Out of Sight

leaf

Leaf blowing in the autumn wind
Chased, for it’s beauty
Glowing the bright colors of the earth.

She chased it, with all her breath
Racing with the wind
To catch up with the apparition.

It slowed, and she almost caught it.
Teasing, a sudden gust blew it
Just out of her reach.

Across golden fields she ran
Through dark forests,
Obscured by the fog.

Up hills strewn with rocks
Through meadows fragrant with flower
She chased the dream of holding the leaf.

Always, just out of her reach.
Finally, exhausted
She let go the desire

To hold the leaf, to feel every facet
To know it was real.
She watched, as it blew out of sight.

One Last Gong Bath Tonight

gong bath

Last night I sent a friend in Scotland Reiki. I only sent it for about 15 minutes, because I was so tired from getting up at 4:30 am yesterday that I started to fall asleep. (Sorry, Ogden, lol) But it did me good, which is the cool thing about giving reiki, you get it too, as it passes through you. I got the first 8 hours of sleep that I have gotten in about a week. I hope it helped him too.

I did my meditation this morning, as usual. Trying to prepare myself emotionally for this long trip I begin tomorrow. I realized at some point during the meditation that I can probably finish everything I need to finish to leave tomorrow, and still have time to go to the gong bath tonight. That would be the best thing for me.

I have been holding so much emotion in my sacral and solar plexus chakras. Every morning I wake up and have that nervous feeling in my stomach. I work with it throughout the day, but still, it’s there. And from time to time it overwhelms me, to drive such a long distance and then leave my son there. It’s just a mom thing I guess. I spent so many years trying to protect him from his fathers wrath and biting tongue, and then so much time freeing him, and then the last 8 years trying to help him heal. Making him believe that he is worthy of love and belonging just because he exists in this world, and just because he is my son, and I think that I’ve been successful on that count.

It’s just hard. We are so close. I am so happy and proud of him, that he’s set this new life up all on his own. I’ve tried to help, of course, financially a little, contributing to new tires and car alignment, and I’ll help him set up his place in CO, but he’s done all the work himself to find a place to live, and to get a decent job.

But anyway, I think the gong bath will help me to release a lot of the angst I have over the whole thing.

Not to mention all the people I’ve been saying goodbye to. There will be a ton more when I get back from CO too. I love this place I live, except in winter, lol, it is beautiful. But it’s the people who are in my life on a regular basis that will be in my heart.

So gonging I will go. I sent my friend Linda an email telling her I was now intending to come. Just once more to lay on the floor and let the tsunami pf the vibrations of all Peter and Linda’s gongs carry me where I need to go.

Working through it this morning.

Love and light…..

Note:  the picture at the top is not the gong bath I go to, but is very similar.  (Pic is from Google Images.)  We also have 8 gongs and all kinds of other vibrational instruments.  And most of us lay on the floor, it’s my preferred position.

Finding a Path

finding a path

Ahhh. End of the weekend. I made dinner for my son and I and am now finishing up my 2nd glass of wine with some dark dak chocolate. 88% cacao. Mmmmmmm It’s really good with red wine.

I’ve been a little introspective today. Thinking about love and forgiveness, hate and anger. I guess I’ve never been good at holding a grudge. Especially since my divorce. At some point I read somewhere that “holding on to hate and anger is like taking poison and thinking the other guy is gonna die.”

It just resonated with me so much. I was so angry at what my ex had done, was doing. Trying to make sure I was penniless, trying to drive a wedge between my son and I. The bullshit that came out of his mouth, at court, just enraged me. And because I couldn’t say or do anything about any of it, it was just eating away at me. It’s awful to wake up every day angry, upset, frustrated, and with a visceral hate for someone.

That was when the spiritual journey began…back in those days. I wanted to find a way through this process that would allow me to still have a life I loved. The universe put the people in my path that I needed. One at a time, it opened up. I learned to meditate, which I still say was the most valuable thing I’ve ever learned to do. I was brought by fate to the gong baths. I somehow was introduced to wonderful teachers, who wrote wonderful books. Eckhart Tolle, Thich Nhat Hanh, Byron Katie, Liz Gilbert, and, last but not least, Marianne Williamson and A Course in Miracles.

A Course in Miracles teaches a way to extend love. Period. Fear projects, Love extends. I wanted to find out how to feel, and live unconditional love. Because I didn’t want to feel the opposite.

One of the most important things I learned about unconditional love is, you can’t pick and choose who you love, if that’s what you profess to feel and practice. And in fact, often those people you feel least deserve your love are the ones who need it the most.

