Lion and Magic Boy

That is, if you had a three-sided coin. The question? Why, what to post about tonight, of course. Here are the contenders:

1. Something about how the kids are cleaning their rooms. Yeah, yeah, it’d be both funny and poignant.
2. The cat post I’ve been mulling over since October.
3. Blah blah blah my childhood abuse issues.

Yeah. And guess which one won?

At 5, I started kindergarten. The school was around the block, a long walk up the hill and around the corner and then the next corner and then the short bit down to the school. Memories of this walk always mix up in my mind with the part in “To Kill a Mockingbird” where Scout and Jem are walking home from the pageant with Bob Ewell on their heels.

But usually I walked from a different location, the street that turned off of mine, at a house at the far end of the street where it turned into an “L” and made a right to some unknown destination. At the “L” lived Debbie, and it was her mom’s job to watch me before school and after.

Next door to Debbie lived Wesley, a so-blond-he’s-almost-albino kid my brother’s grade. Wesley’s family kept their milk out on the table during meals, a practice I was convinced would lead to lukewarm undrinkable milk. It tasted funny, too.

A girl who owned a hula hoop lived across the street from Debbie, right in the crook of the “L”. Another kid lived just around the corner. We’d gather on Debbie’s lawn and play “Mother May I” and “Red Light Green Light” until Debbie had to go in to pee after having waited so long she hopped into the house with her legs crossed. I always thought that was silly. Why didn’t she just go when she needed to?

Debbie’s mom sewed things. The house was dark and there were piles of things everywhere, boxes maybe.

Years later I noticed how much I hated waiting. It was the anticipation more than anything. Playing hide-and-seek was painful, almost, waiting for what I knew was going to happen eventually. It was the same when I was briefly in the military, playing at army games in the woods of South Carolina: that sense that someone would find me, that I wasn’t safe anywhere, was chokingly stifling. In those instances I’d want to scream but nothing came out.

I left Debbie’s house abruptly, I think. It may have had something to do with leaving that school after my strange combined kindergarten/first grade year to accompany my mother to a town several miles away to go to school where she was a teacher; then again, it may have been something else. Debbie’s mother gave me two gifts, though, for Christmas: a stuffed penguin made from blue corduroy and a stuffed bear made from fabric printed to look like a bear (all one had to do was cut out the outline and sew around it), also blue. I placed them on a shelf in my closet and rarely took them down or played with them. They made me feel a little funny, those pathetic apologies.

Later in high school Wesley was circulating a rumor that he’d had sex with me when we were all kids. My brother asked me if it was true and I knew it was ridiculous but all I could remember was that somebody’s older brother was in a shed out back without his pants.

But the worst part I think was Debbie’s house. There’s a reason I don’t remember there being a dad there. I can feel him, though. I can feel him and I can feel the waiting, the knowing what was coming next.

Somewhere that year a little girl was lost.

I want her back.

Well, not apathy exactly.

But something has to change. Correction: something IS changing.

Because the person I have been says, “No! That’s not enough! There’s more!”, and the “more” comes from a place I have long spent so much time and energy keeping buried because the fears about all that comes along with it.

Things happened to me when I was little that shouldn’t happen to anyone. I know it; I acknowledge it; I know it’s there. It’s all still quite hazy, but that plus a whole lot of other things that are all connected began shaping and crafting an image that developed in order to hide and protect the part that feels broken.

And through the years more images were crafted, more personas if you will, until they are all just as real now as that original but hidden part. But the feeling of an emptiness inside remains, and it is this I intend to fill by bringing through that buried part.

But my body resists this. Our bodies remember things, and hold those memories. And right now I feel the tension, can feel the fear, can feel the resistance. Which feels a lot like pain, actually.

I’m not afraid of this process, really. I know where it leads and I know what’s on the other end of it, more or less.

