I Must

In the cafe, I am the junkie, drinking a bowl of bean caffeine. I am addicted to happiness. It is the safest place. I'm afraid of sadness. I'm afraid of sorrow and sorry. I fear the heavy. I must be light. I must. And so I drink a cup of coffee. And then, I drink another. I try to hold to my allotted 8 ounces, but before I know it, I am at the pot once more, pouring. 

In the bar, a room I rarely reside, I drink wet glasses of golden beer. The dizz, the buzz, the bubbly. I want the night to be light. It must be light. It must. Even if the floor feels like a slight hill. Even if the walls appear blurry. I feel light and airy. 

It's this refusal to feel: feel the fullness, feel the uncomfortableness, feel the abundance. In the cupboard, in the car, in the moment, even, of flight - of feeling so light. I try to weigh myself down, tether my energetic body to something heavy in my belly. 

What if I just allow it all? To open the door between my body and soul. The worry is that I'll drown. The worry is that I'll float away. The worry is that I won't be quick enough, interesting enough, fun enough. I will be a boring human being. I will be an odd one, sober. I will not be whole. I will not be happy. I will be tired and grumpy.   

And what, I wonder, of my liver? And what of my sleep and my cells and my soul? What of my blood and bones and gut and brain? What of my glands and my skin? 

I have written it many times before. 

Well, here, I write it again. 

I must quit. 

Quit caffeine.

Quit alcohol. 

Quit processed foods. 

Quit animal products. 

Quit all chemically curated "ingredients."

And it's not to prove anything to anyone but to choose and accept and welcome what feels like the home of my wholeness in its full, unfiltered essence. To stimulate it not with cups of drink, but with experiences.  

And it feels like a lot of no. And so I'll turn it over, let you look at the cover. 

Yes, drinking clean water.

Yes, eating pure foods. 

Yes, acknowledging my truth: I want to flee the feelings within me. I don't want to notice or name them. I don't want to feel them. I want to skip right to freeing them and feeling free of them. And so I dance away my anxiety, and I run to release my rage, and I walk in the woods to boot away worry.

But what if I just allow it all? What if I let it all live? What if I notice it and then express it? What then? Perhaps, I'll survive. Perhaps, I will even remember my brilliant resilience. Perhaps I will be light. I will become light. 

A Vibrant Stitch

It is a vibrant stitch - a hem between the heavens and me. 

Sometimes the cloth here is as crude as burlap. The needle pierces the skin, and the thread snags and tangles. And the more I whine and weep about it, the deeper into the misery I drop, and the further I am from the other side. 

The other side is one of surrender, light, and mystery. Always, the fabric from the blessed source of all LOVE is warm, inviting, and vibrating. The needle soars and swims and slips with ease and reverence and joy. It is a tapestry woven with lines of rainbow light. This place is spacious. It is thin, as forgiving as linen, as fine as cotton, as sheer as song and color and fog. The more I lift my attention to the Infinite and invisible, the ethereal!, the longer and wiser and more luminous my threadline, the hem within me, the hem between me and the heavenly!

I am the light.

Sunbeams slant through open sky, slip and seep through fluttering golden leaves, and peek through panes of old glass before settling upon the wide, pine-planked floorboards where I sit in meditation. 

In my soft box of light, I narrate my breathing, In...Out...In...Out... Soon, I am focusing on the breath rather than observing the breath, and before I can slow it down, it becomes like a runaway, run-on sentence, going and going until I am gasping, leaping, tumbling, and landing onto the grassy meadow of my consciousness. 

I let go. 

I become still. 

I breathe. 

Then I pray, Empty me and fill me with light. 

For several minutes, I pray this plea. Empty me and fill me with light. Empty me and fill me with light. Empty me and fill me with light. Empty me and fill me with light. Empty me and fill me with light...

Eventually, within me, I hear, I am the light. 

As these words pour through me, a sunbeam, sudden and bold, bursts through space to shine upon my face. The sunbeam stays with me for a little while, whispering the warm words, I am the light.  I am the light. I am the light. I smile. Yes, the light is within me. The light is me. I have everything I need. I am everything I need. I am the light.