Another thing I learned, and this is a recent lesson, that came from the last 6 months of my life, was that the love has to first be turned inward on yourself. You have to take care of yourself, you have to give yourself a break for the things we do that are out of alignment with who we want to be. Because we are all human, we all do them. But I learned long ago, with my son and my divorce that forgiveness of ourselves is the hardest thing to do. I never learned to love myself, to consider what I wanted and what made me happy before I considered the happiness of others. I love Maya Angelou’s quote on this: “I don’t trust someone who says “I love you” but does not love themselves. Beware the naked man selling you a shirt.”

A psychic made me understand this concept in a personal way. She had my dad’s spirit there, and he told her that we never thought about what we wanted growing up, just what had to be done, what was expected of us. I agreed with her, and him, that was true. So, since that happened, I have considered myself, who I want to be, what values I have for myself. She told me to turn the energy of caring on myself. To do reiki on myself, especially my solar plexus, where we hold our emotions, and my sacral chakra, where we hold our creativity.

Writing is my creative outlet. Making jewelry also. Writing helps me to work things out. Making jewelry is good for those times when I’ve been thinking too much, too obsessively about something. It uses another part of my brain. I think the two compliment each other.

So anyway, in a broad sense, I am able to forgive, eventually, most things that have been done to me that were wrong, hard, hurtful. I took my ex cookies and Christmas soup (his mother’s recipe) this Christmas. I’ve called him to check on him. I’ve done similar with others who have hurt me. I guess I have to think that everyone does the best they can with where their consciousness is at the time. I know I have done things and behaved in ways I’m not proud of, because of where my consciousness was at the time.

I said in a blog not more than a few days ago, forgiveness comes with understanding. I believe that is true. I don’t think it means that what was done was ok, that those people can be in your life, but you can let go of the pain and anger and hurt and hate….and take back your power, and be someone you like.

Feeling the love tonight….

Looking for Balance This Morning

A few days distance from the lies, and the waves of my emotions are returning to a place I am more comfortable with.  Gentle swells on the ocean, rhythmic rising and falling.   My head has stopped spinning and the heavy weight of so many lies and such deceit has been passed from me to the universe, where it will be righted, and atoned.

I have so often espoused unconditional love in my blog.  Last night, I suddenly felt a wave of deep sorrow, not for myself or Betty, but for S.  I just cannot imagine living a life in which I thought I had to lie and deceive to keep people in my life.  I have this same feeling about my ex, I cannot imagine feeling so unworthy of love and belonging that I felt the only way to keep people in my life was to control and abuse them.

That being said, I know it is the journey of both men to discover that they too have a center in their soul which is an expression of God. I cannot help them. If they don’t want to find it, they will not.  Free will….lets them choose.

If only they knew the joy that lay in letting that light shine.

I know my ex, when he was young, was trying to let it shine.  He tried to do the right thing.  I have to say, he was faithful to me and never lay with another woman.  But he was unfaithful to me, in his lies and dishonor and disrespect, his anger, his self-centeredness.

I still feel that when I met S, and he was just out of chemo, he was grateful to be alive.  He was trying to live his life in gratitude.  While he didn’t disabuse me of the notion that Betty had done him horribly wrong, he didn’t talk much about it, and only said occasionally he didn’t know how he could have been so wrong about someone.  He added no other lies to his repertoire that I know of during that time.  There was the prison whore, but he did come to me, look me in the eye and tell me he knew he wanted to be with other women.  The fact was that he couldn’t take my sorrow and my sadness.  I think he was shocked to see the depth of the love I had for him.  He told me he would rethink it, and we continued on.  But the desire was in his heart, and he did the prison whore a couple of weeks later, and told me.  Then he came to me, and told me about it from where he stood, and I understood him, and I forgave him.

The point is, he was trying to be honest then.  That’s when I fell madly in love with him.

And a month later, when Betty came back into his life, the lies began. Based on the man I knew and loved, why would I have even suspected?  Maybe he just reverted, maybe the pull to his younger self was too strong, the energetic ties there too strong for his newly found honesty and gratitude to survive.  There was so much history there to remind him, at the deepest level, of who he used to be, and he succumbed.

I think he liked the drama.  He loved living on the edge.  Once he told me about being rescued off a ship by helicopter.  I asked if he was afraid.  He said no, that he felt the most alive when he was living on the edge. Every time he was with one of us, and we hadn’t figured out that the other existed, he felt had walked on the edge and survived.

Sadly, I think the only time he felt loved was when someone was crying over him. And maybe when one of us took him to our bed and adored him.

The only time he felt alive was when he was risking it all.

Therein lies his work, if he chooses to do it.

What do I do about my belief that the love never dies, that my love for him was unconditional?  It is, it was, it will always be.  But that doesn’t mean that I accept his behavior.  It doesn’t mean I would ever subject myself to the possibility of that kind of pain again.

But I look at  him, and still see that child’s soul, just wanting to be loved for simply existing, but never receiving it.  Never having his own soul’s beauty validated.  He became what he believed he was, he lived up to the expectations of other damaged people.

