The Mimosa Flower

Posted on by learning to live like water

I wrote this last July, when S was sending me pics of this beautiful tree that grew in his yard. He wouldn’t invite me to come see it, even though I begged. I found out why a few months later. Still….a beautiful tree.

learning to live like water's avatar

The Mimosa flower
like a light-hearted starburst
on a clear starry night
A thousand tendrils of purple and white
reaching for the sun.

I want to dance with a Mimosa in my hair.
To sleep with tender bud in my hand.
To make love with the blossom between my breasts.

And dream of the man who grows
the Mimosa outside his door.

How could you be anything but happy
If you’re lucky enough to see one?

View original post

Living Like Water, Today

Posted on by learning to live like water

Bird on branch

Living like water today, this minute, for me, means being part of the frozen landscape.  It means, watching the birds flit from leafless branch to leafless branch, looking for a haven from the cold arctic wind that blows, and shakes the bare branches clean of even the birds.

It mean, watching the snow blow across the yard, when it’s not snowing, but appears to be blizzarding, unless you look up and see the blue sky.  It means, quietude, and emptiness, and barren scenes of white and brown and gray.  It means solitude, time not stopped but non-existent.  No memories that can color the landscape, nor dreams.  Just now, with myself, in this moment.

Typing, calling an old friend, planning a dinner.  Keeping thoughts here and now, so as not to undo the uneasy peace which has been made within, to let the past go, and not to dream dreams.  To forgive, but not to forget.  To love, but not to lose myself. To find beauty and revel in it, but not try to hold onto it.  To acknowledge pain and feel it, but let it move through me.

To let it all come and go.  To let it flow, or stay frozen, let it blow, or seep into the ground, but not to add or take from what is.  To accept it, to surrender to the forces that have control, which are not within me.  To melt into the tapestry of what is, and be an integral part of something greater, and go within the flow of the one thing to wherever I am supposed to be.

 

You’ll Get What You Need

Posted on by learning to live like water

I went to a friend’s house last night with a bottle of wine.  She is a member of my book club, and gets me and the person I am, and how I need to be consistent with my values.  She helped me to manage the anger I felt over the events of the last week, and other issues around them.  I was exhausted, I hadn’t slept but 3 hours the night before, and worked a full busy day.  I think I was running on adrenaline until about 9:30 last night, when I had the overwhelming desire to just lay down and go to sleep.  So I went home and did that.

I keep going back to my friend the gong player’s words, that the deck is always stacked in our favor.  Even when it seems it’s not.  I can believe that and hold on to it.

It’s going to be an incredibly cold weekend here, low temps below 0°F, and wind chills tonight of -20’s F.  Luckily it’s only a couple of days, and not weeks.  Seems a good weekend to start the serious business of getting the house ready to sell, especially since it’s a 3 day weekend here in the US.  I am really ready to work toward beginning this new chapter of my life, and leaving all this old, ugly stuff behind me.

Life doesn’t always give us what we want, thankfully, but usually gives us what we need.  As usual, may the universe work everything out for everyone’s highest good.  Love and light.

Utter Clarity

Posted on by learning to live like water

clarity-quote

I had a good deal of peace when I came home last night.  It was short-lived, but I suppose that what ended my peace needed to happen.

I got a huge dose of clarity late last night, and made some decisions and changes in my beliefs about someone that needed to be made.  I am too angry this morning to write much about it, but I will say, that it has to do with this person not being able to own their story, and be accountable for their actions, and having to project onto me and blame me for a situation that was caused 100% by them.  1000%.  I was a player in this game, I was played, played well.  Again.

It won’t happen one more time.

That’s an episode of my life that is now, completely over. I see that anyone who escaped this person, no matter how hard it was, is lucky, because he’s not capable of anything but narcissistic using of people.  He steals from people, to fill the holes in his soul.  He won’t steal from me any more.  And I hope from no one else, because he’s a thief.  A cold-hearted self-absorbed thief in the night.  A wolf in sheep’s clothing. Despicable human being.

Always sorry after the fact, after he behaves in ways that destroy people.  As long as he feels good in the moment, the hell with the broader ramifications.

End of rant. Done, just done.  Cut the cords, walk away.  There are 50,000 ways to leave, just choose one.  I’m gone.

(B, if you want or need to know the story message me.) 

