Autumn

As we approach this new season, this time of growing darkness, I remembered this piece was sitting in my stuff, waiting to be shared. Also, with the New Moon tonight, also a time of letting go....

AUTUMN

Urge me to drop every leaf I don't need
Every task or bad habit I repeat past its season
Every sorrow I rehearse
Each unfulfilled hope I recall
Every person or possession to which I cling-
Until my branches are bare, until I hold fast to
Nothing

Tutor me through straining night winds
In the passion of moan and pant
The gift of letting go
At the moment of most abundance
In the way of falling apples, figs, maple leaves, pecans.

Show me the way of dying in glorious boldness
Yellow,gold, orange, rust, red, burgundy.

Monza Naff

There I Go Again

The past few months have been different financially. Let's just say I'm adjusting. Feel mostly caught between a rock and a hard place. I made an honest attempt to work less hours this Spring and the balance it brought was healing and helpful in so many ways, but in a matter of a couple of months it was obvious ends would not be able to meet. I cut back in areas I could without it being stressful and then begin a process I have done to myself as long as I can remember...a mostly harsh and inflexible talk with myself that wreaks with self-judgment with a mix of "what's wrong with you...you have it so much better than so many others...you must just be lazy...who do you think you are to think you should only have to work 3-4 days a week. The rest of the world has to do 5 and so just get off your pity stick and go make some money"...it goes on from there, but I will spare you the details.

Here I am a month or so later...living with my decision and I feel my life has lost all balance. I am stressed, exhausted, eating to comfort myself and give me the energy to get going and keep going. My previous months of weight loss and a high raw diet I must have dropped somewhere along the roadside as I was forcing myself out the door or driving home hurting and resentful.

As I contemplated my future as a single parent over 10 years ago, most of the territory was a mystery, but two things I knew for sure were...I would need to be self-supporting in a few years and that if I had to do more than 3 days of dental hygiene on a regular basis I would go insane. That awareness was the motivation for the search that lead me to massage school. I figured I'd do both and it would give me balance. I was blessed at one point to even be able to do massage from home full-time for awhile. That was a dream come true. Circumstances changed in 2006, but little did I know I was heading for the future I was trying to avoid. I'm now living it....I'm not happy. I'm tired. My body is suffering. I'm not really left with the choice to add massage thereapy back into the world of production as Dental Hygiene has ruined my right thumb and the economy has hit the massage industry hard.

I've done the numbers...over and over. My choices seem to come down to a crazy reality...the main way to save money monthly would be to move to a cheaper place to live...but that is not possible with the dogs, who need a yard and those that even take dogs are about the same price I pay here. I've asked the universe several times to send me someone to share housing with...hasn't happened. I've explored the possibility of getting rid of my four-leggeds. It's not going to happen. They are my babies and I cannot give them away. I'm still open to the house-sharing idea, but it hasn't shown up. I've gotten rid of cable, cut back to minimum phone, could save some on groceries if I cut coupons and quite buying organic and raw, but I can no longer even find anything at Winco that I can put in my mouth considering my food sensitivities...and health is priceless. I do love where I live...the neighborhood, the yard, the location, the floorplan (would love an extra bedroom and a little more floor space, but 350 days a year it is perfect. I do eat out a couple of times a week, but even if i quit that and ate at home I would save about $100 a month at the most...that is saves me less than 3 hours of work a month...not significant. I have no debts except monthly living expenses...utilities, and rent. My car is paid for and insurance is only about $50/month. In order to have a work schedule that does not ruin my body and make me feel crazy my monthly expenses need to go down by at least $1000. If I could share housing that would save at least $500, maybe more. If I gave up my car that would be maybe $150 between insurance and gas...but a bus pass is over $80, so really...it's only a less than $100 savings. I could limit Laura to one dinner a night and limit snacks(seriously that kid eats like a teenage boy) and I bet I'd save $200 by becoming a kitchen Nazi. Dog food and grooming and Vet...that is a conservative estimate of $100, with health. But like I said, Laura and the dogs are my kids...I could get rid of my cell phone. That is $45/month. I don't use it that much anymore without my massage business. I've considered it. Maybe just go to an emergency only type of phone...less than $100 minutes might cost half that. With a teenager to keep track of, it feels risky...After considering all the possibilities I realized I just needed to get realistic and work a 'normal' work week and it would all be fine...wimp that I am....But now all I am is a tired, miserable, gaining weight slave. I compassionately remind myself that I am a Projector...not here to work...but to use my mind and be a guide to others...but does that pay the bills?

