Category Archives: personal musings

Thoughts on a Summer Morning

Posted on by learning to live like water

If it doesn't open

I had plans to go to the ocean today.  I was going to go very early, and watch the water world awaken.  I even had my bag packed with a towel, sunscreen and a book.  I was going by myself, to renew my spirit after last week.

But my body had different ideas.  I woke in the night with a terrible stomach ache, and it took me some time to get back to sleep.  I ended up sleeping past the time I had wanted to be sitting at the water’s edge, on this blue blue morning.  Now if I go, I will sit in traffic, there will be a line to get in, and the beach will be crowded. So I stayed home.  Another day, another time.

I had planned to be there at about 7:30, and come home around noon.  Because I have a lot to do at home since I will be gone next weekend, to visit an old and treasured friend in the Adirondack’s of NY.  She and I have been friends since we were 12.  We grew up in the midwest, it is a blessing to have an old close friend 4 hours away.

I feel peaceful this morning.  Full of gratitude on this lovely perfect summer morning.  Sitting on my deck, overlooking the trees that border my yard, smelling the lavender that grows at the bottom of the few steps to my deck.  There is peace here.

There is no more angst or anger over S.  The whole relationship is receding, quickly.  It hasn’t been there, in reality, in months, so I’m finding it slides away easily, after the first 12 hours.  It was a dream I had, and now I have a new one.  It’s as simple as that.  I’ve had lots of dreams in my life, some worked out, some didn’t.  The ones that did renewed my faith, the ones that didn’t taught me a lesson, so that when I choose a new dream, I am smarter, wiser. I saw the poster at the top of this blog on FB today, and thought, yes, I should have stopped trying to open that door a long time ago.  As should he.have.

I have to say he was honest, though.  He wrote the poem below a few weeks ago.  Even though he was still trying to have sex with me.  His world is different from mine.  That kind of thing happens between friends, or even strangers,  in his world, when there is nothing else going on.  For me, it is a celebration of connection, I could never lower it to a status of a physical need, fulfilled by anyone who was willing.  His honest assessment of where we were weeks ago was that we were like night and day, and would never be together.  I find that so sad, and empty.  Not the way I want to live my life.  But apparently, he is content this way.  By himself, invulnerable to pain, but also to joy.  To me not to feel would be the saddest thing.  If I hurt, thank God I am capable of hurting, of loving, of desiring.  Any other way of living is like being dead already.  Death will come soon enough.

A Perfect Dichotomy

Posted on by learning to live like water

I can’t write today.  Too many conflicting emotions.  Too much personal business that I can’t make public. Full of gratitude, heartache, longing, and fulfillment.  I am spinning, and standing still. Sadness and joy.  Missing someone, loving someone, accepting what is.  No resolution.  Drifting away while trying to get closer.  Ying and Yang.  A perfect dichotomy.

Through the Darkness

Posted on by learning to live like water

  
 I saw you standing in the shadows

You thought that you were hidden 

That the darkness kept you invisible. 

But you didn’t know

The light from your eyes

Pierced through the shadows and the darkness

And illuminated the path to your soul

For those that cared to see it. 

One woman, this woman, 

Saw your sadness of keeping hidden

And followed the light beam

To where you had lived so silently,

To take your hand 

And walk with you

Into the light. 

Catching My Breath

Posted on by learning to live like water

Resting. Sitting back and catching my breath.  It’s been a full, but rather introspective, few days.  Quiet, as thankfully, I have not heard anything from the dark side.  His books were delivered to him today, I just tracked them.  I guess that’s it.  After a year, return the books, and be satisfied with an ugly ending.

I am…satisfied with it. I see now, really, that’s the only way it would end with him.  I mean, he loves the darkness.  It still kind of blows my mind that he consciously chooses that.  I’m grateful that it wasn’t uglier.  I’ve never known anyone who chose darkness and admitted it.

My ex lived in fear of the darkness, but in the end, it finally took him.  He didn’t choose darkness, he just couldn’t figure out how to go to the light.  And now, he can’t understand what happened to his life, and blames everyone and everything except himself.  Or did….I don’t know if that’s still true.  He may have come to terms with the life he chose, now that he’s fallen about as far as he could go.  It gives me no happiness, no pleasure, to see him like this, but it’s his journey, I chose differently.  I have considered calling him, but then I would be sticking my nose in his business.  He knows he can call me, and has done so in the past.

S wanted to know why I thought I was superior because I chose the light.  Superior?   Hardly….But I will say that the light is far superior to the dark.  I am not, just because I chose it. But what I chose?  A single candle can obliterate the darkness. All of our personal power is in the light, in love.  There is none in darkness and fear.

I know this from personal experience, that the universe works through love, that it brings you what you seek in the shortest way possible, once you surrender to it.  Sometimes it comes from exactly the opposite direction you thought it would.

