only to find that you cling to old habits like a wet blanket. The familiarity comforts you, even when you know deep down that 'safe' isn't really what you want. It's funny how we talk about wanting to be happy, about wanting a good life, about wanting to take the risk of getting hurt for the sake of love. It's funny that when opportunities arise that invite us to finally find happiness, we shy away. It's funny how we'll hesitate when the love we say we've been longing for is staring us right in the face. Why is it that our eyes are so often closed when what we claim we want shows up in our life?
***
Last month I wrote a blog about change.
I had said that, in order to change, all you need to have is willingness; that if you truly want to change your life, if you truly want to change something about yourself, then all you need is the sheer desire to make it happen. But that's not entirely true. Okay, so what does it really take?
Well, you have to take action at some point. That's the missing link.
Desire without any follow up action produces nothing.
I can sit here all day and talk about how much I want to be different. Or how much I yearn for more out of life. You can wax and wane everyday about how you have demons and issues and how desperately you want to be done with them. And you could genuinely, from the deepest part of your being, from the darkest corners of your soul, mean it. But nothing will actually happen until you take the leap. When you're faced with something terrifying, or unfamiliar or, horror of horrors- when you're about to step into the Unknown, you have to take the leap of faith. Because you don't know what's going to happen. It's not 'safe,' you don't have control, you might get hurt and you might make a complete ass of yourself. But isn't the risk of putting yourself out there much less painful than the limits you've been putting on yourself anyway? Haven't you suffered enough, holding yourself back, feeling stuck, feeling frustrated?

Think about it. Think about something that you've always wanted to do, or someone you've always wanted to be with, or some issue you've always wished you could get over. And most likely the thing that's kept you from grabbing Life by the balls and going for it has been 1) Fear, plain and simple or 2) Fear of the pain you think you'll feel if you fail/get rejected or 3) Fear of making an ass of yourself. And those simple fears seem so unbearable, so looming, that we'll use them as an excuse to do nothing. To stay right where we are, knowing we want to make a different choice. The idea of the Fear that we THINK we'll have to walk through paralyzes us. We think it's too much, so we don't take any action. Right? It's a miserable sort of limbo. Wanting so badly to do something, but allowing your fear to get the best of you...
But now think about all the time and energy you've spent feeling frustrated because you're not doing it, because you haven't told them how you really feel, because you haven't gone after your dream, because you haven't gotten over that failure in the past, or because you haven't climbed out of the cage of heartbreak yet. Think about ALL of those hours you've moped or all that energy you've spent on regret, on all those relationships you've run from, on all those good people that you let pass you by, on all those moments that you didn't seize....
If you consider all the time you've spent NOT doing something because you're scared, it seems pretty ridiculous that you won't go after something because it's "too hard" or you're "too fucked up" or you "don't have it in you." CLEARLY you have plenty of energy to go do it. Clearly you are capable of withstanding the potential pain or the potential sorrow, because you're putting yourself through a silent hell by holding yourself back. You see? (Read that again if you don't)
The pain we think we can't handle is MINISCULE compared to the pain we've been putting ourselves through by hesitating. "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Why? Perhaps it's because we're idiots, and we can't see the truth. If you take the leap and try something that freaks you out, yes it might hurt a little. But damn, think of how much it hurts to suffer in quiet desperation for days and days, months and months, years and years. (Maybe the realistic logic is in that mysterious portion of our brains that is said to be 'unused.') Interesting, don't you think. That something so obvious doesn't really occur to us. That despite weighing out projected pain vs. endured suffering, we'll still usually opt for staying quiet, staying inactive and wallowing in our own self-inflicted misery. Mother Nature needs to work on that short circuit :)
If I haven't made my point yet, then consider this: When you're on your death bed do you really think you're gonna look back and say, wow I wish I would have been miserable a little longer. I wish I would have sat around and moped just a little bit more. I really should have let my issues get the better of me. Oh how I wish I would have run scared a few more times. Damn, sitting on the couch and beating myself up about the state of my life was so much fun, I really should have done that more often. I'm so glad I never pursued my dream. I'm so glad that I said No to Life.

No. Of course not.
I am not perfect and of course there are things that I pine over, or things I'd like to do, or people I wish I would have been totally honest with. Of course there have been moments in my life that I let slip away because I felt mortally terrified of what would happen if things didn't turn out the way I wanted. Of course I have stood right in front of someone, my heart pounding, wishing I had the guts to say those three little words, wishing I could tell them how I really felt- and didn't.
But to be honest, If I could do them all over again, I would have said "I love you." I would have said "Yes" when I meant Yes. And I would have said "No" even if it meant hurting someone. Because I will drag the unfinished business around with me like an old childhood blanket. Isn't that what "what if" moments are anyway? Unfinished business. Unintegrated energy that's caught up in some mental/emotional limbo waiting for you to get your ass in gear and make a choice?
So what I said a few blogs ago may have been half of the truth. If you want to change, you absolutly can. But nobody changed from thinking about changing did they? Desire alone doesn't cut it. And empty action alone doesn't cut it either. The magic happens when you combine the two, when you have the desire to change AND you pony up and take the action. When you decide to take the leap into the unknown, AND you take that first step, that's when you get to see what's there waiting for you. You have to have a little faith. You have to make the choice. And guess what? Spending all kinds of time 'readying' yourself for the jump doesn't really matter. Saying "I'm not ready" is just code for "No, I don't want to." Think about this for a minute.
When someone asks you why you haven't taken that leap yet (whether it be getting into a relationship, getting out of a relationship, getting a new job, whatever) and you say "Oh, I'm just not ready yet." What you're actually saying is "I WANT to stay where I am. I am deliberately choosing this over the option of something else." Right? I've stayed in plenty of shitty relationships in the past claiming that I wasn't "ready" to be done with it. But really, what I was saying was "I'd like more of this flavor of misery, thanks. I prefer this misery over the prospect of the pain I think I'll go through if I leave." Addiction to suffering is a funny thing.
Think about all the time I might have saved if I'd just decided to be done. Think about all the time YOU might save if you just decide, right now, that you're done with your old ways. You're perfectly capable of taking the leap RIGHT NOW. Aren't you? Really?
***
I was in Mexico a few years ago, climbing the Pyramid of the Sun. A girl with a fear of heights, terrified of ledges climbing 248 steps, the equivalent of a 21 story building...

And I remember standing there, staring up at this big giant stone monster thinking "Oh. My. God. I don't know if I can do this." I was in tears before the climb even started. My knees were trembling and I had already started to have a panic attack by the first flight of stairs. I was terrified. The group I was with was doing a kind of ceremonial walk up the Pyramid; we climbed up one set of stairs, then circled all the way around the pyramid before climbing the next set of steps, stopping at each corner to send out prayers. I literally clawed my way up the first few sets of stairs. I clung to the side of the pyramid as I walked around the edges, hugging the stones as if they'd save me from falling. I was hysterical. My anxiety had become so overwhelming at one point that I could barely breathe. But I kept going, clenching the hands of the women who were walking beside me. The Pyramid wasn't just a pyramid; it was a big, giant metaphor. It had become a symbol of all of my fears, of all of the 'monsters' all of the 'demons' in my life that I was afraid to face. I was literally walking through my fears with every step I took. Walking through the fears that had been crippling me for years. My heart was pounding, I was sweating and crying and trembling and praying all in the same breath...
And then I finally made it to the top. The steps finally came to an end. In order to get to the top, you have to get on your hands and knees and just climb up a mound of rocks. There are no railings, nothing between me and a free fall except a few feet of uneven morter and stone. A new wave of panic and dread swept over me. And just as I was about to turn around and say "enough," just as my fear was about to override everything else, I looked up at my mentor. "I can't. I'm too scared. I just can't do it." And do you know what she said to me?
"Honey, you can say Yes to life or you can say No. It's your choice. But choose wisely."
God, I still get goosebumps typing those words today.
At that moment I remember mustering up some kind of crazy meat-head energy. A wave of courage washed over me, a wave of strangely intoxicating empowerment. At that moment I decided to say "Fuck off" to my fear and climbed up to the top anyway. Hands still shaking, knees still trembling, heart still racing. But I took charge of my fear, it wasn't in charge of me anymore. And do you know what magical wonder was waiting for me at the top: butterflies. My most favorite creatures. Dozens of beautiful butterflies flying around, swishing through my hair. Politely landing on my toes and shoulders as if to say "Welcome home." The tiny rush of air that dances across your face when they fly past you- oh my god, it's one of my favorite things in the world. Like tiny, happy whispers. So I took my leap of faith, and the magic was there waiting for me. :)

***
So, in the end, you have to want to change. You have to want to take the leap of faith. You have to have that desire for something more, something different. But you also need the courage to act despite your fear. And you'll need some faith, because taking a leap into the unknown is frickin scary. Yes it's scary, I get it. Believe me, I've stood at the precepis so many times. And sometimes the fear was so overwhelming I thought I would die from it. But I kept going anyway. So yes, the leap is scary. Jump anyway.
Sometimes I think about it like this: if I had a child, would I tell her "Honey, whatever you do, just play it safe. Don't put yourself out there. Being scared is better than the pure anadultered joy of knowing you've just done something amazing." God, I hope not.
Take it from someone who risks looking like an ass everytime she posts a blog. From someone who walks out on stage despite the fact that she's shaking so badly from nerves that she can barely keep her knees from buckling. From someone who dances around half naked in front of dozens, sometimes hundreds of people because she's so completely in love with the way unhibitted movement makes her feel. From someone who risks looking like a crazy person because she twirls around coffee shops and skips through parking lots because it makes her feel whimsically happy. Yes, I run into things all the time that scare the shit out of me, but I do them anyway.

And you. You are capable of taking that step. Of walking through that fear that's crippling you. Everyone is capable of taking that leap of faith. Not everyone will. But that innate ability to triumph is there, within you, waiting for you to tap into it.

And in the words of a very famous French poet, the day will come when the risk to remain tight in a bud is more painful than the risk it takes to blossom.

A funny thing happened on the way to the coffee shop...

2011-02-01T16:25:00.000-08:00

Jan. 31st, 3:38pm

Bing! The sweet sound of my facebook chat lighting up. The delighful little red flag always seems to pop up when I least expect it:

Hey Buddy.... It's been too long...

~Oh my god! Yay, Jordan! It has been too long! (I hadn't spoken to him in months..It was so nice to see his little icon-ed face staring at me in the chat window.)

I miss your face, Brooke!

It has almost been a year since we were in Mexico together.

~Awww...I miss your face too! Wow...it has been a year. That's crazy. Almost to the date.

My life is feeling a pull to that place again...

~Mine too, actually. I was just thinking about it today. Weird. We're on the same wave length. :)

I looked through the pictures of our trip last year and I had tears in my eyes... I miss everyone. That simple need.

~I know what you mean

I want to tell you that I am sorry for not being a good friend... for not keeping in contact with you over this last year...

~Awww...no worries. It's not like I've been a saint at keeping in touch either.

My life has been so troubled...

~Are you okay?

I started thinking much about our trip to Teotihuacan again...the pyramids...the energy there...and how much I needed it and all of the people that gave me so much confidence back then...You were one of those people..You had such an impact on my life, on the way I see myself. You were such a Light for me. Just being around you and getting to know you was such a gift to me. I just wanted you to know that. I wanted you to know that you helped so much.

~I helped you? (I'm still always so surprised when someone tells me that I helped them, that I had an impact.) How so?

I was afraid. And you helped with that. Watching you, you just seemed so fearless. And you were always there, encouraging me. Holding my hand. Looking in my eyes and believing in me when I didn't really believe in myself. I had just lost my father and my best friend. But I never felt more at home than I did sitting in that cool, but warm, Mexican air with you and our friends there.

~Wow...

Anyway... I don't mean to dramatize it but I want you to know that I will never forget that. And I want to go back to Teo... but I think I want to go back when you go... when the others go... I want to see my family again.

~Thank you for saying that...(my mind shot me back to the cool grass outside of the Dreaming House in Mexico. Memories started flooding over me again. How happy I felt, how free I felt. How open the air made me feel. How I danced with Bella and Lola outside. How good it felt to be close to people again. Jordan was right, it felt like home to me too. Home in a foreign country, with strangers that quickly became a family to me.) I've been feeling lost lately. Aimless and purposeless, and wondering if I actually have a place in this world. I've been swimming in a strange sense of uselessness lately and it's nice to know that I had an effect on you. You really have no idea how much that means to me to hear someone say that my presence mattered. (Tears started to fill my eyes.)

How have you been? Sounds like you're going through something...

~Uhmm. Up and down. Going through a bit of an existential ickiness. I drop into "what's the point of anything" a lot lately. But I'm grateful for it, it's been a good motivation to make some changes. Pondering the meaning of your life is an amazing way to discover what you really want. There's nothing like consistent frustration to make you want to burst through the seems of your old ways and try to do things differently. Frustration is Life's way of saying "Hello! Wake the fuck up. What you're doing isn't working anymore.

Oh I think I am getting into that myself.

I quit my job today.

I just couldn't do it anymore.

~I got laid off in September. That was a blessing cuz I couldn't take it anymore either.

So what are you doing these days?

~Well, took the first couple of months and didn't really look for a job cuz I honestly needed the time to take a break and re-evaluate. Decide what I wanted to do next. I still don't know what I want to do, but am waiting tables until it becomes clear. Actually, strike that. I DO know what I want to do, but am not quite sure how to get there yet. :)

I'm now in the same position as you...I understand..

You never seemed like anything but a Healer to me. Someone who was born to shine and lift the spirits of others. Nothing ever felt so unconditional as your presence...Do you remember holding hands? Something warm and mesmerizing resounded?

~Of course, I remember, silly! That's when I knew you were my brother from another mother.
Hmmm...a Healer. Yeah. I think I need to do more unconventional, undercover healing work. The traditional "healing" stuff seems just doesn't quite cut it for me. I'm more of a jeans-and-t-shirt healer. F all those bells and whistles. I think I'm meant to reach the masses in a more practical way. A surprising way. A Healer 'on the down low.' :) Did I tell you? I'm dancing again. Finally. I'm totally in love with it. It makes me feel alive. And happy. A mentor of mine said that, after looking at the photos from my last show, that perhaps this is one of the ways I'm reaching people----Showing them how much love and energy and wildness is there inside of me inspires others, you see.

I saw it... I saw what you are doing. It never surprised me one bit you went to dancing that way.

I have a picture of you dancing outside of the caves....I came out of that cave so broken and raw.... I think that was the pinnacle of the trip for me... And I came out of that cave dancing in a circle with you like it was no big deal...

But that is not why I had messaged you...I wanted you to know that even a year later I appreciate everything you did for me... I loved that trip so much. I was in so much pain. I did it for myself.... but I did it for my dad too... and I know he would have loved it. I wanted so much to do that trip with him... Anyway... I loved the Butthead Conventions (a few of us would gather up at night and sit around and talk and talk, and smoke cigarettes and talk. So one night I shouted "It's a Butthead Convention!" Get it cigarette butts- buttheads). I loved our fun talks.

~Wow. Jordan. Thank you so much. You know it's pretty amazing, your timing. Honestly. I think I really needed to hear what you've said. It occurred to me a couple of days ago that maybe something I need to focus on is that I can brighten people's lives. Maybe I don't need to focus so much on making ME feel better, but maybe I can focus on just trusting that if I show up and be myself, that maybe it helps other people. That I can make someone's day a little better and that perhaps, that's what I can see as a purpose for now...Making the journey better for others, even if I can't quite find a purpose in my own journey right now. Making someone's load a little lighter, easing someone else's sorrow, making them feel less afraid, making them feel a little less alone.

And for the record...You were such an important part of that trip for me. Truly.

You were like my brother, and my friend and my companion. You were such a reflection of unconditional love for me. You were like a twin in some ways. Does that make any sense?

Oh my gosh. I need to escape!

~Look inside, and escape there first. (I have no idea where that came from. The words felt like they just typed themselves.) And you are always welcome here, if you need to get away, I hope you know that.

I need to be free. It's nothing new. I love so many people, so many things... but I just can't deal with it for very long...

~Keep going. It doesn't sound like you're finished. (I could feel the rest of his words hovering there)

(And then he wrote the most beautiful poem. It was lovely.)

~Did you just write that? It sounds like a poem.

It is how I have felt... I need to breathe again...I feel suffocated.

~I know what you mean.

I think you should write all of this down. It feels like there's a lot more there that wants to come out.

I am writing it down now.

~Good. (I'm so psychic sometimes)...And you might need to cry some too. It feels like you need to cry.

I just did...

~(There I go, being psychic again.) Oh, I wish I could give you a big hug right now!

Me too!

I would love it!

I would hug you so much!

~I can give you a hug through the ethers.

I can feel it. I love you!

I know what I need to do. I want to study medicine... I am going to learn to care for people and I am going to get to a point where I can give my care and love to everyone around me... unconditionally...

~I love you too!!! You are too precious for words.

You can do the same, Brooke. After all, you're still you...

~What do you mean?

I mean, you're the best! You're the best hugger! You make everyone around you smile! You can do the same thing....help people. Love them until they love themselves.You're still you...

~What does "you're still you" mean?

It means I remember who you are for who you are. I know you. I know what you can do for people because you did it for me. I remember who you are.

***

Now that might not seem like a big deal to any of you. But it was a huge deal for me. You know when you're going through something, and feel kind of alone, and you're not really sure what you're supposed to do next? Or you're in a place where you just can't see the point to things? Well, making a difference is important to me. Knowing that I've made a dent in the world is really important to me. Seeing, actually seeing that I am able to affect the world is part of what makes me tick. I'm like a toddler that way- I want to know that I can touch and feel and grab and push and move things. I've been like that for as long as I can remember. Well, when someone who banks their existence on meaning and purpose finds themselves feeling aimless or useless, it's simply no bueno. So that little red flag, that little Bing! sound, followed by this particular chat was exactly what I needed to hear today. It was just what I needed to breathe a little sigh of relief. To know that I am, even in a small way, making a difference in someone else's life, makes me feel better. Makes me feel grounded again. It makes me feel a little more at peace. Like I'm home again.

And so maybe today I should reach out and do the same thing for someone else. Maybe today I should reach out and tell someone that they've made a difference in MY life.

And maybe, just maybe, you should do the same thing....You never know how much someone might need to hear that you appreciate them. You never know how much it might mean to someone to know that they're needed in the world...

Am I on a Soap Box?

2011-01-25T19:10:00.000-08:00

   Wow. What a difference one week makes. I was in such a dark place this time last week. Which is, quite honestly, one of the reasons why I didn't really blog that much.
   I know I said that I was gonna write a story this week, but it's weird-- when I was curled up in my bed, crying and wondering how I was going to keep up with my life for the next 70+ years, ideas were just pouring out of me. This kind of thing happens pretty regularly for me, by the way. I'll get all existential, and ponder the meaning (or lack thereof) of Life and wind up feeling terribly alone and insignificant. Like a tiny spec, living on a tiny spec, whirling around in space as a tiny spec in an enormous universe. When I find myself in this place, I get really sad. Like I'm grieving. Or mourning reality. And it usually ends with me curled up under the covers, crying and praying. And I sort of hover in this secret, dark, kathartic place for a few days. And once I let the tears come and the mourning finish, I tap into this incredible source inspiration. And that's where the ideas for my 'story' came from. But now that I'm not in that dark place anymore, I have no desire to write about it. It's comes and goes as it pleases, I guess. Evasive little thing.
   It's so full of creative impulse, that place. So full of wisdom. It always motivates me to change. But it's also always associated with almost unbearable waves of sorrow and grief. It's a very lonely place. But that's what they say Wisdom feels like- wisdom tells you that you are nothing. Anyway, I just tend to it when the wave comes. If you don't tend to it, the Buddhists say that you'll remain numb and shut down. It's so important to tend to it and nurture it when it hits you. That's what I believe anyway. If you buy into the idea that, as an adult, you have to parent yourself, then technically you are responsible for nurturing your emotions when they come through. If you don't, you're really just neglecting yourself the way a cruel parent would neglect their child.
   So I've just learned to go with the sorrow of knowing the Truth. The sadness that just sort of comes when you KNOW something about why things are the way they are. Even if you wish you didn't know it. I don't know why the wave of existential tears comes when it does, and it doesn't really matter why. It's just my job to feel it and take care of it.
   It's like this big body of water that I get cast into--when I'm there I feel like I can barely breathe. It's murky and I can hardly see in front of me, and I never know where I'm going or how I'll get out. But it's beautiful and mysterious and it envelops me like a cool, heavy blanket. It's a very strange dichotomy: It feels like complete devastation when I'm falling into it, but once I'm there it seems to feel very calm, protected and transformative- like I know something really cool is gonna happen because I fell into it. Even though I feel completely alone when I'm in that place, I also feel held, like the big cosmic Momma is watching me. Do I dare say that the dark, lonely place actually makes me feel more connected....hmmmm....
   I don't resist the 'meltdowns' when they start, I just let them happen. There's always a lesson for me waiting for me in the end- floating in the dark water like a patient pearl waiting to be discovered.
   I allow myself to get 'taken over' fairly often. (No, no, no. I'm not implying that I'm being possessed, so just knock that little idea right out of your suspicious heads.) I think everyone teeters on the edge of being "taken over", but most people either aren't aware of it, or they're scared of it, or they resist it or just plain block it subconsciously. I watch that kind of thing happen everyday.
   Whatever it is that "takes me," it leads me to two different places. There's that place of 'wisdom,' and then there's another place--and it's one of my absolute favorite things about being human-- when the wild, sometimes violent, passion takes me. Because this is the time when I get creative. It's not really even a choice, actually, more a wave that comes over me that I have to obey. It happens when I hear a song come on that I HAVE to dance to, it happens when an idea starts swirling around in my head that I HAVE to write down, it happens when I have a camera in my hand and catch a glimpse of something that I HAVE to take a picture of, in that moment, right there, it happens when I've just realized I'm in love with someone and I HAVE to tell them, and it happens one other time... (Yes, I'm going into detail here so stop reading if you can't handle the truth.) It happens the moment right before I know I'm about to have sex with someone. When I HAVE to have them, and there's just no way around it. It feels very mischevious, a little rebellious and it makes me crazy happy when it happens. Hello, why do you think I have to dance around my living room so much. Because I HAVE to. Because I can't NOT. (Plus it's much safer than being promiscuous..haha.) When the wave hits me (and let's be honest, it hits me pretty much all the time) I have to go with it. If I'm meant to take care of the sorrow when it comes, then I'm responsible for letting the rush of passion come too, and letting the joy flow and letting the wild, savage little vixen come out to play as well. If your spiritual morals are creeping in here, let me just say this: sexuality and spirituality are one in the same. Chew on that for a minute.
   I don't exactly know what to call this place, it's totally different from the dark, watery place I was talking about earlier. This place is much more fiery. And explosive. And, for lack of a better word, orgasmic. It's a lot like Love. It makes my heart race, it makes me give people sultry looks, and it makes me feel like I want to flip my hair and do fan kicks in public places.
   If this were Never Neverland, and I was trying to explain this to Peter Pan, I would say that this is the place where I get my Happy Thoughts. When I think about it, my lips always curl in a twisted little smile and I get all starry-eyed. It's one of the expressions I always find that I make when I'm dancing too. Interesting.
I just had a show this past weekend. I had two performances and felt like I was crazy in love both times I was up there on stage. And ever since then, I have been teeming with all kinds of energy. I'm happy for days after a show. I feel totally-butt-crazy-in-love for days. No joke. For anyone who doesn't understand why I do it, that's one of the reasons why. Performing makes me insanely happy. (The only other thing in this Life that makes me happier is falling in love.) I get bursts of energy out of nowhere, I can't stop smiling and I feel like I've finally found 'the thing' I want to do for the rest of my life. So what usually happens is that I'll finish one show, and have soooo much creative energy afterwards, that I'll come home and immediately start working on new dances. Listening to new songs and going totally wild in my apartment as I'm listening to the way my body wants to move to the music. Yes, if you haven't gotten the analagy yet, it's the same as sex for me. I can't get enough. I want to do it all of the time and it makes me crazy happy when it hits me.
   Where was I going with this...F, I got distracted....see, everything else just goes right out the window...
Let's see--Oh!
   So what occurred to me was the opposing natures of these two places, and the way I tend to flow pretty consistently through both of them. I fall hesitantly into one, and get thrust into the other. One feels incredibly expansive, and free and amazing, the other feels very quiet, sweet in it's bitterness and serene in it's struggle. My dance teacher says I'm always doing this in class- vascilating between two worlds. Although she describes it more as transforming from a little bundle of sweetness, into a sexy little minx. (I don't give a rats ass what people have to say about the fact that I just said that about myself. It's who I am. Get over it.) Maybe it my subconscious way of staying balanced. Like the fiery and the watery aspects of myself are always shifting and moving and trying find an ebb and flow.
   Who knows. I just think we're meant to do what feels natural to us. And if Sorrow decides that it wants to pay me a visit one night, then I invite it in graciously. If Passion decides that it wants to come out and play, I let it. If the little Vixen decides that she wants to take her clothes off on stage, so be it. And if the Warrior decides that it wants to stand up say something, then you bet I'll get up and say it.
***
   You know what I just got it. There's a saying in Buddhism that just occurred to me. And it sums this whole blog up beautifully:
   ~"Wisdom tells me that I am nothing. Love tells me that I am everything. And somewhere in between lies the ebb and flow of my Life."~

