morning thoughts about being heard

Morning thoughts after a turbulent week.

It seems if I maintain and keep with quiet reflective time, I stay more balanced and grounded.  If I don't, I get overwhelmed easier and don't have the awareness to go back into calm in the moment.

If my brain is full, I shouldn't take in any more info or stimulation.  It's time to pull back and process.

When big things happen, even though my instinct is to share with my partner, it might be better to pull back and reflect first.  Otherwise I'm too full to communicate well.  Or listen well.

I'm not a good listener when I'm too full.  It causes me stress to try and listen when I really need to process and share.

When I tell my partner I need them to listen, what I mean is:

I trust you with my process.  I want you to be an insider with me, part of my journey, part of my mundane 3D scheduling world and part of my existential spiritual world.  Help me find the balance.  Hear my innermost thoughts, and worries, my dreams.  Help me make a plan.  But first, care enough to be still and let me be safe to share (which means please don't interrupt).

If for whatever reason they don't make the time, or get distracted, or change the subject (without offering hope of a better time to share) then what I hear is:
I don't have time for you.  Your thoughts aren't interesting/important to me.  I only want you to hear mine, I don't want to hear yours.  (Or worse) I don't care about this because I'm not investing in you or our future.

While this may have been true in the past, how do I not force it to be true now out of old habits?  How do I not get defensive and triggered and still feel ok, that cutting me off or switching subjects or walking away does not always mean "I don't love you, I am walking away emotionally and physically."

I don't share with or trust many.  Very very few earn that.  So if I wish to share, it's huge for me.  How can I learn to not take it personally if for whatever reason they don't chose to hear me?  How can I build intimacy and trust anyhow?

Big stuff for me.

spiritual tantrum

I've been struggling for answers
a clearer path, a simpler way.
I have longed for and asked for this.

Please show me what I need to know.
"I'm showing you."  (higher self)

I don't understand.
"Be still.  I'm trying to explain"  (higher self)

This doesn't make any sense!!
"It will.  Hold on.  I'm showing you."

This is frustrating!  I hate it!
"Stop screaming and thrashing!
I am trying to show you gentler answers!"

Me- throwing symbolic tantrum,
like a cat being stuffed into a cat carrier,
claws gripping doorways, hissing,
clawing things.
"Are you done now?"

Me- glaring, panting, fingers white
from trying to grip anything, everything,
hair tangled, sweaty frenzy...
"Are you ready to listen now?
I'm trying to show you a simpler way!"

Me- pouting.  I guess so.  If I have to.
"Oh my gawd!"  (higher self rolls her eyes)

Sometimes we fight each other.
It's immature.
I'm still learning.
Being human is not easy.

like a broken gift

Tonight I wish I could paint.  I don't even have supplies.
Even still, I wouldn't know how to capture this vision.


I am standing, naked, vulnerable,
holding my pieces, trying to cover myself.
My skin is peeling open, my star bits are showing through.

My whole life I have felt like I didn't belong here.

My weird starlight and strangeness
trying to peek out of my cracks,
my costume not holding at the seems,
the pieces sliding open through my fingers.
I am frantically trying to cover myself up...
and star dust is floating out...
exposed naked on stage.
Most people don't notice at all.
Some are alarmed.  They are afraid of me.
What is wrong with me?


I am raw, tender,
tears softly rolling down my face, dripping off my chin,
into these new openings.
I'm standing here quivering, holding all these pieces,
like a broken gift.

dirt musings, thinking about big things

spontaneous musings while sitting in the dirt, weeding.
Struggling to make sense of all the changes, internally and externally.
So much to process.

Memo alert!!!  New info coming in!
What do I do with it?
I don't know.
It's important!
Yes, It's all important.
I must understand it and make sense of it!
Hurry!

No- everything is fine.
Don't rush.
In it's own time.
But hurry.
It's the evolution of you
and all humans.
No big deal.

Weeds.  Pull weeds!  Nature.
Check out
and check in.

All is fine.
I'm teary, overwhelmed.
How can I possibly do all of this
on so many levels?
And of course, in a short while,
I'll remember
I signed up for this.
And of course, I can do this.

Friend writes back-
"It all takes care of itself.
Just "be" in joy.
"be" in beauty.
and "be" in love.'
No need to hurry.
Slow down.
Let me be still with you.

Be still with me.

dryad mystic ancient soul healer

Wondering what to do with my life. 

It seems everything I long for is against the American Way. 

Rent a house?  Commute?  Desk Job?  Bills?  TV?  The mall?  City?

All of it insults my soul.  Deeply.

I am a dryad, mystic, priestess, shaman, healer,

     ancient soul, pagan goddess, gaia spirit.   (medicine woman?)

