SADNESS

"No mud, no lotus."

~ Thich Nhat Hanh ~

Life on it's head,

Steady uncertainty,

No sense of normal,

Or comfort,

Or levity.

A trudge through,

One step and then another,

Until the sky opens

And the sun bursts 

Forth.

I keep the faith and stay the course.

THE BUZZ

If you harness the energy of the wind you can ride it...

I feel warm and cozy and safe from the 

Buzz of certain places and people

And distinctly disturbed by

the energy of others.

I am grateful for the people and places that make me feel safe.

PRIVATE WORLDS

"A penny will hide the biggest star in the Universe if you hold it close enough to your eye."

~ Samuel Grafton ~

Our worlds are so largely internal

that a group of us can share an exact experience

and each of us tell it

and feel it

a different way.

My way of seeing is uniquely my own. 

REAL RICHES

"Would you sell your eyesight for a million dollars?"

~ Author Unknown ~

Money is only one form of wealth,

And mostly,

Not the best one.

Peace of mind,

Health,

Freedom,

Ease,

The glories of our five senses:

These are riches no money can buy.

I am blessed by the experience of being alive.

WITH OR WITHOUT FEAR

"Fear cannot take what you do not give it."

~ Christopher Coan ~

Some fear inspires action.

And some fear keeps us from moving at all.

Fear takes our breath,

Pounds our heart,

Clenches our jaw, and

Aches our head.

Without fear we are free and easy.

With it, we are 

On edge and

Energetically

Stiff.

I relax and surrender to the currents of life.

THE GAME

"All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players."

~ Shakespeare

 As a young girl, I learned how to play the

"I can take it" game,

And became proficient at enduring challenge and stress with a stiff upper lip.

It's a skill I have continued to perfect over the years, and

Matching it with the "Let's see how much I can give" game,

It's become the ideal recipe for anxiety that won't quit:

No room to let the guard down.

No room to relax.

Always ready for the next struggle, and the next one.

Realizing the truth of this recently,

I have decided to change the game.

It's not about how much of anything anymore.

It's about FREEDOM now-

Across the board.

I choose the rules and the game I play.

THE PROBLEM OF THE MOMENT

 "There are only so many hours in a day."

~ American Expression ~

Time fills,

And not only with what we plan,

But with all of life's little urgencies that 

Demand we pay attention.

In our modern world,

It's easy to be ruled by

The moment's seeming problem,

But we needn't be.

The thing to remember is that ultimately,

Whatever we do.

Or don't do,

Is entirely 

Up to us. 

Most things can wait for our attention a little longer than we let them. 

BATTLE WEARY

"Surrender to win."

~ 12 Step Philosophy ~

Sometimes we are fighting against something internally and don't even know

We are fighting. 

Our bodies know it.

We can feel it in our necks, our shoulders, our jaws,

Our throat.

And it is not until we surrender the fight,

And relief comes,

and the body relaxes,

that we realize 

How battle weary 

and bruised

We have become. 

I stop fighting things being the way they are. 

VIM AND VIGOR

"For this hour, I ask you to ignore the surface-glamour of existence, the buzzing and jigging and vibration of small interests and excitements that form the tissue of our ordinary consciousness, and instead turn your attention to the profounder bass-note of life."

~ William James ~

Sometimes we have the vision

And the energy

And the stamina

And the vim, and vigor, and verve.

And

Sometimes...

we

just

don't. 

I surf the waves of enthusiasm, and relax in the water between sets.

DIVINE CORRECTION

"The feeling remains that God is on the journey too."

~ Teresa of Avila~ 

Three significant times in my life,

I have been on the precipice of willingness

To settle for something that wasn't fundamentally ok from a valuation perspective-

A selling out,

A discounting of myself, 

A vast compromise on my part to get along,

Feeling that to be my only option,

And God has stepped in to not allow it- 

Each time-

Rather drastically. 

It's as if I was driving down a road that became suddenly

And irrevocably impassable:

Blocked.

And at the time- what frustration!