It has real-life consequences, though (doesn’t everything?). Yesterday I showed up for an appointment an hour early because I got confused as to the time. I am forgetting things. Oh, this is temporary, I know this, and it doesn’t worry me beyond just having to operate in the world and having that be rather inconvenient just now. Plus, all the things I normally hold myself to don’t seem to matter as much as they did. I think that’s a good thing, really, playing with what matters. Because, really, what DOES matter? Precious few things, actually, and it’s those that I’d like to give my energy to.

So it’s not apathy exactly, but more like a sifting and discarding and keeping.

I’ve been thinking about change lately. Well hello, embrace me, Change! Why yes, I have, thank you. Actually, I have been enjoying a certain amount of staticness lately, and I’ve been really proud of how I have maintained all sorts of balance under various circumstances.

Which makes me think it’s all bullshit, and the whole house of cards is going to come tumbling down on me pretty soon. I can feel it, actually. I can feel an undercurrent of Things and Issues and Patterns waiting to bubble up to the surface again. I can only push them back under so long, you know? Because I really embrace change, I truly do, and I embrace self-awareness and growth and all that good stuff. So I am getting ready for the onslaught that surely will come, and why hello, you get to go on that journey with me! How nice! Because I am blogging daily regardless.

Word count NaNoWriMo: 1891. Was shooting for 2000, but this is decent. Only 29 more days of this to go.

And, oh! How about the monthly channeled message for November? You wanted to see that, right? I think I’ll just paste it in right here. And the whole year’s other messages are here; go see what a wonderful year you have been having!

Monthly Message November 2007

This indeed is a season of change for many. What began manifesting through natural events and through a sensation of transformation has grown into a much deeper experience for some. Old patterns are being unearthed and examined, laying the fields bare for new thoughts, responses and reactions to eventually emerge, leaving behind what has been discarded to be used as energetic compost to assist others in similar patterns of experience. Oh, do you feel you are the only one in the universe having this experience? Indeed you are not, and indeed there are many who share your experience, yes even THAT ONE, and it is through your undeniable connection that even allows you to acknowledge the truths of your own dark experiences, the ones you are just now coming to be able to shed light upon. It is this shared experience, this universal and human commonality, that forever links you, forever, and inextricably links you, to everyone and everything else. It can be no other way, do you see?

Think of yourself now, then, as but an atom in a field just recently cleared for harvest. One atom amid thousands, millions, trillions of others, all awaiting the sunlight, the rain, and time to bring what will eventually be much growth and then another harvest. It is an unending cycle, this cycle of clearing, waiting, growth, and harvest. It occurs over and over and over again, and no part of this cycle can occur alone, no part is any less than any other part, and each part relies upon each of the others. Do you see how it is all linked? And you are but one atom in this field of incredible transformation, one atom forever a part of every other atom, forever a part of the entire growth and transformation and eventual death cycle, one atom without which the entire system would be incomplete.

It is this unending hopefulness that we wish to bring you today, this assurance that you ARE a necessary part of a whole, that you ARE indeed a wholeness yourself, that you ARE acting out of choice in every moment. For all of these are true. There is no choice you could make at any time that would lead to disaster not chosen, no choice you could make that would lead to difficulties you are unable to move through. For you we wish to impart the thought that everything is simply a matter of perception; indeed, all change, all transformation, is only a difference in perception. And if you come to varying places in your ability to perceive, it will indeed feel as if change has taken place within your life, will it not?

In the next month, then, you will continue to perceive differences in your perception. How could you not? The act of simply breathing brings a change in your perceptions. Breathe in, breathe out. Life is no more difficult than that. In and out. Round and round. Change will occur around you even if you do nothing but breathe and stand still. For time will pass, even though time is simply a way of perceiving in itself, and your perceptions will change. And you will continue to feel transformation, sometimes wrenchingly, sometimes gently, but always present. By moving into this possibility, by accepting your every breath as an agent of change, you create additional space for the transformation yet to come.

Breathe in, then, and create your own space. Breathe out and prepare your fields. Embrace yourself, for you ARE the change you see in the world.

Remember I said I was sick yesterday? Yeah, well, I went for that walk in the forest and on the beach, took a zillion pictures (none of which I am posting now, unfortunately for you, because they are all AWESOME), and immediately felt much better. I think it was when I got the message that the sick feeling was due to all the changes that are going to occur for me and my resistance to that.

