Okay, It Matters...

It matters that we are here together.

I'm walking around in a different world and can't quite seem to feel 'here'. Yesterday, as I stood in line at the store, I struggled to be present and somehow could not connect with my environment. Someone spoke to me and I never heard what they said, even though I asked him to repeat himself. Twice.

I'm being attacked by butterflies. I know it's spring and the season and all, and I love them! It's just so odd how they surround me every time I walk from my door to my car. I notice them everywhere.

My head feels fuzzy, and my body numb. It seems like I'm wandering around hypnotized, trying to wake myself with every effort possible. When will this pass? Yesterday I contemplated the numbness and started to cry for no reason I could discern. But there was nothing attached to the emotion - just tears. And those orange butterflies I catch out of the corner of my eye - or the black ones with the yellow-tipped wings - are they angels? Friends? Reminders to be gentle and patient? Or just a sign of a spring season I can't seem to feel against my skin.

Maybe I am asleep and dreaming. All I know is I will choose life and love again and again, even though the fact of my human failures (or so they seem to me) occur and reoccur and it seems I will never get it right. What if every dream is fulfilled and every need met, every soul awake in their connection and every heart welcomed freely and all there is to feel is nothing.

Love. Life. Love. Live...

Choosing To Live

There's no other choice. What does it mean to be committed to something? I'm looking at marriages of people I know, who for some reason keep choosing it over and over and over every day through hell and ever-smaller slices of heaven. But this is not about marriage to another human being. This is about marriage to life.

I sit here. here. - I am here. No doubt about that. And though it tears me, I choose to stay. I can't see why - no rhyme, no reason - no comfort or ease, no direction at all. My world crumbles but I still live. I've got nothing for you at all... nothing for me. Breath still goes in and out.

Sometimes I think I'm my father and that almost kills me. This is irony, truly... almost.

I look at these pictures and paintings and think they are not good enough for anything, not anything. I read the words I write and wonder why I still feel like a desert on fire - not the good, cleansing kind - the endless, exhausting kind. Is it burning away just the bit it means to take, or is all of me burning away with it. I don't know. Right now I'm blinded by dust and ash.

But I'm here still. And I choose that - I choose it and bless it. How can I follow a heart I can't feel? So back to faith... a big circle. Like the cell dividing to create life all over again. It's not difficult at all to comprehend that we are entirely new people every so many years - that our cells regenerate our entirety. The amazing thing is how such a weak creature can keep living. Fragile. Stubborn.

Signs of Life

The Cocoon is Breaking

I don't know what this means. I've surrendered to a force beyond my range of vision. It whispers, "keep reaching...keep reaching..." in a voice I can only feel, not hear. With no promise that motivation, inspiration, vision, dreams or clarity will ever return - ever... I keep reaching. The voice is all I'm interested in now. No willful ripping or trying will show me the way - no determination of mind, no polished skill or feather of cobalt will blaze a path. Just vibration that hints the direction of my hand. My hand outstretched in a posture both giving and receiving somehow.

I stand and listen and reach.

Starting Over (Again)

Does anyone else find coming out of sickness a depressing, difficult experience? It seems like it should be just the opposite, but for me - no. Suddenly I remember all the things I forgot to do, or need to do; it's catch-up and oops! and oh my gosh I need to get to the store NOW.

I've let all the tools of my stability fall by the wayside for a couple of days (at least) and the price is a truly uncomfortable feeling of having fallen off some wagon I didn't even know I was on. Darn it. I guess that's why it's called 'recovery'.

In any case, it definitely feels like a Monday. If I can get through the post-illness feeling of imminent destruction that falling behind gives me, things should be right-side-up in a few days.

Happy Monday, everyone!

On The Mend

Today I felt well enough to take my morning coffee out on the landing and sit for awhile in the sun. The longer I sat, the more I saw. Bees in the bushes, hummingbirds tasting the flowers, a flash of purple here, yellow there. An orange butterfly resting on a rock, slowly waiving it's wings. A squirrel peeking out from the bushes to see if the ducks we feed ('Mesa' and 'Verde') were going to eat their snacks or if he could beat them to it.

And I got to breathe with them. I got to feel the pulse of life that unites everything. I'm so grateful to be alive. All the things... all these things that exist together to sing their joy of being.

Sometimes it's all a mess to me; a confusion I can't figure out. All the things... these beautiful gifts of grace sent like butterfly kisses on the soft breeze. Never to impose, hoping but not needing, to be felt. Always there to catch my heart when my mind has finally surrendered it's pointless distracted interference and can harmonize itself with the endless song of being. Does anyone love being human?

All the things... all these lovely, heartbreaking things.

Congratulations Couples!

Ode To Love

How fickle, love....

My love

As fickle as my heart loves itself

My beloved,

I look upon the mirror of you

and see projected, reflected,

My lover, my friend one moment

A cheap betrayer the next

The object of most poisonous

Rage and intolerance yet the next

They are all reflections of my own

fickle heart...

And when my heart has offered

Itself to the fire enough times,

When Truth becomes the mantra,

The being, the beating, the breath

I see you as you are

And I love you again

Well, another wonderful Soltura workshop has been completed (http://www.soltura.net/) by some courageous couples! Congratulations to all of you. I hope the experience was one of connection and growth that welcomes you to the next adventure in your lives together.