Offering of Song

I have been guided to the dark, to the early morning. Perhaps it is the cycle of the seasons, the turning and returning to the cold—the winter homecoming. Winter is a time of soft hiding, a time of being alone, and a time of gathering light and singing to the slim slips of sun every day. It is a time of candlelight, bread, soup, and stove. It is a time of evolution. A cocoon from the cold.  A wide, warm womb.  

Come! This dog begs me every morning. Let's go and smell and move and breathe and be! He wakes me with a language of licking. He is as black as the land and trees in the pre-dawn woods - a shadow with shining eyes. A void. A dream. Before the squirrels squirm and the birds sing, we walk. It is quiet. My breath, my boots, his pant, his paws, and the early morning traffic from the highway down the hill are all I hear. The animals sleep while the earth radiates her essence like a delicate, invisible glow, a song I can't quite hear but know is there. A joyful, soulful hum. 

Sometimes songs come to me there, arriving in my belly and rising up and out of me.  Simple songs. Looping ones. There is a song about slowing down and one about the ocean. There is another about my sovereignty. I record them on my phone.  Place them there. Just as I might photograph something. So it becomes something I can hold. The act of recording anything tends to imprint it (an idea, image, or tune) deep within me. I suppose these songs are to share. Share with you. Share with myself many years from now.

I place them here as an offering. 

• I went out ...
• freedom
• I went looking in the ocean ...
• slow down
• I can stand on my own ...

Go look into the dark. You may find yourself there. And if you go there often and for long enough, you may also find a song. 

Ten Years Ago

You were born at 7:20 in the morning while a team of silent surgeons stood in the corner of our hospital room, their scalpels sharp and their gloved hands ready to cut you free from me so that you could breathe. I willed you out with every cell of my body and being. It was labor. Then it was bliss. The moment my body carried you to air and then to breast, I felt such relief. The weight of potential sorrow lifted, flew away on the wings of all the angels who had arrived to support us, to save us. Your birth was an ending and a beginning.  

Years later, I learned that you were the invitation for my evolution. 

It's time. Your soul whispered to mine. 

Oh my. This is all so terrifyingly big. Can I do this perfectly? My soul begged. 

Your soul hooted and hollered. HA! Absolutely not! You cannot and will not do this perfectly. And yet, in striving to be exceptional, you will become the person you seek to be. You will NOT be perfect. Neither will I. But the missteps are an earthly requirement. They are the lessons we are here to learn. But don't worry, there will also be plenty of joy and peace. We will take this time to evolve. And this stretching will set us both free. Just like your belly stretched while I slept and swam within you, our souls will stretch and eventually flow and soar.  One day, you will see that motherhood first begins with you. You will learn how to mother yourself with abundant acceptance, patience, and wisdom. You will learn how to find, love, and free your inner child. And in doing so, you will learn how to find, love, and free yourself.      

One

I am the soul 

   divine and eternal

I borrow the body 

   a temporary temple
I am one story 

   within the story of stories
I am one 

   one of the One.

Bliss is the Finish Line

I have run and swam and stitched along the lines of masters, seeking to be saved. I have looked through the glass of so many glowing windows. 

I am currently listening to the book The Surrender Experiment by Michael Alan Singer. On my bedside table is Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. I have recently finished Be Here Now by Ram Dass. I place this here not as a boastful pat on the back, but as a small gift for anyone looking for one. Small gifts of mention are how I find important books.

Bliss is the finish line, the ribbon to rip so that I may rest. Oil for the flame for the wick within. Soggy thoughts smother the flame. But I am here on the blessed Earth, learning. I am here to shine. I am here to burn and to be born and re-born and re-born, again, and again. I am here to sing and sob. I am here to save and be saved. I am here to be whole and holy. I am here to be being - blessed too and bright and light. I am here to remember my power and my surrender. I am here to accept the mystery and devote it all to the Divine. 

I write to unravel the twine within, the tight wrap around my heart - so that it is free to feel, and free to reach empty, authentic purity.