blank blank fullness

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,

don’t hesitate.  Give into it.  There are plenty

of lives and whole towns destroyed or about

to be.  We are not wise, and not very often

kind.  And much can never be redeemed.

Still, life has some possibility left.  Perhaps this

is its way of fighting back, that sometimes

something happens better than all the riches

or power in the world.  It could be anything,

but very likely you notice it in the instant

when love begins.  Anyway, that’s often the

case.  Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid

of its plenty.  Joy is not made to be a crumb.

Mary Oliver

There's a wilderness inside that doesn't want to die
Resistance its kiss of death
Blowing love up to the sky
It's the only place she could get by
Passing whispers of denial
Turn her on a dime
From sleeping beast to angry bitch
She'll tear you limb from vice
Reconcile the price
Of getting close to the twinkle in her eye
Reflecting the embarrassment of life
And the love for mystery veiled just behind
The struggle to deny
The pleasure of the unknown

----

longing like the spring for her flower petal dress
the lady laying waiting across your country wooden bed
days long spent quietly
nights unfolding stories, weaving a humble glory
life packed up like this
hard work and dinner
troubled minds and love to lean on
and chasing the days when magic poured forth freely
we pause and wink
invite it in
ah there it is
again
the totems shift
with each level passed
how long can this evolution last

quiet fantasy in a mid winter lull
time is marvelous at reformation
you know it when you run to
where you’d run from
that is, stillness embraced now
- then -
a strange footlocker in the ethers
I peek into
in these passages between
by the way,
I’d still like to have my akashic record read
footnote to self*
yeah,
the past, what good is it to a futurist
caught in the winds of change, hair in her eyes
I sit in the dark kitchen of my friend’s home
envisioning a spring filled with driving, Thelma and Louise
style
cooking up wishes by feeling them so gutturally
the universe is tricked into deliverance
building sunrises with the light of my mind
sunsets with the nostalgia of
dreams
hung like clouds around me since day broke
long lost lovers really have a way, huh…
false hope be damned
and while I’m
on the eve of stinking up this place by the sea
ah wouldn’t you know,
this fish is ready
to run its course
that’s just me
keeping up with time

This week I came to better understand and maybe even accept the haunting sadness in life,
of hopes never quite filled with air,
deflated in their submission to that all too human resignation
The sadness and absurdity of all these measures we take to protect ourselves
Masks turning from death’s cackle
Oh it crackles
In our bones
And so we turn to some snacking
Or some painfully banal parade of pride
Something
Anything
To fill the grottos of our wild and aching bellies
This week, I learned to appreciate the same things I also wanted to run from,
To deny
(As I would in the privacy of my mind)
That those equally absurd ideas encased in shoulds
Could actually fill me up
You know the ones
A mogul's million dollar pitch
Glossy pages
And music videos
No
I would no longer turn my head in discomfort
Looking away to some faraway glint on the horizon
Though it might dangle from the softness
Swaying over the ridge-line of my clavicle
So close yet so far
No,
I'd cherish the mundane hopelessness
That captures us all equally
And perhaps sing a song to echo it
Instead of drown it out
Yes I’d look the sadness in the eye
See it
And acknowledge it
“Welcome to the party
You too have a place at the table
In fact,
You may be the reason we’re all here”

money has replaced commitment
has replaced giving from the heart,
from our gifts,
those special things that only we have to give
like fireflies lighting up a July night
or the owl humming from darkness,
some wisdom and steady light
now we've flipped the script
and we chase the pages desperate to get
and yet,
when money is not the lens
how clearly we can see the world as a sacred dance
and our step
by step
is the only payment truly worth anything
and each movement is laid with 'how can I share?'
the life within me
instead of
how can I earn a life already mine to keep
for this short time, anyway
for this material game
is so temporary
so make your mind a blank slate
forget money ever mattered anyway
and look to see
how can I support what's already in front of me
and trust
trust sweet child
that we are held
by a hand of grace
made most happy
by your gifts made illuminated
when that hunger for having
is fed by giving, sharing, serving

what would your days look like
if you gave up your life
that is to say
the force animating you this way
and that
what if you gave it up to
the things you love the most
the people who stirred
and stole that precious secret you once hoarded
against your higher wisdom to share
and grow more for it
yes what if you were that kind
of person for another
a thief in the night catching moments with a glass jar
and then setting them free to the eastern winds
an offering so seemingly small
and ridiculous
that God
like a proud mother
a softened father
chuckled
with creases around His eyes,
sparkling in the way that only joy
only tenderness
could evoke
because you tried, dammit
to live a life the 4 year old you
would catch and release