Oh.

What??

Changes?

Do tell…

So though I ostensibly came here to the beautiful Pacific Northwest to write, and would have been quite happy simply writing, it seems that instead I am doing more spiritual-type work than I anticipated. Specifically, I’ve been working with Matthew quite a bit and it would seem that things in that arena are a-changing, meaning this channeling work I have been doing for lo nine years now is changing. Changing focus, changing mechanically, and with all that come some changes within me as well.

For instance, it looks like I get to completely break down who I ever thought I was and take down the walls I built around who I really am.

THAT sounds like fun, eh?

So the whole thing has caused some, shall we say, feelings of being imbalanced, simply because what has for a long time been familiar is now (slowly) being replaced with something else. I have no complaints about this and am actually quite looking forward to it all, because, well, my life IS about creation after all. But I do find it a tad bit ironic: just when I come to a point where I actually like myself, it turns out that isn’t really me anyhow, or isn’t the totality of me or, well, something. I get a pretty good-sized glimpse of all this but there are still, understandably, more than a few holes that will fill in of their own accord eventually.

So are we cool?

On other fronts, I’ve got two new gigs lined up that I can’t quite yet tell you about, and one more gig I’m putting together as we speak that will be HUGE, and all in all?

Life is wonderful.

This post title has actually been sitting in my queue, mocking me, since August. Originally it was the title of a post that was going to tell all about my trip to Colorado, but that was eons ago, lifetimes ago, so I am repurposing it, being the thrifty little environmentally-correct blogger that I am.

But first I should tell you how the title came up, I think.

A few days before our trip to Colorado, Matthew acquired a Blackberry (you see where this is going already, don’t you?), and during those six days, still being quite enthralled with it, he couldn’t help but crow over the fact that he had cell service everywhere, even atop Pike’s Peak, when I was constantly gnashing my teeth over my useless T-Mobile Razr.

So now you know. Was it worth the wait?

This morning the clouds parted, and, lo! The sun! Behold the sky! So I was compelled to go for another run and later, a walk down the the beach. In all that rain yesterday, did that walk become steeper somehow? Why yes, I believe it did.

Wee white cords leaking out of my ears and filling my head with the sound of Ants Marching, I tramped down the steepage toward the beach, brushing aside the occasional brambly vine that snaked out to snag my sleeve. Some sort of berry vine, maybe. Look at those thorns! March, march, slide slowly down the slippery wet-leaved slope toward the beach.

I strode from one end of the beach to the other, unplugging my iPod from my head and listening to the waves instead, lapping/crashing up the rocky beach strewn with huge eroded logs, rounded smooth stones, snakelike seaweed as big around as Eric’s arms and twice as long as he is tall, and so many shells in their completeness I quickly abandoned taking home more than a few for the children. I balanced atop long smooth logs, walking their length like a tightrope, wetting my Saucony-clad shoe only a little in the cold water. You could see across the bay to the mainland, trees and amid them tall white stacks belching particulates.

I came back to where the path went back up to the foresty treeness and there sat a man, his face turned westward to the lowering sun, his eyes closed. He wasn’t there to see the water, he was there for the sun.

As I moved away from the beach and began the path up, up, and up, I glanced at the bushes lining the path. Same thorns, watch out! But…wait…these look familiar. Blackberries! With several still on the vines, mostly dried and way past their season, but…here…and here…and here. I picked some and ate them.

As I reached in through the brambly vines I remembered the first time I picked blackberries. I had elected to remain at college and just sort of hang out there for the summer, the summer after spring break. It was really quiet since most people had homes to go to, or jobs maybe. Me, I took the bus to the store once a week and bought a box of crackers and some peanut butter and took long, long walks, coming back to my empty double room in which I had pushed the two twin beds together to make one large bed where I slept, mostly alone, enjoying the silence and the fact that I didn’t have a roommate.

In one of those walks I discovered the Blackberry Bushes.

