Juxtapositioning

Hawk redux

Driving northward today toward my What Comes Next, I saw my friend Hawk. He sat calmly in I-5′s manicured median grass north of Seattle, surveying his dominion with sharp brown eyes. He saw me but did not look. We nodded briefly at one another while I sped past at 70 miles per hour, his feather-blur held sharp by stilled recognition. My thoughts, immersed in the grounded action of how my next few days will be spent, flew on speckled feathers to Black Friday last when Hawk spoke words of promise to me and brought me aloft with him into worlds dreamed of but yet unreached.

My car flew silently on redbrown wings. In two minutes I passed another hawk, having entered a new dominion. Hawk #2. A sign? How could there be TWO hawks sitting silently in the median of I-5?  If this is a sign, I thought, let there be three. My thoughts continued flowing ahead in the river borne of the ancestors, our shared ancestral past, my shaman-selves. A river of anger, flowing into words of creation. I am a pioneer.

Three minutes. The wings beneath me flew higher. Faster. My thoughts grew stronger. THREE. The third hawk spoke as I passed, telling me all the secrets I have ever forgotten, reminding me to breathe into the punctuation wrought by ONE, TWO, and now THREE hawks, breathe IN your destiny, breathe OUT your story, tell it high and pure, sing it into the sky.

Doorway

“The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you
Don’t go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep!
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,
The door is round and open
Don’t go back to sleep!”
— Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

I stand at the threshold of a doorway. It calls to me, this door into my future. If I stop looking I can see the starry brightness of the path just on the other side, the path that leads into the unfoldment of my destiny. If I cover my ears I can hear the earth sighing in breathless wonder. If I cease breathing for a moment I can feel my body expand in joy, each cell’s aliveness coursing through me and beckoning me into the brightness that covers my face.

The way ahead became clearer tonight. I have been two days in a fog that shrouded me in suffocating fears. Tonight’s moonrise dawns clear. I am not an island. Once through the doorway, I will see how there are hands waiting to take mine, to receive the gifts I hold, and to offer warmth in exchange. Once through the doorway I will see the way clear, my path, a piece of the larger destiny that awaits, and I will know where next to place my feet and in which direction.

I think that’s all we ever know.

I have been afraid because I haven’t remembered to use old patterns as a marker of my wholeness. I was afraid that I erred, afraid I was making poor choices, afraid my past pain would be repeated. But old things can be friends. Allies. I can gather them in. Use them to be whole. Let them give me strength.

I stand at the threshold of a doorway. Tonight I dance through.

Suck

I’ve been struggling with this concept for days now. Years, actually, but I truly thought I had been-there-done-that enough already to move through/past/beyond it, but no. I suck.

And yet I cannot yet embrace it. Embrace the suckage. I smile slightly, inwardly, as I write that. A wry smile. Rueful. It’s irony, after all, and I dig the ironic bizarreness that life is. Except when it’s about me, of course. Me? I have to be Perfect. No suckage for me.

I could say “Thanks, Dad” for that one. A big part of my imprinting is in this concept. Let me see if I can explain it to you; it’s a bit circular but to me makes perfect sense since I have been living it so long. But if I throw out the keyword phrases of high self expectations, heavy judgement of self and others, low self esteem, and heavy arrogance, do you begin to get the picture? In my growing-up world and the one I have created ever since, I have had to be perfect. I have judged others for their seeming imperfections, largely because 1) I am a mirror and I have those same imperfections, if not more, and 2) judging others takes the onus and focus off me. In fact, a big part of why my work appeals to me as much as it does is that it allows me to sit there on a guru pedestal and reflect stuff back away from me and toward my clients when it begins to hit home a little too much. I cannot suck. It is not possible, not part of the reality I created.

God, I suck.