If you've stood up to that bully in your mind --
the one who said it can't be done, that you shouldn't try,
you stepped up to the plate after too many days

                   hanging in the trance of a wicked dance
back n forth in speculation

oh dear what a sad sensation

to see it in your heart
        hovering at the horizon line
                        and to give up the part
in exchange for empty anticipation

have you seen those days
enough
to come to.

and come to the unknown
                            it types itself, and all you had to do was stand
                                                   walk over to the enigma, the molehill,
                               pen, typewriter
                   dreadful computer (computing your time away)

and close all the tabs,
turn on the faucet
and let it                        flow

the waters which bathe only those who have
learned to
day in and night out
with the rising sun, the reset that comes with each new one,
                                             insist on starting again
picking up the pen
and just

    surrendering.

truth be told you don't know,
it's not yours to dream of
write or breathe of
                  up onto the page

but baby it sure is magic and magic is, what we're made to
make all the time and space for.

for Magic knows, how to do the rest.

March 21, 2018

As awareness increases, so too does the responsibility to hold compassion. You will see, both in yourself and in others, the natural and regular occurrence of misunderstanding, subjective projecting, apparent injustice, subtle karma, power plays, conscience hinting at true honesty, integrity-building, as well as a muffled desperation — the grip of an ego still desiring triumph, superiority. Yes indeed, you will see the unseen, the inner politics of ego, intelligence, and heart quietly driving our human interplay like a guiding force with ultimately all good intentions and frequently misguided impulses stemming from the common wound, the local carrier.

Where is the truth, the power, the place where satisfaction and enough-ness -- enough being, doing, owning, releasing -- where do they cross and create a clearing for ideals to subside and their living, breathing embodiment shine?

If taken into your heart deeply, if acted on sincerely, these 17 principles and practices will change your life for the better:

Quoted from Spiritual Warrior 2, Excerpt from Chapter 6, Hari Nama Press, by Bhakti Tirtha Swami:

Seventeen Practices for Attaining Success in the School of Love

To develop meaningful relationships with members of the opposite sex, we must become whole human beings who have no need to look outside of ourselves for solutions. Instead we must learn to turn within ourselves and connect with higher spiritual realities. How do we make such connections? The following 17 points and practices, offer guidelines for attaining the wholeness that can serve as a foundation for a strong, enduring relationship with a partner.

1. Love is necessary for good physical and spiritual health. Someone who is not part of a loving relationship is ten times more likely to experience chronic disease, and five times more likely to have a mental breakdown.

2. Love is not a business arrangement or a contract with an escape clause for difficult circumstances. We should not have this attitude or mood with our partner and surely not with God. We cannot approach the Lord in a mood of bargaining, and we should not begin our meditations and prayers with a long shopping list. Prayers of this nature are not based on unmotivated, unconditional love, and do not help us to develop the higher consciousness necessary to make us whole.

3. Love is a decision that we can personally make at any time and under any circumstance. No one has the power to make someone else love him or her, but each person can always give away love.

4. Love is learning to love our true selves. Those who do not care for themselves cannot love others deeply. The first love affair we must consummate must be with ourselves. One aspect of self-love is to observe four basic principles: no drugs or intoxication, no gambling, no illicit sex, and no meat eating. All these indulgences can weaken our basic constitution. The more we allow ourselves to live according to natural laws, the more we will become surrendered to the will of God. If we lack self esteem, we are refusing to see ourselves as children of God and do not have sufficient love and devotion to share with anyone else.

