All things change, all things stay the same

It's been over two years now.  I just rediscovered and reread my blog from 2014...I like it.  I have since then made many discoveries...some changed my life, most didn't even create a ripple.  And outwardly my life looks just the same.  So what's the point?  None but to keep being.  Keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Keep seeing what there is to see and doing what there is to do.

I still have expectations stacked to the rafters.  I still get disappointed, confused, and fearful.  I still wonder if I make any difference at all to anyone.  And I still persevere in knowingness.  Gladly I torture myself with doubt and anxiety because it needles me to keep diving deeply into my own darkness, and there, I know, is where my treasure is.  I may never uncover it completely and that's okay..it's the knowingness that's important.

I am calmer, more appreciative, more accepting than ever before in my life.  I am able to forgive.  I can let things go.  I can talk down my ego.  The big prize...the unconditional love...still eludes me and occasionally I despair but, as I said, it's there in the darkness and, as I said, that knowingness is all important.  Hey, maybe a little patience has been learned as well!

Raven calls and calls

young hawk watches intently

shimmering sunshine

Why bother?

Well, I'm not writing as often as I'd hoped.  I think I know why, although it's embarrassing to admit it:  I don't have an audience.  I enjoy the writing but often when I think it's time, I just shrug and say to myself  'why bother? No one will ever see it.'   So while the writing itself is important to me, clearly so is a readership...begging the question...why?  Why do I want someone to read what I write?  If they express an opinion, why would that be meaningful?  Why is not the creation enough? I know many writers do it for the money.  I know most do it because the words, the story, is within and requires liberation.  I have no idea how many of those writers would continue to write if no one ever read their work.  I could be wrong, but I think it may be like raising children.  You bring this work of art into being, you spend time, effort, and much anguish into creating substance and meaning.  You put your deepest self into the project, with wrenching honesty and good intentions. You tweak and polish...making it ready for the world.  That it is wonderful and beautiful is enough, but do not all we parents literally puff up with pride when someone remarks positively about our child?  And suffer silent despair when they are denigrated? (and some not so silent).  We do love that external appreciation for our work.  So I guess it's all about ego and validation.  Yes, you did a good job!  Your words really were meaningful.  Sigh.  I had hoped for something more.  Since my words are seen by no one, my contentment then must come from my own appreciation, my own wrestling and overcoming.  At least this way I don't have people shaming my "children" and they can all be perfect and interesting to me, and bring light to the world...if only to my little corner.

Flower all alone

If I did not see you here
You would still bloom

The new happiness...

I remember what happiness feels like...it's that jangly almost tingly rush of excitement.  It's that feeling of expectation and anticipation of something that is surely going to be the funnest thing ever. Happiness is doing something you love, or want to love...it's the rush of adrenalin that moves you to your goal and beyond.  It's wanting to jump up and own and run in circles to express your enthusiasm.  Eyes glowing, giant smiles, shivers of electricity.  I remember happiness.  But I don't feel that kind of happiness anymore.  I've thought for a while that I'm depressed because I don't.  Felt really sorry for myself...poor me...no excitement.  Wondered if I would ever be happy again.

You know, you find your teachers every freakin' where!  I was reading a magazine recently (I have torn the house apart trying to find it but it's gone) that talked about the nature of happiness.  It seems, according to the article, that happiness changes as we age, or at least as we mature.   Youthful happiness is all about exuberance...excitement for what's coming up.  More mature happiness is based in what is right with the world today.  A gross generalization might be that the two expressions of happiness are future vs now.  I'm in the stage of calm happiness.  In fact, happiness itself is now defined for me as contentment...the kind of feeling that encompasses gratitude for what one has, a lessening of expectation.  My life right now...the gifts, the blessings, the people, the things, everything that is good right now...creates a perhaps less incandescent but much deeper sense of satisfaction that I have lived and am living well.

There are dark things, painful things, hurt, and fear...of course...but the satisfaction comes from having survived it all so far and seeing the balance of "bad" vs "good" has been struck in my favor.  I no longer have to worry if I'm going to make it, I already have.  I don't concern myself with having to do all the new exciting things...one can't do them all and I've done plenty.  No need to rush about trying to achieve...my life is an open book...I have both achieved and failed and again the balance serves me.  I can and do pleasurably anticipate something exciting happening, but I know that the real joy comes in the savoring of the moment.  I know that excitement is a body feeling that is much more fleeting than the full sensory enjoyment of calmly appreciating the here and now.

I so recall looking at older adults as boring and having no spirit...dead before they died.  I vowed  to be different.  I promised myself to be wildly happy and yell yes to everything until there was nothing new and I fell dead from exhaustion.  That was fun for a while.  Now I find that same kind of feeling when I look deeply into someone's eyes as I did bungee jumping. Hang gliding was exhilarating, but so is gathering all your children and grandchildren (and great-grandchildren) around you.  I loved parties, but sitting quietly in a room with loved ones...each perfectly accepting each other and the moment...is much more intimate and fulfilling.  Yes, it does look boring (and occasionally is) but there is that calm acceptance...that feeling of all is well...that I now realize IS happiness.  I am happy.

Tiny tiny bud

appreciating the sun

by unfurling one petal.

Checking in

Wow...two weeks since my last post.  Life seems about the same...up and down, back and forth.  I've come to believe there is no destination..or if there is, it's just death.  We are all just bobbing in the ocean.

