In a different place ...

Measure These Things by Your Eyes, a photo by [ Kane ] on Flickr.

One day
you suddenly

WAKE up

and find

you are

sitting

in a
                                     different place

in your Life

And

scratch your head

wipe the tears
of SURPRISE    away from your face

upon realizing

I am the

One

who has     
                 moved away,


not them

I will be what I will be ...

~ daybreak ~, a photo by ~Fussel~ on Flickr.

Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh.
Hebrew for: I am what I am.

Or, as my healing classmate translated for me, the "burning bush" moment when God asked Moses to lead His people [as God would have him] ...
"I will be what I will be."

After a week of wrestling with myself, I have landed on an intention -- my desire for change.

"I want to be in the Life that is here, including its uncertainty and unpleasantness, trusting that I am safe and secure in this awake Presence. I honor the voice of my wise interior who knows what she wants and needs. I can bear and experience Reality without poisoning anyone or keeping my story alive."

My dear friend received and healed me from a place that I was calling forth and she trusted what was here. She felt the luminosity of the threads of my poisoned ground, like a vapor, hovering around my deep places of wisdom and knowing. These threads simply needed to be gently turned.

An alive awareness to my woundedness, without being overtaken, allowing it to have its rightful place beside my desire for health, well-being, presence of mind ... I am calling the Awake. The marriage of the exiled and the free.

I will be what I will be ...

Illumination

Luna and the Evening Star, a photo by Mr Geoff on Flickr.

I have gotten free of that ignorant fist
that was pinching and twisting my secret self.
The universe and the light of the stars come through me.
I am the crescent moon put up
over the gate to the festival.
~ Rumi

God, please release me from the bondage of Self.

It has been my own fist, as noted in Rumi's words above, that was doing the pinching and twisting.

I am currently engaged as an observer and a participant in seeing the battle I've been having nearly all of my life with myself. There has been much bloodshed and scars. I fear that I have hurt many an innocent bystander. I am perhaps as toxic as a nuclear waste site.

AND

I have goodness and light. I am holy as I am.

Opening my eyes and ears and heart a little more and a little more to all of the voices of all of the Who-Is's that make up the entity that is me, I am both surprised and weary.

A statement of the One in me who does not like uncertainty which took me aback was this:
"I don't want to die alone." I didn't know that actually lived in me.

The voices that I am sick and tired of are all the whining and complaining drones about being seen and heard and met and respected. Blah, Blah, Blah. Those are tiresome, self-seeking voices that come from trying to keep the Woe is Me story alive and well. I've read it dozens of times and it doesn't have a happy ending. Let's toss that book into the fire, shall we ?

My teacher Jason has pre-warned that the venture into examining our poisoning thoughts is a road to be trudged gingerly. I can attest, being on the trail for a spell, that it is the muddiest path I've dragged my boots in AND, for me, there is no turning back. This IS a choiceless choice. The operating mechanism on this here piece of human machinery is rusty and in dire need of an overhaul.

If I want the lights of heaven to shine through me, so that I am indeed the moon over the festival -- the celebration of Life -- I need to keep putting one dirt-drenched foot in front of the other. This is the path to Salvation. I don't want to poison another soul, including me.

At Her Deathbed ...

Gustav Klimt: Ria Munk On Her Deathbed, a photo by deflam on Flickr.

I stand today at the bedside of a loved one who is dying.

This dear soul is me.

I should clarify by saying – the former ”Who Is” of me.

What also will disintegrate in this process are the attachments held by this version of me.
Tears stream down my face as I let go and say goodbye to each of them. What finds me in the deepest well of sorrow is bidding farewell to the one who has been attached to the unavailable, with an imagined hope of  Fullness. One cannot be nourished on breadcrumbs trying to be convinced it is a feast.

She now heeds the call, which whispered her out of a deep sleep, a number of nights ago:

“Follow your own trajectory.”

I cradle this One close to my heart.

Grieving and holding and standing simultaneously, I am gazing into the eyes of suffering in a way that has never seemed possible, definitely not tolerable.

There is nothing to grasp, so I fall back into the arms of God. The lines from the AA Big Book bellow: “We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon.”

Wide awake to this Reality, my face collapses into my cusped hands, defeated and surrendered.

No control: it is not yours to do but the purpose of the world itself.

I Have a Dream ...

Ray of Hope - Cambodia, a photo by Maciej Dakowicz on Flickr.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

On this "MLK Day of Service", I ventured out onto the streets of my neighborhood, answering the call from an email to do "community clean-up". This is not new to me, as I spent many summer mornings doing this very task.