I don’t think many of the people staying over for the summer knew about these, because there were tons of berries hanging heavily from the brambly vines, huge ones, the biggest blackberries I have yet to see before or since. They were delicious, and for a few weeks I went every day until the picking became harder as people found them and the season progressed. It was the single best thing about my entire college experience, most of the rest of which was a blur of discomfort, an ill-fitting shoe quickly discarded.

I reflected a little on this as I continued walking up the hill, now noticing how obviously present the blackberry bushes were that lined the path, marveling at my chosen blindness to things that are right in front of me as I navigate this path of life. I am such a warrior sometimes, choosing a direction and then settng an unveering course, blasting over and through obstacles, blind to the tiny moments of now-ness. My most vivid picture-memory of Paris is from my first trip there, a picture of the cobblestones, the uneven stones over which it was my job to navigate Nathaniel’s stroller, and so fixed on that was I that I missed the buildings, and the people, that lined those cobblestoned streets. There is no memory of faces, only cold stones.

I picked a handful of blackberries for Matthew, who will appreciate their past-season sweetness, and clutched that handful, along with a cluster of wee pinecones from an alder tree like the one decorating the front yard of the house I grew up in, all the way up the (now much much steeper) hill.

At the top I paused and stood in the sun for awhile, still holding my tiny handful of blackberries, and reflected on the gifts the sun brings us, warming me and having once provided food for the berries I now held in my hand, and ever mindful itself of the gifts WE bring to it, the sun.

I walked back to my little cabin, taking a different path this time.

From where I am sitting, I see in front of me a tangle of huge ferns overhung by tall piney trees. Cypress? To my left rises a background of gold: smallish trees submitting to the invitation of autumn above the same green ferny carpet, and farther in the background rise tall, twisted, stately cypress trees.

A 20-minute walk through the forest on a path carpeted with huge golden leaves leads me to the beach, which yesterday afternoon was wild and deserted except by a few raspy-voiced sea birds.

Lying in bed, I peer through the roof into the branches of trees. I am surrounded by trees. Last night I stood under them in the rain. The trees caught all but a few drops and I looked up into their branches, grateful and accepting at the same time, thankful too for those few drops that fell.

I feel embraced here amid the welcoming trees. My tiny indoor space is spare yet contains everything I need. I love how the narrow steps rise behind the tiny kitchen and then surface again on the second level, itself feeling like a simple loft platform floating above the rest of the little house, perched in the trees. If I ever built a treehouse it would feel like this.

It’s a good place to get some writing done, don’t you think?

Yesterday’s travels were a cacophony of sights and sounds, a patchwork of little vignettes pieced together into a day amid the surreality of arising at 3 am and the truths of the awful thing that I learned during the day had almost happened to someone I care about. Like everything, I can trace those vignettes into patterns, a theme for the day, which had everything to do with kindness, patience, and play. Throughout the day I ran across people being playful in the normal course of their work: flight attendants singing in their announcements; TSA ladies lightening up the surly crowd standing in the long, long line; soliticious rental car personnel; bus drivers whose mission it was to ensure everyone knew where they were going after they stepped off his bus.

Ending the day under the trees, and then waking up again in the same magical place, was wonderful.

The sun is out again.

There’s a saying, “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”

I’m not sure I agree with that although a sense of it certainly is true. We craft for ourselves situations of adversity, with the sure inner knowledge that we’re up to the task of navigating these rough waters and gleaning the lessons therein.

It’s safe to say I’ve been swimming in my own rough waters lately.

But just as things end, they begin. There’s a brightness on the horizon that wasn’t visible not long ago but the mists have cleared somewhat, revealing some of what’s to come. To say that it was there all the time is a fair assumption; often we simply allow our vision to become obscured as we get lost in the mists of confusion and pain.

At any rate, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, I find myself once again feeling that shining warmth from my own inner light, the light that was of course present all the time.

Endings as we perceive them can be painful; there’s no doubt. But everything is in perpetual transformation and there are no true endings or beginnings, simply a resumption of the paths we were already on, neverending and always perfect and complete.