I did attempt to solve the work schedule by lobbying to work Fridays instead of Wednesdays, my logic being that a day off during the week would give me the rest and balance I needed. It seemed the perfect solution, until the Friday doctor cut his days and hours.

I have no epiphany...no words of wisdom to end this all. I feel increasingly envious of friends who have spouses that allow them to stay home with children or have other means of support. It's not that I don't want to work at all. It's just that I can't do THIS particular job more than 3-4 days without serious repercussions short and long term. I find that when I have to work the 4 and/or 5th day I am so tired and burned out there is no desire or energy to be productive or play on the home front. And even with the extra work, some or the things I'd like to enjoy I cannot afford...a weekend at Breitenbush...a massage....I do still get a pedicure about every 6 weeks. I do have someone mow my yard and clean my house; something I was going to give up if it meant being able to work less, but again, it costs me less than 2 hours of working to pay her to do 6 hours of work a month...and it would take me that long at least. That is a luxury that can go and would go...if I knew I could make ends meet on 3-3.5 days a week. It also costs me less than 2 hrs to make the money to pay the yard guy....so I am spending one half day out of the month earning that money.

I am aware I sound like a spoiled baby...wah, wah, wah. That is not my intention. I am thinking out loud more than anything. There were 2 changes that are making it tough to make ends meet. First, am not receiving more than a few hundred in support anymore and second, since not owning a home or being self-employed taxes are eating me frickin' alive...seriously. I could make it on the lesser work hours if I didn't have to pay Uncle Sam. That extra day a week is just to pay taxes. I must have fallen over some invisable line and I lost the earned income tax credit and suddenly I am hurled into the 30% tax bracket where before, I hadn't paid federal taxes in over 5 yrs and now they want almost a third. I'll shut up now. This makes me sound and look very unattractive and whiney....

I am supposed to spend this weekend calling in the solution...and I feel to tired to even participate in the process today. I did manage to do a little toward that end, but am not participating in the process like I planned. I just want a nap and the world to go away.

The Juicy Life

I haven't blogged for so long that I had to stop and think to remember the address...that's crazy.

THis past 3 or 4 months have been intense to say the least. So much loss, so much darkness, so much healing, and now, finally, so much light. In the midst of it all I don't think I had the energy to even put anything other than a status on FB. No writing muse present in this life.

In the aftermath of going deeper into the Abyss than I have ever been, I lost all perspective and there was, for the first time in this life, in this body, no light to be seen at the end of the tunnel. I wasn't ready to leave this body, but I didn't want to go on, could find no reason to keep going. Breathing was an effort.

Thanks to patient, loving friends, and the passage of time, the use of Shamanism and Naturopathic Medicine, I feel alive and more present than ever. The part of me that felt done and washed up, worn out and weary has re-awakened and reappeared more alive and present than before.

Life just feels juicy right now. Blessings are showing up; some in very unconventional, but still perfect ways. I am enjoying each moment and am (sorry to my pessimistic friends) back to the half-full way of seeing things. I am more in my body, more in my heart and it feels great. Laura is probably getting tired of my longer, tighter hugs, but she will just have to adjust.

I want it all. And....I am willing to enjoy my life whether all the pieces look like they are in place yet or not.

My body feels good since re-entering a mostly raw food diet. I'm slowly losing the weight I gained since the townhouse slid. I now see I needed all this time to process it all and I am thankful I was kind and patient with myself and indulged the part of me that thought sugar and fat were the answers. I, like probably most of us, am a slow, stubborn learner. Once I stopped putting the junk in I started feeling so alive I couldn't sleep well. I felt restless. My first and second chakras were spinning so fast it almost carried me away.

I am able to love, all of humanity, more deeply than before. I love this quote:

"Being love means that you are responsible for gathering all the parts of your fractured self, the parts you have abandoned or become ashamed of, and carrying them tenderly to the alter of your heart for repair." Maureen Moss

The Irony of Worry

On my way to my follow-up mammogram today I was feeling pretty peaceful and calm and I was pondering why some things make us literally sick with worry while other things we don't think twice about. Namely, on the way to the appointment I was considering all that could change for me IF I got a diagnosis and at times how cancer can still make me crazy when I consider it entering my body and life again....and yet, it occurred to me that I jump in my car usually several times a day without even a hint of concern for my safety. The truth, when I consider it, is that statistically I am much more likely to be seriously injured or killed in my car than I am of being diagnosed with cancer this particular day of my life. That realization caused me to consider how conscious I am of how I pick what to spend mental energy on...