I have clarified some around fear and expectation...man do I have a lot of expectation!  Especially regarding family and loved ones.   There is, in my mind, the perfect picture of how things should be and absolutely no one is conforming!  How rude!  Seriously, it is my biggest problem.  People say in passing they are going to do this or that and then don't.  People say they aren't going to put up with that and they do.  People want to do something with you and then cancel.  People lie, don't stand up for themselves, forget, and sometimes just don't care.  This is nothing new...but I have just now realized that I am surprised and dismayed every time it happens. Every single time.  Talk about insanity!  Clearly I am too invested in outcome...too needy...too attached to what I want.

So, how do I uninvest?  Who is in charge of that?  Well, it's a kind of neediness so it sounds like ego. But there seems to be some fear around it as well.  And judgement.  Let me get quiet for a moment.  :::Pausing to breathe:::  It definitely feels like fear...when people don't conform to my vision, I feel unimportant.  I feel fearful they don't really care.  They don't trust that my way is best and I feel minimized.  Wow.  It's Rocky and fear in collusion!  I trust Rocky now...even tho mistakes are still made, I know he is on my side...but the fear is very large for him to handle.  :::a bit more breathing::: 
It's a reminder I need to get on with my life.  I'm still indulging in magical thinking...that my purpose, my gift to give will just show up.  I'm still waiting for my life to expand without my growing it myself.   And I am being VERY preoccupied with what I get.  Self-centered much???  LOL

I need to do two things...1) get out in the world and find what I love and 2) practice more gratitude and giving without expecting return.  It is beyond time to be of service to this world and get the heck out of my own personal litte universe.

Smooth and delicate...

Small container of new life

Cracks to let it out!

"Sokath, his eyes uncovered!"*

I have just now realized something very important...that fear is not an enemy to be annihilated.  Fearlessness is not a viable human condition, nor is it to be desired.  I am not to banish all fear, I am to look it in the eye and come to an understanding with it.  I am to feel fear, to recognize it, to call it by name...and go on with my life.  I have been doing this so wrong!  For decades I simply denied it.  I pretended it wasn't there.  When the night terrors took me, I used another method of dealing with it:  I had read so often that you must face your fear, to stay in it until it has no more power.  Guess what?  Terror can last ALL NIGHT LONG.  And when light breaks and I fall asleep, I dream, still in the arms of fear. There is no way I can overpower fear!  There is no sitting with it until I break its hold.  What occurs to me now to do is to treat it like a tantrumming child...be there with it, recognize it, make it feel safe, and go on with life.  The thing is to not be overwhelmed and to not allow it to change what I want to do.  I don't need to wallow in it, dance with it, or even think about it.  I just need to allow it to come and, most importantly, GO without it impacting me.  All this time I've felt like a failure because I haven't conquered and banished all fear!  Wrong goal!  Fear is a useful emotion and sometimes very appropriate.  The true goal, for me, is to come face to face with the fear, take a deep breath, and go forward without it.  I have a lot to think about...this is brand new ideation for me.  And no haiku today..instead this quote (which is actually almost haiku).

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them…

 ~Rabindranath Tagor

*It's a Star Trek reference that represents realization and understanding in the Tamarian 
culture.

The Force is strong in this one...

I just wanna say...

I can do anything I need to do.  

I can be what I'm meant to be.  

I have sufficient gifts.  

I am enough.  

I can create what needs to be born.  

I can destroy what no longer serves.

Mountain  with late snow

Sparkles in the morning light

I am wide awake

Quiet time

It is so easy to get caught up in the doing that one forgets to be.  Even good doing needs to stop now and then so one can just breathe.  I've been so wrapped up in my process that I realized I was not really paying attention, just playing the game.  So I deliberately stopped for a week to just notice.   To let things rise up to be seen, to swim in awareness without disturbing it.  I will not talk about some big ta-da breakthrough...I will just say that it was nice to recognize each and every thought and feeling and just let them go.  Yes, I see that I can be mean.  Yes, that was a nice thing I did.  Yes, there's that fear again.  Yes, compassion, I see you.  Yes, I notice I feel stuck.  Yes, yes, yes.  But no doing.

So last post I identified fear as public enemy #1 but I have not yet created a physical metaphor.  I do, however, know exactly what it looks like and one day I will manifest it, but for now it is enough to see it clearly in my mind.  To be honest, I have no idea how to combat it.  I have no idea how to subdue it, bring it under my control.  I have no idea how to weaken it and loosen its grip on my life.  But I do know that all is well...that what is right now, is, and I can live with it.  I will continue, for a while, to just let it be.  I will see it and know that my "I am" is bigger, better, stronger, than my fear.  And I will just abide in that.

Some of this was given me by a bird...a dove that has been coming to me for a couple of weeks, asking me to shelter it.  I finally gave in, acquired a cage, and brought it in.  Its tail has been damaged by a predator and it does not fly well.  Nor is it suited for "nature red in tooth and claw" as it is very fearless and trusting.  It is domesticated and has chosen to be protected by humans.  I will be its human and honor its fearless and trusting nature by developing more of that in myself.  Not by doing and fighting, but by being and accepting.  
The teacher will always arrive when most needed.

Sweet dove, I listened

I heard your plea and saved you

Or did you save me?