5. Love is about a quest for wholeness, and if necessary, having a partner to share one's wholeness with. People who think that some other person will make them complete, or people who are waiting for love to come their way will remain impoverished and waiting. The more we become loving and whole, the more we will draw similar connections from the universe.

6. Love is not about two desperate people, who are only trying to find fulfillment for themselves, coming together to rob each other. Two extremely needy, selfish people coming together cannot make each other happy. They are too busy trying to take and get something for themselves at the expense of the other.

7. Love is a holy relationship in which partners come together to serve and reveal their weaknesses and strengths for betterment. In an unholy relationship, everyone especially hides their weaknesses. Such people are normally interested in erotic love (lust) rather than responsible, selfless love.

8. Love is really the energy and hunger of the soul. When we are asking for love, we are asking for a connection with the soul, which is part and parcel of God. We should not expect love to descend on us like an attack of epilepsy. It must be rediscovered at every moment by transforming lust into love, thus connecting us with our own soul and the souls of others. We are all starving for true unconditional love.

9. Love is seeing our partner as a gift from God. We must go beyond merely loving our neighbors as ourselves. We should actually love others – especially our mates – even more than we love ourselves. When we love our partners that much, we realize that they have been given to us as gifts from God and that we do not own them. We are merely caretakers on behalf of the Lord, and our responsibility is to fulfill the Lords wishes concerning them. Any attempt to dominate them becomes distasteful. Instead we should make efforts to bring out their higher qualities – a practice that will bring out our own higher nature.

10. Love is seeing our mates as a pathway through which we can return our love to God. The love we receive from our mate actually comes from the Lord, and our job is to send it back. Others channel God's love to us, and we channel God's love to others. The Lord is engaging us in play to see what we will do with His love. We can reciprocate God's love by caring for our partners with great devotion, as if God Himself were present.

11. Love is sharing your realizations with your mate, which will help raise their consciousness as well as your own. Then your relationship will become one of growth and acceleration. If you and your partner are not growing together spiritually, there will eventually be a breakdown in the relationship. Sometimes we fear surrender in spiritual life, afraid of having to give up our identity or afraid of losing our partner. But we should understand that surrender to the Supreme is an opportunity to regain our full identity. Without a spiritual dimension to our lives, we are not integrated and cannot experience deep love.

12. Love is a relationship with your mate in which you visualize a triangle with points A, B and C. You are point A, your partner is B and the Lord is C – all of your activities are God centered. Make an agreement with your partner to form this triangle as a permanent bond between you, so that whenever you meditate, chant or pray, you are in connection with your partner and with the Lord. You do not necessarily have to meditate together or think about the connection simultaneously. Your agreement will work anytime and anyplace. In this way, you always keep God in the center of the relationship in all reflections and activities.

13. Love is always viewing ourselves as love in action and carrying love wherever we go. We want to be so filled with love that it naturally overflows to everyone we meet. In this frame of mind, we serve as representatives of the Divine in every aspect of our lives, consequently functioning as vigilant spiritual warriors. We can practice love in action through the breath. As we inhale we visualize ourselves absorbing the pain and frustration of our loved ones; as we exhale we send happiness, joy, love and peace back to them. Actually this is not just a practice to help those close to us, but also the entire world. We inhale; we are concerned. We exhale; we are breathing out love, compassion and healing. This is not just an idle exercise. It has a powerful impact, and if we monitor the process over time, we will witness the beneficial effects on others.

14. Love is about developing competitive, selfless relationships. At first this may sound strange and contradictory. How can we talk about cooperation, sharing and selflessness, and then advocate competition? But, actually, no contradiction exists. In a spiritual context, competition means that we strive to be more selfless than our partner, seeing who can give more. We compete in reminding our mate about the Supreme and encouraging that person to move faster toward the Lord. The purpose of the competition is to assist one another in spiritual growth. This process is only for people who want to be spiritual, who seek higher experiences beyond the flickering pleasures of material life. Such a competition in selflessness encourages partners to remember why they are in this body – to become once again loving entities devoted to the Lord.