[tags]endings, beginnings, phoenix rising[/tags]

As of yesterday, my divorce is final. Or rather, will be in another 30 days so as to give me time to find health insurance that I won’t be able to afford. Yay for joining the ranks of the uninsured!

Two years ago, I thought I would find relief, freedom, and jubilation in those words: “my divorce is final.” But I recognize that while there was a transcript made of two people saying “I do” to various agreements and there is a piece of paper that will be signed by a judge 30 days hence that says “go on your merry ways,” it’s far more complicated than that. And it’s really not over.

And seeing your life or a good portion of it, your relationship, your love, your dreams and hopes and frustrations, all of that combined, reduced to a list of things on a piece of paper, is very strange. And feels wrong. There is nothing to acknowledge the truth of what a marriage was for two people beyond this list of property. How can mere money and possessions possibly define love or a lack of it, life and the day-to-day aspects of living it, and all the other things that transpire between people when they decide to make a life together?

I could make a rather lengthy list of the patterns that have erupted for me during the past few weeks as a result of this. Ironically, I truly thought that I was divorced from any emotional aspects of the technical ending of what has been a 14-year odyssey and that I had dealt with the emotions long ago and that what was going to transpire yesterday was simply the signing a piece of paper. But oh, I was wrong. And since one thing affects another, and everything is connected, this affected everything and everyone else in my life as well. But identifying those patterns is a step toward rethinking them and forging new ones. I suspect there is an easier and less painful way to do this, one that does not require the complete disintegration of the self, the clearing of everything off the slate to uncover the deepest and rawest aspects, the ones that feel shame and terror at being exposed, but I have yet to find another way.

Which is in itself a pattern.

I find it interesting but not surprising that there are many others going through similar painful transformations right now as well. My heart reaches toward every one of you, and you know who you are, and I feel nothing but love for each of you.

Group hug.

As for me, I’ll be here gingerly lifting up a rock here and there to peer under it, looking for aspects of myself I’ve hidden there. Frankly I thought I had done this already, so I’m more than a bit surprised to be here again. But it’s either that or bury myself completely under one ginormous rock and just call it a day, and I don’t think I want to do that, as appealing as aspects of it are.

Well! There’s nothing like a pantload of good old-fashioned emoting to really get things going and clear a room!

Or—alternate opening—that sure was cathartic!

So, uh, yeah.

So while yes, the post two down from this one was terribly cathartic, a part of me really really wants to delete it. I grew up in a family that wasn’t all that comfortable expressing emotions, and while I am filled with and gushing emotions, apparently, I’m not so good with the aftermath. It’s a little embarrassing, actually. The vulnerability. Even though I loooove the vulnerability, I am still terrified by it.

And what better way to be vulnerable than by blogging, which is this surreal semi-anonymous way of being very public?

(Have you ever stopped to think about that? I mean, I adore that aspect, the anonymity-that-isn’t, the wanting-to-be-public. But it’s not exactly like real life, is it? Or…is it?)

So while I felt I really needed to express all that, and wanted the naked vulnerability of it, a big part of me thinks I should only present a perfect face. I mean, in blogging there are warts and then there are WARTS. And you make a choice as to which ones you show. But I have various reasons for wanting to present certain aspects of myself publicly and not suppress but simply not make a big deal of others. A lot of people read this blog who know me in other venues, where I’m regarded as someone who knows or at least has access to some enlightened-type information. And are the warts really compatible with that?

I believe, though, that we all are perfect as we are (though I fully acknowledge that we’re also in a state of change). So accepting and acknowledging the aspects of me that I’m less than comfortable with, and even going so far as to LOVE them, is to me a good thing.

So I’m bringing all this up not only to talk about that elephant I left hanging here, but also to talk about how I moved from being so caught up in that dark place, a place that frankly I thought I had seen the last of so it took me by total surprise, into the state I’m in now, which is still somewhat fragile and raw but feels far more real. I’m telling you this partly because I think maybe other people can relate to it, judging from the kind comments that came in, and partly because I want to remember it myself for the next time.