To spend any time worrying about cancer and none worrying about driving a car is, in acutality...REALLY stupid. For that matter, to spend time worrying about ANYTHING that hasn't happened isn't too smart either....just sayin'.

I was given an 'ok' today, by the way. My mammogram does still show an abnormal area, but from the ultrasound they were able to confirm that the area is smaller in size than last check.

Under This Full Moon

Since last Fall this notion of "Storycatching" has captured me; much to my dismay. Everywhere I turn...there it is. I have read way too many books on writing your personal history...taken workshops....and have yet to acutally put 'pen to paper', as it were, and start. I've distracted myself in a million and one ways. I guess I have been waiting for it to be easy; for someone to offer me a soft, comfy chair and my to do list completed for me...and that I've gone through all my excuses not to. I started a blog and invited others to tell their stories; hoping it would get me going to. That seems to have all but fizzled and I feel sort of funny being the only one writing....like I'm hogging the space or something rediculous. Just another excuse, really.

I had one story that had poked it's painful, ugly head up immediately demanding attention. It was a very private, embarrassing, deeply suppressed memory. One that I thought had been 'dealt with'. I had been forwarned that the February Full Moon would bring upheaval. That it would 'tear me apart only to put me back together again in a better way'. That it would have to do with my relationship with the Masculine. It came in innocently enough.

I had signed Laura and myself up for a Self Defense class and that afternoon as we practiced at the punching bag. What I assumed was long forgotten and surely forgiven all came flooding back like a Tsunami. I had never punched anything or anyone in my entire life and was impressed, shocked really, at the power it brought to me, but in the same instant I enjoyed the power, came a flashback to a time period in my life that I often played the victim...just lay there and accepted assault on every level. The intensity almost dropped me to my knees. I quite hitting the bag and walked away and somehow managed to wishit away for later.

That night in the hot tub, coincidentally under the Full Moon, I let the emotions come. The shock, the grief, the pain, the shame....None of it about the perpatrator, but simply for my own internal experience. Complete shock that it never even occurred to me to do anything except take it. Compassion for myself for not doing anything. Not speaking up, getting out, fighting back. I allowed a deep, cleansing cry to overtake me. I allowed deep growning howls to overtake me and release the long held emotions. It wasn't until I was done that I remembered the forecast for a powerful Full Moon. "I wonder if this is what he was talking about?" I thought to myself. It certainly did have to do with my relationship to the Masculine. The cry released the heaviness and I thought I was done. "That wasn't so bad", I thought to myself.

Little did I know that it was only the beginning of the process. Most days since then I still feel torn apart, fragmented to some degree. I have trouble staying in the moment, in my body...I guess it isn't done with me yet. Not yet time to be back together. In one piece. I have done my best to surrender to the process. I touched on it a couple of posts ago. Each day brings it's own gifts. I'm learning not to fear or run from the darkness and I'm trusting that things are healing and shifting inside at a level not perceptable to me consciously. I am grateful to kind friends who have let me fall apart in their presence. Others who take the time to let me know with a note that they love me and are thinking of me. Those who have reminded me of the truth about life and myself....even though I have often figuratively flipped them off in my mind as they remind me. I even sat and wrote the story of that time; put it on paper for the first time, hoping to speed up the process. Instead it brought an onslaught of dark and forgotten memories. I'm letting them happen and I'm really trying to be present with each of them. Acknowledge them. Allow the images, the feelings of all of them to flow through. To sit with myself and those around me with deeper compassion. Be kind and gentle with myself each day. Rest as I heal.

I can't help but wonder if the surgery is not partly to blame. The pelvis is energetically our 'ocean of emotion', and mine certainly endured a good physical stirring, so surely it brought up the 'bottom dwellers' to be cast on the beach to be noticed and examined, whether I wanted or not.

So...in this Full Moon I will start my "Her-Story" in earnest.

I'm learning that some paths must be walked mostly alone and yet don't have to be completely lonely. And so, I try to be patient as I am being 'put back together in a better way'.....And so it is.