I could say “Thanks, Dad” in a sarcastic way. Thanks for all the shit you gave me. Thanks for all the pain. Thanks for being the one who turned me into this ball of suckage. Except … what is the point in that? In blame? I have held my father accountable (in my mind) for a lot of my “stuff” for a long time. I would rather release that now. I could feel into the possibility that 1) I chose this experience (duh), and 2) it’s actually a gift (!), and 3) it’s up to me to figure out how to see it that way.

All this comes up for me because there is a man who loves me and my inner response is to run. Danger! Danger! Abort! Abort! He loves me and I think I should love him back by being Perfect. Because in my mind that’s what I should be. And if I am not Perfect, he won’t love me. In my mind. This is the very thing that has ended relationships in the past. Every single one, really. When someone got too close to seeing me, I’d set up a defense. Make them suck, in my mind. Concentrate on their flaws until that’s all I could see. Rationalization! Yay! Or I would set up a wall. You are getting this close and that’s all. Many people are happy with that. You can live an entire life not truly connecting.

Except, I have always held an ideal in my mind. That there was, somewhere, someone out there who would truly see me. Who would love me, simply because I am me. Who would accept my full heart and take it in. Love it. Who would be incredibly and intimately connected with me in every way. Who would feel wonderful just to be near. Who would be a real partner to me, without an agenda other than wanting ways to connect, love and support me and want the same from me. I have wanted that, so much, and always thought it was possible. Someday. Somewhere. With someone.

And I have that, I believe I have that now, and it scares me. I don’t want to fuck this up. This is what I have been wanting.

Why this man? Why now?

Destiny?

Because I am ready for this. Because he is. I have been presented with almost the same opportunity in the past … except it wasn’t the same. Not even close. Same but not-same. Just let me love you. I have heard that before. But there were triggers. Or they hadn’t done their work. There was a charge. An agenda. Something was missing. And I was different, too, for those men-of-the-past. More scared. More in denial. Less self-aware. Less close to the internal ball of suckage that’s inside me. More. Less.

I am scared to let this amazing man truly see me because I don’t want to see me. I want to run home, close my blinds, turn on the TV, get a bag of chips, and disappear into the couch cushions. I want to and yet he looks at me with eyes of understanding and love and invites me (invites!) to undress my fears and be naked for him. Along with him. Beside him. No requirements, just an invitation. Just a witness to whatever and however I am. And the irony in this is part of what endears him to me are all his fears, nakedness, quirks, the very things in me that I want so badly to hide from him (and myself).

What if I find out that I truly do suck? That I don’t actually live in a Lake Wobegon world where I am always above average? From here, standing on the edge of suckage, it feels like my world would implode if I found that out. If I am not as awesome as I wished I was (but have never truly believed about myself and so have set up layers and layers of defenses about, especially to myself). If I am not special. If I am like everyone else.

I counsel people frequently about what it is like to let go of identities. I have gone through this myself. Once I identified strongly with being a mother. I changed my lifestyle and forced myself to let go of that identity. It was extremely frightening. I didn’t know who I was. I felt like I didn’t have a foothold, that I was falling. So what did I do? I created a new identity. Helper. Healer. Guru. And now, through this invitation to let myself love and be loved by this man, I am asking myself to let go of that identity as well. I have nothing else yet to hang onto. It feels as though I am falling through space, formless infinite space, and it scares me, thinking that there is nothing at my core to grab onto except for suck. And I scramble back — a fingerhold, a toehold — trying to keep from falling into the ball of suck that is at my core.

The thought strikes me that there could be another identity out there that’s even better than the one I struggle to hold onto. And then I wonder if that thought isn’t in itself sort of self-destructive, leading to more Denial of Inner Suck. Then I employ a whole stream of shoulds and tell myself that I should just be allowing. Just be in the present. Just let things unfold. Stop trying to DO. Be.

I am going to work with this concept of inner suck, even though it scares me. I am going to love and be loved, even though it scares me. I want to be a better person.

Destiny

Girlfriend. I never thought past the age of 17 that I would think of wearing this label as having won something amazing and awesome, but there you go. That’s how life works. Sometimes you come back to where you have been (only it’s way way better now). I am totally loving being a little bit high school. And yes, I have a boyfriend and he rocks.