What angst, and hurt feelings.

I was prepared to travel that road, no matter what it took.

And yet,

I also understood somehow,

That a correction was being made,

And I was not being punished, but re-routed,

Not impeded,

But

Saved.

Fate intervenes time and again to keep me safe. 

THE COST

"Remember, we all stumble, every one of us."

~ Emily Kimbrough ~

Sometimes we have to viscerally feel 

the literal and figurative 

cost 

of our choices:

The FULL IMPACT, 

So that we can understand the real ramifications of what we've chosen,

And have the freedom, 

going forward,

To choose differently,

For a different result.

I understand and accept the consequences of my choices.

THE LIMITS OF ANTICIPATION

"Rush out in the rain to be soaked with the sky."

~ Rumi ~

It's impossible to know in advance how things will feel,

Or be.

We think we know.

We are sure that this or that will make us happy,

Or bored,

Or satisfied,

Or satiated.

Or serene.

But we're usually wrong.

It's exactly that which we can't possibly anticipate that happens,

The turn of events that spins us in psychological circles

And leaves us breathless, 

Or remorseful, or

stunned.

I stay awake for the unexpected.

THE SAVING PRINCIPLE

"For when I am powerless, it is then that I am strong."

~ Paul the Apostle ~

Some people seem like they need saving,

And yet,

No amount of love or healthy guidance can steer them

In the direction we want them to go.

We don't have that power, much as we may want it.

And the truth is, maybe it's not saving they need,

but experience, and the impetus inside of themselves

That will come when it comes

To transcend.

Every human life is a divine adventure. 

IDEAS OF FEAR

"Little fears love to walk on stilts."

~ Henry Stanley Haskins ~

We do a great dis-service to ourselves and to the world by

Spreading ideas of fear and

possible disaster.

These plant the seed for them to actually

Happen

For real,

And invite worry and

Anxiety, and

Fret.

Let's spread the idea of possibility instead,

And live from the whimsical and easy space of

Being ok with whatever, 

and

Why not?

Sharing my disempowering thoughts makes them bigger. 

FREEDOM

"Be ground. Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are."

~ Rumi ~

If we didn't know who we are,

Who would we be?

My conditioning doesn't have to define me.

MOVING

"Again!"

~ Kurt Russel from the movie Miracle ~

We moved in the spring of 2016,

From a farm we owned to a rental house:

Virginia to Virginia.

And then in the spring of 2017 we moved

To Montana,

And several months after that, we moved

To Santa Fe, New Mexico.

And then in the spring of 2018,

We moved back to Virginia,

To a temporary living situation that lasted until the 

Late summer of 2019 when we moved 

Into the farm we thought would be forever,

But turned out not to be.

And here we are,

Packing boxes and taking things off the walls

Yet again. 

I am settled in my heart. 

ENOUGH

"Each silence has a character of its own."

~ Kent Nerburn ~

Sometimes we have nothing to share.

We are simply empty,

And vast.

Life will come along and fill us up again 

Before too long

With it's busy-ness and noise,

But in the gap,

There is a certain freedom.

It's quiet,

And calm.

Being drained of emotion makes room for being still.

THE ONLY OPTION THERE IS

"It is what it is."

~ J.E. Lawrence ~

Sometimes,

Most of the time really...

(If we're honest)

We just have to trust.

Stagnation breeds mosquitoes. 

RHYTHM AND SWING

"I sing the body electric."

~ Walt Whitman ~

We anticipate the future with nerve,

Experience the present with breath, 

Honor the truth in our gut, and

Feel the past in 

Our Heart.

Life is an embodied adventure. 

THE GIVE-BACK

"Faith is the bird who sings to the dawn while it is still dark."

~ Tagore ~

Life takes courage.

Fear and anxiety demand their due.

Life takes faith.

The view is often blurry, the future utterly fogged in.

Life takes love.

It's easy to hate what we don't understand.

And then, as we travel the road,

Life gives us back everything it takes.

I gain by losing and rise by grace.