That is exactly what this is all about. I don't need to say anything else. Goodnight :)

Four out of five voices in my head say go for it.

2011-01-18T17:52:00.000-08:00

"Here I am. The Stranger strikes again." Oh, it's the odd dude from New Year's Day. The one who made fun of me for keeping a journal, and the one whose insults became the intro to my blog about change. I wonder if he read it. This could get interesting.
"Uhmm, yeah. Perhaps I should apologize for the embellishment. You weren't actually as rude as I made you out to be in that blog....Well, actually you were. I only embellished a little."
"Haha. Embellish away! Did you get those emails I sent you? Did you read those links I forwarded." The Stranger wanted me to start telling stories, instead of just rambling on and on about myself. So he took it upon himself to forward me a plethera of suggestions to broaden my horizons. One of which was a New York Journal post called 'Modern Love,' tales of insanity and mahem disguised as love in the modern world.
"Oh, sort of. Well. A few. My life just isn't that crazy. I can't come up with a story that strange. I can't come up with a story in general."

"I think you should write something like that. Strange and weird. I'm trying to get you to write something like that."
{YOU're trying to get me to write?}
My filter edited that out of the conversation.
{Who are you, my editor. My muse. I've only just met you. I don't even know if I like you that much.}
"Really? Why's that?" I said, my filter doing it's job nicely.
"Because that's what writers do. They tell stories."
"I never was any good at telling stories. It's too complicated. Keeping track of all those characters. I never understood how people do that. I can barely keep track of all the little voices in my head let alone a slew of invented characters."
"I read your blog. And the beginning was good....and then you started talking about yourself again. Ugh! I wanted you to keep telling the story."
{Again. Was that an insult? Or a suggestion. I can't tell.}

I looked at him with my infamous scrunched up face. The face I make when one of four things is happening:
1) I am grossed out.
2) I am totally confused.
3) I am horrified. The horror is usually coupled with my own personal blend of judgement and utter disbelief.
4) I am embarrassed because someone just called me out on something I'm slightly shy about. (It's also my way of playing the line between coy and naive.)

At this particular moment, I was displaying a combination of 2 and 4, with a hint of 1 due to the beaverish way he kept cackling at me.

"Why are you so interested in my blog? Why are you so interested in what I write about?"
{Who are you anyway? Did I even invite you over here? No. Please go away now. You're starting to creep me out.}
"Because I think you're very talented, and I want you to do something unexpected. Something different. You talk about yourself too much. People can't relate to that. Give us some characters. Some stories. Otherwise it just gets tediously boring. And you don't seem like a tediously boring girl. You actually seem quite smart."
{Actually? This guy is weird, but he's right. I ramble on about myself a lot. He might be onto something. Maybe he's one of those strangers that has some important message for me. The kind of stranger that randomly swoops in, says something profound that redirects the course of my life, and then swoops out just as quickly. There's been a rash of those lately. Swoopers and Quick Exits.}

"You should come visit me at the Vanderbilt Library. I bet a girl like you is great at humiliating people in public." No joke, that's what he said.

"Excuse me?" A slight scrunch of the face developing.
"Haha!" {There's that cackle again. Ugh.} I love being humiliated in public. Especially by someone as smart and lovely as you."
{Okay, what the f? Is he about to get all S and M on me?}

"Listen, I'm in my blog zone right now. Can you come back later?" I said as the girl next to me gave me that 'Do-You-Need-Me-To-Pretend-I'm-Your-Friend-And-Save-You-From-This-Weirdo' look.
{What I really meant of course was ' I'm getting uncomfortable here. Please don't stand so close to me. You keep spitting on my keyboard. And I don't like other people glaring over my shoulder when I'm typing. It makes me feel self-conscious, like I'm a teenager and my mom is secretly looking over my shoulder.'}

He scurried away.

And......7 minutes later came scurrying back. "Hey have you ever been to Europe? I want to take some bands on tour across Spain and France and I need someone who knows their way around to come with us."
{How do I respond to that? If I tell the truth, and key him into the fact that I've been to Europe several times, he's going to keep pestering me. I could lie, but that's not really my style either.}
"Yes, I've been to Europe. But can we discuss this in a few minutes, I'm still in my zone." That was safe.
"Okay, Sure. But you should really consider writing for a Country Music magazine too. Or make up something about me and put it in your blog."
{Seriously. This guy was full of surprises.}

And so he left me alone. But I have to admit, he did get me thinking...
{Maybe you should at least try to tell a story.}
{He might be nuts, but he does have a point, doesn't he? You have yet to talk about something other than you.}
{God, you're so self-centered. You're so transparent. If he thinks your blog is boring and selfish, then other people do too. F. Peer pressure, peer pressure.}
{Fuck him.}
{You're always bragging about how spontaneous you are. Put your money where you mouth is, get the hell out of your comfort zone and do it.}

Four out of five voices say go for it.
So I think I will.
Stay tuned for the first installment of the epic story that's brewing in my head.....
{Well, "epic" might be an exaggeration...but you never know.}

***
So here's the cool part. Last night my "There's no point to anything, I just want to give up and go away forever" voice got the better of me. (I never act on this voice, but it's there nonetheless) And as I laid down to go to sleep, I started crying. Somedays the lonely, lost feeling just gets too loud and I guess I have to let the flood gates open. When this happens, I usually just curl up and start praying. And last night, I just started praying for a solution. Praying for someone or something to show me what I'm supposed to do next, what I'm supposed to do to feel a sense of purpose, I guess. Really it's just me asking for help when I can't see my way out.
A few minutes later, my mind got really quiet. And then what happened was kind of amazing. An outpour of stories and dialogues came over me. So I got a pen and paper and just started writing it all down. Characters, and visions of these characters interacting with each other poured out from my pen to the page. Pages and pages came out of me. From a place I don't think I've ever tapped into before. Some part of me just started writing a story. And when whatever wanted to come through me was finished, I felt better. And fell right to sleep.
So I guess I was right about that stranger at the coffee shop. As it turns out he actually was one of the those random people that plops down into my life from out of nowhere and has some meaningful message that I was supposed to hear. And that just makes me smile.

Happiness is contagious...

2011-01-10T13:41:00.000-08:00

   Yesterday, I was in the locker room at the gym singing a song that was stuck in my head. As I came around the corner, I ran into a little old lady who smiled at me and said "It's so nice to see a happy person for a change."
   It's funny, even if I'm having a shit day, if I start singing it always makes me happy. And this got me thinking, what exactly is it about singing that does this? And for that matter what is it about dancing that does the same thing, or having a deep conversation with a good friend, or spontaneously skipping around outside like a little girl...Really, they all have the same affect on me.
   So what is it? Well, I've decided that it's the act of self-expression that will always bring me joy. No matter what I'm doing, or how I'm feeling, these things always have a lightening affect on me. I can be having the worst day ever, and as soon as a song comes on the radio that I love, and I start singing along--Boom! I am out of my mood and in a happy place. Now I'm NOT saying that it will keep me out of my mood for the rest of the day, but it sort of gives me a nudge. Almost like a momma with her cub, "Come on, you can do it. Come out here and play." The single act of playful expression shifts my attitude in a sense. And if I shift it enough times, I will eventually settle into a better mood. If you've been reading my blog, you'll remember that my tendency, my default, is depression. Looming, energy-sucking depression. And I guess I just had to learn from an early age what I needed to do to push through it. And creating outlets for myself happens to be the only thing that works consistently.
   I guess I'm one of those people who needs to express myself. I need it like I need air to breathe. I've found that it's so important for me, actually, that I will literally start falling back into depression if I'm holding back or denying myself of something that I really need to say. If I'm holding out on something, my body starts to shut down, and I'll find myself getting tired and heavy and weighed down. I've always heard that an artist who's denied an outlet will end up in depression. Well, aren't we all artists? In some way shape or form. Aren't we all creating something in our lives, haven't we all found something that feels like an authentic expression of who we are?
   Expression is such an integral part of our happiness that even the slightest effort to hold something back or keep something secret has a depressing effect on us. If I start tailoring myself to meet someone else's standards, I feel the weight of it. If I start moulding myself or my words or my personality for the sake of someone else, I will eventually feel the weight of it in my body. If there's something that I truly want to do, and I keep myself from doing it, or hold myself back (consciously or unconsciously) I can feel myself start to shrink and close up. If I'm not being myself, I can feel it in my chest like an impending anxiety.
   Anxiety is rooted in the need to be creative. Think about it. When you get anxious, isn't it because there's something that you really want to do, and can't? Something you want to say or create or express, but fear cripples you? So really, anxiety is a form of stifled creativity. And when I say creativity, I don't just mean what you'd automatically think I'm referring to-- I'm talking about art and music and dancing of course AND everything else out there that's an expression of creativity. Like creating a beautiful piece of writing, or creating a family, or creating a relationship, redecorating your living room, cooking a lovely meal, building a model train, designing a building, creating a new outlook on life, starting your own business...you get the picture.
   The truth is that we are creating all of the time. We are summoning up desire and passion and creativity and channeling it into outlets all of the time. We are expressing ourselves all of the time, whether you realize it or not. You are. You can't help it. The microcosm always reflects the macrocosm. The universe is constantly creating new things, new combinations, new expressions of potential. And it's in your nature to do the same thing. If you don't, you'll notice that you get frustrated, and that frustration will turn inward and morph into depression. Isn't depression some version of stagnated energy, stifled creativity, something that needs to be expressed that instead gets locked away? I think so. That's why it's so important that you bring forward what is within you. I think I just happen to have SO much creative energy that wants to come out, that I have to keep myself in a pretty constant state of creation, I have to keep several outlets available in order to avoid the frustration.
   I used this last week, and I'll use it again: If you do not bring forward what is within you, what is within you will destroy you. And if you do bring forward what is within you, what is within you will save you.
***
   One of the greatest inherent things about creative expression is that it is contagious. Life is designed to inspire Itself. Where do you think inspiration comes from---the experience of and immediate desire to recreate or possess a moment of lovely, raw, visceral expression.
   When I see someone get really vulnerable, and say something out of pure unfiltered honesty, it inspires me to do the same thing. When I see someone dancing on stage, really loving every movement, loving every moment and letting their body be the outward expression of every inner emotion--I am completely moved to be there in the moment with them. I am moved to do the same for myself. Watching someone drop to their knees in a moment of sorrow pulls you in. Watching someone do anything in a moment of authentic emotion attracts other people. Ever noticed that? And the opposite is true- you know when someone is faking it, and it probably turns you away. I bet there are certain people in your life that you just adore being around simply because they're so authentic, simply because they're full of life. Why do you think we love babies so much?? Because they are tiny expressions of pure, unconditioned love. They don't hide anything, they haven't learned how to hide anything yet. They're bundles of pure, unfiltered, unlimited authenticity.
   Somewhere in the center of your being, you are drawn to honesty, vulnerability, and raw expression of other people's humanity. You are drawn to Life force expressing itself through itself. You are drawn to the very same thing within you. Like an ebb and flow, like an inhale and an exhale, you are constantly drawing yourself into yourself, and expanding out of yourself. And if you try to stop this process, it hurts. We literally experience pain when we stifle ourselves. That's because you need to express who you are. It's an existential need.
   And so when you see someone else being real, something inside of you is inspired to be real. To come out of your shell and let go. The other day I was sitting at Fido, and as I was ordering my hot tea, a song came on. I found myself singing along. And then I noticed that everyone one behind the bar was singing along too. And I couldn't help but smile and sing louder. And then it became contagious...Like the whole place lit up spontaneously. Suddenly it seemed like everyone around me was singing along as well, maybe the fact that we were singing gave other people permission to do the same thing. That's the beauty of it, when you let go and get spontaneous, you're giving all the people around you permission to do the same thing. Everywhere I turned, someone else was singing. It was magical and lovely. I love moments like that. When out of nowhere you feel a spontaneous sense of connection with strangers. And you can't help but feel like you want to grab someone's hand and twirl around.
   So the next time you feel inspired to do something, do it. The next time you feel called to burst into song, do it. The next time you feel like you need to say something, but can't because you feel scared- say it anyway. If expression is a key to happiness, then technically repression is a key to unhappiness. You are meant to express yourself. You are meant to bring forward all the lovely aspects of yourself, all the frustration, all of the pain and all of the love that resides within you. All of it wants to come to the surface so that you can invite it into expression. You follow the same rules that nature adheres to- everything in this world is constantly evolving and changing and growing and expanding. So technically speaking--that's what you're meant to do as well.

"Excuse me, you can teach an old dog new tricks."

2011-01-04T15:08:00.000-08:00

Can people really change? It's a question that keeps coming up in conversation lately...
***
I was sitting at Fido a few days ago, with my hot tea and scrambled eggs, doing a little inventory project. Sunday morning, I woke up feeling really motivated and energized and excited about all the possibilities for 2011. It sort of came out of nowhere really, but I when I have that much energy about something, I don't question it, I go with it.
I decided to think about where I was this time last year. To look at what I was like in January of 2010. To see what my social life looked like, what my financial life looked like, how things were going emotionally, mentally, romantically, spiritually, creatively, physically, with my family and with work. The point of this whole thing was to look at what I am happy with , and what needs to be changed. What I want to keep, and what I want to let go of...
(I'm not going to bore you with the details of this venture though! Surprise surprise.)

The reason I'm writing is because of something that a stranger said to me as I was doing the inventory.
As soon as I got my pretty little leather notebook out, a man sitting next to me said:

"Ooooooh, are you writing in your DIARY?" Then he roared with laughter, pleased I suppose with the stab he'd just taken at me.

"Nooooooooo," I wasn't amused. "I'm not 12. I'm doing an inventory. Taking stock of 2010, so to speak."

"Do you own your own business?"

"No. It's for my life. You know, I'm looking at where I was this time last year, and where I am now. Then I'm deciding what I'd like to keep and what I'd like to change."

"Ha. Good luck with that," he laughed again.

"With what, change? Don't worry, I've always been good at change. I'm not like most people."

"Evidently," he shrugged, "because people don't change."

That was the 4th time I'd heard "People don't change" over the course of the week. And it got me thinking. Is this true? Is it true for some people and not others? And why?

I often make the mistake of assuming that just because I do something, it means that other people do it too. I assume that just because self-awareness and self-improvement are ingrained into most everything that I do, that other people have the same inclination. SO I can sit here and say that I totally disagree with the statement "People don't change," but then again what do I know about anyone other than me?

Honestly, to consider the idea that there are some people out there who don't change, who don't want to change, is just plain weird to me. (Well, strike that. I suppose some people might just be happy with themselves or their life the way it is.) God, the thought of NOT changing, of just being stuck in my ways and never questioning things, of never challenging my own beliefs, of never challenging your beliefs, or thoughts or behaviors---YUCK.
The word stagnation comes to mind, and everyone knows that things that stagnate eventually gets sick and die. Think about it, if water stops moving and builds up, it stagnates. Ever seen what happens to water in a river or a lake when it's damned up, with nowhere to go? The water literally gets dirty and sick and diseased. Your body is the same way, right? If something stops moving, an organ stops filtering, or some part of your body stops getting things from point a to point b, you get sick, an organ gets 'sick' and the whole system goes hay-wire. So, why should your mind, your beliefs, your habits be any different?

Seriously. Doesn't your mind operate on the same principles of physics? If you don't filter out the crap, the crap will take over.

But the truth is that some people don't change. Some people will never challenge the thoughts in their head, or the crap they've been fed since birth. I have met a few of these people. No matter what , they stay stuck in their ways and they appear to not even contemplate the idea that they have a say in what they do, how they act, what they think and how they treat other people. They might go through their entire lives believing that they're a victim of circumstance, that things happen TO them and they have no control over the way their lives turn out.
So what makes the difference? Why is it, really, that some people are inclined to challenge themselves, and other people will go their whole lives without an attempt to change their ways. We all grew up in the same world. With the same rules, the same sometimes insane parenting, the same contradictions, the same social conditioning...
Honestly, where does the inclination to change come from? Why do I have the inclination, but other members of my family don't seem to. It must not be hereditary, right. So where does it come from? Why was I evidently born with an innate WILLINGNESS to question, to challenge and to not settle for the status quo? Why was I a rebel from the start? Is their a Little Rebel gene? And then what about those people who seem to acquire a willingness to change because of the level of suffering they've endured. Were they born with it, or did the pain perpetuate a desire for change. Pain and oppression motivate rebellion too. If you reach your threshold for pain, you'll either give up, or you'll rise above your situation and find a way out. You'll only endure abuse for so long before you rebel against it. You'll only endure a shitty situation for so long before you've had enough.
It's an interesting thing to think about.
The one thing that seems clear is that if you want to change your life, the only thing you REALLY need is the willingness to do it. If you truly want to do something different, YOU CAN. If you truly want to change, then the fact that you believe it's possible will make it possible. Yes, you can retrain your brain. That's what plasticity is for. Your brain is completely capable of rewiring. We're the only species (that I know of) that is capable of conscious evolution. You have the ability to master your mind, believe it or not. Think of it like this: You are the master and your mind is the puppy. Your brain was trained, so it can be retrained. Odd habits and unhealthy patterns were learned, so they can be unlearned. If Mother Nature gave us the capacity to evolve, then technically it's your destiny to do that. It's always felt that way to me, like some ancient calling. Like I'm just meant to dive into the depths of my own conditioning and clean it up. To search out the nooks and crannies of my mind and clear the cobwebs. Doesn't the fact that you are inherently capable of helping yourself make helping yourself your calling? Think about it- if the fabric of your existence is encoded with a propensity to evolve and grow, to unhinge your burdens and to overcome obstacles, doesn't it become some kind of special responsibility that you do it?
Chew on that.

Based on my own experience, there's a few other things that you're going to need if you decide to embark on this venture: 1) Help and support and empowerment from people who have gone down the 'Life Modification Road' already and 2) Awareness about what you're up against: a brain that was stuffed full of crap, habituated to insanity and prone to perpetuate all that insane crap unless directed otherwise. And 3) I think the other really important thing you need is this belief: I am not a victim. As long as you still think you're a victim, then you're just giving people, places and circumstances power over you.
(I realize that the statement I just made may stir shit up with some of you, but I said it anyway. I wrestled with the notion of idea of 'playing the victim' for years, and the conclusion I've come to is this-- Maybe I was a victim up until the age of say 16 or so, but after that, I was responsible for my life, entirely. I am responsible for the choices I made, the situations I got myself into, and even responsible for my thoughts, feelings and actions. Things can still happen to me, and I might be powerless over the circumstances, but I'm responsible for how I react, how I think and what actions I choose to take.
See if I'm responsible, if I take ownership, then I automatically allow myself the power to do something differently.)
The point that I'm trying to make is that if you want to change, you absolutely can. You can change your life, I promise. You can better yourself and your situation. You were born to better yourself. Don't give up, just keep going. If you don't believe in yourself, find someone who does. Find a bunch of people who believe in you. The more the merrier. And if you don't think you have enough faith in yourself, then borrow some of mine :)
I'll believe in you as long as you need me to.
And keep this in mind when you want to give up:
If you do not bring forward what is within you, what is within you will destroy you. And if you do bring forward what is within you, what is within you will save you.