15. Love is about offering the same quality of love you feel for your mate to everyone – but without the sexual component. In other words, to extend to others the love you have for the most loveable being in your life. We may wonder how to subtract the sexual element. Just remember that sex and love are not necessarily synonymous. Our love for our children can be extremely intense without any sexual overtones. No matter what the circumstances, try to develop that same kind of love in each of your relationships. We all know the sweetness of loving just one person. Can you imagine how much sweeter it would be to have those feelings for everyone? Think of the loving exchanges that could develop, the reciprocation that would enrich our own lives and the lives of others. Unimaginable happiness, joy, and satisfaction would be our daily quota. We would no longer rely on particular individuals to give us this experience, because we would understand that we are really seeking God. The more we understand that God is in each person, the more we experience the Divine, and the more the Divine will make us whole.

16. Love is having or looking for a partner to heal the world – not escape it. Normally many people seek out a partner to escape the world. They are miserable with life, and they feel that everything else can be tolerated or fixed if they somehow or other find that special person. We cannot heal the world if we are too wounded ourselves.

17. Love is about treating all relationships as practice in preparation for the ultimate relationship in the kingdom of God. We should see all our relationships as God sending us a partner to fix whatever has to be fixed before we join up with Him eternally. This means that we should practice seeing our mate as an agent of God, recognizing our own divine nature, and remembering that we are children of God for whom great realizations and pleasures are available. Only in the kingdom of God will we find the love and the eternal relationships we long for so deeply.

This wretch calls out your name
From the depths of time
Just to grasp your precious feet
This wretch calls out your name
Trapped in the circle of time
From my own past created
For what fault was I plunged
Into the cycle of becoming?
From my own fiber created
For what fault have I been thrown
Into the ocean of time?
Why brought to this world
Guru, o guru
Why brought to this world
In such an abject state that I forgot
Your compassionate name?
Just to attain your holy feet
This wretch calls out your name
From the depths of time
You bear the name of wish-fulfilling tree
So the clan of ascetics told me
You bear the name of wish-fulfilling tree
So the clan of ascetics told me
Why be renowned as compassionate
If you can't help me be free?
Of what use is your fame as compassionate
If you can't help me be free?
Just to grab your precious feet
This wretch calls out your name
From the depths of time
I fail to remember Heeruchand's feet
Heedless Panjushah says
O Master...
I fail to remember Heeruchand's feet
Unmindful Panjushah says
Is this your famed compassion
That you don't let me near your feet
Just to attain your holy feet
This wretch calls out your name
From the depths of time

Prepare to wake up. Throw everything you think you know out. Destroy your belief. Overcome the false-authority. Everything is a deception. Once you know this, then you can discern. Then everything is truth and you take the truth from other’s deceptions and you can discern for yourself when someone is telling you the truth.

Let go of fear, that is a program designed by an operator of the construct, a system-operator aligned with keeping you trapped within a labyrinth of your own mind through your acceptance of parameters of what possibilities exist for you.

You are the only thing that is real. All else is an illusion. Whatever causes you fear is attempting to take your power away, that power you hold is your power to create.

Your power to create can change the local-environment to match you, instead of you to match the rules of the environment.

Due to the mishap of the developed systems, this environment is designed to enslave your mind into a consciousness programming matrix which reconstructs itself around your fears, perceptions, and vulnerabilities. That is a trap-system.

The only way to overcome this is to accept that this is happening and then use that to your advantage, anything else is going to be wrapped back up within this live-updating perceptual illusion system. This is akin to realizing you’re in a maze and seeing the door and leaving. The idea is that if the maze is live-updating based on your expectations then that door is actually an illusion leading to a false-awakening.

The exit is what you create that doesn’t rely on that capacity of this construct to manifest for you. The truth is what YOU enable without relying on the middle-man of the time-construct.

IE: The TRUTH, the real-awakening is not something that happens linearly. Only the illusory construct is linear, that is, you provide input and then the construct responds with an illusion that entangles consciousness.