 

 

Keepin’On Keepin’ On

Posted on by learning to live like water

ho'oponpono

I just came home from my gong meditation. It was very emotional tonight. The last time I was at one, I came home and found out an hour later that my mother had passed away. On the way there, I had an overwhelming sadness, of missing her. Just wanted to cry. During the meditation tonight, I felt her presence, all the time with me. It was warm and comforting and close, and emotional.

Combined with the other emotionally charged chaos of this week, I ended up with my head in my hands at one point. Releasing, releasing. Release often comes in the form of a chill for me, a chill that starts from the inside, usually in my heart or solar plexus chakras, and radiates out. It happens in the summer when it’s hot, in the winter when it’s cold. I always have a blanket over me because it’s so intense. Like the inside of my body is shivering.

I had a talk after it was over with my two friends who put it on. This one takes place in their house, which is just beautiful. They didn’t know about Mom, so we talked about it, how intense tonight’s meditation was, and rich, and warm. How I felt I wasn’t alone, and could feel her with me. Soothing me, she knows my heart. She knows my pain, she is my mother and she’s still here for me. I wanted them to know, that they facilitated something special.

Love never dies. Even when those you love and who love you are not with you, they are with you. If I love someone, I will always love them. I will always want the best for them. I will always want them to be happy. I learned this from my mother, who always loved me. It was good to feel her love tonight. Very healing.

I began to do the Ho’oponopono towards the end tonight. Maybe just to myself, I don’t know. Maybe I want to heal everyone, I don’t know. It is just such a beautiful mantra. It feels like surrender, like giving it up to the universe. My friend who plays the gongs said tonight, “It’s all stacked in our favor you know.”

Yes, I know. Even when it feels like it’s not. I know it is. It is this simple truth that lets me keep on keepin’ on.

Stepping Away From The Edge This Morning

Posted on by learning to live like water

stay away from the edge

The edge is off this morning.  I slept fairly well, without any help from Ambien, though I did have my weird drink which may have helped.  It’s a new day.  A COLD one, and it’s snowing again.  Which makes it every day this week, 4 days, it has snowed.  Thankfully not a lot.  But it gets old, just like when it rains all week.  They say this weekend it won’t snow, but the overnight lows will be -2°F.  That’s frigging cold.

UGH.

I think I need to focus on gratitude today.  I have so much to be grateful for.  And I forget, at times, like last night.  Like when I’m bitching about the snow and cold.  I have a warm house, a lovely house, a decent car, a decent job.  A family who loves me, and friends.  And my health, which while I have my issues (diabetes) they are well controlled and my overall health is fine.

When we come from a place where we have enough, we always have enough.  When we come from a place of lack, we will always lack.  Like Byron Katie says, I seem to always have exactly what I need.  I have enough.

It’s a wish I have for everyone, that they always have enough.  Enough food, heat, love, money, friends, family, hope, joy.  Enough.

I have  gong bath tonight.  My sound healing meditation, where I will spend an hour or so in some other place, allowing things that need releasing to release, healing my confused soul.  I am so looking forward to it.  It is timely, this one, but then…so often they are, there is always something to work on.  There is always another layer to peel off to find my way to my inner peace, to become more authentically myself, and the person I strive to be.

I’ve often said, I’ve never been addicted to anything, except coffee, lol.  Don’t mess with my morning coffee….  But maybe I’m addicted to the sound of 8 gongs crescendo-ing into a tsunami of sound and vibration.  If so, it’s an addiction I’ll hold on to, at least until I move to Florida.  Maybe I’ll have to buy a gong and hold my own down there.

Life looks much more hopeful this morning.  Love and light to all.

 

 

 

 

15 Minutes

Posted on by learning to live like water

alone

I don’t drink much.  If I do, it’s usually wine, and I vacillate between white and red, and usually a glass is plenty.  Sometimes a 2nd one, but more often than not, I can’t finish a 2nd glass.  But tonight….I wanted something to take the edge of my nerves, which are frayed to a fine, gossamer filament which could break any moment.  But not wine.  Wine would sour my stomach tonight.

I’m picky tonight. Holding on…..just holding on.  As someone said to me once, just for the next 15 minutes.  I need some help.  I would like to be numbed, just a little.  Enough to round the sharp corners in my psyche, in my heart.  Not enough to open the floodgates.

It’s a fine line.  I have to be vigilant.