The Balancing Act

2010-12-28T16:03:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking alot lately about something I've heard over and over again:
God dwells within you, as you.
***
Think about it, this phrase or some version of it is splashed throughout almost every holy scripture. Some rendition of this concept is integral to most every religion.
"Look within, you are the Buddha." ~Buddhism
  "You are the light of the world."
  "The kingdom of heaven is within you." ~Christianity
"Heaven, earth and human are of one body." ~Confucianism
  "God dwells within you, as you."
  "By understanding the self, all of the universe is known." ~Hinduism
***
So if this is true and God dwells within you as you, then God doesn't want a performance. God isn't expecting you to try to figure out what a "spiritual" person would act like or talk like or look like. God isn't asking that you become anything or that you put on a show for his sake. Or that you shun yourself, run from yourself, hide yourself or emanate someone else. If this is all true, then God doesn't want you to put on a show, God just wants you to be yourself.
Your job is simply to know yourself and stay true to that. To uncover who and what you truly are and be bold in sharing that with the world. The most honest, most genuine facets of you are the most divine. The funny thing is that usually, the most genuine facets of ourselves, like the vulnerability or the adorable quirks, are the facets we keep the most hidden. If you think about it, don't we all keep what might be the most endearing parts of ourselves a secret...because we're scared to let anyone else see what's really going on?
I think what these ancient teachings might be saying is this: just be yourself, and that's beautiful.
If, in your heart of hearts, you are truly a grumpy ass, then BE a grumpy ass. If you're truly a spaz, then BE a spaz. If you feel full of anger and damage and grief, then go as deeply as you can into those dark corners and discover what's there for you--the anger and the damage and the grief are the doors to the truth, if you ask me. If you're crazy, then own the fact that you're nuts! If after all of your soul-searching you've come to find that you're a little bit of everything, then love the fact that you're spontaneously flowing with each moment. If you've come to find that you're naturally prone to impulse and outbursts, then love the fact that God's trying to express himself in those moments through you. The important part here is to actually do the work involved in getting to know yourself, in dis-covering all that lies under the surface. To peel away the layers that aren't actually genuine and to be brave enough to venture into the depths of your own humanity.
The way I see it is that, maybe, the world needs YOU to be YOU. If it needed you to be something other than you, you would have been created otherwise. And that maybe someone in the world needs you to be YOU...You might be the only person who can shed light on someone else's otherwise dreary day; you might be the only person who can make some kind of difference in a stranger's life; your grouchy, negative attitude might be the only thing that jolts your lonely, whiney friend back into reality; you might be the only person who can make that insecure, self-sabotaging girl feel like she's lovable. Hell, YOU might be the only person whose advice actually gets through to ME today.
Maybe on the days that I feel cheerful and bubbly and bright, someone needed to be cheered up. Maybe I needed to hear you say exactly what you said to me at the exact moment that you did. Maybe the days that you're feeling cranky, someone needs to be around cranky. Isn't it possible that you show up smiling, on the days that I feel the most damaged and angry, for a reason? Isn't it possible that I needed to be put in the grumpy old man's life for the same reason that I (a spontaneously odd girl) needed to be put in his?
Wasn't it Ghandi who said that whatever you do in life will be insignificant...but it's very important that you do it...
This doesn't necessarily mean that EVERYONE I come into contact with has some cosmic purpose in my life, and it doesn't necessarily mean that they'll have a particularly profound effect on me. But I bet you'll have some kind of effect on me if I meet you, and I bet I'll have some kind of effect on you, if I haven't already.
~~~~~
A few minutes ago, as I was writing this, a lady's gingerale bottle dropped and exploded all over me, my purse, my shirt and my friend Amy. The computer got away unscathed. Amy and I recovered from the shock of the surprise pretty quickly and then just started cleaning things up. The lady kept saying "I always screw it up for everyone else. I've screwed up 15 other people's lives today." And we kept saying, in all honesty, "It's really okay. It's just gingerale. Nothing important got wet and nothing's ruined. Don't worry about it, really."
As she kept apologizing, we kept assuring her that everything was okay and that there was no harm done.
And then she looked at me and said "Thank you for being so understanding. Most people would have reamed me for that and it's nice to be treated with some compassion."
Now, I'm not saying that was particularly profound or life-altering. But somehow I bet that our no-big-deal reaction to her accident made her day a little easier and lightened the weight that she seemed to be carrying.
***
What I'm coming to understand is that nature is always trying to find the equilibrium. Water will always try to find a way to level off, pressure will always find a way to release, tension will always try to find a way to relax, the human body will always work to maintain homeostasis. The universe is in a constant state of flux, always creating and always destroying. But if you look at the whole picture, it's always balanced. So maybe the human race is the same way. If we let ourselves be ourselves, if we would stop hiding and shunning and punishing ourselves, then maybe we would always be balancing each other out. The anger would balance out the calm, just as the calm will balance out the anger. The sorrow will balance out the joy just as the joy balances out the sorrow. A kind reaction to a busted bottle of gingerale will balance out a strangers bad day...
***
Maybe it's the holidays, maybe it's the weather, maybe it's just my dear old friend Lonely paying his regular visit, but I haven't been feeling like myself lately. I've been in a bit of a slump. In an attempt to temporarily toss myself out of my depressed mood, I threw on big winter hat, with a big white pom-pom on the top, sort of hoping the ridiculousness of it would lighten my mood. And as I was driving here, there was a homeless man at the corner of Blakemore and 21st, selling newspapers. I didn't have any cash but I smiled, waved, shrugged and said that I couldn't help. He waved back, and said "That silly hat is adorable. It makes me smile."
And he laughed and smiled so big that I couldn't help but smile too. Those kind of smiles are contagious.
....And just like that, a random comment from a stranger made my day a little better.

I'm starting to believe that what we need is always out there- in the form of a look, a smile, a gesture or a person. If our eyes are open and we're willing to see it, maybe it's always out there.

Rows and flows of angel hair, and ice cream castles in the air...

2010-12-22T14:46:00.000-08:00

So I decided to put the Bitter Me aside for a little bit and write again from the part of me that loves to write about lovely moments, the kind of moments when something lines up, you change your mind about something and everything looks different from then on...
I stumbled upon an old Joni Mitchel song last week, and it's inspired me to write this today.

"Both Sides"
Rows and floes of angel hair.
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I've looked at clouds that way

But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all

Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real
I've looked at love that way

But now it's just another show
You leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know
Don't give yourself away

I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say "I love you" right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I've looked at life that way

But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living every day...

I'm not exactly sure what happened or when it happened or why it happened, but something shifted in me a few weeks ago. Maybe I hit a threshold, maybe I hit a wall, maybe I just finally experienced one too many heartaches and I finally gave up on the idea that I could wrestle happiness out of insanity.
See, I had an affinity for infatuation, for love's illusion, and have usually found myself magnetically drawn to insane men. It usually starts out the same, wild and intense and mind blowing. But it also ends up the same-- I feel confused, bulldozed, angry, bitter and am left feeling like my heart's been pulled through a shredder. I could go on and on with war stories and tell you about all the crazy things I've done in the name of "love," but that's really just semantics. The point is that I chased these things because they filled some sort of need within me. I kept chasing crazy, unavailable, erratic relationships over and over again, always thinking "This time will be different." Like any good little addict, I always pushed the envelope and tried to convince myself that I could handle it, that "he" was different, that "I" was different, blah-dee-blah-blah.
I suppose you could say that I got bulldozed again a couple of months ago. Another minor train-wreck, as I like to call them. The same story repeating itself. I knew better of course, and so it didn't really surprise me when it ended abruptly with me feeling like someone had yanked the ground out from underneath me and suddenly I was doggy-paddling through air I couldn't breathe in.
But that one must have been my breaking point. And thank God for that. I think it must have been my own personal straw that broke the self-deluded camel's back. Because all-of-a-sudden I don't see things the same way anymore...
Anyone else have profound realization at the most random, insignificant times? Well, I do. It's always when I'm just strolling along, or opening the refrigerator, or bending over to pick up a pen I thought I'd lost that these things occur to me. The other day, I was driving down White Bridge Road, doing nothing particularly interesting or profound except making a left hand turn when this occurred to me: I don't want that wild, insanity anymore. I don't want the shiny, fiery madness anymore. What I want is genuine affection for another person. To care about their well-being. To wish for good things in their life, to love and support them through the shitty parts of life and to inspire them in the good parts. To have them know everything, EVERYTHING about me, and be okay with it.
That may not sound like much. But it was pretty huge for me. To actually NOT WANT to chase something illusory and really want all the subtle nuances of companionship. If you know me and my history at all, you'd give me a frickin' medal for that realization.
***
What occurred to me while I was listening to lyrics of this old Joni Mitchel song (admittedly, I was watching the movie Love Actually when the song struck me) was that I don't care so much about the rows and flows of angel hair, and ice cream castles in the air. Or feather canyons everywhere. The moons and junes and ferris wheels, or the dizzy dancing way someone could make me feel. Afterall, isn't dizzy infatuation just another way to get emotionally inebriated? Drunk from mental obliteration and a quick way to dull the pain of an otherwise boring evening? The high I used to get from torrid love affairs used to be the only thing that would work to make me forget how lonely I felt or how confused I was by the world.
Honestly, I don't think the Fairy Tale looks the way I thought it would. I think it might look at little more real, like the Velveteen Rabbit or a comfy blanket than it would a big, hot, fiery ball of magic. Or maybe it's both.
***
See the real reason why I chased all those insane experiences? The real reason why I was drawn to unstable, rebellious, often homeless or jobless (or both) people? Because, I think, it was my own way of rebelling against my ideas of stable and sane and 'normal.' My way of rebelling against the path I had taken, I guess. Or my way of evening out the score between the 'good' and 'bad' within me. I was so scared of my IDEAS of stable that I did everything I could to run away from them. It occurred to me the other day, that I must have thought stable meant boring, that sane must mean ridiculously dull and that balanced must mean aggravatingly uneventful. But I was wrong. What I didn't realize was that I had put a cookie-cutter screen over all of these things. That I was the one who assumed that stable did not INCLUDE moments of stupidity or that sane didn't INCLUDE moments of anger or spontaneity or insanity, that balanced didn't include the wild moments of impulse. I didn't want anything to do with my ideas of 'sane' or 'stable' so I always went off chasing things that made me feel insane and unstable. Get it? But in truth, sane people can still be ridiculous, balanced people can still have moments of unbalance, stable people are still childlike and playful and spontaneous because they choose to be.
It was my own ideas and beliefs that I was rebelling against all those years. All I had to do was realize that reality is both sides, the good and the bad, the dull and the exciting, the sacred and the scary. And I can walk the line between them. I can take the Middle Way. The rebellion was an inner one. All I really needed to do was recognize that I am everything, not just one side of the coin. That I am both sides of the coin.
That I'm an Optimist and a Bitter Cynic, a Silly Little Girl and a Wise Woman, a Loud Mouthed Know It All and a Painfully Shy Child, an Insane Nut Job and an Insightful Young Lady. I'm a Believer in Random Acts of Kindness, and an Emotional Sadist, a Spiritual Seeker and Someone Who Drinks Beer and Says Fuck A Lot. I cry like a baby at the end of sad movies, and I listen to Slayer.
No, it doesn't make me bipolar, it makes me human.
Once you see that you are both sides of the coin, there's really nothing left to rebel against. Because you contain all elements of wholeness. The ancient words of wisdom are true. You can't really accept anyone else as they are until you've accepted yourself. As long as you're running from yourself, from who you really are, you're always going to end up chasing something else. Until you're able to look in the mirror and smile at yourself, can you really ever truly see anyone else?
You can't really care for someone else unconditionally until you've wrestled with and reconciled all the different parts of yourself. Of course we all know this intellectually, but I think it's finally connected from my head to my heart. The awareness finally dropped. And I had nothing to do with that moment. It happened out of nowhere.
I have no idea if this makes any sense to anyone else. I never know how much of my process will actually translate for other people. But there it is, spilled out onto this screen for you. Honestly poured out onto the page.
Now I see things a little differently. This place doesn't feel profound, and it doesn't make me want to jump up and down and scream "Yay!" like some moments of awareness do. It feels much more subtle and still, but somehow just as lovely.
I think love is knowing all about someone, and still wanting to be with them more than any other person. To know their dark secrets and to know their most magical moments. And to love them for both. Love is trusting them enough to tell them everything about yourself, including the things you might be ashamed of. It's feeling comfortable and safe with someone, but still getting weak in the knees when they walk into a room and smile at you.

But then again, what do I know...I just got through saying I really don't know Love at all. :)

...and a narrow escape from School Bus Heaven...

2010-12-21T08:40:00.000-08:00

As we tried to find an exit from the Trailer Graveyard, we happened upon another glorious discovery...

Rows and rows of gutted school buses...

...each numbered and named after a pastor...

and reincarnated as tablets for religious persuasion.

Converting the masses, one bus at a time. :)

***

As the sun was going down, we managed to find a lonely hole in the fence. True to Alice-in-Wonderland fashion, the hole lead straight into a thicket. A brief meander through thorns and brush and discarded party favors brought us to a field. And just as we're spit out of the opening, and back out into the real world, a silver truck pulls up.

"What do you think you're doing out here? This here's private property."
...we all pause and play dumb, trying to buy time and figure out the best possible response...

-"What?" (the most effective way to buy time)

"You're trespassing."

-"Oh, we're just taking some pictures, sir."

"You can't do that here. Get back to where you came from. And be glad I didn't call the owner..he's not as nice as I am."

And so we went, back through the field, back into the cemetery where the adventure started, past the sign that says "Prepare to Meet Thy God," back into the truck and down the highway.

From the trailer to the grave. What a great way to spend a Sunday.

:)

Trailer Graveyard: the place where Double-Wides go to die...

2010-12-20T10:29:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since my last adventure to the abandoned landscapes of the world. But I finally had my fix yesterday, and it was epic.

Traveling to these places is like walking into The-land-that-time-forgot. Literally.
As we walked from the edge of a cemetery, through the woods and into the trailer graveyard, it was almost like walking through the wardrobe into an abandoned, red-neck version of Narnia. There was still snow on the ground and the mud glistened with frosty crystals, eventhough there's no trace of last week's snow anywhere else nearby....

People lived their lives in these places...traces of childhoods and memories linger inside the shag carpet and rusting walls.

You can still feel the energy...

It's palpable...

It was an adventure that was delightfully creepy

And eerily magical...

Just the way a trip to a Trailer Graveyard should be...

Breathe Me

2010-12-17T07:37:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite songs to dance to. The sounds of the piano wrap me up and I'm always fascinated by how my body wants to move once I'm under the spell...
Without any plan. Without any decisions. It just moves, like wave of emotion. Dancing feels like breathing.

So beautiful.

Inevitable

2010-12-16T10:26:00.000-08:00

The Starry-Eyed, they say

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you,
Don't go back to sleep.

Roses, and candy and sugar-plum fairies
Ice cream castles and chariots of whimsical fire

Still at night, they cry silently

with empty affection.

***
The Inevitable comes

He always does.

And washes it all away.

The glitter, the grandiose

It all fades eventually.

The pretty pink bows fall off,

The shiny bliss dulls down...

Isn't that when the real beauty comes to life?

Isn't that when the sweetness comes alive,

When the truth peeks out from behind the shadows?

Maybe you've been wrong all along.

Do you really know Love at all?

Through the Looking Glass

2010-12-09T11:06:00.000-08:00

(A little something I wrote a few months ago. Just now decided to bring it to life...)

Frosted pain

Like glass at the window

The Fear haunts me like a shadow

All the You's and We's of the past waiting there,

On the other side and in the dark corners of my mind
Frozen behind Love's Mystery

Memories keep me in this place

Scared to break free

Tormented by my daily reflections

Like a Cage from the past

Stalking the presence of the Present

I can see You all

Like lines of prisms

Stacked behind a wall of mirrors

Too many vanishing acts to name
the trace you leave is always the same

Always one step behind me

And closer than You appear.

Happy Wednesday...

2010-12-08T13:03:00.000-08:00

xoxo, Brooklyn

As promised...A blog about dirty dive bars

2010-12-07T14:50:00.000-08:00

And the Top 5 Reasons-Why-I-Love-Them:

#1: The writing on the wall...There's nothing like it. Sometimes I'll just hang out in the bathroom to stock up on the insights.

#2: The other random things you'll find on the walls...There's something so disgustingly delightful about a cigarette-smoke infested jersey. Brittle, brown and dangling from the ceiling...

...and an old, dusty fencing mask..

#3: Marilyn Monroe is always hanging around

#4: These bars always bring out the best in people...(hehe) It's like a contact high, you just can't help but feel a little gritty and gross and get in on the debauchery. Plus they make great places for costume parties.

#5: There are tidbits of wisdom everywhere, if you look in the right places.

(And who doesn't love the fact that you end up smelling like a french-fry-filled-ashtray when you leave!)

2010-12-01T14:27:00.000-08:00

Surrender...

to the riot in your heart.

My lot in Life..

2010-11-30T14:35:00.000-08:00

It's funny that things can be going so well, and yet you still feel like something's missing. There are so many doors opening for me right now, and still I feel the whisperings of longing-for-something-more. There are so many incredible people in my life, and still I feel lonely more often than not. The other day it occurred to me, that, more often than I'd like to admit, the first feeling that I have when I go to put my key in the door of my apartment is "Ugh. Now I'm alone again."
If I'm not fully engaged in a conversation with someone, or fully engaged in an act of creativity or doing something with purpose, I will automatically drop into that familiar default of 'Lonely.'
Being human is an odd experience.
***
I had someone tell me this morning that I had a "moving and beautiful way with words." And that reading my blog reminded him of a time when he wasn't so bitter. This really got me thinking today....
I might be guilty of that endemic habit that so many of us are prone to: letting your "best self" come forward, and leaving the rest to hide in the shadows. And since I claim to be an honest person, I figured it might be time to get a little more honest today.
See, when I got this message this morning, I thought,"Oh, he doesn't know what goes on under the surface. I am bitter, I just hide it well." And then I thought, yikes, maybe it's about that time to let you in on what goes on underneath the sunny-bright eyed-wonder. I'm not saying that the sunny me isn't real. It is. But it's also not all there is. We're all bits of Light and Dark. Sun and Shadow.
Yes, I tend to get inspired to write the blog each week in a moment of inspiration, or excitement about something or awareness about something that's going on in my life. But what I haven't done as often is to write when I'm not feeling so inspired, when there's not a pretty picture to paint. So today I'm just sort of writing, without a lesson in mind, without a pretty picture to paint, without putting my best self forward, so to speak.
What you may or may not know is that, when all is said and done, at the end of the day, I am still just as inclined to feel bitter and jaded and cynical as the next person. It's something that I've lived with since I was a little girl, actually.
I remember feeling alone at 4 years old.
I can remember feeling lonely in a sea of people all through grade school. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the fact that my father, before he died, sort of went crazy. Like he became a totally different person, an erratic scary weird person. Not like a father, but more like a stranger. He went from being a loving, strong grounded force in my life, to being a flighty, frightening entity that I felt guilty for not wanting to be around.
He was the first Vanishing Act in my life.
To this day I don't know who he really was. When he died it left a whole in my life, a void that never got filled. Like an abyss of unresolved questions, tension and sadness. The sense of feeling left alone was palpable from that moment on.
For some reason his death was a big secret, at least that's the way I remember it. No one talked about it. No one even told me how he died until I was 16. It was like an un-named weight that I carried around with me for a decade. I guess it's easy to feel alone when these kinds of things happen.
But there was something else that kept me a little removed from everyone too. Like there was something that I could see that other people couldn't, like I knew the way of the world better than most of the adults around me. I was gifted with the ability to SEE past the facade and really see into the inner workings of people's minds and hearts. And that is a huge responsibility when you're that young. It also becomes a burden if you don't know how to use it. It becomes even more difficult when you can see things about people that they can't see about themselves. When you can see their thoughts or emotions and know that the image they're projecting to you has nothing to do with what's actually going on under the surface. I see the good in people everyday. I love people for the good in them, and I love people for the shadowy self that they don't want to let me see as well.
People are bitter and I love them for it. People are angry and I love them for it. People are lost and alone, and I love them for it.
I guess you could say that I spent a long time searching for something to fill that void, and for something that would help me make sense of the world again.
I've walked on fire, sat in meditation, prayed, spent weekends with Shamans, read countless books about spirituality, apprenticed under Spiritual Gurus, had profound, life changing experiences in Sweat Lodges and Vision Quests and ventured to sacred pyramids in far off lands. I've experienced the pure state of bliss, of peace of balance and unconditional love that all of these teachings promise. Eventually I found what I had been looking for. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
But do you know what? Ironically enough, that 'thing' that I had been reaching for--that persistent state of bliss--I don't really need it anymore. I don't chase after it like it's the Great Answer to Everything anymore. I know it's there. I know I can access it whenever I want, but I don't really go there that often. Awareness is a lonely place too.
And honestly, I'd rather be human. I'd rather sit in the trenches with people than sit on a mountain top without them.
I have gotten a taste of the Divine, and every time I hang out there for a little while, it makes me long for my own humanity. I don't find "pure eternal bliss" so appealing anymore, to be honest. It's a place I love to visit, but I don't want to live there. Maybe a roundtrip-ticket-to-pure-bliss once in a while, but I love being out there in the crazy madness of the world just as much. I'm not sure I'm willing to give up the highs and the lows, the moments of gut-wrenching sadness, the heartbreak or the disappointments. If I have to be willing to give up the "negative" things, then I have to be willing to give up the "positive" things as well. Pure bliss isn't wild and intense and thrilling. Peace isn't all that exciting, really.