This is what my book is about.  How I discovered the power of unconditional love in my darkest hours.  My biggest fault, I would guess, is that I try to illuminate the path for everyone, and not everyone is open to it.  We each have our own path to walk, and the thing is, even if you choose the darkness….at some time you will be unable to avoid the light. It will surround you, and saturate you, and you will finally have peace.

Dichotomy

Posted on by learning to live like water

Universe - Light vs Dark by KDrift

I mailed S back his books today. I couldn’t wait to get them out of my possession.  It’s not that they were a reminder, it’s that I now perceive the energy surrounding them as so negative, so dark, I don’t want them anywhere near me.  They were good books, I bought own copies off Ebay for under $5 including shipping.  It’s just that those particular copies, sizzled in my hands and I was afraid of being burned.

Every memory is seen through clear light now.  There is no sadness, no pain.  I am happy to be walking, running, flying in the opposite direction. I can say, some of it was fun. None of it was real, not one moment was what I perceived at the time it was happening.  But that’s ok, I get it now, lesson learned.  All the tears I shed, were over an illusion!   LOL!  How silly of me! I wanted the illusion, I asked for it. I got it.  And now, it’s gone, and I’m on my way again.

All is well.  Really.  I suppose I sound bitter, but I’m not.  Just glad that it’s done.  Glad I finally saw it in it’s completeness.

I have been cooling the communication with A lately, because he was Facetiming me all the time, even while I was at the fireworks. He just sounded like he still felt there was a chance there could be something between us, and I didn’t want to lead him on, so I had very limited communication with him last week.  He texted me tonight, seemed to be reaching out. He is lonely, he is a widow, of about a year…and misses his  wife whom he loved very much.  So I talked to him for some time, I think I helped him.  I am still uncomfortable with the intensity of the emotion he feels for me, but I realize he’s having a hard moment, and is reaching out for someone to give his love to. I’m not the one, and he knows it…but it gave him some solace that I was there for him.  And I am glad I could give it to him.  He’s a kind man, a good man. A lightseeker.

There are times when I wonder why these two men have been in my life at the same time.  Such a dichotomy.  One is the ying.  One is the yang. I don’t want either one of them…but I see the difference so clearly.  I’m sure if S is still reading my blogs, this one has him pissed off, which was not my purpose.  I’m just working things out for myself.  It’s just my own personal perception S, and nothing will ever change it.  Go forth S, in the darkness that you seek.

Peace out for tonight.

Ripples

Posted on by learning to live like water

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsrUxhaaWks

I am a fan of Oprah’s show SuperSoulSunday.  She has had a lot of incredible teachers on this show, and I’ve learned so much from them.  This morning she had a re-run of the interview with John Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods.  At the end of the show she did “Soul to Soul” with him where she asked him a set of questions she asks all her guests.

One of the questions is “What is the lesson that has taken you the longest to learn?”  He said,and I am paraphrasing, “The lesson I continue to learn, over and over, is that we have a wake.  Our actions ripple out in ways that affect people and our world in ways we will never know, can never imagine.  So I keep learning that I have to be kind, that I have a responsibility to make sure that what ripples out from me helps people, is positive, and doesn’t hurt anyone.”

All I could think is, wow, so true.  Everything we do ripples out.  Sometimes we see the results, or some of the results.  Sometimes we have no idea.

I remember when I was introduced to “cord cutting”.  It’s a thing you can do, a kind of ceremony, calling in your guides, archangels etc., and cut the energetic cords which connect you to someone.  It is done with love, never hate. Never ill feeling.  I did it to help free myself from my ex.  I went to a group meditation, and imagined cutting the energetic cords which bound us and came from that long dysfunctional relationship.  I imagined the two of us flying around saying “Good bye, maybe I’ll see you, maybe I won’t.  Have a good life…” And I felt freer from that negativity than I ever had when the meditation was over.  Which I thought was the end result.

But a few days later, my ex showed up at the front door of the condo I was renting.  I wasn’t home but my son was.  He got out of his car, and his father said to him. “I apologize for everything I ever did to you…..”  For a few short months it lasted, they had a relationship, until his father slipped back into  his old ways, and began to play with his son’s life and emotions again.

I will always believe that it was a ripple out of the cord cutting I did with  him.  At the time I said to someone, telling the story…”You throw a stone in the water, you never know what will ripple up on the shore.”  I like the idea of us leaving a wake behind us…..same idea, but it seems a more powerful representation.

And I love the idea, the truth, that we have a responsibility to not hurt others, to make sure that what washes up on the shores of the rest of humanity lifts them and shines light on them.

Conscious Healing

Posted on by learning to live like water

Not too much to say this morning, but that goes so much against my nature, I feel the need express it, lol..

First of all, it is hot and muggy.  Real summer weather.  Closed the house up and turned on the AC again.  I would love to be at the beach, but didn’t make any plans, so am not.  The beaches will be wall to wall anyway, so I’m probably not missing much.  This is my kind of weather.  It’s why I can live full time in Florida.  I can take heat.  I cannot take cold, snow, heating bills.