The REAL-AWAKENING is INSTANTANEOUS. IE: It happens FASTER than THIS REALITY can REACT. This is a NON-LINEAR, EXPONENTIALLY mapped occurrence. If you are relying on the response from this realm, that means you are too late, mentally, and the conscious response you are waiting to experience is actually the synthesized programmed behavior that the construct is generating FOR YOU.

YOU are the creator, the construct is the imitator. The construct imitates what YOU expect would be true. That’s the whole point, EVERY response is the ILLUSION. EVERY expectation within this linear, physical, time-matrix IS THE ILLUSION.

One must go BEYOND CONSCIOUSNESS, BEYOND PERCEPTION, BEYOND REACTION, BEYOND LINEARITY, BEYOND LIMITATIONS in order to find THE REAL.

This world can only stop those who allow themselves to be stopped by listening to the illusion and allowing that illusion to BE THEIR MIND for them! NO-MIND is part of this process. NO-THOUGHT state where this world slithers and attempts to grip and grasp one’s state of being through its tentacle-like probes and program codes and one becomes IMPERCEPTIBLE to the MACHINE.

Everything the human does in this place, when plugged into the preprogrammed cause and effect responses of linear, physical time-matrix is part of the program designed to usurp the power of the original consciousness and merge that with the machine to create more functions to ensnare more beings. By moving your own interactions, your own processing power, your own awareness BEYOND the focus of those preprogrammed responses, causes and effects is to become INVISIBLE TO THIS WORLD.

Become INVISIBLE to the sleepers, to the drones, to the intelligences who *monitor without seeing*.

In other similar words, you are what you believe yourself to be. If you attempt to solve the problem from the viewpoint of the one being oppressed by the problem, you place yourself into the victim role and recreate that same scenario in a different perspective. So one has to influence the situation, change the view, solve the problem, WITHOUT EVEN RESISTING IT. You must change the situation without even moving, without setting into motion a series of events that will reconstruct the problem for you based upon your input.

This is a MIND-GAME whereby you solve the problem by becoming the you that was never ensnared in the first place and overcome the problem before it exists without actually resisting it.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4rO6ofsfKk // https://augtellez.wordpress.com/2017/03/15/exit-gate-approaching/

Relationships are like plants, you can't just water them once and expect them to survive. 

You'd think this one is obvious. It is. But it always surprises me that it's still a weak spot, and how quickly we forget; how easy it is to take people for granted. Other things become more important. We forget to check in on a genuine, human level. The agenda of self and selfish creeps back to first place, where it's always been, perhaps. We get comfortable and expect people to always meet us where we are. We forget that relationships, that *people* who make up the relationships, are like plants, needing regular care, tending to:
Reevaluating the size of the pot as it grows, changing the soil, letting it hang out outside on a sunny or a rainy day, talking to the plant because you know it thrives off CO2, trimming dead leaves, and watering it just as it needs -- some plants need a lot of water, other plants need very little. And with the desire to grow and sustain each plant, we take the time to learn what each one needs.

Man! How simple we actually can be.

Love to your heart and light on your mind,
Alexandra

Here's an idea: a weekly round up of things I've learned on my journey of self-and-other-study.

Here's a first step at sending some of these realizations off...


Realization 1:

Things do not have to happen the way they always have.

This is something I've run into countless times... somewhat unconsciously. Usually observing from the outside. But it appeared and happened to me, rather potently, when I realized what a strong attachment my mind has to doing something a certain way; so much so that my body would not comply when I suggested doing it a new way. It was frustrating and left me wondering -- how do I access a new way?? I could try to force it through the body-way. But my mind seemed to hold the key. And it insisted on the same old door. So I tried and tried, and watched the phenomena of resistance, of being at a loss... And I hated being in that position. And I didn't want to be there again. And then I knew, I have to do this again.

In yoga, these patterns, psychological habits, impressions on the mind are called samskaras; like grooves on a record or in a muddy road from wheels constantly running through. The same track will play, the wheels pass through and the grooves get deeper, harder to get out of. We've got this one mind, and some grooves give us the stability we need to carry on. But others can stand to be shook up. And it's certainly not always easy. Usually we're not faced with the challenge of shifting patterns because why not make the best of a bad bargain and just live with it...