This is the part most people won't tell you. Most 'spiritual' people ho-hum about the bliss and the peace and the wild intensity of knowing 'The Truth.' I don't trust these kinds of people. I used to be one of them. I would eat, think and talk about Love and God and Spirituality all day long to whoever would listen. And I meant everything. Really. I had experienced 'awakening' and all the amazing benefits that come along with it. I finally felt like the world made some sense, that I made some sense. That I had found 'my people' and my place in the world. But then I started seeing through them too. I started seeing that behind the pretty words and the pretty pictures that they'd paint, they were still suffering. They were still lying to themselves. They were still just as insane, but they wouldn't admit it. They were still living in delusion. A pretty delusion, but still a delusion. They were willing to have the "good" parts, but they weren't really willing to let themselves go into a FULL experience of Life. They were happy to let themselves experience the joy and the peace and the love, but they wouldn't let themselves be human, they wouldn't let themselves feel the sadness, the fear and the anger that makes being human so rich. They still shunned the shadows and lacked compassion for the raw, dirty, ugly experiences that are a part of Life as well. Well, I love the raw, dirty ugly parts just as much as I love the pretty, magical delightful parts. The universe is creative and destructive. And it's beautifully balanced that way. So, if you ask me, we should be okay with the creative and the destructive parts of ourselves too. We should revere the sadness as much as we revel in the joy.
I don't believe in good/bad/ right/wrong. But I do believe in what's real. And what's real is that if you're really awake, you see EVERYTHING. Not just the pretty parts of Life. You see the pain, you see the beauty, you see the sacred and you see the grotesque. And you don't judge it.
***
Something else you don't know about me...somedays the best I think I can do for the world is just to smile at the lonley man at the salad bar, hoping to make his day a little better.
***
So, I felt like I had to come out with this today because I didn't want to be 'that' girl. If I'm going to blog about the pretty, magical things, I also have to blog about the ordinary things, the weird things and the depressing things, right. (I've just set a precedent. Crap. Next blog: Why I adore dirty dive bars that make you smell like a french-fry-filled ashtray. Ha.)
And at the end of the day, it's not the success, or the serendipity, or the accomplishment, or the good news that make my days great....it's the honest moments that I have with someone else that make Life worthwhile to me. It's listening to someone get real with me, and tell me that they still struggle everyday. It's hearing someone that I assumed had it all together tell me that the first thing they feel when they get home from work is lonely. It's hearing someone say, "I'm so sorry. I've been an ass to you lately." It's watching someone hang their head, sigh and say "I'm just not happy. I want to change" that makes me feel like I can connect with them.
So I suppose that's what my intent was here. To get real with you.
After all, Freedom lies in being bold...

Love Letters

2010-11-23T12:01:00.000-08:00

I realized something a long time ago...poems tend to pour out of me when I'm falling in love. I always have an overwhelming urge to create poetry during those first few days, when the infatuation still thrives and the magic makes your eyes feel heavy and your mind feel drunk. That precariously delightful agonizing ecstasy has a special effect on me, as if it's opening up a portal to the primordial source.
I've chased that feeling most of my life. (Haven't we all.) Before I even knew what that feeling was, I think I was chasing it. You know that feeling: when there's a tightness in your chest, juxtaposed with the most unlikely openness in your mind and a cacophony in your heart. Like chaos and wonder and peace and relief and insanity swirled together.
Today, I decided to let you in on some of the secrets of those moments, and so I've posted a collection of some of the poems I've written along the way...

~Fortune's Fairy Tale
Fortune's fairy tale, wrapped in a ribbon of curious circumstance.
Rays of time double back...
Two paths swivel around the thimble of chance..

Impact

Surrender to the riot in your heart.
Trace the order in the chaos.
Erase the past of an infinitely broken heart.
Unhinge the grasp that bound me down.
A burden unborn! By such ungovernable bliss, that swells, wells up from inside. And bursts into a flood of smiling tears.

The salty trails, like soul prints, leave traces of you
There
on my face, Love is engrained.
You are the Moment I've been waiting for.
  January 2003

~Hide and Seek
Love offers herself
Softly,
Like pink petals fluttering across the question marks.
My eyelashes bat and beckon the answer.
I rise and fall like a melody,
Swelling and ebbing
My heart longs for the invitation, but blushes behind it as well.

I am consumed by longing
And still I hesitate.

My eyes grow golden as I invite glimpses of You into me.
My toes tingle with anticipation.
The magic in Your fingertips radiates like a pulse
And envelops me.
You move, like a rolling river
Flooding over me.

Rosey euphoria.

We are the rise and fall
The death and the renewal
The hide and the seek..

The veil lifts.
Entwined, our twinned spirits smile
And meet the morning.

But still, I hesitate...
  June, 2008

~Like a Virgin
Like a Virgin
She makes love to every moment
Like it's the first moment.

What was stifled
Now revealed as Love's unveiling
There's nothing to be done about her ravaging.

Restless with her own Desire,
She wants your body
She wants her ravaging
She craves her own possession
And welcomes the one
Who'll possess her.

Like a Virgin
She loves herself
And loves you;
Her sweet power enraptures your longing to be free

You can't resist the Beloved
That you see in her eyes
Your eyes glisten to meet their Maker
In the moment, You and She are the same
And Love speaks through your union

Her eyes cry out, Come Hither
Let your body surrender
She'll have her way with you anyway
Come, and penetrate her with
Your passion

Enjoined with her, you'll become the ecstasy
You've been seeking.
  January, 2009

~Hello, my secret Prince
Hello, my secret Prince of the Whispering Waterfalls
Who could hang a name on you,
On this impervious bliss that knocks me out of my way

The sweet breath of Life
Breathed back into me

By a notion that passes like Summer
passing into Fall:
Quietly then Suddenly
the air shifts
and leaves fall like the heart falls in love

You've inspired me
Like the painting inspires the artist
before the canvass receives its gift

This falling reminds me of surrender
so I'll give into the tale that's telling itself
through my heart into yours.
September, 2009

* * * * *

"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed."
Carl Jung

These are a few of my favorite things...

2010-11-16T13:16:00.000-08:00

I was sitting on my porch last night. It was one of those nights where at first you feel delighted to breathe in the cold, brisk air...and then the cold sinks into your bones and you run back inside to get your fuzzy blanket. I went outside to meditate, to get closer to myself. I always find that when I feel restless or nervous or scared, all I need to do is step outside and connect with the way the wind meanders through the trees, or the way the birds' songs flutter across the air, or the way the grass smells after it's been cut. Nature is the clearest mirror of God for me. I feel comfortable in the mystery of how everything is connected. There's something about the combination of reverence and gratitude and bewilderment that I am madly in love with. Like I feel completely at Home in the awe and the wonder and the appreciation. I love anything that I can't quite understand because there's an element of the divine there. I've been doing this ever since I was a little girl, watching and observing and taking everything in. Always seeing things and people for what they truly are, behind the exterior, always finding the beauty everywhere.
I had gone outside, like I said, to reconnect. I had been feeling really antsy. There's been a couple things on my mind lately, and I felt like I needed to get some clarity. And so I went outside, with my fuzzy blanket and furry boots, sat down, breathed...and closed my eyes. I watched as all my energy dropped into my heart, then percolated into my breath. When I felt like I had gotten to the Stillness (that's what I call the place behind my thoughts), I started to pray. I opened my eyes and spoke out loud, as if I were talking to the stars. When I pray, it's more of an open dialogue than anything else. I talk, something speaks back. I listen. Sometimes I hear it as my voice, sometimes I hear it in the way the light hits the trees, sometimes I hear it in the way the wind tousles the leaves. This night I heard it in the way the clouds moved across the sky.

"What you're asking Me about--It's already working out, sweetheart. You don't have to be so scared."
(How did I know I was going to get that answer.)
"You know that entertaining the fear of losing something doesn't do you any good. Be so grateful. Be grateful and be present with this as if it's already working out."

And so I stayed there, outside with my eyes open. And let the gratitude wash over me, envelop me and percolate through every cell of my body. Then the half smile came, you know the kind where your whole face smiles, but your mouth barely moves. Then my breathing changed, it got deeper and the rhythm shifted from shallow and predictable to something almost lyrical. Something like a dance. My eyes softened. And I wasn't scared anymore.
"Stay with the Gratitude, honey."

So that's what this blog is for today: Gratitude. :)
I've learned that Gratitude is one of the most powerful human experiences because it has a way of calling things forth like a magnet, and it shifts your reality instantly. Try it. Right now...Think of something or someone that you're grateful for. Hold that in your mind and let yourself feel how grateful you are.....
Notice how your body naturally relaxes. Notice how you automatically feel more open and receptive. And you probably felt that 'warm, fuzzy' feeling. Almost like your whole body softens and your mind forgets everything but the thing you were focusing your attention on. You just grounded all of that lovely energy into your body. Every cell of your body just experienced that love or that joy or that heart-felt appreciation that you just called forward by thinking about something or someone that I are grateful for. You just shifted your experience of reality in that moment. See, when you're truly in Gratitude, nothing else exists. It's impossible to experience Gratitude and Anger at the same time, or Gratitude and Envy, Gratitude and Fear. They can't exist in the same moment. Interesting, isn't it. You can of course alternate in and out, moving from one to the other at will. But you can't do both in the same moment.
Attention creates. When you put your attention in Gratitude, that's where your energy goes. Gratitude and Love. When you move into one of those experiences, your whole world changes.
So here I go. I'm letting you take a peak at my Gratitude List today...at some of the things that fill me with awe, or joy or love. These are a few of my favorite things:

I love the way this quote makes me feel: "And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair." It makes me feel like a little Spright, playing in a field.

I love the way my fingers and toes tap, secretly keeping a beat all day long. I'm singing songs in my head all day long, and nobody knows :)

I love the sound of these...keys...typing...right...now.

I love the way the leaves have gathered up at the edge of sidewalk in front of me. For some reason it makes me feel comforted.

I love the way that the people crossing the street outside are walking in perfect rhythm to the song that's playing on the radio right now. They have no idea that they're syncopating to music they can't even hear.

It's scarf weather. And scarves just makes me happy.

I love it that my shoulders are sore right now...it reminds me of how amazing it felt to dance around my apartment last night.

The Peabody Shoe Repair shop on 21st Avenue has been here forever. It was here when I went to college, 10 years ago, and it still looks exactly the same today. I'm staring right at it. My eyes always catch it from this seat at Fido, and for some reason it makes me smile. Maybe because my eyes have been catching glimpses of that shop for over a decade, and part of me remembers how much I've changed since the first time I saw it. It's like a Landmark of the Past and a Milepost of Transformation at the same time.

I am so grateful for the unexpected people. The ones that just show up in your life out of the blue. You never even knew how much you'd missed them until you meet them. And when they show up in your life, you think "Oh, yeah. That's what's been missing."

I am grateful for friendships--Friendship is like a portal into another world.

I am in love with the solitary little leaf in the middle of the sidewalk. Everytime a car goes by, it gets scooped up by the displaced air, dances around, twirls and spins...then lands softly on the bricks again. It waits there so patiently until Life gives it it's next directive.

I love the way a flock of birds seems to swoop in from nowhere, right at the moment when the song I'm listening to comes to the chorus. Birds are always on cue.

When I'm listening to House music, I love the moment right----before---the beat-----drops. That hovering moment of anticipation drives me crazy.

I adore long talks about Particle Physics, or any kind of Physics really. And I love the way my mind teeters on the edge of enthralled and baffled when I get deep into a conversation about the nature of the Universe...it's like walking the line between feeling mesmerized and insane.

This might sound ridiculous, but I love it when it's cold enough to wear hooded jackets. Especially my furry-hooded jackets. I feel like a little girl playing hide-and-seek with the world when I pull it over my head.

I like to wave and smile and chat with the homeless people who hang out at intersections selling newspapers. I always love the way they smile back. I think most people pretend that they're not there, or ignore them or pretend that the mobile-metal-bubble they're driving makes the rest of the world invisible, because these people always seem so grateful when I simply say hello. Today the man on the corner of Wedgewood and 8th said "God bless you" and bowed for me. How precious is that.

I love hugs. Not half-assed hugs. Real hugs.

I love talking about Neuroscience, neurotransmitters, Neurobiology...pretty much anything with a 'neuro' in it. Yes, that makes me a nerd. I'm okay with that.

I'm grateful for Harry Potter. Enough said.

I love to be kissed on the forehead...by someone who I have a crush on, or by someone who I'm in love with. Otherwise it's just creepy.

"The most beautiful thing that we can experience in the world is the mysterious." Einstein rocks my world.

I am so grateful for Rumi, he's one of my favorite poets. "This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go. Finally, to take a step without feet." Beautiful.

I'm grateful for the way witnessing Art inspires me to make more Art.

I could go on and on...there's so much out there to love.

Oh! One more thing: I'm grateful for wishes, because lately, they seem to be coming true. :)

Moroco, seat by the window please.

2010-11-09T15:04:00.000-08:00

Lately I feel a little bit like my world has been turned upside down. Like it's been put in a blender, shaken, swirled, stirred and served back to me almost unrecognizably. Almost as if all of the pieces that need to be addressed have now somehow magically shown up and they're staring me right in the face.
Has anybody ever noticed that when you shake your box of cereal, all the tiny, broken pieces fall to the bottom and all the big chunks of goodness make their way up to the top of the box? And eventually you've eaten all the chunks of sugary clusters, or the 'good' plump raisins, or the big hunks of granola..and then you're left with the dregs at the bottom of the box? Well, that is kinda what this feels like.
***
I've been thinking a lot about what Mr. Anonymous said a few weeks ago. Last month, I wrote about a miraculously serendipitous week that I was having, and then he (I'm assuming it's a 'he') left this comment that just nailed me right on the head:

"I have read a great deal of your blog since being invited and I appreciate being allowed into this part of your life, thank you for sharing. In it I found fire walking, trips to Europe, relationships, life, love and reminiscence. Surprisingly I also found what can only be described as being lost, that endemic curse of worthlessness that infects so many. It seemed almost amazing, but there it was, in your own words. Your trips, your adventures, your life, exciting and filled with passion, It puzzles me, how could this be the same person? No one I know would describe you as not being in touch with yourself. How you move, talk, live is a thing of beauty. How your eyes change colors from the pupil to the iris, your smile and vibrant aura, how everyone adores you and seeks your attention. Times have been hard, but as Viktor Frankl once said, “What is to give light, must endure burning”. When you feel that somehow you are worthless, just describe yourself, where you’ve been and where you are going and ask yourself, “does that sound like a loser”? In a world of mediocrity you are the exceptional. A creation that brings good energy to yourself. From the first blog post to the last I saw a running desire for wholeness and fulfillment. Well, you are closer than you think."

The first time I read this, it brought tears to my eyes. It hit home for me.
It's such a strange thing, insecurity. Isn't it? I mean, rationally I think we all know the truth about ourselves, that we are precious and unique and loveable. But knowing the truth and connecting to the truth are two completely different things.
Most of you can probably relate to feeling like you can see the good in everyone else around you, but it's hard to accept the good in YOU. That you can feel lonely in a room full of people. That you can be talking to someone, and are truly engrossed in conversation, but still miles away at the same time. That your mind is incessantly running commentary on everything that you do. Analyzing, picking apart, putting back together, judging, questioning, assigning labels, comparing, measuring and flitting around like a hummingbird from one thought to the next. And I bet most of you would say that it's EXHAUSTING to listen to this broadcast in your mind all day long, right?
Well, this is what I think about all of that-- I have a love hate relationship with my mind. Somedays I adore it for all of it's quirky creativity, and somedays I hate my brain because it just won't stop. Somedays it's my best friend, and somedays it's like a fly that just keeps landing on my shoulder no matter how many times I swat it off.
I've given this comment a lot of thought. Why do I think that I still feel lost sometimes, as my dear friend said? Why do I still fall prey to the 'endemic curse of worthlessness that infects so many?' Honestly, it's probably because I'm addicted to the cycle. Addicted to the game that ensues when my mind baits me with something that I believe, or even just kind of believe. Yes, I mostly believe that I'm a good person, worth getting to know. But there is still a part of me that believes that I'm not good enough. And as long as there's still a part of me that believes this, I'm always going to get hooked when my little mind says things like "You're sooo not cool." Or "Nobody actually likes you, they're just being polite."
When my mind goes off on a ruthless tangent, and I follow it- and rips me out of the moment and that's when I feel separate. That's when I feel alone. When my mind manages to pull me out of the flow of Life and into a stream of critical-thoughts-stacked-upon-critical-thoughts, that's when I lose my balance. Once I get hooked, it's a back and forth game of chess that always ends in Check Mate. If you try to battle it out with your own negative thoughts, or argue with them, has anyone noticed that they just get louder? Tricky little suckers. You'll never win. And because you'll never win, you always want to play again, secretly hoping that THIS time will be different and that THIS time I will outwit myself.
Right?
Sound familiar?
Well, really the only way to win is not to entertain the thoughts in the first place. Or just flat out ignore them, which we all know is easier said than done.
It sounds a lot like the movie War Games. You know, 1983, starring Matthew Broderick, pre-Ferris Bueller. (Yes, I'm showing my age here.) Remember at the end of the movie when Jonathan (the computer) is trying to learn the lesson of futility?
   Stephen Falken: I never could get Joshua to learn the most important lesson.
   David: What's that?
   Stephen Falken: Futility. That there's a time when you should just give up.
   Jennifer: What kind of a lesson is that?
   Stephen Falken: Did you ever play tic-tac-toe?
   Jennifer: Yeah, of course.
   Stephen Falken: But you don't anymore.
   Jennifer: No.
   Stephen Falken: Why?
   Jennifer: Because it's a boring game. It's always a tie.
   Stephen Falken: Exactly. There's no way to win. The game itself is pointless!

And finally, at the end of the movie, the computer finally learns that there's no way to win the game.
     Joshua: Greetings, Professor Falken.
     Stephen Falken: Hello, Joshua.
     Joshua: A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

Whenever I get hooked and play the game, I never win. If my mind baits me, and I go for it, it never ends well. It's just like that one always-just-out-of-reach person in our life. You know the one. The Penny Lane's and the Russell Hammond's in our lives. (An Almost Famous reference is always in order.) We all have them. The one who plays the ever-seductive withholding dance with us. No matter how many times we've gotten burned, we just can't seem to resist it. Aren't our insane thoughts the same way? We all know it's pointless to believe them, but we do it anyway.
Until we learn the lesson of futility. Until we learn that it's going to go and on, until we decide to quit.
Don't get me wrong, I love Life. I love all these lessons and the nose-crinkling-angst that comes right along with them. When you look at it all the right way, the lessons just become amusing. I love it that somewhere up there, there's some divine cheerleader rooting for me, saying "Come on, sweetheart. You're almost there. You can do this. You've almost got it." But I am a stubborn little girl, and dammit, sometimes I just wanna win the stupid game. Even when I know I can't.

But...I guess that's the lesson that's trying to work itself out in me right now: learning to recognize the games that I just won't win, no matter how many times I play. The friendships that will never work, no matter how hard I try. The doors that will never open, no matter how many times I knock. The doors that are always going to open just a crack, and then shut back faster than it takes for me to get a word in edgewise. The tricks my mind will play on me, and the tricks I'll try to play right back. It's the intrigue that's so irresistible, isn't it? It's the subtly-provacative ideas that are the most enticing. It's the thrill of "I know I probably shouldn't be doing this, but I'm going to anyway."
It's the cracked door that's the most alluring, never the one that's wide open. And for me, it's always the curious little bend in the road that makes me want to see what's waiting there, just around the corner. I suppose I need to learn the art of knowing which roads are actually worth going down, and which ones are better left untraveled; which thoughts are worth entertaining, and which ones are better left alone.

I can't believe I'm about to do this, but I'm going to leave you with a quote from Kenny Rogers..
"If you're gonna play the gamble, you gotta learn to play it right.You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run."

This is amazing.

2010-11-08T07:40:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine showed this to me last night, and this is one of those videos that I just have to pass along to as many people as I can. It's so inspiring and it brought tears to my eyes the first time I watched it.
In October, this band had all of their gear stolen. All of their instruments were taken. One night on the subway, they decided to play their songs anyway and put it on YouTube as a testament to their resilient spirit. To show the thieves that they would still be going strong and that no one could take away what was most important: their love for music. Yeah, it'll probably be the new Apple commercial, but it's still amazing.

I've watched it a few times now, and every time I see it, it brings a smile to my face. I hope it makes your day a little brighter too. :)

On Consciousness

2010-11-05T22:21:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across this and thought it was perfect:

Levels of consciousness~
1. Ignorant as mud - pure bliss.
2. Aware of a few things - we begin to have doubts.
3. Very aware and full of angst....
4. Fully aware, trusting that in the end it doesn't matter. It will all work itself out - back to bliss.

A friend of mine asked me if they could go back to #1. And this question is an interesting thing, really. See, if you've gotten a taste of 2 and 3, of course it's normal to want to run screaming and go back to 1. The trouble is, once you know, you can't un-know. You just have to keep going. To get to the other side, you have to go through.

Truth be told.

2010-11-02T12:24:00.000-07:00

"Let yourself be silently drawn by the pull of what you really love." ~Rumi

About seven months ago, I was sitting in the Belcourt Theater, with my friend Jessie, anxiously anticipating Music City Burlesque's Spring Break or Bust show...
***
I'd been to burlesque shows before, admittedly always a little jealous of the girls on stage. Something about it has always been so appealing to me. I've been dancing since I was big enough to walk. I've been on stages all of my life, in tutus and tights, sequins and sparkle. Tap shoes, toe shoes, jazz shoes, ballet slippers. I've danced to everything from Swan Lake and Pachelbel's Canon, to Pump Up the Jam and Rhythm Nation. Dancing used to be my life. Which is actually ironic, because I was painfully shy as a little girl. I remember freezing up with complete horror and mortification during a Christmas pageant one year. I took one look at the audience and hid backstage. I kept peaking from behind the curtain, nearly managing to get the courage to walk out, but never quite succeeding. But something was different when it came to performing. As long as I had something to sing or dance to, things were different. The music became the only thing that mattered. As if I was dancing FOR the music, singing FOR the song. Even now, looking back at all the other times I've performed, it really feels the same way. In a play, I was acting for the love of my character, I was showing a horse for the love of riding, I was playing the piano for the notes that sprung out of the instrument. It was never really FOR the audience. I was always aware of the audience, but I never danced for them, or sang for them, or performed for them. I performed because I loved it. Because it felt effortless and spontaneous. And I felt like the truest version of myself when I did it.