We own one item jointly. Well, it’s technically mine — a small black hardcover Moleskine notebook, previously written-on pages ripped out to create an open space of possibility, written in with my burgundy and gold Mont Blanc rollerball pen — but we are creating the contents together. In it are many of the secrets of our couplehood awesomeness. Evidence of our co-created experience. Inspiration for further exploration. I am keeper of The Book, and several times a day I relish slipping my forefinger beneath the slim black elastic that binds the pages together, stretching it slightly to widen it, then allowing it to rest beneath the bottom cover while I press the book open to add the next entry. Gratifying.

What may be even more interesting about the life The Book is taking on are the themes that are slowly emerging from within its contents. Without revealing details of our secrets, I can tell you that some of our commonalities are so … unusual, rare, singular … that almost the only seeming explanation for the path that led us to meet is the D-word. Destiny. I can barely utter it without receiving an eyes-skyward glance, but it keeps coming back. Mocking. Inviting. Opening.

I’ll be honest about destiny. I believe in it and yet I don’t, not at all. I believe we each have a potential, a story, and it is up to us to find out what that is. Sometimes we are able to and sometimes we are not. Lives are lived and loves are loved, regardless of whether we find what our true story is, but if we do? When we do? That’s when the magic happens.

I want the magic. I know it is possible. And it is unfolding, within me and around me — I know it is. I can feel it. I want more. Is that my destiny?

Five

Five days. 120 hours. 7200 minutes. 432,000 seconds. Every single one sparkles. Bright diamonds dripping from rain-soaked skies.

Plans have been made and intentions cast. Five days is enough to create worlds, to transform, to move into the shifting sands of a new perspective. Five days of delicious immersion, of experimentation, of creation, of trying on some What Comes Next. Five.

Yes, it’s as if what I have been asking of the universe is appearing. Tangible. Touchable. Taking me places I never knew yet somehow always knew I wanted to go.

Today my tangible-touchable and I walked through a neighborhood, moving into and through hypothetical someday worlds. I breathed in the mossy gardens, curved stone steps, panoramic front porches, and 2nd floor lake views while imagining what person might occupy such magic. Feeling into what I need to become to create all that I seek.

Five days. Staying in the present, breathing it all in, as best I can. Five.

Maybe six.

Trick

One of my biggest fears is that the world in my head will become too distanced from reality. That it’s a trick somehow. That I am making everything up, creating glittering but empty circus worlds from my copious imagination. That one day those worlds will implode, come crashing down on me, and that I’ll be left with nothing but the wide space inside my thoughts, a vast empty plain where the lonely wind blows night and day.

Whoosh.

In these times I look for someone to blame for the feeling of dread that comes from touching into the dead emptiness of my fear, but I know deep inside that I have no one to blame but myself. One of my superpowers is world creation, and I am very very good at it, but I don’t always see whether the worlds I create are actually taking physical form. Discernment. Sometimes the creation is all in my imagination. It is unwise to base major life decisions on something that doesn’t exist. Sure, it’s a fabulous learning and growth experience, but right now I am tired of those. I just want the ground under my feet to stop moving.

Closure

I came to Tucson, the dry desertland, just over a week ago not really knowing why I was here save for the fact that I had bought an airline ticket and there were people expecting me. Gem and Mineral Show? Well, yes, and I walked endless rows of jewelry, beads, gemstones, minerals, fossils, and tchotchke, none of which I needed, though I do now have 20 extra pounds of stone people to bring home and share. But other than that? No idea why I was here.

And I resisted being here. Cactus. Bah.

Mostly I felt lack. My heart has been elsewhere. My thoughts have not been on the face of Kali that lies in the bright unforgiving sky and the rocky lunar landscape. I resisted what was offered.