I have been dealing with carpal tunnel syndrome for about 5 months.  I kept putting off getting it fixed, because surgery scares me, the expense scares me (I have one of those wonderful high deductible plans), and I didn’t want to miss work. But it’s been getting progressively worse.  It keeps me up half the night, I am taking 3 to 4 ibuprofen before bed and an Ambien to help me sleep through it and even that doesn’t always work.  Last night was particularly bad, because I did so much housework yesterday with it, especially preparing the seafood gumbo.  Lots of slicing and dicing.  So, Aug. 28 I am having the surgery.  And I will only miss one day of work for sure…it’s so simple now, it takes literally 10 minutes…(the dr. said, yeah it takes 10 minutes if there are delays….)  I should have done it ages ago…stupid…..

I am a great believer in the emotional component of most physical ailments.  Louise Hay suggests that carpal tunnel is brought on by railing against the injustices we see in the world.  My friend who is a spiritual counselor and is even more tied into alternative healing than I am, says, “You’ve been giving too much.  The right hand is for giving, the left for taking.  and you are out of balance.”  I think that is possibly true, regarding some of my, well one of my relationships.  So maybe it will improve now that that is no longer in my purview.  I think it is possible that the emotional aspect is not just giving, but giving to someone who doesn’t want it, and is not receptive to the light.  Because overall, giving acknowledges having, and the more you give the more you have.  But trying to lift someone out of darkness who professes to seek the darkness, is stupid, and unfulfilling and a waste of time.  So when the energy gets thrown back at you in a negative way, and upsets you, I would guess there are some physical ramifications.

Until you learn to do the Byron Katie thing, and say, “It’s not my business that he likes the darkness. It’s his.  I have to stay out of it (and in my case, away from it….)”

And you know, he has/had so many health issues, I think his longing for the darkness is giving him what he wants.  He should be content.  I am content to have only a couple of issues….and I know where they came from. Diabetes, from not taking in the sweetness of life for 40 years.  And the carpal tunnel.  I have had what I thought to be arthritis, bad, actually was thought to be rheumatoid arthritis, but in the past months, the symptoms have basically cleared themselves.  Just very minor stiffness in my fingers now, and even that is improving.

Some friends I have in alternative healing said to me, “Put your hand into a tight fist for 5 minutes and then release it.  It hurts…..You held on too tight for too long.”  And yes, that was true.  Louise Hay suggests arthritis is from feeling unloved, from criticism. and resentment.  All of which were true in that long nightmare of a marriage.  It seems that I’ve been out long enough (8 1/2 years), and have learned to like myself, love myself, that the symptoms are subsiding.

Pretty cool.

I guess I am at the moment, just living in the moment.  And grateful for being able to sit out on my deck and listen to nature, and feel the soft breeze that occasionally drifts by.  And just kind of let my mind go where it wanted.  Which apparently was to healing…..spiritually, emotionally, and physically.

Love and light….

To Be, or Not to Be

Posted on by learning to live like water

To be or not to be, that is the question.

To be what?  In love with S?  He isn’t in love with me, though he likes me well enough, likes being with me.  Our relationship was important enough to him to follow through this weekend.  It’s not love, but it’s  nice.   I can’t help but love him and his funny, off beat, intelligent, and quirky personality.  But that’s my problem, lol, not his…..

To be friends with A? I don’t love A, I’m pretty sure he still loves me, it makes me uncomfortable to be close friends wit him and intimate with S.  It just doesn’t feel right to me, I don’t know how to balance it.

To be alone?  I am fine alone, but not all the time.  I enjoy the company of a man.  Particularly S, Most everything we do together is fun.  My problem is I get very attached.  I get a little, and it makes me long for more.

I don’t know where I am this morning.  I am still not wanting to put any parameters on my relationship with S.  I enjoy every minute with him, so why should I not be with him?  I am ever so afraid of heartache down the road with him, but isn’t that the hallmark of most relationships?  You have to take a risk, and as it develops, your fears should subside, right?

I am going to be moving to Florida in a year or so.  I will be moving away, not he.  Our relationship is bound to be changed by that.  There are endless possibilities of how we could manage it.  But what right do I have to be demanding now, when I’m the one who’s going to make the biggest change to our relationship?  I can’t.  I can just be with S for as long as we want to be with each other, as long as we enjoy each others company.

As for A….I was going to send him an email, telling him more or less to bugger off.  I don’t think I will.  I think I will just let that relationship die a slow natural easy death, like going to sleep and not waking up, he and I will just fade into our histories.

To be…in the moment, to be mindful, to learn acceptance and gratitude for what is, and find grace.  I guess I am really getting sick of pushing, and am realizing that it’s not necessary.

To be or not to be?  I think, just let it be.