Everything is Waiting

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

David Whyte

Shining Darkness

Somewhere in my usual, Polly Anna, Idealist mind I had 2009 pegged as a whole new beginning. A starting over. The words "Fresh" and "Free" would have flowed off my tongue. It doesn't seem to be any of that...so far.

In the last 15 years I've had other struggles, other trials, bigger threats and losses, and as far back as I can remember I've mostly sailed on through, hardly missing a beat in the daily routine; picking back up right where I left off, hardly falling off the wagon on my way to who knows where...but I never quit moving for long.

This time is different and I have to be honest with myself and admit that I am in uncharted waters. I do have the vague awareness of some sort of life jacket or flotation device. There have been moments that a wave takes me under and in that process I've discovered what at first was a frightening realization. I don't have much, if any, fight left in me at the moment. When I find myself once again under water, rather than panic and make a quick dart for air and oxygen, I find only a faint sigh as my body begins to float to the surface without any effort on my part. More often than not I wake up sort of resigned to the fact that I am still here and go through the motions in vaguely disconcerting way. I don't like this, and although I'd like to feel better I don't have the energy to do what it might take to do anything about it.

The other interesting aspect of this time is that juxtaposed to this internal condition is a simultaneous, spontaneously-appearing joy in the simplest things.

In any given day I can be in both heaven and hell several times with no predictability or consciousness about it on my part.

It doesn't really matter to me what got me here, although early on I was grasping for explanations, there is another part of me that is content and at peace with the process. Although at times the depth of the darkness can take my breath away when I realize how far I've fallen from the surface.

My appetite is finicky at best. My sleep is fitful some nights, and a blissful escape others. Basic self-care is a burden and I struggle just to keep hydrated and survive the surf between nausea and hunger. I manage to take most of my supplements most days, but that is mostly to avoid the consequences of not for this on the border body. I guess the truth is I'm in survival mode and simultaneously wishing for death.

To say I am a walking paradox is an understatement. For example, the other day I had a great conversation with someone and was relishing our relationship and the blessing it was to my life and feeling so thankful in general. I realized I was very thirsty and walked to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator to get my water bottle then picked it up a couple of inches off the shelf only to put it down, close the door and put a square of chocolate in my mouth instead, defying any logic whatsoever...I was denying myself exactly what I wanted AND needed.

As I walked out of the kitchen in observer mode I asked, almost outloud, what that was about....why was I denying myself water? The answer came quickly..."It doesn't matter...I don't really care." "Care about what?", I asked. "To live." was the immediate reply.

I must admit that was the truth, which brought some peace, but the backlash of fear that followed was equal. "What do you mean you don't want to live?" "Thoughts like that will make you sick. You will make yourself sick and die and it will devastate Laura. That is crazy. You are crazy. You need help. You have to fix this. You need to live. What is wrong with me?" My breath became shallow and short. And I realized that some days I was hardly breathing. That it took effort and sometimes the air almost caught in my throat. My mind wandered to all the ramifications. This behavior was obviously a physical manifestation of some part of my subconscious that was acting out on it's death wish. It was doing it's part to get it's way or make evident it's desires...desires I wasn't really on board with. All of this...within one morning...complete bliss and complete dispair. And the best part...It's all true and I can handle it.

With the realization I sat down in my favorite chair and just breathed. Deeply. In and Out. Over and over. And in that moment all was well and all ok. If that part of me that feels done and ready to move on to the next realm has it's way and even if it manages to turn into illness...so be it. I have no control, at least right now, to change that. I can be present with that. And I can be present with my lack of appetite as well as the paradox of today....Relishing my freedom and independence in one moment and an hour later feeling completely alone.

Mostly I have just chosen to accept that this is where my mind and my body are right now and I am being as kind and compassionate to myself as I know how to be. Instead of forcing myself to eat food that doesn't look or sound good or buying groceries that are 'good for me' then having to throw them out spoiled, I am taking one meal at a time and mostly eating out or going to New Seasons when I get hungry and getting just what sounds good. That feels nurturing and kind. Instead of forcing myself to go out and be with people when I feel lonely, I allow the desire to stay in to rule. I accept that even though my body is healed to the point I have my doctor's permission to resume light exercise, another part of me needs more time and isn't ready. I am struggling to accept a changing body and fear that it might not ever change back, but in those moments I breathe and I smile slightly. And I accept this very paradoxical existence.

Final note: If you feel inclined to worry, please don't. I am and will be mindfull and take care of myself...and ask for help if I need it.