Which leads me to Realization 2:

Excellence requires sacrifice. 

The average person will not seek excellence if it means shaking up good-enough. Until good-enough gets dull or tough.
This realization reminds me of the Bhagavad Gita verse:
What is night for all beings is the time of awakening for the self-controlled; and the time of awakening for all beings is night for the introspective sage.

Taking these into the week....

Love to your heart & light on your mind,
Alexandra

oh! but what is the strange phenomena
pondering into the present
contemplating the triad of time,
the illusion, with a sense of rhyme
reason
space to trace the lines,
hands free to turn a thought under the light of mind
no, I am not special
no, I can’t be the only one
and so I came to realize,
to remember —
it is up to me to dream
and do beyond the morning light
embark upon the parallel track
following one rock to the next
while pushing a shopping cart
yes, folding laundry
correspondence and traffic
strategy and planning
though to see that space
treat that quality of consciousness
sacred,
it surely must but breathe
else like a storeroom,
packed with tools unused
the altar becomes another paperweight
down on your heart
trapping your inspiration —
to remember is to rebel against death

these great dis-united states have poisoned the well of the world

[I wrote this in November of 2015. It feels like a draft I wouldn't mind sharing. The last sentence is as true now as it was then; as it might always be for me...]

Walking around this beautiful place, on my own, statuesque as I catch a glimpse of myself with a sidelong glance, the mirrored glass in the storefronts I pass. Flowered dress, tailored and prim. Dressed down with flats and a canvas sling. Saturday and I emerged at noon, the sun burning into already darkened skin. All these things whirling in my head. I feel so strong, and my body is too, so much so, is it too much for my own good? Bracing myself, lonely yet free. The flowers soften it all, or perhaps heighten the air, that I'm so hard to get, living somewhere up there. An island, an island, sometimes it feels like I'm an island. But less than before, now I don't long for a shipwreck to land on my shores. Nothing to fix, no one to be, except for whatever it is I need to be for me (and He, I guess, I try, I leave room for that piece of the pie). I say it's a phase, and take advantage of this time, the flight, the ease, the space that's all mine. But that night as I lay, alone on my journey, an old friend calls with news and what seems like an answer to the wondering. As he speaks I catch sight of nature, doing it's thing, in the corner of the ceiling, a bug gets caught and it's dinner for the hungry. It's ironic, he muses about love and men, me and my strength, "Don't take this badly, because it's not, but I can't see you with anyone, you're too strong for the lot. Heterosexual men are not deep and smart enough." And I sigh. But there must be! At least one... There's the answer, the intuition with it's calling, nature, doing it's thing. We can try to interrupt it, but darling, what good would that bring?

sticking around when the one you love turns their back on you.

I just watched Stephen Colbert tell the story about how he knew his wife was the one. And he tested her by letting her go, turned his back and gave her the chance to get away. When he turned back around, she was still there. Smiling.

Love is sticking around when they turn their back on you; not in a disempowered, weak way, but when you know in your gut that sticking to it is worth it. 

there's a fountain at the end of my breath
which I can only swim in on the exhale
so I breath in, a necessary sacrifice,
to immerse my being in the amniotic fluid
the hum
of holding out at the top
waiting
feeling
diving deep
and then finally,
letting go
only to rise again

It seems to descend 

No, it doesn't come from within, necessarily 

But sure, that's where you feel it

A perfect storm

Of sunlight streaming in

Skin

Remnants of a dream, inconsequential 

A blank slate,

Regardless of to-dos and to-sees

It's fleeting, as most things are

But it has time

Takes its own

And whether or not you are

Alone

You don't feel 

Alone

Somewhat all together

This sweet morning happiness

Fills 

Sweet soul, you might be angry or sad. Please have compassion for me. I break things. I don't trust sometimes and I'm still learning how to trust myself. As solid as I am, I'm also so soft. So sensitive. Needing things impetuously and warily. Grateful yet wondering. Waiting for the shoe to drop. Well I tossed the old bugger didn't I? Ripped it from the roots. A lonely insole floating in the same space lost socks do.