I hope he will go within, if he remains alone. Or even if he doesn’t.  I hope he will try to learn to love himself, and let that light, that I glimpsed for a few lovely months, shine.  I hope he will own his own story and see the incredible lessons he can learn from it.  It’s not too late for him, even at age 66 he can redeem himself. He can still evolve.

I’m just much more comfortable with love than hate.  I am more comfortable hoping for the best in his future, than dwelling on the ugly in his past.  Who more than S, needs unconditional love?  He is in my prayers.

Not that I want his future to include me.  My path has gone far from him, but he will always be a big part of who I am.  I learned so much from this experience.  Hard lessons, and some happy ones.  The one I am happiest about is that I am capable of loving someone so intensely.  That I am not afraid to be seen, regardless of what the outcome will be.  Obviously, the outcome here was not one I wanted.  But I trust that there is a reason for that, for my higher good, and everyone else’s.  I trust that I needed to learn these lessons to be ready for the outcome I want.  I have faith that it will manifest one day with someone more closely aligned to my vibration.

The hard lessons, well, we all know what they are.  I’ve talked about them enough.

Looking for balance this morning, I guess.  I know this much is true….The love never dies.  It has become like water, transformed into a cloud, and will rain down somewhere else soon.

 

 

Spinning Wheel Spins

Spinning wheel

spinning the thread that is my life.

Longer with every passing moment.

Imperfections in the thread

Mark the changes.

Marriage

Children

Divorce

Relationships

Directions

Falling

Rising

Only I know the whole story.

But if you show up in my life

I will share it with you.

If you show up in my life,

And share yours with me.

Let the spinning wheel spin.

The Healiing Time

A dear friend had this poem on her Facebook page.  It resonated with me in a profound way, and I share it with you.

The Healing Time

Finally on my way to yes
I bump into
all the places
where I said no
to my life
all the untended wounds
the red and purple scars
those hieroglyphs of pain
carved into my skin, my bones,
those coded messages
that send me down
the wrong street
again and again
where I find them
the old wounds
the old misdirections
and I lift them
one by one
close to my heart
and I say
Holy Holy.

-Pesha Gertler

The Door is Open

I have lived on the lip of insanity,

Wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door.

It opens.

I’ve been knocking from the inside.

                                                                                                               –  Rumi

The last day I was in VA, my little sister, my niece (her daughter) and I went to a shop where my older sister sells her paintings, and is full of beautiful handcrafted goods, pottery, paintings, jewelry, woven cloth, candles, soaps, bird feeders, stained glass.  Professional grade, really, just gorgeous.

I bought a coffee mug with the Rumi quote above inscribed on it.  It resonated with me.  I think, that I need to look at the break-up as the door finally opening. Instead of closing. My world in fact, expanded, it did not shrink as I thought.  Looking for reasons why things are the way they are, I can look through the door, I can walk through the door, into the light now.  I can leave the torturous questions about why….in the past.  I can love without regret, but I can keep my heart safe.  At least, this time.  I may make a mistake, but the door is open, to loving, and being loved. I can love without longing for things to be different than they are.

I have always said, we don’t know what our soul’s journey is.  I can’t know what S’s soul is here to learn in this lifetime.  Nor mine.  We were meant to know each other, of that I’m sure. And I feel sure that we have known each other in other lifetimes. Now, we are meant to go our separate ways.  The human in me wants reasons.  But my soul, just says go.  Go through the door. You will never understand any of this in human terms.

And so I go.  I haven’t been able to trust myself, I doubt my own judgement.  But my soul knows that this path is the one I have to walk. In the silence I give to myself every day, I have heard. I trust….once again, that love is walking my way.  I thought for so long that S was it.  But it was a story I made up, and I have unmade it.  There is someone there though…

The door is open.

I Believe in Love

Sun rises, sun sets.

Days stretch out in between.

Changes happen,

Nothing stays the same.

Love comes,

love goes.

Like the seasons

it passes.

Sometimes the journey isn’t meant to be forever.

Sometimes it’s just two souls reconnecting for awhile,

And then going on their separate ways.

Who knows what the purpose was?

Who knows what a soul’s journey is about?

Who knows if two souls don’t agree

To meet in this lifetime,

Just to remind them each of a lesson they came to learn?

Or of who they are, in their essence.

Who knows?

When the obligation is met

They move on to complete their own journey.

I still believe in love.

I still believe it never dies.

All those who I once professed to love,

I still love.

The love changes

It transforms.

Its energy

It can’t be destroyed.

It never dies.

I believe in love.

In the end,

It’s all there. is.

Seeking

Change is part of life, she said

As I sat outside with my morning meditation.

Welcome change into your life, she said.

The sun rises on a new day,

and sets on a new evening.