But then something shifted. I don't remember when or how or where. At some point in my life, something changed....Oh, wait. Now I remember. I was 14 years old and about to audition for the American Ballet Academy. And that's when it happened. Or at least that was the moment when I started to unravel. I had been one of the stars of my dance school for my entire childhood. I had been doted on by teachers and praised by peers. I don't remember having let it go to my head, I just remember feeling shy about the whole thing. But being there, in a room full of amazing ballerinas from all over the country- that's when it hit me: "Oh my God, I'm not as good as they said I was." These ABA girls were dancing rings around me. They leapt higher, and twirled faster, and glided with a grace and poise that I never had. That's when I started comparing myself to others. That's when I started to believe that I didn't measure up. That's when the disillusionment occurred. I forgot the truth and started believing that I had to do it to please other people, to compete, to be better. I forgot the real reason I had fallen in love with dancing to begin with. I forgot that it was bewteen me and my love for the music, my love for the art of performing.

It was like a quiet heartbreak that I never told anyone about. And it silently ate away at me for years. Eventually I stopped dancing. I even stopped singing, riding, acting and playing the piano. I buried myself in books and tucked my loves away.

Of course, like anything that's truly a part of you, it couldn't really resist expression. It all started seeping out, coming out sideways. But I had found a way to be understated. I would sing in the car, where no one could judge me. I would dance at clubs, or frat parties or raves where various intoxicants took the edge of my inhibitions. I did this for about 10 years, unconsciously keeping my passion a secret. There were occasions where I would get myself into a dance class, but my unrelenting insecurity and self-criticism would always prevail.
My mid 20's were sprinkled with half-hearted attempts to get back onto the dance floor and resurrect myself. And somehow, slowly, I managed to start rekindling that old flame. I shied away from what I really wanted, though, and started out with things that seemed safe. I took a Swing Dance class once a week. Then I moved onto the Lindy Hop, inching my way back towards my true loves: ballet, jazz and contemporary.
I was taking classes here and there. But there was still something missing. I still couldn't quite let myself go. I was still EXTREMELY self-conscious and always comparing myself to everyone else in the room. I would dance in my living room and be able to let go. I would secretly dance across hallways at work and let myself go. I could dance behind closed doors and fall in love with the movement every time, but I was still holding myself back in public.

And then something happened...

My dancing-behind-closed-doors shifted from playfully joyous and whimsically sprightly to wild and aggressive. I think the angst of stifled expression started driving me. Like the Wild Woman inside of me wanted to be unleashed. Like something inside of me said "Enough already! Just let go do it!" I had been on a few spiritual journeys to sacred sites in Mexico, had done dozens of Power Journeys, walked on fire and taken up a few intense spiritual practices at the time, and had started to tap into a very primal, grounded, powerful part of me during this period of my life. In meditation, I had experienced this as very predatory and very wild. Like a jaguar. Mysteriously alluring.Very self-assured. Always hunting. Sleek, solitary. Sultry and seductive.
And so I sort of started channeling this sultry, raw energy when I danced. Like I was breathing the dance, inhaling the rhythm and exhaling the movement. I listened and I waited and I kept dancing. Something new was smoldering in my spirit, waiting patiently for the moment to pounce. And then magic happened...
I remembered a show I had been to years ago. It was a Panty Raid! Burlesque show. I went once and was totally smitten with the whole idea. I even remember thinking "I'm going to do that someday. One day, that'll be me up there." There was something about the way those women could captivate an audience, something about the tease, the reveal and the uninhibited nature of the dancing that grabbed my attention. They looked free up there. And I wanted to feel that way again.
***
I got tickets to Music City Burlesque's Spring Break or Bust show in March, and everything just started falling into place for me. Things tend to magically line up when you follow your heart. And that's exactly what started to happen for me. During that show, watching those girls dance, I had made my mind up. It wasn't just a pipe dream, I was going to become a Burlesque Dancer...Yes, you heard me. I said Burlesque Dancer. This was the moment. Intuition told me that there was momentum behind this decision. That Life was about to rally behind this choice and things would start happening very quickly.
At the show they announced the opening of Delinquent Debutantes, a burlesque school in Nashville. Boom! Classes started in May. Boom! My boss let me re-negotiate my work schedule so that I could take classes twice a week. Boom! Classes started and immediately I knew I had found my match. As soon as I got out there, dancing to cabaret tunes in front of the mirrors, a heart-felt relief washed over me. "This is it! This is the thing I've been looking for." It felt so natural to me. Effortless and amazing. Like my body was born to do this. I was so happy I felt like hugging the whole world.
My teacher announced a performance class coming up at the end of the summer. Boom! At the end of the class, we'd be up on the stage, performing for an audience. I would soon be back to doing something that I'd loved for years. Ladies and Gentlemen, it doesn't get anymore perfect than this.

So here I am. 7 months ago, in a seat at The Belcourt, I decided that I wanted to pursue something, and now it's becoming a reality. In three weeks I'll be performing up on stage, glove-peeling, head-tossing and shimmying my little heart out. Doing something that has given me so much unexpected joy and fulfillment. Now, I am well aware of the naysayers out there, the folks (and family members) who shudder at the idea of a woman expressing her sensuality so openly..on stage for all to see. But I have nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed of. The important thing here is that I found something that makes me feel alive and free and happy. This is a culmination, the coming together of years of questions and searching. The clarity after the fog. This is something that grabs ahold of everything that's inside of me, brings it to the surface and allows it to radiate out like golden flecks of satisfaction.
And, amazingly enough, the magic doesn't stop there. Now that I've found my groove again, all of a sudden I can't dance enough! I'm back to 5 dance classes a week. I'm dancing as much now as I did when I was a little girl. I'm even taking Hip Hop! I'm dancing with On Cue Dance Academy and in their recital in the spring. My ballet shoes are out of the closet. Even writing about this makes me excited. I'm not scared anymore. I still hear the voice of that inner critic, but I override it now. My love for dance has conquered the voice that tells me I'm not good enough. My desire for freedom has lead me through my fears and on a journey towards the truth of what I really love.
I followed my heart and now I feel Free. And that is a gift that no one can take away from me.

Be yourself..no one else will.

2010-10-27T15:08:00.000-07:00

Wherever you go, go with all your heart. ~Confucius

At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time. Is life not a hundred times too short for us to stifle ourselves. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you? ~Fanny Brice

I think of life itself now as a wonderful play that I've written for myself, and so my purpose is to have the utmost fun playing my part. ~Shirley MacLaine

All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself. ~Ralph Ellison

Freedom lies in being bold. ~Robert Frost

Avenues, outlets and dark corners..

2010-10-26T11:52:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I did something a little different. I couldn't quite find the words to describe what I was experiencing, so I decided to post a collection of muses as a way of inspiring the feelings that I had been having.
And this week, I'm changing it up again. Instead of posting a collection of quotes or poems, I'm posting a few of the songs in my head today..and more importantly, a few of the songs that really resonate with the way I feel, in this moment. And so, this is what it sounds like to be me :)

I woke up this morning in a MUSE mood. From the moment I opened my eyes I was craving them. I fell in love with this song when I lived in England, about 8 years ago. I was walking down from a pub in Leeds and heard this coming from on of the shops along the road. (One of the amazing things about Europe, is that there is music playing everywhere! Good music.) This song grabs ahold of everything inside of me, wraps it up in a swirling chaos of chords, and makes me so happy I could die.
I always crave Muse when I'm feeling gritty and angsty, and a little savage. Well, to be honest, it's when I'm feeling gritty and angsty and craving an equally angsty vehicle of expression. See if I were a musician, this is when I would play a really dirty, crazy attention-grabbing set of chords. Followed by the sweetest, most humbling chorus. It's the rise and fall that I'm channeling right now. The inhale and the exhale. The tease and the attack. These are the kind of days that my brow is just naturally a little more furrowed, not because I'm mad, but because I feel like I'm hunting something. Like I'm keeping a secret that no one else knows, and there's a silent "I know something you don't" edge I have over everyone else. It's very Animal, it's very poignant, and it's very Primal. And it's so amazingly beautiful at the same time.
This is the way I feel when I'm rehearsing in the studio. In front of the mirrors, in heels and fishnets, practicing glove peels and pretending there's an audience out there watching me. It's one of my most favorite ways to feel, even if it is one of the most insatiable. See it's not just a feeling, or its expression, or an action, or a craving, or an instinct or even a need. It's art to me. To feel the chords and beats and melody and harmonies, and let my body rise and fall and breathe and move in a way that truly makes me feel like I've-merged-with and have become the-expression-of-the-music at the same time. Feeling this way is Art and it moves me to make Art and it moves me to appreciate someone else's Art all in the same breath. Life feels this way to me-- to feel the happiness and the sadness, the smiles and the maddening frustration and the tears, and let my body and my spirit rise and fall with the tides that ebb and flow. It's like a never ending cycle of inspiration and expression, frustration and fullfillment, craving and satisfaction; the hunt and the kill.

Oh my God, this song! Like I'm madly in love. And longing for love at the same time. It's perfection. It's definitely a nose-crinkler. (You know, a song that's just so good that your nose crinkles up, your eyes close and you get lost in how powerful the music is....)

But that's not all there is today. There's also something strong and playful, a frolicking fluidity that I'm feeling...something is missing---Celebration. Freedom. Relief. A burst of Happiness. The throw-your-hands-in-the-air song that makes you want to smile, clap your hands together and jump around. It's the joyful, rush that often invokes the need for communion and gratitude.
See, for me, the frustration and the angst have to be just as enjoyable as the inspiration and the expression. I can't have one without the other. It's all part of the creative process and I am totally in love with every minute of it. I love the swirling torrent of madness and the happy flutter of fairy dust. The spark that gets it started, the struggle, the frenzy, the chaos, the sensuality and the sweet sparkle that washes over you in the end. Isn't that what living life to the fullest is all about? :)

And with this, I will leave you...all this talk about frenzy and inspiration...now I just wanna dance! Here's the last hint about what I'm feeling. It comes from the end of the movie Center Stage. The main character doesn't quite fit into the mainstream, but her love for what she does shines through in the end, and she gets chosen to be the lead in an edgy, alternative ballet. She gets to be graceful AND flirty, poised AND empowered, sweet AND sultry. Shy AND sexy. She gets to be herself, despite the mold others want to put her in.. It doesn't get much better than that.

Like a Lotus Flower

2010-10-19T12:20:00.000-07:00

It's interesting to me, how parts of my past still cling to me, like a residue I can't quite shake off. Some parts of the past live their life, and die in due time and I never think about it again. Some parts, some people, have their place in my life, they come and they go, and the reason is very clear. And then there are some other people whose ghost I just can't seem to give up. I can't help but wonder what the difference is. Maybe Time will tell. Some people come into my life and they leave too early for me to have made sense out of their presence in my life. Like a bud that gets plucked too early and the blossom that was supposed to color the world never got the chance to show the world its beauty. The concept of resurrection and rebirth is playing itself out through my life right now, so it makes sense that remnants of the past that haven't been filed away into their proper place in my memory have come up to the surface.
***
I feel like parts of me have been sleeping, quietly waiting underneath the surface for their turn to bloom. Over the last year or so, it's as if I've slowly been resurrecting myself, slowly ushering in a new era of authenticity. I paid so much attention to paying attention. I spent so many nights meditating, longing to feel whole, picking up the pieces, gathering myself. I spent so many moments listening to the call that came from the Silence. I spent so many days putting one foot in front of the other, knowing that I was marching closer to Myself with every step, no matter how irrelevant it felt to take those steps. I can't really even describe how great it feels to be Me today. How lovely it feels to have come Home to myself and how sweet is feels to live moment to moment, following my heart. I haven't lived like this for a long time and it feels so good. It doesn't have the wild intensity that I had always expected..it has a strong, steady current of joyfulness. It almost feels like Confident Fluid Sweetness, if there is such a thing. I literally have no idea what my days will look like, or what I'll be doing. And I don't care. Somehow the days all unfold in a beautiful way.

Last week I spent an entire day looking for costumes for an upcoming show that I'm dancing in. It was one of the best days I've had in a long time. I wasn't even expecting it to be great, but it just kept unfolding for me, and I felt so happy! Piecing together fishnet stockings from Leg Avenue...with sweet little Mary Jane's from Off Broadway..and vintage waist cinchers, while ideas of little black dresses and ruby-red lipstick swirled around in my head. At one point, wandering through the isles of Performance Studios hunting for the perfect black, opera length gloves, I remember thinking "I am in love with this. Oh my God, I am so in love with my Life." As I was hunting for all the pieces for my costume, my mind started playing with colors and ideas from everything that I saw. Looking for one costume was inspiring ideas for the next costume, and the next and the next. It was fabulous.
That night, still swirling in creative whirlwind, my friend Hunt popped into my head. (He's an amazing artist. His paintings portray such an brilliant point of view about humanity, emotion, form and movement. Have a look for yourself huntadamsart.com His work is incredible.) I got back into photography late last year and have found that taking pictures is another love of mine. I guess it was another passion that had been slumbering like Sleeping Beauty for years before it came back to life for me. The idea of showing my photos has been a thought that's been resting quietly in the back of my mind for months. And, after the creative burst of energy that I had costume hunting, I guess the idea moved into the forefront of my mind. And as soon as that idea took center-stage, my fingers just started scrolling down my contact list and I was dialing Hunt's number. I asked him for suggestions about getting my work displayed. He gave me some great tips and suggested I start talking to some coffee shops and restaurants around town. And then he said something so cool: When you create art, you get to create your own world. You are essentially the God of your own little universe, and you get to decide what it looks like, what it feels like and how it holds itself together. Wow. I was blindsided by what he said because it really resonated with me. I'd never heard it put like that before. But that IS how it feels to me. His words hit me the way a mallet hits a gong, sending vibrations outs in all directions, shaking the environment and setting a whole new tone.
The next day, over coffee with my friend Jessie, I remembered what he said and then I felt the resonance all over again. I looked around and saw artwork hanging from the walls of Fido, and without hesitation just marched over to the counter and started talking to an employee about getting my photos up. I got the contact info that I needed and proceeded to get the ball rolling. There was inertia behind me, I could feel a subtle push behind that action, so I just kept taking more action. I walked to Jackson's, then Bongo Java and did the same thing. And drove to Star Bagel after that. It felt so effortless. It didn't feel like a chore at all, it just felt like a great idea that wanted to come to fruition. And all I did was listen.
That's honestly what my Life has felt like for the past few weeks, eversince I was laid off from work. Everyday reveals a new 'great idea' and I just pursue it. Naturally. And I end up feeling so grateful and happy and joyful just by following the idea through to action. No expectations. No obligations.
***
Yesterday I woke up, no plan in mind. About five months ago, I had told a friend of mine that I wanted to come out to his barn and ride with him. Yesterday morning, I got a text from him asking if I still wanted to ride. And I thought, "Why not? Today's a good day to ride." Two hours later I was on a horse, riding through the woods and dirt roads of Hickman County. It was one of the greatest rides I've had in a long time.
I ended up having one of those days where you hear exactly what you need to hear from someone you least expected to hear it from. You know those days? Some people call it coincidence. I like to call it magic.

We got off the horses by the river at one point, and my friend said "Wanna learn how to rope a cow?" (otherwise known as how to lasso a cow) Why not! I'm going back tomorrow, and I get to bring a rope home with me to practice with in my living room. And poof! Another project :) This should be interesting..

From dancing to fishnets, from art to a lasso. I just go with the flow...
***

About an hour after my ride, I was back in town to have some Energy Work done. The sweet lady that was working on me said the coolest thing when we were finished. "That was just so beautiful. You are flowing and radiating in a way that I rarely get the chance to see. Your energy feels like a beautiful dance. It keeps unfolding, like a Lotus Flower." And then she said something so precious: "Your energy has had such a healing effect on me today. Thank you."

About 20 minutes later the friend that I went riding with texted me because he wanted to thank me. He told me that there was something about my attitude and approach to life that helped him see things more clearly, that something I said on the trail ride had helped him make sense out of what has been going on in his life lately. That something about the way I said these things brought him peace of mind. And the beautiful part was that the moment he texted me, I had been thinking that I wanted to tell him the very same thing. :)

"This is Love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go. Finally, to take a step without feet. " ~Rumi
Life is really beautiful it you just let it happen, if you just let it unfold, if you just let go and trust that Life will carry you where you are going. I don't need to plan it; It plans me. It's like the thousand-petal Lotus that just keeps unfolding...

A Collection of Muses

2010-10-11T13:29:00.000-07:00

Something is stirring.
...And the Words are hesitating today.

Words will never truly do an experience justice. They can come close, but they are always once removed from the direct experience I have with Life. I can point to an experience, I can describe it or interpret it, but the words I choose will never really match what happens....
I went on a sort of Spiritual Retreat last Friday, that culminated in a amazing Firewalk that night. I heard exactly what I needed to hear, felt exactly what needed to be felt, and left knowing that something had shifted within me. I don't know what changed, I don't know when it happened, and I don't need to know. I do know that what's here, with me, today wants to be left alone. Awareness tells me that the seed that's been planted needs more time before it cracks and moves and opens with the potential of creation.

I can feel the desire to write about what happened, and I can also feel a little tug, pulling me back, asking me to breathe, asking me to wait. It's as if the Words know that if I use them to tell the story that's stirring inside of me, some important piece of that story will go missing, it will be left unheard, the lesson at the core of it all with go unlearned. Sometimes you have to leave an Experience of the Heart in the heart. And sometimes there are words behind the Words that aren't ready to be uttered. There's a Silent Knowing behind it all that understands The Mystery better when things are left unsaid. And so, I'm going to listen and honor the subtle request that's coming from that ineffable, unnameable place behind my thoughts. I'm not going to try to describe what's been happening for me these past few days. It's too bashfully beautiful.

So today, I thought I would try something different. Instead of describing, I'm going to allow the inspiration to sort of speak for itself. I've picked a few quotations that, when I read them, inspire the same feelings that the weekend created for me. I'll let the feelings behind these words give some life to the unfinished canvass in my mind. It's as if the colors are waiting, ever present in their potential, the unmanifested-form laughs playfully, knowing what it wants to be and also understanding that I haven't quite unlocked the mystery yet of the lesson that's waiting there. I respect the process enough to know that I don't want to force the process, and I respect my love for the process too much to let it go unnoticed.
***

I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart. ~Vincent Van Gogh
What happens in the heart, simply happens. ~Ted Hughes.
Be like melting snow -- wash yourself of yourself. ~Rumi
The undoing is almost always more difficult than the doing. ~Kate DiCamillo
A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language. ~W.H. Auden
Writers are the exorcists of their own demons. ~Mario Vargas Llosa

Love cannot be forced, love cannot be coaxed and teased. It comes out of heaven, unasked and unsought. ~Pearl S. Buck

I don’t know what they are called, the spaces between seconds– but I think of you always in those intervals. ~Salvador Placensia
Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears.
~Gregory Roberts

Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits. ~Carl Sandburg
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. ~Socrates
There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics. ~Benjamin Disraeli
Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat-tails.
~Clarence Darrow

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. ~Thomas Merton

Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way. ~Lewis Carroll
***
And that, my friends, is what it feels like to be me, today.

Maybe this is what Freedom feels like.

2010-10-03T12:06:00.000-07:00

"The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don't go back to sleep..." ~Rumi

So I'm at a point in my Life where I have a lovely opportunity: I have time to consider what it is that I really want, and go for it. These last few days have felt surprisingly good to me. There's an unexpected openness that I feel as a result of not having any idea what's going to happen or what's in store for me next. There really is a stillness underneath the uncertainty. I thought I just needed to hurry up and find a job, or hurry up and get somewhere. But really, I need to be still and listen. How many times in my Life am I going to have this opportunity again? I feel like I've been cooped up for years and now I finally have the chance to stretch my legs. Why would I rush this? I filed for unemployment and that's exactly what I needed to do to take the urgency away. I'll have money for food and gas and the major bills for a little while. So I don't feel so much pressure to jump into another job quite yet.

It's only when you have nothing that you are free to do anything. It's funny, this freedom. The possibilities are actually limitless. I could do ANYTHING right now. I get to decide what I want to do, what makes me happy, where my heart is leading me. It's really a great feeling. And I've been paying attention. Noticing what I decide to do. Noticing where I go. And today, about an hour ago actually, I realized something--I know what makes me happy. I had no idea that I was already doing what makes me happy. It's crazy! I was so focused on trying to FIND what makes me happy, that I had actually disconnected myself from the truth. From what has literally been staring me right in the face for years. My happiness has been staring me right in the face and I haven't seen it. (To be perfectly blunt..I have been staring myself in the face, and I couldn't see Me.) It's those things that I keep doing, money or no money, job or no job. It's those things that I always want to make time for in my day, no matter what, that make me happy. I keep writing, I keep dancing, I keep showing up for the people that I love. I keep listening to music, singing along at the top of my lungs. I keep praying. I keep appreciating the beauty I see around me. I keep watching, always observing. I keep playing, and I keep laughing. I keep calling B.S. when I see it. I keep standing up for what I believe is true. I keep looking for the next expedition and keep my eyes open for the next photo shoot...These are the things I continue to do. These are the things that I seek out instinctively, because these are the choices that are honest and authentic. These must be the sincerest reflections of Me. And you know what...I wouldn't have discovered that if it weren't for being unemployed. Sure I would have been doing them all anyway, but I wouldn't have realized how much I wanted them to be a part of my Life. I needed this time to sift through everything in order to find the pearls that truly inspire me, to find the actions that are truly from the heart. What a gift!