What felt new to me today was my reaction to the repulsive sights and the association to the person whose legacy was most definitely NOT this.

My stomach turned knots and angry, judgmental tears got stuck in my windpipe with each disgusting piece of filth I picked up -- evidence of the disregard and disrespect for the earth that is not ours but was freely given to us by a loving God who absolutely worked through Martin Luther King. Yes, I am engaging in self-righteous anger and I will need to make amends and put myself in-check later !

After being in the midst of the ick of the world today, I too have a dream:

That no one is exposed to the kinds of things that should go unseen --
empty 40's of stale beer
cigarette butts that decorate the sidewalk like confetti
used condoms still oozing with their contents
empty crack baggies in every color of the rainbow
the refuse of an entire meal from Chick-Fil-A, complete with straws, napkins, empty soda cups and chicken carcasses
gum and candy wrappers of every kind

I have a dream of seeing beauty in the world; at least for one portion of today, there are a few streets that have a little more shimmer to them.

And this too ...

Day 133/365 ~ And it will be Just like You Were Never Gone, a photo by Amanda Mabel on Flickr.

rising like a ball
of lava in my throat
i choke back
each
indelible
façade
i  once believed

with my
whole heart

the repeating words
of promises un-kept
play like a broken record

notes
i can no longer hear

i retaliate
with meditation

and tearful prayers

searching for the
answer

in the Divine

i cannot
seem to reconcile

accept

or
let go

instead
i sit
and
notice
and make room

Oh.

And this too …

Genuine Acceptance

spacious, a photo by a.c.thomas on Flickr.

I have made a return to listening regularly to the Buddhist teacher, Tara Brach. The podcast I chose tonight was titled: "Genuine Acceptance".

This is EXACTLY the nourishment my being needs.

"Acceptance does not = being a doormat."

She speaks about how when we "give up" and resign ourselves to a situation or to how a person is  -- it is under the guise of accepting, but this is not the case. Acceptance is NOT passive.

Genuine Acceptance is recognizing the truth of this moment, without resistance. It is an engaged willingness of our heart to be with the Life that is here.

Easier said than done. I feel like I need to listen to this podcast several times daily. I want to disengage with what's here and distract or lash out or blame or tense against my Life circumstances on a regular basis. I do a practice called "Work of Return" which opens my senses to the thoughts, bodily sensations and feelings that are in the present moment. It can be deeply painful or disconcerting or cause me to cringe when I really am awake to this.

Tara says that true, genuine acceptance is more than just an intention to be awake to what is here. It also involves continuing to stay with what is here in us, soften, lean into, get curious about what is arising, until there is simply a surrendering presence that finds us able to fully let go.

I have a Big Toe in this. I need to go all the way to the edge and dive in.

The statement that really got my attention was this one: "The space of the heart that absolutely accepts what's in me in relation to another is LOVE." I really have to wrap my heart, not my brain, around this. My willingness to engage what is here in me and totally accepting what is here in me -- in relation to another -- is LOVE. I feel like this means if I can FULLY and TOTALLY own my reactions, feelings, thoughts -- about another -- I wouldn't try to place blame on them or want to cut them out or want to run away. That this kind of presence is LOVE. And it's not targeted for the other person. It's not, in fact, about loving them. Because they could be acting like an asshole ! But if I genuinely accept, it is being with what's here for me about them. It may not change me liking them any better or any of that, but I won't act out or resent them or try to poison them as a result. The act of LOVE is really for me and how I relate to another.

Tara ended the talk with this:
If you let go a little, you'll have a little peace.
If you let go a lot, you'll have a lot of peace.
If you let go absolutely, you'll have absolute peace.

Moving to the Light Source ...

We can only appreciate the miracle of a sunrise if we have waited in the darkness, a photo by sharaff on Flickr.

"God could and would if He were sought."

This is the last sentence of the AA literature piece read at the start of meetings, titled: "How it Works". This brief and concise statement has a powerful electrical charge when you really plug into it.

My last couple of days in recovery rooms have all been lovingly moving me to the Light Source -- through the God-connection of the members and the shimmering container of the sacred spaces we gather.

In a struggle last evening, I dropped to my knees and actively sought God. I didn't get a could or would ...He DID. In the form of an angel on earth. Nurturing and Loving and Unconditional. Sending me on my way to carry the message as I chaired the Alkathon meetings that brought us into the entryway of 2012.

My intention for the coming year is simple: keep moving away from a drink and toward the Light Source. I wish every soul traveling this path the same.