In between miraculous and mundane experiences

blend into the tapestry of our lives.

No regrets, it has all been good.

No fear for the future,

I know where I’m going.

But change, the only constant.

Ever seeking,

For that place where I find peace.

My head not in the clouds

Nor buried deep in a dark hole.

My eyes open, and seeking

With joy my companion,

Peace.

With Love and Gratitude, Good bye.

So I broke it off with him. I spent the night with him the night before he went in the hospital. I was scared. I was allowing myself to love him, setting myself up for hurt again, at some point. But I didn’t let it stop me. I thought about how I wanted to be there for him. I wanted him to have a nice memory to think of and wake up to when he came out of the anesthesia. I wanted him to know that someone cared how he was, and whether or not he hurt, or felt alone. I wanted that. I loved him. I loved him whole heartedly, without consideration of what he had done. It was true and honest and I don’t regret it.

The two days he was at the hospital, I worried over him. He didn’t get me the patient code as he’d promised, so I had to go through roundabout ways to find out if he was ok, or spending the night, or released. People I worked with didn’t understand why I cared so much. Hell, I didn’t understand. But I did. That’s all. I did. So I talked to him that night, and the next morning. He was in so much pain. I would have liked to just be there, sitting beside him. Just so he didn’t have to open his eyes and be alone.

But that wasn’t the way it was. There was too much water under the dam. I was going to take the time off from work, but he chose to go it alone. As he always does. I was afraid, anyway, to be so close to him. Because I still loved him, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he did not feel the same.

But then, what he thinks of me is none of my business. Right? I don’t know if it’s smart to allow myself to be so vulnerable. But I did, it’s done. I don’t think I regret it, because I gave it everything. It was his to accept or deny. He chose denial in the end. Why? I have my theories. But only he knows, somewhere in his soul, why he didn’t want the woman who loved him.

But then the gong bath happened…

And the next morning I woke up and didn’t care that much. I still cared, but not the same way. It was not visceral, it was not that intense, heavy kind of caring. I think it came together for me as a result of the gong bath. Suddenly, I knew he would never love me, that if I stayed with him, I would be repeatedly hurt by him. It is not his fault…it is mine, I stayed knowing he and I were not compatible on many things. One of them is our views on sex, and monogamy. And there were other things…which are none of anyone else’s business, personal things that he and I could not come to common ground on that I kept pushing into the background, because I loved him. But eventually, they would have surfaced, you know…those things you bury don’t die….they rot and fester and make you sick. In a relationship, they make the relationship sick. They cause resentment, and anger, and feelings of rejection, and loss of self esteem. I knew that would happen.

Trouble was, he was still in a lot of pain on Friday. I didn’t want to talk to him about it. Not until he felt better. We talked, I tried to be my same loving self, but I know the difference in how I felt showed through the phone lines. The next day he asked, what exactly is going on with you.

He knew. We have always communicated on a nonverbal plane when we are apart. He knew. Thus began a long and hard conversation. It was still too early to have it, but he knew,and I couldn’t lie. Or pretend it was different. I told him, I still love you, but I don’t think I’m in love with you.

And so, now, after 36 hours of texting, questions, accusations and then an attempt to see me to say good bye, we are done. I was not ready to see him. I don’t think I’m in love with him, but there is still hurt and rejection over the betrayal. Seeing him is painful. I told him, not yet. Maybe later. He got mad. I’m sorry he got mad. I’m sorry I couldn’t just see him and wish him well. But truth is…the wound has healed enough for me to see clearly, but it still hurts. The way an incision hurts under the surface for a longtime. I know we are mis-matched, and I know neither of us would ever be happy going forward. I don’t believe I could ever quite let go of his betrayal if I stayed with him. It would come back every time I felt threatened, every time he flirted with a waitress, or the girl behind the counter at the drug store. I would have made him miserable, and I would have been too. I told him, the prison whore sunk our ship, at the end of the day.

I will miss him. I will miss his flirty, sexual innuendo’d texts. I will miss having him in my life, kind of having a “significant other” after all the years of being alone. I will miss our excursions. Sunday afternoon naps. His wild and crazy stories of his youth. His hands. His passion.

But I won’t miss that feeling in the pit of my stomach when I don’t know where he is. I won’t miss the questions, I won’t miss the distrust that is now there permanently.

Done. Gonna take some time off. Let the wound heal, so that it’s not even tender before I meet the next guy. I don’t want to bring baggage into a new relationship, just like I took off years before I started this one, to try not to bring baggage from my marriage to it. And still, the baggage was there. There is relationship baggage you don’t know about until you are in a relationship, I found out. It wasn’t easy, this first one. But it was fun. It created growth in me. And I know myself much better. I know what I want better today than before I met him.

So…I thank him, I love him. We are done. May we both continue our journey back to source.