It's funny, I've been saying "I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want to do." But it seems that I do, actually, know. It's written all over me. It's written all over the choices I've been making everyday. It's written all over my actions. So now, I suppose I need to find a way to fund these actions I keep taking....to discover the way to support myself in the truest sense of the word. Wow, this is so cool. I feel like I'm coming into alignment with myself.

Some people live to work. I want to work to live. I just want to work in order to allow myself the freedom to keep doing what I love.

Hmmm, what else do I love? Travel. Movement is just a way of life for me, it's in my blood, it's in my spirit, and there's no point denying that. I don't care if it's the job that requires the travel, or if it's the money that I'll make that allows me to travel, or if it's some strange sequence of events that invites it into my life. I need it and I love it. The feeling that washes over me when I'm introduced to a new place is priceless to me. My eyes light up and I get into a zone of curiosity that flows through me, almost consuming me, percolating into every fiber of my being. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that Traveling is one of my great Loves.

I love to inspire people. And I love feeling inspired.

I wonder if there's a way to combine a Pioneer Spirit with Artistic Ambition and Creative Force, swirl it together in a way that empowers others. I want to infuse my Life with all of my Love and Passion, and practice balance at the same time. There's something so appealing to me about standing up in front of large groups of people and performing. Now the flavor of performance doesn't really matter. The idea of emanating something, some quality and using it to entice someone else to become the best version of themselves feels natural to me. It's the most sincere form of seduction, if you really break it down. I love the idea of facilitating katharsis for someone else, whether it's from a stage or from a desk or from a photograph, from a word, or from a look in the eye. I want to move people. I love the way I feel when I'm dancing. And when I say "the way I feel when I'm dancing" it's the same thing that I feel when I sing, or write a poem, or make love to someone, or take a picture or hold someone's hand as I walk down the street. That feeling of raw, unfiltered energy rising up and expressing itself in a moment of spontaneous joy, or gratitude or agony or ecstasy.

I don't want to be so scared to be myself anymore, or shy away from what I believe is the truth about what I am. At the end of the day, I don't want to have the feeling that I was missing something, that I could have done more, or that I held myself back. I don't want to sabotage myself anymore. That is scary to say, but I'm saying it anyway. I spent a long time backing away from great opportunities because they felt "too big" or "too much" when in reality I was scared of failing or scared of not being perfect, or not measuring up. I've spent a long time wishing for and longing for things-- but I think what was really going on is that I was holding myself back out of fear. The longing was just a symptom of the limits I had put on myself. Longing happens when I've kept my spirit in a cage. It's Sadness of the Spirit, and it quickly turns into unmanageable depression for me if I don't do something about it. But you know what..I'm so damn grateful for that longing, because it's lead me here. The disconnect between what I thought I was looking for and what I actually love has been so painful, and that pain lead to misery and that misery lead me to angst and that angst allowed to challenge my whole Life and take a serious look at things. When you forget what you are, you long for yourself again.

So, here I am, on a breezy Sunday afternoon. Looking out the window. Watching the cars drive by. Watching the people on the street. Sipping my tea. Writing. I'll keep doing what feels natural to me, what makes me happy, and what's in my heart. Maybe this is the freedom I've been searching for. Maybe this is the freedom that comes from being in the Unknown, and staying true to yourself anyway.

Dear God..

2010-09-28T20:10:00.000-07:00

Dear God,
Can you please show me what's next? I'm really torn right now. I just got another phone call from my sister and she's not doing well. She's been through so much already and it seems unfair that she's got to keep struggling. She just wants to be normal. She just wants a normal life. Why does she have to be going through this AGAIN. Aren't two surgeries in three months enough? She is so scared. Please be with her right now. Please help her body get better. Please help her to move through this with ease. Please help her.
And please be with my mom, she's hanging on by an emotional thread right now. One daughter just lost her job and her other daughter may have to go to the hospital again in the morning because she's not getting better. And please be with my dad. He would do anything for us and I know he's struggling right now too. And if you've got some time, could you please be with all of my friends who lost their jobs at Cumberland Heights as well. Help them to know that they are taken care of. Help them to trust and have faith and receive the possibilities that are coming into their lives.
I have been trying to be strong through all of this. And I'm having a hard time. I thought I would have some kind of answer, some kind of direction by now, and I don't yet. The reality is sinking in now. Do I stay in Nashville? Should I go be with my sister? Does she need me to live with her? What should I do? I'm scared. I know everything will work itself out the way it's supposed to, but I'm just really scared. I'm scared for my sister. I'm scared about my future. I know it's just that I don't know what's coming, and that's the scary part. I don't know. I'm trying to practice being okay with not-knowing. I'm taking action everyday and exercising my faith everyday. I'm babysitting this week, and I'm applying for jobs everyday. There might be unemployment money coming in next week. And I don't know if it's enough. I might lose everything if I don't get a job soon. I will run out of money next weekend if I can't find a source of income. And I can be okay with that, I guess, if that's what's supposed to happen. Maybe I'm meant to start over, completely. Maybe I'm meant to lose everything before it's time for me to build a new Life. I'm trying to do the next right thing. I'm trying to practice Faith and take action at the same time. Maybe I was meant to get closer to you, and this was your way of allowing me to do that. Maybe I was meant to get closer to myself, and all of this is happening to make me stronger.
I guess I'm in the middle, and I can't see clearly yet. If there's something that I'm not seeing, my eyes are open and I'm willing to see it. If there's something that you want me to know, my heart is open and I'm willing to hear it. If there's somewhere I need to go, I'm willing to move. If there's someone who needs my help, I'm willing to go to them. And if there's something in store for me here, I'm willing to stay. Just help me make the right decision when the time comes for me to make a choice. Help me to hear the guidance, help me to feel the nudge in the direction I'm meant to go.

Just for Today

2010-09-28T13:47:00.000-07:00

Well..I really had no idea that I would be writing today. But sometimes I just have to listen to my intuition, follow direction, and go with the flow...
***
I haven't heard back about the job that I interviewed for last week. I spent the morning applying for other jobs, and I honestly have no idea what's going to happen. I filed for unemployment today, but a glitch kept happening when I entered the "minimum wage that I'm willing to accept." That's so frigging appropriate it made me laugh.
If you haven't filed before, it asks you what your most recent salary was, and then it asks you to enter the minimum salary you would be willing to accept in the future. At first I took the question sort of theoretically and went for the big bucks. I thought: 'Well, I don't want to go back to the salary I had, thank you. I have changed. I'm not okay living the way I was living. I'd like to dream bigger this time.' Which is actually a big deal for me. I always thought I wouldn't really mind being poor. But the truth is, now that I've been one-paycheck-away-from-homeless for about four years, I really would prefer to get out of this rut and change directions.
Anyway, as I was plugging along, the questionnaire alerted me to the fact that the "minimum salary that you will accept must match your most recent salary." At first I thought: 'No. No. No. I am not willing to stagnate anymore.' Then I realized that I'm just filling out a questionnaire, I'm not negotiating my self-worth. :) So I took a breath, went back and followed the directions....and the darn thing wouldn't let me continue. It kept shooting me backwards saying "you must enter a valid minimum salary to continue." True story. I tried calling the Unemployment Office on the phone and the little automated man said "Sorry, we're unable to answer any calls at this time." This is hilarious.
Anyway, I'll try again this afternoon.

Despite my amusement, I was honestly getting frustrated, so I just decided to go for a walk. Then I just sort of started praying as I strolled through the neighborhood. I noticed that there was a swirling mix of emotions going on inside of me, and I wanted to tend to them all. I wanted to acknowledge and move through them all. So I felt them, named them, and kept breathing. I would feel a wave of emotion, let it run through my body, and I would breathe. And then, as my breath carried one emotion up and out, another emotion rolled in underneath. And then I breathed, and kept moving through the rolling wave. It's almost the same as watching the waves in the ocean- one wave comes, rolls in, builds, crests and falls against the beach. Before it's finished, there's already another wave coming in on top of it. And so I just stayed present, watching and feeling the waves as they came in. This is all sort of happened in the form of a prayer, and this is what came out:
"God, I'm scared.
I'm scared and I am open.
I'm sad.
I'm sad and I am open.
I'm angry.
I'm angry and I am open.
God, I'm relieved.
I'm relieved and I am open.
I'm happy.
I'm happy and I am open.
God, I am willing. I am willing and I am open.
God, I am here. I am here and I am open."

And then I noticed something pretty cool. The horizon looked broader. Literally. Usually when I'm walking, I'll notice what's around me, and above me, and below me. My eyes are always open, but today, on this particular walk they seemed to open up a little more. And the place that my focus expanded towards was the horizon, where the sky meets the curve of the Earth. It was lovely. My awareness followed. It expanded outward and inward and around-ward until I felt like I was the size of the whole neighborhood, and then the whole city and then infinitely reaching towards the horizon. I watched as I filled up all of the space around me. With every breath, I grew bigger (if that's even the right word.) Maybe with every breath I grew more porous, more empty, more surrendered, more open. I breathed until my whole heart was completely open. Don't you just love it when that happens...

From this place, this moving place of expansion, I prayed again: 'What would you have me do now?' And the very first idea that popped into my head was "Go back to your spot. Just go back to your spot and write." That sounded like a good idea. And so I did. I got in the car and drove to my coffee shop.

...And, magically enough, my spot was there waiting for me. A room full of people, a line out the door, and my spot was open.

So here I am, sitting, listening to The Staple Singers' I'll Take You There in the background, smiling and writing. I don't know what's in store for me tomorrow or the next day, or even in the next hour. But for now, this is where I'm supposed to be....

Letters to God, Part II (He's not done with me yet)

2010-09-26T13:51:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am today..sitting in Fido again..staring out the window and letting my hands show me what I need to say. This is my "Happy Place." For some reason, I find myself in these randomly blissful moments every week, always in this very same spot. Sitting on a bar stool, the words on the screen barely legible because of the glare from the sun flooding in through the window. Gazing out onto Hillsboro Road. Absorbing the sounds of clanking silverware, strangers' shoes clapping on the cold tile, chairs screeching as the table welcomes or bids farewell to yet another fleeting inhabitant, espresso machines buzzing. Straining to hear the selected songs from the Fido Mix of the day (which somehow always seem to involve The Beatles, Coldplay, Radiohead or The Clash.)
This spot is like a magnet for me, and somehow it's always magically here, open and waiting for me when I roll in.

Alright. Let's get down to business. Remember that email I sent to God a few weeks ago? Well, it seems that the answers keep rolling in, always unexpectedly, always perfectly perfect in their serendipity.
I was laid off last week. Now before you go jumping to assumptions, I want to say that this is not something to pitty me for. And there's no need to say "I'm so sorry for your loss." Being laid off, as it turns out, was an answer to my prayers.
***
August 31, 10:27am
"Dear God,

Please show me what I need to see. I am struggling and feel like I'm totally unraveling. I don't know if I want to stay on the path that I am on. I don't think I want to work at Cumberland Heights anymore. I don't even know if I want to keep working in the field I've chosen, I don't think I'm okay making the salary that I'm making, I can't stand not having the freedom to take time to travel... I'm tired of being alone so much... I feel like I have become the 9-5 drone that I swore I'd never become. I am not happy. I haven't been for a long time."

That's the beginning of the email that I 'sent' to God. I haven't been happy for awhile. I don't know if I want to stay in Nashville much longer. I have been miserable at my job. MISERABLE. I tried and tried to make it work. I tried taking suggestions, I tried letting go, I tried changing my attitude, I tried to suck it up and deal with the angst I felt everyday as I drove to work. Somewhere, deep down, I knew there was some lesson in the suffering, so I stayed. I cried to my Supervisor nearly every week because I was so unhappy there. She was amazing. Oh my god! She was the perfect combination of nurturing and kind, firm and no-nonsense. I'm not sure I would have been able to learn what I learned if it weren't for her presence there. She was an Angel. Truly. And magically enough, about a three weeks ago (a few days after I emailed God consequently) when I finally came out the other side of this lesson that I was moving through, she resigned. Seriously. I was sitting there in her office, thanking her and breathing sighs of relief for having made it through to the other side then Poof! She announced that she was leaving. Angles come and go, and always in perfect timing.

Anyway, what came over me was this calm feeling. A sense that no, I don't belong here long term. That my time at Cumberland Heights was over and that I had finished what needed to be done. (Alright actually, there was a little voice in my head that reminded me "Come on, now. You knew that this was only temporary. You knew it the day you took this job. Don't act so naive.") But I was still willing to stay and do my job until the time came for me to go somewhere else. I applied to other places. Far off places. Random facilities in Utah, Australia, England, Wyoming and Hickman County, TN. "All clinical positions have been filled at this time."

And then, out of nowhere, I got a call from The Ranch, the place that was my refuge for 4 years. The place I thought I'd never leave. The place that raised me. The place where I worked and learned how to grow up. The owner wanted me to interview for a position that I wouldn't have normally considered, because it didn't quite fit into my old ideals. But seeing how I've found out that what I thought I wanted to do doesn't actually make me happy, I decided to jump on in and apply. And so I did.

The day before I went into interview, I got laid off. Now if that's not impeccable timing I don't know what is! I'd been praying and praying and praying for God to just show me a sign, for him to show me what to do. Having your job taken away is a pretty clear sign, if you ask me. In more than one way, this phase of my Life is done and it's Time for change. It's Time for something New. When I got the news, my first autopilot reaction was "Oh no!" followed by habitual Fear and Panic. But I stopped myself. I am not a victim. I stopped the habit mid-neural-pathway and changed my attitude. "This is what you've wanted, sweetie," I told myself, "This is your answer." I let the gratitude that was waiting there under the surface wash over me. I breathed and surrendered to the relief. My whole body relaxed and I couldn't stop smiling. I was crying and smiling at the same time, in the middle of the airport; the two contradicting expressions evidence that we always have the power to change our minds, in every moment. And evidence that grief and joy are not really mutually exclusive anyway.

I find out tomorrow whether or not I got the job..and what this new chapter of my Life will look like.

Now there's a twist to this story.

Another option popped up completely out of the blue. I just came back from spending some time at my sister's house in Lewisburg West Virginia, helping her recuperate after another surgery. Now the interesting thing here is that when she left the hospital, she said that she wanted to just stay at home with our parents in Virginia while she got better. She said that she wasn't ready to go back to her house in Lewisburg...But again, magically enough, the Friday after her surgery, a bag of sunflower seeds that my mom had forgotten about decided to hatch what looked like hundreds of meal worms. That morning, the ceilings of three rooms of the house were crawling with persistently migrating worms, and they were quickly moving up the stair case and into the hallway, a few feet away from the door to my sisters room. Now Erin, in her delightfully direct, OCD-reinforced way, said "That's it. We're outta here. Gross. Get me out of here."

I must admit I was a little grossed out myself, but I also must confess that I knew that we needed to get back to Erin's house. I don't know why I knew it, or for what reason. But I secretly knew that the plans to stay in Virginia weren't quite right.

So, we packed up and were ready to hit the road by the time my mom got home from work that afternoon.

We look back at that morning fondly and say "The worms were God's way of saying Go Ahead, Get Moving. Get on back to West Virginia."

Erin's healing immediately progressed as soon as we got back to her apartment. It was uncanny. And my happiness arrived out of nowhere as soon as we pulled into her driveway. That was also uncanny. I felt like a kid in a candy store in Lewisburg. The history was palpable there. The air felt crisp and eery and quaint. There was something new and inspiring around every corner. I remember saying "This is the kind of place people come to write novels...maybe I should write one." I wouldn't have expected that a random town in the mountains of West Virginia would have brought about so much wonder and awe and good ole fashioned bliss, but it did. I felt cradled there. I felt peaceful there. I experienced all of the quiet delight there that I have been searching for for the past couple of years. Interesting, don't you think...It occurred to me while I was staying with her, hmmmm...maybe I should move in with her. Maybe I should stay with her for awhile until she's totally recovered. I like it here. I could see myself here, not forever, but for now. The wheels in my head started to turn. And then the day that I flew home, while I was in the airport actually, was when the call came in that I had been laid off at work.
Boom.
Chord to Nashville cut. Door open. Idea could become reality. Now I had options.

Tomorrow is D-Day. Decision Day. I'll find out tomorrow afternoon whether or not I got the job. The job that is miles away from what I have been doing for the past few years, the job that pays more than I've ever made, that will pay the bills, AND allow for travel. The job that will probably open up doors into a whole different career path, a faster pace, and much more mobility. I could even afford to fly to spend some weekends with my sister!

I decided to write this before I found anything out because I didn't want the outcome to influence my attitude about these events. See, it would have been really easy to write this tomorrow night (if I get hired) and say "Yay! Life is good, I got the job! Everything worked out!" But I am here to say that Life is good whether I get the job or not. My prayer was answered: I was shown what needed to be taken away, I was offered a reprieve from my day-to-day Life, I experienced honest gut-level happiness, I was given the opportunity to be of service, I traveled, and I was opened up to new paths that I might not have otherwise considered. I am so grateful. I am in such awe at how delightfully odd God's plan is. I'll have a good story to tell either way, you see.

1) I got laid off on Wednesday. Interviewed for another job on Thursday. And got a new, improved job by Monday. I'm movin to the country.

2) I got laid off. This chapter of my Life is finished and it's time to write the next one. I don't quite know what I want to do long term, so for now, I'm moving to Lewisburg, West Virginia. My sister needs me and I would love a change of scenery.
OR
3) Who knows what's going to happen next.

Whatever happens, my Life is about to change. Giddy-up!

At the Intersection of Wild and Wonderful

2010-09-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

I'm in Lewisburg,in the mountains of West Virginia right now. This town is so lovely!

It's the perfect combination of eery and intriguing and poetic. Something happens when you get up into the mountains. It's palpable. There's a comforting mystique that envelops everything up here. It's like the Mountains keep watch over you, nestling you and your secrets in their arms. There's history lurking in every wall, in every brick that keeps its' maker immortal. It's almost as if the town has two lives, the Seen and the Unseen. This town, the landscape, the buildings, the cemeteries- they're alive, but they're all breathing behind the veil of Time. Everything was built in the 1700 or 1800's, and the town still stands as it did back then. Coming here feels like you're traveling back in time. It's so beautiful. It's one of the few places that has managed to maintain it's integrity despite the mad, mad modern world.

As I walked around town last night, and I could almost hear the buildings chuckling, silently and omnipotently, knowing that their stories will live on despite the new layers of paint and Progress. It's like the buildings know a secret, like they know something about being Timeless and unflagging, and they find it amusing to watch the fleeting changes that modern life boasts of. You can see the Old underneath the New. You can feel the Past pulsing underneath the Present. Whenever I see this mis-match, this layering of two worlds, something comes over me and I get wild with excitement.The rift between the superficial and what lies beneath the surface is where I find the greatest inspiration. It's such a magical place, this In-Between space, if you can manage to find it.

Last night I fell asleep watching shadows dancing on my curtains. There are remnants of Lives-Already-Lived everywhere. Ghosts of Christmas Past. Ghosts of Lovers Lost. I think everyone has their own kind of ghosts, evidence of last year's story written on their faces. There's always something behind people's eyes that tell the tales they're hiding. Something in the careworn curves of their faces that give their secret lives away. I wonder what kind of stories I give away without even knowing it. I wonder what kind of secrets my own eyes, and my own words betray.
***

The town is just an Exploration waiting to happen. I'm so happy here. It's literally at the intersection of wild and wonderful. There's something to uncover in every direction. Cemeteries, Ghost Towns, underground caverns, lavish hotels, antebellum mansions, log cabins, beautiful farmland..I've been trying to balance Explorer Mode with Regular Brooke Mode since I've been here. When I get into Explorer Mode (yes, it's an entirely different mode) I can't help but wonder about the stories underneath the surface. My camera becomes the lens through which I navigate all the wonders I see in the world. I can't help but wonder about the people that wandered the halls before me, or the dreams that were dreamt, or the secrets that people kept in the closet that I've opened. It's like this open space that I put myself in, this perfectly perceptive mind set. I want to catch everything and not miss anything. I guess it's almost like I'm hunting, chasing and waiting at the same time. It's heavenly.

Yesterday I was at hotel that was built in the 1700's. It's been renovated and revamped and redecorated so many times you'd think it would have trouble breathing. My favorite part about that hotel was the fact that I could wander the halls and imagine what it would have been like during it's hay-day. I feel like every building has it own favorite Time period. A time that it remembers best, or a time that filled it with the most Life. When I visit, I let the building show me what it wants me to see. I let it tell me it's story, the way it wants to tell it, not the way some tourist would have me hear it.
I am always so fascinated at what I find around every corner, and how something can totally transform if I just look at it from a different angle. Something that might seem ordinary or trite, can magically change into something so interesting and captivating if I look at it the right way. Isn't that the way it goes? When you change your point of view, you change your world.

Today I wandered around what looked like a ghost town. An old railroad station and the old shops sprinkled along what used to be a lifeline. Abandonned places have another element that makes me go crazy: Mother Nature and Father Time come together to breathe a whole new Life into these places. There's something wildly beautiful about the energy of decay and abandon. It makes me giddy.

So it seems that this quaint little trip has offered me some much needed Adventure. I was secretly hoping that I would discover strange beauty here. Somewhere deep down I knew that getting away was just what I needed. Looks like my wish was granted. I feel so much more like myself. I changed my point of view, and it changed my world.

***
As I was driving here last Friday, I couldn't help but notice the Welcome Center sign: 'West Virginia, wild and wonderful.' It's true, you know. They're on to something here in Appalachia. I believe I've got some more exploring to do...

From Warlocks to Warhol...

2010-09-15T15:47:00.000-07:00

Life really does reflect what all those wise, insightful people have said before me: "Rise to the occasion." "Be with what is, then more will be revealed."

That email that I sent to God last week continues to get answered..Right now it seems that I've been asked to look at the idea of purpose, and how my well-being is directly connected to feeling/lacking a sense of purpose. When I wrote to God I sort of opened my heart up and asked a bunch of questions that have been plaguing me. One of these questions had to do with the hopelessness that often envelops me.