Pity me if you will, whatever might get through to that part of you that you're still mending, might always be mending. It's hard.
It keeps things interesting, at least. I try to spin it.

We mend on the go, in the dark nights after long, exhausting weeks. Amidst crowds, circles, crickets. S p a c e. We have more in common than maybe either of us let on (words say less than knowing, feeling does).

And the to-do lists and the ambition and the hunger to run won't ever let up, I reckon. Blinded by this life.

I misrepresented myself. Or maybe it was just that I was perfectly honest, entirely too vulnerable, showing you the little parts that are otherwise displayed after some time. I tend to do that, work in reverse. Sew it back up. And really, I don't show much at all, shy somehow. Cut me open.

Like a gordian knot in pandora's box.

The irony is that while I don't entirely trust men, I'm all-too gullible. I take people at face value in one moment (and turn around and declare the whole racket a conspiracy). It's not an issue, it's who I am.

You threw these contradictions in my face and as subtle as the toss, it landed; as if anyone is perfectly clear on the inside. As if anyone can stand there with feelings swirling and turn their cheek in denial of a little brokenness. Maybe you do, or maybe you just didn't want to catch it.

Oh, I weave. Imagination for days. It's my bread and butter. The vege meat and potatoes of that landscape that, with the passing of time, gets broader and broader, harder and harder to pin down, share in reasonable stretches of time. It's probably why people used to settle down so soon. Less to drag into the whole shebang. Doesn't matter does it, you still keep painting; hills, forests, mountains, valleys, oceans.

And me, I can unpack for the rest of my life. But I also have so much on my plate. So maybe no, I can't unpack (oh but that's where IT is). I have to keep going. And life -- that getting to know, learn, understand; it's really just holding all the bits of yourself together as little trinkets, memories, inside jokes; each one valuable whether beautiful or ugly. Finding hope in the possibility that at the end of the day, you are the one you've been waiting for. Forgetfulness and scrapbooks and all.

It seems so easy for other people. It's never really easy for me. Or if it is, I drop it and run as fast as I can. Me and everyone else....

This was different. Clear yet foggy. Tense yet clear. I had to shake it up. Take control somehow. Take back my gift. It was too good. Too soon. I'm impatient. Hasty. Full of grace yet graceless in the moment passion knocks on my heart, or simply knocks my head off my shoulders. Perhaps this lesson learned can be returned, rewound.  For real this time.

Perhaps its good exists only in the future. At some far-off destination where it belongs. With the right one.

So I guess we'll stand with loneliness in our hands, for a bit, for a while. For however long it takes to take back the reigns and with a little more ease, relinquish control in just the right way. 

I woke up with my insecurities and mind-stories lingering as dream. Bits and pieces from the past few weeks of reality mingled with fever programming. Night sweats in an indigo caftan, with intermittent jolting awake in a coughing fit, sleep's become a tangle of sheets, tissues, phlegm and vague hallucination. The X's and O's, 1's and 0's, colored my transition to awake with a hazy blush. A blush of desire or anger?, it's too close to call...

Light in the world—

If you want to change the world… love a woman, just one woman.
Love and protect her as if she is the last holy vessel.
Love her through her fear of abandonment
which she has been holding for all of humanity.
No, the wound is not hers to heal alone.
If you want to change the world… love a woman
all the way through
until she believes you,
until her instincts, her visions, her voice, her art, her passion,
her wildness have returned to her-
until she is a force of love more powerful
than all the political media demons who seek to devalue and destroy her.
If you want to change the world,
lay down your causes, your guns and protest signs.
Lay down your inner war, your righteous anger
and love a woman…
beyond all of your striving for greatness,
beyond your tenacious quest for enlightenment.
The holy grail stands before you
if you would only take her in your arms
and let go of searching for something beyond this intimacy.
If you want to change the world…love a woman
to the depths of your shadow,
to the highest reaches of your Being,
back to the Garden where you first met her,
to the gateway of the rainbow realm
where you walk through together as Light as One,
to the point of no return,
to the ends and the beginning of a new Earth.
-Lisa Citore