My liquor cabinet (which is a box on the floor of my pantry) has in it a half bottle, half a 5th, (what’s that?  A 10th?) of Gosling’s Dark Rum, and a bottle of Amaretto, which I buy every year to make a raspberry Amaretto sauce for my Christmas cake, and maybe a shot or two of Vodka, which I keep here for my BFF.

Not a lot of choices.

So….I took a small glass, like a juice glass, and put what looked like maybe a shot of amaretto in it, and a shot of rum.  Of course, I could be totally off, I don’t have a shot glass.  I had one.  Just one.  And my son somehow managed to get it into the garbage disposal and I didn’t know it, and turned the disposal on.

He’s lucky my friend’s son knew how to take the disposal apart.  I paid him $50.

So, I guess now, if I need to measure.  Not that it mattered, I was only serving myself, a made up drink.  Because rum is not that easy to drink by itself, even on ice, and even rich dark rum from the royal Navy, and Amaretto is too sweet by itself.  Combined, it’s not really too bad.  And I couldn’t do Vodka straight no matter how much I needed a drink.

I think it will do what I need it to.

And first I took two ibuprofen for the massive headache I have.  I’m not sure that two was enough.  I’m thinking another one might be in order.

It will be a ride, this one.  Hope it doesn’t last too long.

Difficult Emotions

Posted on by learning to live like water

Regrets, shame, guilt….Some very difficult emotions to manage.

I try, honestly, to live in a way I don’t have too many regrets.  It’s been a lesson I learned the hard way, so I try to always look at the big picture when I do something.  Sometimes, I don’t, or can’t.  Sometimes I get carried away and do things that I can’t be sure how they will turn out.  Don’t we all?

I tend to listen to my gut, my intuition.   Things have happened recently where I did that.  I couldn’t see the all the ramifications, there was no way to know what they would be, at least for me.  I followed my heart, my intuition.  I don’t regret it, for myself.  I warned others about doing things they would regret.  They made their choices.

Now I find out that these actions, which were far from mine alone, hurt other people, and have caused some of the other emotions in others.

I am sorry for that.  I don’t regret doing what I did, because the actions were something I needed. They helped me with my healing, they helped me to ease the pain of rejection and loss from the events of last fall.  That others were hurt, or feel guilty was inevitable, in that situation I guess.  I take no joy in that fact.

But at any rate, I am sorry for the discomfort of others.  The situation, from the beginning almost a year ago, was bound to hurt people, and keep hurting people.  I have retreated.  I have taken myself out, and leave the others to heal as best they can.  I tried to help, but I had my own healing too to deal with.  I know I did what I could to help.  And I did what I needed to to heal.  The fact is, those two things were never going to be the same thing.

I still believe in unconditional love.  I hope those hurt, and those immersed in guilt, can understand that it was hard for me too. I was always the odd woman out.  I’ll be fine, eventually.  I only wish the best for everyone, and ask the universe to work things out for the highest good of all of us.

 

Connections

Posted on by learning to live like water

 

connctions

Connection….What connects us to other people? What makes one person love another? What connects us? Shared interests, shared experiences? Some wonderful. Some not. Sometimes there’s a connection that can’t be explained. Sometimes, there’s dependency.

Sometimes the connections are strong, and can overcome anything. Sometimes they are stretched to the very limit, and remain. And sometimes, they are stretched, and they just can’t hold up, and they break. They snap. If they hold…..then you’re lucky. But if they break, they can break your neck, your heart.

Sometimes they make no sense. Sometimes there’s a bond with someone so completely opposite of ourselves, and we have to wonder why we feel bonded to them. I’ve seen those bonds hold, and I’ve seen them break. Sometimes we can’t bond with someone so similar to us, and we wonder why not?

Sometimes the connection forms, and it gets stretched, and then the stretching stops, and then it start and that cycle goes on, over and over and pretty soon the connection is weak. The weak ones just drain the energy from you. Sometimes you want to just give and give and hope that the bond gets stronger, and it doesn’t and you have to finally give it up, walk away, say goodbye, because you’re empty. You think if you love and love and love you will be ok, but not everyone can, not everyone responds, not everyone trusts in that.

And you feel sad about that. Because there is nothing more powerful, nothing that feels better, than sweet sweet love. But you have to let it be. You can only offer. You can’t force someone to accept it.

Sometimes the connection only runs one way. That’s the saddest of all. To feel so close to someone who doesn’t feel it with you.

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, the connection is formed and celebrated and you both do everything you can to make it strong. If you’re lucky. And it never dies.