Well, once again, I never would have anticipated what happened, nor would I have intentionally added it to this month's repetoir. But a very specific purpose laid itself out in front of me pretty clearly. I am home in Virginia right now, taking care of my little sister. She had brain surgery a couple of months ago, and a complication arose last week that we weren't expecting. And so, I flew home yesterday. I'm not happy about the circumstances, but I am happy to be able to help. And something else has come out of all of this: I feel useful and purposeful. Like I know what I am here for, right now, and that makes me feel really good.

The moment that I found out about her surgery, I starting meditating for her. I really did feel like something in me felt summoned to help, felt called to a kind of spiritual duty, like a big rolling wave that kept growing. I started making phone calls and asked others to meditate with me. During her surgery, a healer in California and I were sending her all the love and healing in our hearts. I felt her go into the OR and I felt her go under anesthesia. Whether you believe in this or not, I know that I was holding space for my sister that day, and I truly believe that I was able to help from 500 miles away.

Monday I got on a plane and came home to be with my family and mostly to be with my sister. I know that I'm here to wash her hair, and watch cartoons beside her, and make her lunch and boil the water for her tea and take her for walks in the afternoon. And I know that I am here to clean her house this weekend, and help her get ready to go back to school next week. I know that I'll drive her to school and wash her dishes and make life a little easier for her. And then, I'll fly home to Nashville.
The idea that Life calls me to rise to the moment's purpose is starting to grow on me, and it's slowly taking the place of the old idea that I have one, grand purpose in Life.
***
I'm reading a book called "The Magicians" right now. It's fantastic so far. It's sort of an adult's version of Harry Potter, a little more scandall, a little more angst and a little more sex. I just finished "Eat. Pray. Love" and then I think "Popism- Warhol's 60's" is up next. Followed by a nice dose of "Buddha's Brain." (I like to mix it up.)
Anyway, as I was reading this magnificent little darling of a novel, I came across this sentence:

"He had an air of magnificent melancholy sophistication, as if his proper place were elsewhere, somewhere infinitely more compelling, and he'd been confined to his present setting by some grotesque divine oversight, which he tolerated with as much good humor as could be expected."

Now, that, my friends, could very well just sum it all up. That sentence wraps up the sentiment that I've had about my place in this world perfectly. When I read that I thought, "Good grief. I don't think I've read anything that I can relate to more than that." Seriously. I was sitting in a coffee shop reading that and I wish I would have had a picture of my facial expression as I stumbled across such a precisely autobiographical statement. I think I may have had one of those shudder-followed-by-furrowed-brow-and-head-cocking moments. You know the kind I'm talking about!
Anyway, that sentence for whatever reason, helped me put things into perspective a little. I have always sort of felt like I was living life on the margins, always on the outside looking in. I've only had fleeting moments of believing that I "belonged."And have always attempted to remedy my shifty sense of belonging by creating a thin layer of fantasy and threading it through everything that I do. My thoughts, my goals, my ideals have usually been run through with a faint flavor of the fantastical. I guess I figured if I couldn't find a place in this world, that I would at least create a way to help me tolerate the melancholy.
Now, I'm not so much judging myself for that as just calling myself out on it. I've been layering a pseudo-fantasy over reality since I was old enough to know that I was thinking. I didn't do it to escape, I didn't do it because life was terribly shitty or because I have some pathological issue...The truth is that I just remember feeling bored. From a really young age. Bored and too smart for my own good. (Hey, I can say that, it's my blog.) Spinning reality into something just a little bit more intriguing just makes life more fun. (I bet none of you knew that I tried to fake my own death when I was in Kindergarden..) My mind wanted something else to do than play with THIS moment, it also wanted to play with THAT moment, turn it around, spin it on its head and then see what would happen. I was always trying to give myself something to do. Embarrassing as this is, I'm going to tell you: I was already asking for EXTRA homework in 1st grade. My mom says I skipped crawling altogether and just started walking. See, always a little ahead of myself :)

Anyway, the point I'm gettig to is that, because I was learning to play with reality when I was little, my imagination blossomed as a result. And I learned very quickly how to dart from one thread of interpretation to another; like all children I think, I thrived in the land of Make Believe. And often even my mechanism of remembering reflects that. When I look at a picture from my childhood, I'll remember both layers of worlds I was participating in. I'll remember the real world game I was playing, and the thought sequences of the other layers of reality that I was playing with as well. The gift that my imagination has given to me is amazing. It's getting a bit hard to explain, but I can dip in and out of experiences, without ever losing sight of what's in front of me. I guess that means that I can be in this moment fully, and switch gears completely without missing a beat. And so as an adult, I can really be living multidimensionally, but never lose sight of the moment I'm in. Get it? Good :)
I don't know how I've managed to stay grounded in this reality, but keep my head floating around in others. It feels kind of like this: I get settled in the moment and surrender, and then poof! a little door opens. It leads me to the next task. I accept this task, get grounded in it, I finish and two other doors open, and I go down both at the same time. Then some of me keeps walking down the interesting corridor, while another part of me returns to the door, walks back through it and sees another hallway to meander down. I can be with what is, and then more gets revealed...It's kind of like Alice in Wonderland without the talking catepillar. :)

Now, the obvious drawback to this (I'm kind of assuming you do the same thing in your head, or at least have stumbled upon what I'm describing...) is that I really am not happy living in a linear way. I've tried to, really hard. I've tried to set one path and follow it and achieve the end result. And once I get there, I get really depressed. I tried pursuing one career path, tried limiting myself to one 'way' to one 'version' of Brooke that I thought was 'right...' None of that worked for me. It just doesn't suit me. I realized sometime last year that there's a restlessness that pulses within me if I'm not activated in lots of directions. I'm pretty sure that what's last years horrible depression was about: in my heart I was just bored and sad that I wasn't really expressing who I really am. What I discovered last year was that I needed to wake myself up again. ALL of MYSELF. The Dancer, the Rebel, the Anarchist, the Conventional Girl, the Mother, the Lover, the Intellectual, the Wild One, the Shy One, the Turbo Bitch, the Fighter, the Guardian, the Reasonable Adult, the Playful Child, the Writer, the Counselor, the Big Sister, the Baby, the Weirdo, the Genius, the Leader, the Goofball, the Flower Child, the Healer, the Teacher, the Punk, the Hippy, the list goes on.

See I guess you could say that I've compensated for the tendancy towards boredom and understimulation by having created so many outlets for myself. It's not really like I have a choice in the matter-- the channels sort of have to be there, otherwise I feel stuck and frustrated and dismal. What ends up happening is that one door calls on me for a little while, I open it, spend some time there and then pick up the keys to another door. And then I'll come back to it, or find myself having walked through a corridor and am now in a totally different place altogether. The closest I've come to experiencing this in real time is when I was exploring an abandonned 'Asylum' (sorry, I couldn't resist that word) in Michigan last year. Go through one door and bam! you see the colors and the room introduces itself to you..then you wind up opening another door and now you're in a totally different landscape with different a personality..wander down this hallway, all the while picking up on the energy that Time has left behind..find your way back down another hallway where you stumble across a clue about the lives of the patients whose lives frittered away between the walls, which will sometimes lead you back exactly where you started, and sometimes lead you to a new world of wonder and intrigue altogether.

It doesn't feel scattered and it doesn't feel frenzied, this dance that I do. It feels fluid. It feels more like I'm the prima-ballerina on a stage full of suitors. I do the choreography with one person for 16 counts, then I'm twirled to the next person where I stay for 24 counts, leaping to the next man for 16 counts and ending up being lifted in the air by someone else. It feels seemless and lovely. Living like this feels like Home. And honestly, I'm discovering that I am happiest when I'm in motion like this. When there's an avenue for every part of me to express itself. There's something about the unpredictable fluidity that makes me feel totally serene. I think I keep trying to force the idea that I've got to find my one big, end-all-be-all purpose in Life, but I keep realizing over and over again that that's just not the way things work for me.

Life feels like a big sleeping cat. One minute it's lying there next to you purring, and the next minute, as if from out of nowhere, it's pouncing .

Letters to God, or conversations with myself..

2010-09-07T13:00:00.000-07:00

I decided to post an ongoing dialogue that I've been having with myself, otherwise known as an argument with God. The infamous What-Does-It-All-Mean conversation. One day last week, when I was feeling particularly restless and grouchy and frustrated by reality (imagine that), I thought I should open this conversation up to the infinite so that all the other possible points of view could be considered. You know, kinda like putting a call on speaker phone, or posting something onto a social network, waiting for the comments. Well, that's what I decided to do with this ongoing query of mine.
I decided that I would email God, asking for help over the ethers, and wait for the Answers to show up in whatever forms that they wanted to take. So here's the email, followed by the various ways that I was answered.

~August 31, 10:27am
Dear God,
Please show me what I need to see. I am struggling and feel like I'm totally unraveling. I don't know if I want to stay on the path that I am on. I don't know if I want to keep working in the field I've chosen, I don't think I'm okay making the salary that I'm making, I can't stand not having the freedom to take time to travel... I'm tired of being alone so much. And I feel kind of like a sell-out for having jumped on the Big Hampster Wheel. I feel like I have become the 9-5 drone that I swore I'd never become. I feel like Time is slipping away from me, like Life is slipping away from me. Or that I just don't get things in a way that allows me to live life gracefully or gratefully like some people.

How am I supposed to keep going, every day, day after day, knowing that it's all going to end someday, knowing that I'm going to die, that everything I've ever known and loved is going to die or change. I can't bear this. Why did you create things this way? It seems so fucking depressing! Why did you give us time to live if you're only going to take it away from us eventually? I don't understand. It seems pretty cruel to me. I'm so mad at you.

I don't like getting older. And I'm not even sure I like being wiser either. What's the point? What good does it even do, to know truth or see truth. I'm still depressed. It's an all-be-it odd kind of depression that still avails countless moments of bliss and wonder and awe. More like an aching sorrow that's underneath the surface all of the time. Moments of extreme frustration cause me to fall into it on an embarrassingly regular basis, and I'll swim around in it and wind up in tears because I feel like I'll never truly escape its current. All I've got is a bunch of awareness that seems overwhelming to bare. I see straight into the heart of things, straight into the heart of people, into what they're really feeling. And quite frankly, it's a little overwhelming to know all that information.

I dont' want to live like this anymore but I don't know what the solution is. Is there a solution?

Can you PLEASE show me what I'm supposed to be doing? Could you show me what I'm supposed to do with myself, with all this awareness that I seem to have. I feel lost. I think I've felt lost for a long time and just didn't want to admit that or allow it to settle in. I felt lost in Highschool, and in college, after college..And I'm pretty sure that all of that therapy/working a spiritual program may have just been a temporary bandaid to the gut feeling that I feel like a failure. That I feel hopeless and bored and without purpose. Do I have a purpose? Will purpose cure this hopelessness? I have so many questions...I don't want to sound whiny, but enough is enough. I've been carrying this around for decades it seems like, and I need someone to step in and tell me what to do. I need some relief, please.

Is this really all there is? Does the searching ever end? Will I ever be happy? Will I ever feel like I don't have to keep searching? Will I ever find the thing that makes me feel like I can just stop and rest and be okay? Because, really, that's what I want. I want to feel okay.

(Now. As the Sept. 7th Brooke talking, I must interject for a moment here. It's all much clearer to me today. And as I was just re-reading, the words that I wanted to tell myself were: Just be still. Stop looking. Enough with the constant chasing. You're wearing yourself out. The thing that you're looking for isn't out there, sweet girl, because the thing you're looking for isn't outside of you at all. It's all there, within You. If you'd just sit still long enough, and stop thinking that IT is out there, you'll find the relief you're looking for.)

~August 31, 10:57am
Right after I 'sent' the email, (I didn't know God's address so I just sent it to myself. Read into that what you will) I sat quietly and opened my mind. I softened my tension and let stillness wash over me. These are the words I heard: BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD.

~Sept. 1, around 9:30pm
I was on the way to get some ice-cream, riding in the car with a friend of mine who had taken a trip down Mushroom Lane earlier in the week. I kept asking him about this trip he'd had, and what he had seen. I was extra curious about it, for some reason. This is what he told me:
"Everything's connected. It's like a tapestry. Everything happens just the way it's supposed to happen. It's all okay."
It wasn't WHAT he said that was so profound. I've heard what he said a million times before. It was something about the WAY that he said these things. The way he appeared to just say them, matter-of-factly, as if he had complete Faith in what he was saying. The fact that I could tell that he truly believed what he said and what he had 'seen,' eased my anxiety immediately. Like his Trust spilled over onto me, and eased my worried mind.

~Sept. 3, 2:37am
I sent out a message to this friend of mine to say 'Thanks.' To tell him thanks for saying exactly what he said when he said it. And, insightful little darling that he is, he responded by quoting something that he had written during a different trip down Mushroom Lane:
"Sometimes the hardest thing to accept is that everything's really okay."

~Sept. 6, 10:45am
I asked a mentor of mine, who is 29 years my senior, "Is there anything that you know now that you wish you would have known back when you were my age?"
Her response to me: "Don't fight getting old. Don't fight the way things are. Don't spend so much time mourning your own mortality. Better to embrace it all. The time that you think is slipping away from you is actually slipping away because you're digging your heels into the sand. Stop fighting. It saves time, and energy. You'll wind up coming to realize that everything's okay when you're 50 anyway, you might as well just believe it now."

~Sept. 4, 11:30am
I was leading a group for my patients and decided to participate in the assignment I had given to them. I lead them all outside, into the grass, where they sat and wrote letters from God. I asked them write a letter to themselves from what they thought God's perspective about them might be. A sort of 'What would God have to say to you in this moment, right now' assignment. And from a comfy, white rocking chair, this is the letter that I channeled:

"Are you starting to get it yet? You're so funny with your questions and your doubts. How much more proof do you need that everything is okay. That everything just naturally, implicitly works itself out. I'll tell you a secret that most people don't know: it's programmed into you, this innate ability to return to peace, to return to Love, to resolve yourselves. You can't escape your love for yourself, sweetheart!
Everything settles into itself, eventually. Everything moves toward equilibrium, towards the harmonic note. Everything tunes itself to the pitch that the Universe plucks. Can't you see that, honey?
You are magnificent. You are one of my greatest creations.
You humans are so funny. You are one of the luckiest, most blessed beings in the World, and yet you struggle the most. But even your struggle is endearing. Even your confusion is adorable. You ARE part of the Great Plan, the Divine Symphony. Believe it or not, it's the Truth.
My Darling
My Dear
My Preciosa (yes, sometimes God talks to me in Spanish)
You are such a light. Such a radiant extension of Love. Turn the next corner and Faith will come to you, just as it always has.

~Sept. 4, 11:50am

A co-worker of mine said "Wow, you're glowing. What just happened?"

~Sept. 4, 11:55am
One of the patients had been laying on the ground, resting with her cheek on her hand. She was wearing a bracelet with a medallion in the shape of a peace sign. She had just finished writing her letter and when she got up, she had a mark in the shape of the peace sign on her cheek. She couldn't stop smiling.

~Sept. 5, lunch time
Two dear friends of mine said this to me over lunch:
"Brooklyn. Just be okay with being okay."

*****

And there it is.

The Ripple Effect

2010-08-30T14:11:00.000-07:00

I've discovered something on my lazy days off. I've been making a habit out of going for a swim in the evenings, when no one else is around. And I've discovered a really incredible moment: The water is completely still, I walk down the steps into the pool, softly and quietly, as if there's some phantom I'm trying not to disturb. I sink down onto the bottom step so that the tip of my nose barely skims the surface of the water. And I look out over the still water, very careful not to disturb the stillness. And there it is: the magic moment. For just a moment, nothing moves and the water is quiet, and for a moment the illusion is that I am one with and master of the stillness. I can change the course of everything in that pool whenever I want, just by moving, just by flinching my fingers. If I kick my feet, the disturbance travels in every direction and suddenly there's water flying up my nose. If I flap my arms, the wave of energy moves out from me like a barge pushing through the current of the ocean.
The reason why this feels like such a magic moment for me? It reminds me every single time that I do actually effect things around me. I know this might sound so simple, but it's pretty profound to me.
As soon as I cut through the water, slicing through the stillness with my hands, the water is a flutter with movement and waves and ripples and clapping sounds. When I move, the wave pushes off me and flies through the whole pool. The ripple effect. It makes me remember that I do in fact have a profound effect on my environment. The slightest flicker of a toe creates a wave, that moves the leaf that floats 30 feet away from me. My breath creates a wave that sends the wasp that's resting on the water into a bit of a tizzy, and he flies away, off into the world to do his waspy duty. My heart beat creates a ripple that travels the entire length of the pool, and actually comes back to me, so faint and almost imperceptable at this point that it feels like a soft nudge from the wind.
Now why in the world would I begin a blog this way? Well, I realized something in this magic moment today: See, I have this pesky belief that I don't really matter. That what I do or say doesn't make any difference to anyone or anything. That I'm too small to really make a difference. And most of the time, this belief spins me into a defeated pile of hopelessness. I'll admit that I spend an embarrassing amount of mental energy brooding over the idea that nothing I do really matters. That, in the end, everything changes, everything dies and the planets going to get swallowed up by the sun anyway so what's the point. But no matter how much I believe that I don't matter, that what I do doesn't really have an effect on people or make a difference in the world, I can't change the reflection of Truth that's staring me right in the face as I sit in the pool.

The truth is that everything I do--everything you do--creates a ripple. And to be honest, that makes me feel a little less hopeless than before.
***
This occurred to me today: The thing you seek is not the answer to your seeking; that thing is simply the perpetual fuel that powers a never-ending search.
See, I don't have to seek validation for making some sort of a dent in the world, I AM the validation. The sheer fact that I am alive means that I am effecting the earth. The fact that I move and breathe and love is all that I need to know, really. The fact that you are here, on this earth, breathing, thinking, speaking and touching the lives of those around you is evidence enough that you are making a difference. You walk the street, and as you push through the particles in the air, you send a wave through the air that interracts with dozens of other people, with dozens of other waves that they're creating. Get it? You don't have to DO anything special to create an effect. Now, you do get to chose what kind of a effect you want to make, though. You do get to chose the quality of energy that you're sending out there to fly around among the rest of us. Think about it--when you're angry, you ARE sending that out there and that vibration DOES fly through the air and bump up against someone or something, in the same way that the waves in a pool bump up against the walls, the bugs, the floating debris, the flapping filter covers. And when you're in love, you ARE sending that energy out there, to flit around, and dance with everything it comes in contact with.

***
All I did was show up to the pool, with my awareness, my curiosity, and my all-consuming Love for watching-what-happens-around-me and BAM! the truth showed up to meet me.
So yay Physics, you dear friend. You've proven my worrysome mind wrong again. I just love it when that happens.

If Einstein were alive, I think I'd ask him to have coffee with me..

2010-08-25T15:12:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I think about what it would be like if the laws of the Universe were different, if Time behaved in a different way. I wonder if an alternate reality exists where people can actually go back in Time and change things. I wonder if, in that place, people could go back to points from the past and relive moments, or relive relationships or relive a memory from childhood.
(I know, I know—Brooke where do you come up with this stuff? I’m telling you- I think about these things all of the time.)

I was curled up on top of the arm of my loveseat last night, (yes, I like to sit in unconventional places) staring out my window, and I had a thought: “Huh. I’m never going to experience my childhood again.” Now that may seem quite obvious, but think about how arbitrary that is. Think about how bizarre it is to only travel forward in Time, really. It's actually very odd, this business of only being able to experience an event ONE TIME, isn't it? We can go backwards in our minds and remember something, but we only get one chance to experience that particular moment, and then we move on. WEIRD. (I sound stoned don't I? Ha. No, no, no. I'm telling you, this is just a day in the life of my mind.)

It’s weird, when you really think about it, that you do something once and can’t go back and re-visit that moment again. We’re just so used to it as reality that we don’t bother to question it or wonder if it might be another way.

How did I come to this thought? Well, as I was hanging out on my love seat, munching on iced gingersnaps, my mind drifted back (as if often does) to a moment when I was 8 or 9, and I was on a horse, out in the front field of Oakland Heights, the stable I used to ride for. But I had floated back as an observer, watching myself ride the horse out in the front field. I noticed how happy I was and how simple life was in that moment. And well, how simple Life is in general when you’re 9. And so, in accordance with the rules of ‘remembering,’ I noticed that part of my mind was watching the memory while another part of my mind was still sitting there, on the arm of my Loveseat, watching the wind dance with the trees as I stared out the window. Some people might just call this Daydreaming, but it’s more like TwoTiming—being able to be in two Times at once.

And I thought “I can go back to the memory in my mind, but I can’t actually go back to the physical moment when it happened. That IS SO WEIRD.”

Seriously. That’s what occurred to me.

My little neurons will fire as if I’m reliving that moment, but it doesn’t actually exist anymore. I wonder if Time behaves this way everywhere. I wonder if there is a place whose Time bends around like a pretzel, where you can move in and out of moments as you wish. And then I wonder if it’s just the human brain that creates this sense of Time. Is Time happening the same way to a dog or a buffalo or an ant? And then I wonder if it’s just the Perceiver who has got control of the perception of Time, or if Time behaves the same way, no matter who’s watching it. (Have I lost you yet?)

And then...well, then I just think about something David Bowie said:

"Time may change me
But I can't trace time

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same.."

Am I floating through the days? Or are the days actually floating through me?
I wonder…..

My Top 40

2010-08-18T17:37:00.000-07:00

