Pulsing
an alive
turning,
purposeful,
within a
3-dimensional
shape,
embedded deeply
and it is of me,
birthing the holomorph
of not-yet
though what is
inevitable,
my God-given path.
Can I let go,
surrender,
into what
I am
destined ...
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Skeletons in the closet ...
Yesterday, I visited a dear friend who has been admitted to an eating disorder treatment program and will remain there for 6 weeks. While she does not look the part, the skeleton in her closet is actively at work, starving and excessively exercising in hopes to be the real deal someday.
As I walked up to her building from the parking lot, there were a cluster of young girls on the path. They were literal stick figures. Hollowed faces and clothing barely hanging on their bones. I see why my friend is still comparing herself to those around her and shaking her head over and over: "I can't be that bad?"
It's a matter of perspective. As I see it, addiction is an inside-job. And so is recovery. When we let the outside inform our interior, we get confused, trying to make sense of what we see and then that influences how we feel.
My friend is at the wee beginnings of what I suspect will be an enormous shattering. She is without her 3x daily rigorous workout regimen. She is watched at every meal and if she refuses, then she is made to drink Ensure. She has no contact via cell phones or internet. It is just her and the 4 walls of her tiny room and tiny roommate and all the other tiny women trying to figure out if they can be full again.
I will admit that I couldn't wait to leave. Not to get away from my friend, no not that at all. It was the empty, vacant stares of the inhabitants of this place piercing through my heart. I became aware of the solidity of myself, much in the same way I feel the personal in impersonal space. I wanted to make space full. I had discomfort in the nothingness of what was here. Funny, this IS my work. But this is NOT the place.
I have another variety of skeletons in the closet I must face ...
As I walked up to her building from the parking lot, there were a cluster of young girls on the path. They were literal stick figures. Hollowed faces and clothing barely hanging on their bones. I see why my friend is still comparing herself to those around her and shaking her head over and over: "I can't be that bad?"
It's a matter of perspective. As I see it, addiction is an inside-job. And so is recovery. When we let the outside inform our interior, we get confused, trying to make sense of what we see and then that influences how we feel.
My friend is at the wee beginnings of what I suspect will be an enormous shattering. She is without her 3x daily rigorous workout regimen. She is watched at every meal and if she refuses, then she is made to drink Ensure. She has no contact via cell phones or internet. It is just her and the 4 walls of her tiny room and tiny roommate and all the other tiny women trying to figure out if they can be full again.
I will admit that I couldn't wait to leave. Not to get away from my friend, no not that at all. It was the empty, vacant stares of the inhabitants of this place piercing through my heart. I became aware of the solidity of myself, much in the same way I feel the personal in impersonal space. I wanted to make space full. I had discomfort in the nothingness of what was here. Funny, this IS my work. But this is NOT the place.
I have another variety of skeletons in the closet I must face ...
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
The Mystery of the Dead End
“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.
Delicious Ambiguity.”
― Gilda Radner
In a rather spontaneous, in the moment conversation with my healer over a lovely dinner, she shared with me a "seeing" that she had about my biological lineage. One that was riddled with tragedy, from addiction of all kinds to depression to early deaths and even suicide. This information confirmed the inherent wisdom in my being about "not going there" with regard to a desire to meet my biological family. I've been curious about my ethnic heritage, yet have always had a halting in my system about seeking the actual members out. It is quite likely they are not among the living.
The Reality I dropped into today during a healing session with a classmate about this subject was that moving in the direction of my biological lineage would find me at a dead end. AND ...
there is a mystery within this. I don't know what will arise for me. There are threads that have not yet been revealed or turned.
I became aware today that this is the Reality that lived in the background of me but was not something I actually wanted to see or know in this way. I would watch stories on TV of adopted children being reunited with their birth families and cry my eyes out. I believe those tears were a deep sadness for a longing that I knew would never come to fruition.
My healer shared that exploration of this would bring me to great grief -- that I would feel lonelier than I ever have AND that I would be Not-Lonely in a way that I never have.
I feel the tremendous split here, yet now I am not holding myself as the perpetrator who is doing the splitting but rather I am the container for the splitting -- holding the world of my biological lineage and the world of my adopted lineage simultaneously.
I don't know anything else about what this means and I am committed to being present to the mystery of this dead end, to see what else may arise from the ash.
Delicious Ambiguity.”
― Gilda Radner
In a rather spontaneous, in the moment conversation with my healer over a lovely dinner, she shared with me a "seeing" that she had about my biological lineage. One that was riddled with tragedy, from addiction of all kinds to depression to early deaths and even suicide. This information confirmed the inherent wisdom in my being about "not going there" with regard to a desire to meet my biological family. I've been curious about my ethnic heritage, yet have always had a halting in my system about seeking the actual members out. It is quite likely they are not among the living.
The Reality I dropped into today during a healing session with a classmate about this subject was that moving in the direction of my biological lineage would find me at a dead end. AND ...
there is a mystery within this. I don't know what will arise for me. There are threads that have not yet been revealed or turned.
I became aware today that this is the Reality that lived in the background of me but was not something I actually wanted to see or know in this way. I would watch stories on TV of adopted children being reunited with their birth families and cry my eyes out. I believe those tears were a deep sadness for a longing that I knew would never come to fruition.
My healer shared that exploration of this would bring me to great grief -- that I would feel lonelier than I ever have AND that I would be Not-Lonely in a way that I never have.
I feel the tremendous split here, yet now I am not holding myself as the perpetrator who is doing the splitting but rather I am the container for the splitting -- holding the world of my biological lineage and the world of my adopted lineage simultaneously.
I don't know anything else about what this means and I am committed to being present to the mystery of this dead end, to see what else may arise from the ash.
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