There’s no one key thing, by the way, if you’re looking for that. I would be, so I’m just being up front about that.

Well, no that’s not quite true. There really is one key to it.

Allowing.

But I’ll get into that in a bit, because while it’s the key to moving out of that dark state, I’m not sure if it’s the place to start.

Rescue Remedy. If you don’t have this, check at a health store and keep it on hand. When my panic at being in that state-of-pain grew great and I thought I was going to actually jump out of my skin (it’s not just a phrase! I had NO idea!), I had the presence of mind to remember this and take some. There’s no instant effect, though I would have liked that and half-expected it even though I totally know better.

But it allowed me to hear a couple of things going on in my head: “music” “movement”. So I plugged in the iPod and cranked it up. I wasn’t ready for anything so joyous as movement (after all! this being-in-pain thing is SERIOUS BUSINESS! THERE IS NO LEVITY!), but that did come eventually. I allowed the music to take me places and to support movement, not of my body but of my emotional state.

I knew I was dealing with old old patterns of thought and reaction here, which had been a terrible concern these past several days. Would I NEVER move past them? Was I ALWAYS gong to be stuck going round and round?

By acknowledging the patterns without judging them I could see that having those patterns present was okay and in fact was but a step of moving through them into not needing them any more. Which in turn allowed me to feel grateful for them. Which is when a lightbulb went off: gratitude.

Allowing gratitude for what terrifies us.

Which allows acceptance. Which in turn defuses the pain that has taken hold. Simply by allowing it to be there.

See? So easy. [cough] No, really. Oh, and thanks, everyone.

So we’re cool.

I’m still convinced that I have the power of invisibility.

It’s odd, really, that I should even wish invisibility, as there are so many times when part of me is screaming to be heard, to be seen.

The whole thing came up recently when I was doing some work for someone located half a world away and it became clear that they read Lion and Magic Boy. I don’t know why that should surprise me, after all it’s in my email signature and it’s a public venue and I know exactly how many people read me and even, if I care to look, where they live and all sorts of things about them, but surprised I was. Like, who would want to read about me?

And, in certain circles, I’m actually a bit of a celebrity! I know! And I have a website and everything! And my picture is posted places!

Perhaps I am confusing invisibility with anonymity.

But I have thought I was invisible in the past. Like when I’m out in public, buying things in stores; people all around me would be helped and I would be left standing there alone and unnoticed, holding my intended purchases. I rather think that kind of visibilty is about expanding your energy around you to an extent where people can’t help but notice, as other times when I have made a conscious effort to do that, people fall over themselves to wait on me.

Even when I was a kid, though, I’d walk down the street thinking no one could see me. I’m thinking now that it’s about smallness. I’d curl up deep inside myself and trust that other people would be focused on their own activities and lives to the extent that I’d be unnoticeable by comparison. Which would you notice more in your kitchen, a lion or a mouse?

It’s clear that I have conflicts about this. I want to be noticed and yet I want anonymity. And I’m pretty sure it’s hard to have both. Oh, some bloggers don’t give identifying information and use code names for people in their lives and there’s a whole spectrum there of anonymity, but for me it’s too late for that. Cat’s out of the bag already. Nor am I sure I want true anonymity. Oh, the conflict!

Besides, it’s not really about that. I think that exploring the inner conflicts, blocks, and fears I have about this will be more illuminating than simply choosing one side or another and likely will eventually lead to resolution. I can tell you already that this is more about fears than anything else, fears of being exposed and vulnerable. Yet I crave those aspects at the same time! How twisted is that?

Yesterday I read quite a naked post about honesty in blogging and about writing to an image. When I began blogging in earnest I did some thinking about what aspects of me I wanted to present to the public. It was almost like being told you could be anybody you wanted to be. Quite freeing! But as I write more I find that I obtain more inner satisfaction when I have been incredibly and sometimes painfully honest, exposing parts of myself and their accompanying thoughts that have remained hidden.

So, yes, this really is all about me, isn’t it? And don’t think I haven’t noticed the irony of working out my issues with invisibility in one of the more public forums I could choose to do it in.