Something happens when you turn 30...it's hard to put into words but it's definitely palpable. I see Time differently. I see the flow of Life differently. I am all of a sudden aware that I am mortal, that I will die someday like everyone else before me, and that there's nothing I can do about the aging process. I NEVER thought about these things in my 20's. Not really. In my 20's I was only looking forward, wondering what kind of Life I would create for myself, imagining the limitless possibility. I was so completely optimistic, and hopeful and relentlessly enthusiastic. I was aggressive in my persuit of my dreams and wildly naive. Now, I've found that there's a tangible wisdom that smoothes the edges and softens my mind. There's a kind of Grace that's stepped in, and I find that this Grace guides me. The wild 20 year old is still there, propelling me, driving my motivation, advocating for change and pushing me to move past my old ideas of 'normal,' but now there's this soft, lovely energy too. This graceful, fluid, mindful twirling energy that invites me to see things through the eyes of a Woman, the eyes of a Mother, the eyes of Wisdom and the eyes of Faith and Trust. There's an inner knowing that comes with experience, a calmness that comes from having made so many mistakes and realized everything is still just as it should be, an intuition that comes with living through Time, and an ineffable compassion that weaves through my spirit like a loving thread. I've come to know a Stillness that's there, always behind and underneath the Movement. It's pretty damn cool. Life is so full of surprises.
So, I decided to write down some of the nuggets of Truth that I've stumbled upon along my journey, some of the Lessons that Life has offerred me. Here's what my 31 years have come up with:

1) Everything changes. Accept it now and you’ll be better off.

2) Death is part of Life.

3) You can’t escape your destiny…it will always find you.

4) Be bold. Be daring. Be eccentric. Now.

5) Don’t save things for a special occasion. Wear the pretty dress, buy the fancy sheets, eat the expensive chocolate and surprise your honey with the fancy lingerie today.

6) Always say “Yes!” when Life asks you to do something. And if you can't say "Yes!" then at least you can say "I am willing."

7) You don’t get to re-live your childhood, but you can recreate your childlike wonder anytime you want.

8) Take care of your body, no one else is going to.

9) Smile more often.

10) Try to see things from someone else’s point of view…and if you don’t, it’s okay because Life will usually throw something at you that makes you see yourself through their eyes way anyway.

11) You are in charge of you own happiness. Generate your own joy.

12) What other people think about you is none of your business.

13) In the end, the only thing that really matters is that you loved. So love as much and as many as you can.

14) Don’t waste time judging. You’re only cheating yourself when you do.

15) Don’t obsess about why things are the way they are—just notice what you notice and participate anyway.

16) When you rebel against the system..the system still wins. When you accept it and navigate it gracefully, everybody wins.

17) Your body will always tell you when you’re hurting yourself…even when you don’t believe you are.

18) Anxiety is one of my greatest gifts: it tells me that I need to go back to the drawing board and do something different.

19) Depression is my body’s way of saying “Please stop doing what you’re doing. It’s not working.”

20) That “spark” at the beginning of a relationship is actually a “red alert!” that I mis-interpretted.

21) Wild, all-consuming intensity at the beginning of a relationship is actually a dead give away that someone is emotionally unstable and that you should run away..fast.

22) Get outside everyday. There are miracles happening everywhere.

23) Nature is the greatest Teacher I’ve ever had.

24) My parents really were doing their best, all of the time.

25) Clear the wreckage of your past. Then move on. Life wants you to live fully in this moment, don't linger in the ones that have already passed by.

26) Be in relationship with what is, not with what might be.

27) If a relationship has to be a secret, you probably shouldn’t be in it.

28) If you feel ashamed to do something, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.

29) God has no opinions, and supports you completely. So, if you focus on how unhappy you are, God will keep giving you unhappiness to focus on.

30) Respect the rules of the game, but don’t believe in them.

31) Be kind. To everyone. All of the time. Why not?

32) Don’t wait for the money to show up before you take that trip, go on that vacation, or start that adventure you’ve always dreamed about. Just do it. The money always shows up later.

33) I think that my kitty cats know how to live Life better than I do—I learn a lot from watching them.

34) Celebrate your body, don’t be ashamed of it. Celebrate your mind, don’t be scared of it. Cultivate your spirit, it IS a force to be reckoned with.

35) You are the one that thinks your thoughts—don’t let your thoughts think you.

36) Discipline your mind or it will control you.

37) The lessons always come when you let go.

38) Beauty is everywhere.

39) You can make something that seems ordinary into something extraordinary simply by changing the way you see it.

40) Listen to your elders—you’ll wind up learning the same lessons they did anyway, so save yourself some time and make the changes now.

It takes time for Time to work its magic...

2010-08-10T16:27:00.000-07:00

Time is a strange thing. Love over the context of Time is an even stranger thing.

I was at dinner last night with a dear friend of mine, and we were talking about old relationships, and how differently we’re able to see our X’s now that so much time has passed. I shared about how I had gotten to spend some time with my very first Love the other day and I noticed how much genuine compassion was there. I noticed how gentle and lovely our afternoon was, and how much I simply adored him--without any strings attached, without any expectation, without wanting anything more than the friendship that the moment was offering. I was able to appreciate his company completely. I remember remembering what I once felt towards him, and a part of me sort of sighed with a hint of sadness because that era was over. There was a kind of bittersweet quality to the day--what was once there between us was done, but there was something new there now- something mature and unconditional and grounded was there in it's place. It felt like total acceptance. It felt like a life-long friendship was born.

And I remembered something: Despite all the efforts to be loving and patient and kind while I was IN that relationship, I always fell short and sometimes ended up acting from a place of fear or resentment or anger. It’s only now, when I’m OUT of the relationship, that I’ve been able to treat this person with total respect and compassion. It’s so strange, that the person I strived to be while I was in a relationship then, is who I’ve become in relation to him now. I can honestly say that I want him to be happy. I have so much more compassion and love and admiration towards him now, as my dear friend, than I was able to have when I claimed to “be in love with” him. Isn’t that interesting…..

The difference? Well, I have no expectations of him today. I’m not relying on him to fill my needs or make me happy or be responsible for my feelings. Time has given me the gift of Letting Go. And in letting go of the feelings or the complaints or the resentments, I’ve actually allowed unconditional love to flow in. It’s so ironic.

And to be perfectly honest, I feel this way about all of my X's...now that Time has passed. Perhaps, that's what the real lesson in Love has been. Perhaps I wasn’t able to see clearly until the relationships were over; perhaps I haven't been able to learn ‘how to love’ until after a relationship has run its' course. The lesson may just have come in letting go. Perhaps this awareness that's coming through right now is the lesson..the lesson that's taken me about 10 years worth of relationships to learn. See, I believe that I was meant to try really hard, flail around, trip and fall, pick myself up and then tripall over again until I finally let go and was able to conceive of things in a different way. Maybe it's all part of the plan: to kick and scream and fight for 10 years until I finally get it. (Yep, it's getting profound now.) Perhaps the True Love actually showed up years later, when I was able to let them be who they are and stop trying to make them what I wanted them to be. Life is so spectacularly odd and whimsically wise.

(Now if I can only manage to bring this ablility into the present moment in my next relationship!) It’s so difficult to suspend the expectations, the dreams, the need for control. Even when I think I’ve let go, I usually haven’t completely—I’ve usually hung onto something, some shread of fear or insecurity or doubt. I really do try so hard to do the right thing, but I find that I still cling to old habits like a safety net sometimes. I still find that I say things to try to control a situation, or toss verbal bait out there in hopes that he'll bite, or find myself trying to be charming in an attempt to win someone over. Well, I’m setting the intention now (do you hear me, Universe?) ~~Please help me to be myself, and help me let them be themselves too. Let me love them just as they are.

It's funny, this business of Time. They say Time heals all wounds...I'm beginning to think 'they' might be onto something. Maybe Time is what passes in order for us to forget who we wanted a person to be, so that we can remember to see them as they really are..and love them no matter what. Maybe Time helps us let go of the idea we had about someone, so that the truth can shine through. Time melts the expectation, it softens the grip we used to have on our old ideals, and makes way for something new and fresh and authentic to grow.

It takes time for Time to work its' magic...

The Loves of My Life

2010-07-29T14:26:00.000-07:00

Last night, before I fell asleep, I was thinking about the idea of "The Love of Your Life.” You know, the idea that there's ONE person meant for you..ONE person, the end all-be all, the Knight in Shining Armor that rides in on white horse and sweeps you off your feet. I used to think of it as the Man of my Dreams, as "The One." And I would always assume that since none of my relationships have worked out, that I must not have met "The One" yet. I assumed that "The Love of My Life" must be someone who’s somewhere out there, waiting for me.
And then last night something crossed my mind: If I really look at my life, REALLY look at it, really take a look into my past..then it’s seems that there are actually several men that I can look back and call The Loves of My Life. I have actually been blessed with so many Great Loves—and in reality, I have actually been SO lucky to have experienced all that I have experienced-- the romance, the hurt, the confusion, the joy, the angst, the arguments, the tears and the tenderness.
What occurred to me is that there isn’t any way to un-love someone. Not really. There can be pain and hurt when the person leaves or the relationship ends, but I have never been able to un-love someone who I was once in love with. In time, the anger fades away, the hurt and the pain dissolve, and now when I look back I am full of gratitude for everything that happened, and for everything that they taught me! For the first time, I can look back at ALL of my old relationships and every single one of them seems like a gift. It makes me smile to remember. What’s left to say, after everything else fades away, is Thank You. So here I am, letting the truth come through. Here's what I'd say today:

~To My First Great Love, my Soul Mate~
You have come in and out of my life so many times. You pop up when I least expect you, but you always seem to know exactly when I need you. I think I may have inadvertently sent for you: in the fall of 2001 I remember shouting out in a drunken haze “I want to know what Love is like. I want the love and heartbreak, and everything that comes with them!” You showed up about a month later. So I guess it’s true: be careful what you wish for.
You show up when there’s a life lesson I need to learn. You’re like the Cupid of Awareness: you always seem to aim right at some issue inside of me that I really need to look at. You bring my insecurity into the light by inviting me into the shadows of your life. I respect you and the way you see the world. We never stay together for very long, but the lessons that come through our meetings have been the most profound of them all. Sometimes it feels like God just drops you down into my life, keeps you around long enough for us both to learn what we need to learn, and then we have to move on. You will always be a part of my life and I think you’ll always be a part of me. You have been one of my greatest teachers. For the rest of my Life, you'll be that friend who can look at me and know exactly what's going on without having to say a word. We're connected in a way that transcends space and time. You're like my antithesis and my soul mate. We're complete opposites, but one in the same. I love you, always have, always will.

~To My Second Great Love, my Angel
You were so precious! I was so in love with you. We were so in love with each other. You were the first man to ever say that he loved me back. I had fallen in love before you came along, but I never known what it felt like to be truly loved in return. You showed me that Love could be magical and effortless and sweet and kind. You showed me that Love could be playful and full of wildness and wonder. You were like my play mate, and my soul mate, my lover and my best friend all wrapped up in a bandana and a pair of navy blue raver pants. I remember feeling like the luckiest girl in the whole world to get to be your girlfriend…You opened my heart up, when I thought it would stay closed. You taught me how to have compassion, how to be patient, and how to know when enough is enough. We hurt each other a lot, but in so many ways you saved me. You were my Angel. And I am so grateful that you came into my life.

~To My Third Great Love, my Sweetheart
You were the hardest to get over. It took me almost 2 years to get over you. I had to grieve the loss of everything that you meant to me and everything that you represented to me. You were so willing to commit to me and I was so scared. I was so scared to let you in, to let you have all of me. I loved you dearly, but I pushed you away. The life you offered me would have been a lovely one, but I wasn’t ready. You will be a great father and an amazing husband. I know you will. You felt like home to me. You were such a gift in my life. You were the man I had dreamed about, you were everything I thought I wanted. You brought about so much healing for me. You stood by me in what was one of the most difficult years of my Life. Thank you for teaching me about commitment. Thank you for teaching me about relationship, respect and loyalty. I may not have learned those lessons while I was with you, but I learned them because of you. Thank you for showing me. Your presence in my Life showed me that dreams can come true.

~To My Fourth Great Love, you were such a Good Man
You were so good to me. Oh my god, you were good to me. You are a good man, a really good man. You were so patient and understanding and unconditionally loving. I don’t know how you did it—I was so headstrong and stubborn! You were my best friend. I’ve never had someone love me as much as you did. You never gave up on me. You were hands down the best boyfriend I’d ever had. The flowers and the love letters, the homemade dinners and the cookies, the surprises you left in my car, the gifts and the tenderness. I never doubted your feelings for me, and that was something that I’d never experienced before. I always knew that you loved me, I never questioned that. Thank you for showing me what faith in someone feels like, thank you for showing me what true strength is, what support feels like, and what unconditional love feels like. Thank you for showing me that what it feels like to be adored, to be honored and respected and cared for. Thank you for showing me that it's possible to never have to question someone's feelings for me--that it is possible for a man to be 100%sure that he loves me, and wants to spend his life with me. Thank you for that gift. Thank you for that kind of love.

~To My Fifth Great Love, my Marlborough Man
You’ve shown up twice now. The first time you showed up, you swept me off of my feet. You showed me what it’s like to be pursued. I didn’t really know what it felt like to be pursued by a man until I met you. You made me feel like a woman, like a lover, like a queen, like a goddess. I always felt so fulfilled when I was around you. I felt protected and cherished. The moment you would show up, I always felt a sigh of relief because when you were with me it felt like everything was right with the world. You made me feel strong and grounded and wild and spirited and humble all at the same time. You have no idea how grateful I am for you because I haven’t really told you. Thinking about you always makes me smile. Thinking about the way you used to look at me makes me feel grateful—you used to look at me like I was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen. Thank you for helping me break free. Because of you, I know myself better. You invited me to see what kind of a woman I really want to be, you showed me where my roots are, and where my confidence comes from..You are everything that I never knew that I needed in a man. You pushed me to see things differently, to question what I thought I wanted, to consider ideas that I’d never considered before. You inspired me to be myself, to be strong and to be confident. Because of you, I learned to trust myself. You've inspired me to be spirited and strong and full of life. Thank you.

***
When you look the right way, you can see that there is a gift in every expereince that you have. Underneath the arguments, the pain, the fighting, the hurt feelings, the resentment or the unmet expectations--there was always Love. In the end, that's what I'll remember. In the end, Love is really the only thing there is.

A Detour Towards Destiny, Part II

2010-07-20T14:35:00.000-07:00

So..in Part I, I believe that I left off by telling you that I was on the road back to finding myself. That I was on the way back 'home,' so to speak...And as promised, here's a peak into the next phase of the journey of my Life.
***

When I decided to go on this Introspective Journey, and really examine what was going on with me, magical things started to happen. The fall of 2004 was one of the most amazing times of my life. I was meeting new people, I was happy, I felt like I was on a mission and I had a purpose again. A friend of mine at the time told me that I was "on fire." I felt more alive than I ever had up until that point, I felt a freedom that I had never known before and I felt like there was an ineffable path that I had embarked on; an amazing, novel, enlightening path that I was walking down. I felt like a wild child and I felt like I was in love with Life.

I was reading just about every book I could get my hands on, I was listening, I was learning about recovery and spirituality, healing, God, myself, Life, human nature, psychology, the mind, the brain (I have always been obsessed with neurology) my behavior, your behavior..I grabbed anything I could find about different kinds of spirituality; I read books on Hinduism, Sufism, Christianity, Mysticism, Mindfulness, Buddhism, Metaphysics, Energy, Toltec Wisdom, Celtic Wisdom. It was almost like I was researching Life and researching myself and trying to figure myself, my thoughts, my feelings and my actions out. When I look back, I remember how excited and enthusiastic I was. I had direction. I felt like a child, absorbing everything around me, taking it all in. It was so exciting to chase down all of the clues that my curiosity was calling forward.

This time of my life was all about movement and change and learning. I had decided to go back to school and become a counselor. And I had become a Healer's apprentice and a Toltec Teacher's apprentice. This, all in the same year (yes, I can over do it sometimes..did I mention I'm a bit intense? haha). I worked in the field of addiction for about 6 years, and absorbed all the information I could. I went to workshops every weekend, I went to trainings, I sought advice from mentors all over the country, I went on power journeys to places like Mexico and immersed myself in the world of sweat lodges, fire walks, meditation and a search for personal freedom. What a wild ride this was!

What I know now that I didn't know then is that my desire to become a counselor and a healer had everything to do with this desire to find answers about myself and about everyone else around me. I sought these professions as a direct result of my wanting to fix myself. I didn't see that then, but it's very clear to me now. And so, it would follow, that once I got to the place where I recognized that I didn't actually need to be 'fixed,' the desire to 'fix' others fell away.

When my sanity came back, then all that motivation behind trying to 'figure' out everyone else's insanity sort of fell away. And a lot of my zest for life was wrapped up in this quest for knowledge, this quest for answers and meaning. At the end of one of these roads, I discovered that the meaning was actually in the EXPERIENCE of Life. I saw that there wasn’t some grand answer to everything, that the answer was actually in the joy of the journey. Now this was both enlightening and terrifying at the same time. To truly discover that it really isn’t about the destination, it’s about the journey—sort of freaked me out. What was I going to do now? What was I supposed to go and search for? It left me feeling scared, deflated and disillusioned. And at the same time, I was noticing that my need for knowledge had sort of fallen away—I didn’t care about the theories, or the philosophies or the explanations, the books or the trainings, because I saw through them. I saw that the knowledge didn’t really mean anything. Most people say “knowledge is power.” At this point I started to see that awareness is power, that the experience in the moment was what was important.

And so, about a year and a half ago, I found myself in a really weird place--I had just spent the last 6 years trying to 'get somewhere,' trying to achieve a dream, trying to 'become' what I thought I wanted. I had spent most of my life reaching for something, chasing after something, subconsciously thinking that the destination was sort of like the bait on the stick dangling in front of me—always there and always just out of my reach. When I finally got ‘there,’ when I got my Masters, when I landed a fulltime job as a counselor, when I had a private practice doing healings, and when I was a Toltec teacher myself, I realized something.....I was miserable.

This last year and a half may have been the most uncomfortable, most ugly, most painful year of my life. I felt bitter most everyday, I dreaded going to work EVERYDAY, I wanted to jump out of my skin nearly all of the time, I found myself feeling resentful and angry and frustrated and depressed for months at a time. All the while, I'm still doing my best to examine myself and pray, and meditate and be patient with the way my Life was going. I kept going and I kept pushing myself. I never gave up trying to take good hard look at myself and my choices. I knew I wasn't happy, and I knew that I wouldn't settle for being unhappy. I knew that I was miserable, but I couldn't seem to find out why. And I wasn’t sure what to do about it. I was in and out of feeling like I wanted to die. Most days I just didn't see the point in anything. But I kept going. Most days I felt so miserable that I'd either cry myself to sleep or I'd wake up crying, or both. But I kept going. I kept asking questions. I kept taking suggestions. I kept asking for help. I kept trying to do the next right thing.

So, now. Remember how I said "The life I created in Tennessee is gracefully falling apart" in Part I? ….And remember what I said next?... “And I am so grateful.” Here's why:
I realized that, maybe, the Life that I had spent so many years creating, just didn't fit who I had become as a result of all that searching and healing and learning. Oh, the irony! In trying to 'become' someone, I actually just found myself. The search for 'answers' simply lead me to myself. I realized that, perhaps, the Life and the job that I had dreamed about for so many years, really weren't what I REALLY wanted. They were a REFLECTION of the journey to find myself, but they weren't actually what I wanted. See the difference? When I first realized this, I thought I had wasted 6 years of my life. What I see now is that, if it hadn't been for those years that I spent trying to figure myself out, I wouldn't be where I am today--in a place where I have the opportunity to see what it is that my heart desires and go for it. See, had I not taken that 'detour,' I wouldn't have gotten back on track. And, amazingly enough, this phase of my life culminated in an unexpected journey back HOME. Really. In a whirlwind medical emergency a few weeks ago, I had to go home to be with my family. And in that visit, I got a chance to start over. I had the opportunity to revisit my childhood, to revisit my roots. I got a chance to go back to the place where my life began, and see things from a totally different point of view. I went on an internal journey back to the heart of myself, and wound up on a physical journey back home. Wow, Life is pretty mesmerizingly mysterious, isn't it. Home is where the Heart is.

That miserable year that I described, was actually just the visceral experience of being in the unknown and still trying to know. And it was the result of my trying to force myself into a mold that didn't fit anymore. The frustration was a beacon telling me that I was off track. The misery was a sign that I was making choices that didn't truly reflect my heart's desire. I had outgrown myself. Weird, huh? When I actually surrendered and let go of being frustrated by the fact that I was unhappy, what I saw was that I was in the Place of Grace. That I was living in the mean time, finished with one phase of my journey but not quite at the beginning of the next chapter. And do you know how much beauty came out of this not-knowing…Oh my goodness! I was able to feel into what I wanted, instead of figuring out what I wanted. I was able to just be still. And in that stillness I discovered that I was able make my heart the decision-maker, instead of my logical mind. I was able to trust my intuition and move into choices from a totally different place. And as a result, I’ve moved almost effortlessly, into choices that come from sheer authenticy. I can live from a wild and natural place. I’m writing again. I’m dancing. I’m riding horses. I’m taking pictures. Have I figured out a way to make a living out of doing what I love? Not yet. But I’m creating experiences that come from the moment. Do I still want to live according to the plan I laid out 7 years ago? I have no idea. Do I still want to be a counselor..maybe not. Am I still invested in the life I thought I wanted? Not really. The beautiful thing that I can always count on is that when I really let go, magic happens. I'm not interested so much in the outcome. I’m listening to an aspect of myself that is primal and wise and lovely and unpredictable and childlike and ancient and new and humble and empowered all at the same time. It’s truly been a Wild Woman Wake Up Call. And I am so grateful.

And so now..I've come to the end of one chapter of my life, and the beginning of another. I wonder what's in store for me next...I wonder what's waiting for me around the corner...It makes me smile to think about all the possibilities.