How do I reconcile this deep longing with my lot in life?

How much do I concede so we can have a place to live,

     when jobs deplete my soul, the city suffocates me.

Please show me another way.

I do not see a path that has barefoot, 

     sleep in branches under the stars,

     wildflowers, meadows, growing my own food,

     helping others from my heart (not my wallet)

     painting, singing with the trees…

If I can’t ever be this, then I think I would rather die…

than suffocate at mindless, heartless jobs,

     contributing to a system I don’t believe in, that makes us slaves.

If I am truly an ancient magical powerful shaman woman,

then how can I manifest a different path?

How can I thrive in a world that values everything fake?

How do I fake it too?

And get by financially?

I am existentially lonely.  Truly very lonely.

For I life I don’t know how to achieve. 

I don’t know how to do this, I don’t know who to ask. 

The Universe?  Angels?

“Hey, how do I thrive in a 3D world that depletes me,

     insults every aspect of what I hold dear?”

I’m grieving and mourning everything I’ve never had in this life.

How do I turn that into hope? And a meaningful life?  An abundant life?

If I’m going to feel like this forever in this lifetime, then I want out.

Or show me another way.

Please.

the serendipitous letter

The other day I went to lunch with my father.  We have never been as close as I've wanted, we have very little in common.  It is possible that I'm not related to him.  My mother left us when I was 2.

Today was the best conversation we have ever had.  I was completely genuine with him, and explained that even if my teaching job had worked out, I don't want to live here.  I want to live in the country, with my love.  My dad looked at all the pics of my many weeks on the farm, and he understood. He got it.

He asked if before I leave, we could spend some time at the storage unit.  The unit that could park an RV, that houses years and years of his sister's things, his mother's things, his own things...  We do this every year or two, spend a few hours, get overwhelmed, ignore it for another year.  I have told him we need to do this before he dies, because I will never ever open the unit again after he dies.

We ended up spending many afternoons working together, had some bonding, shared stories.  It was so healing to me.

On the first day, he opened a box (there are hundreds of boxes there, by the way) and found a letter I wrote my gramma, his mom, when I was in college.

I don't remember this particular letter.  I wrote her many.  It's in my handwriting, purple pen too.  I read it out loud, the words written from my younger self just before graduating college... from my 22 year old heart to one of my favorite humans in the world...  sent to my gramma a year before she died.

"On the weekends though, when everyone is going out, I am working.  But really, I don't like to go out all that much.  I really miss you, and sometimes I feel like I live so far away!  I miss just walking over when I want to visit, and spending whole evenings together.  I need more hours in my day.  Life is so hectic and fast paced.  That's why I want to live in the country.  I want to have lots of grass and wild flowers, trees, a river or a lake...  I want to plant a garden and cook all my food homemade.  I want to lie in the sun and look up at the clouds through the leaves of trees, sleep outside under the stars...  I don't want to see sidewalks, street signs, traffic lights, traffic, freeways, litter, malls, or anything.  I want to ride my horse to the mailbox, and shop at a farmer's market.  How's that for future aspirations!  

Maybe I lied.  I didn't go to college so I could get a good job.  I went so I could learn something about life... find a deeper meaning to this existence than just partying and working, earning money... When I get to the end of my life, I want to look back and feel like I really lived, not just consumed and wasted.  I want to find nature.  So that's my deep thoughts..."

My dad and I stood there looking at each other, both too choked up for words.  He said he didn't realize I wrote letters like that to his mom.  I said she raised me.  He didn't realize we were that close. And then in front of my eyes, I watched it dawn on him that he doesn't know me at all. And never has.

What are the odds we would find this letter, this day, in this box, just a week after I decided to go live in the country, on a farm, where all the foods are grown fresh and we go to the yard to pick dinner... He lives on almost 300 acres of country, in the farm house his grandparents built, surrounded by more country; blue skies, orchards, ponds, grass, wildflowers.

I felt like I had written this letter to my future self, to remind me not to shut out what my heart has most wanted my entire life, to never forget my soul yearning.  I needed to remind my future adult self to stop listening to what others think I should do, what society tells me to do...  I had forgotten I had written this letter, but deep down, I have never forgotten what kind of life I deeply longed for.  For the first time since my gramma died, I felt like she had reached out to me, her angel hand put this letter right here where we would find it.

Serendipitous.  Goose bumps.  Tears for homecoming to my heart and being genuine.

My dad said, "You have always hated the city huh?"

Yes.  But I gave it 21 more years after this letter, just to make sure.

We laughed and hugged.

grounding is good for the soul

We hiked five miles in the foothills today. Laid on our backs in the sun at the top of the mountain, watched the clouds, thanked creator for such beauty in the world <3  A sunny day and a full moon tonight!