On Day Four I decided to embrace this place as best I could. I was here; why not? Be One with What Is. I knew that the rest of my days here would unfold and I could either be open to what came or … not. Either way, I have a ticket home tomorrow. Why not be curious about what I could learn?

1. I now have clarity I didn’t have before. Yes, time brings clarity and in my time distorted world the past week has really been a month, but the simple act of time passing doesn’t explain the depth of clarity I feel now about What Comes Next.

2. I offered clarity to several people. Simple conversations — asking questions with an intention to create space for clarity to emerge — often yield powerful results. This is one of my superpowers. Score! Clarity for me and clarity for my friends.

3. Creation. Things become more real when you talk about them as if they are real. I set a lot of intention this week through casual conversation.

4. Kali smiled.

I feel complete about the desert. Today I went up into a canyon and sat on a sandy beach next to a snow-fed stream. A brown butterfly whirled around and touched down next to me. I knew it was time to leave, time to begin What Comes Next.

Oh, and tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. No pressure or anything, but I think it will be wonderful.

T + D

Time and distance.

I know a place in a forest where there is a gateway to other times and other places. Step through the invisible shimmering curtain and the tall trees feel 10,000 years older, transported suddenly across the globe to somewhen. I’ve been to this place several times. Each time it felt nearly the same. Magic.

Time is a funny thing. I observed nearly two months ago (!) that time had slowed down, stretching into exquisitely endless golden hours. It hasn’t changed since then. Time still moves luxuriously. Languidly. Taking its own sweet time. Seconds drip into hours. Worlds are created in a breath. There is always enough, yet I always want more.

Distance is a funny thing. There is physical separation, but … is there? Isn’t distance simply an illusion? I could take one giant step northwestward and be standing among giant redwoods or on a rocky pine-kissed beach. And even if I chose to accept that a mile is a mile and 1112 crow miles is 1112 crow miles, the sense of proximity could still be there. If I close my eyes and feel with my heart, I feel warmth. A presence. A heartbeat. It is enough, and yet I want more.

Embracing

What is it they say? If you don’t like how you feel, change the way you think.

I’ve been in a dry desertland this week, far away from where and how I wanted to be. I have focused on the lack, the missing, of feeling out of sync with my surroundings. It felt wrong, this hard brown world. My eyes and heart are nourished so deeply by the soft greens and blues of my watery forested home. This dry bare place felt alien, foreign, spiky. My heart dried up and blew away with the tumbleweeds. I breathed dust. My brittle bones cracked and broke. I slid into an abyss that opened up into the underworld.

Resisting does not work.

I’ve decided to embrace my temporary surroundings instead. To be open to what is. To throw wide open my heart to this harsh land and gather in what it offers me. I am as big as the mountains. Wide as the bright sky. Wild as the cry of coyote. I have four days left. Something good will happen.

Gestation

According to the Mayan calendar, February 10 begins a new 260-day cycle. That’s nine lunar months, folks. Which means that it’s a time ripe for creation, since whatever is begun now will bear fruit at the end of October.

I love marking time. Taking note. Taking stock. Tuning in. Setting intent. It feels very much to me that there is yet another beginning coming my way, perhaps not a beginning as such but a mindful intensifying. I am seeing and feeling this on many levels. I feel the future, or some potentials that haven’t happened yet that I interpret as the future, and it feels good to state outwardly what the beginnings are. What will be created as a result.

Scary, a little. Choose well! Use all your senses, all your inner gifts. And choose from that place, a place of deep dark leafmold, spongy humus, a perfect growing medium. Choose from roots sunk deep underground, ancient gnarled arms twisting down into the earth, soaking up centuries of possibility. Choose from lightness, from the breathy floaty spring gusts that sends dandelion silk wafting up, up, up. Choose from the slow movement of the stone people, who see time as an eyeblink and who breathe primordial mist through granite pores.

I already know much of what I wish to set into creation this week. It will change everything. It’s time. I have been setting the foundation for it for a long time now. Moving into a new reality. Breathing it all in now.