The Invitation - Oriah (originally published 1999)

 ~*~
It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon...
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shriveled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments
~*~

This really shouted out to me today.  Is there not another who wants the same ~*~ and can I ?

The Human Touch, 6-29-2010

Human beings could simply not exist without their sense of touch. From the moment of birth to the final moments before death, touch is a basic human need for which everyone hungers. It is a sense that shapes and moulds your personality and impacts on how you present yourself in the world. A variety of emotions and reactions are conveyed through physical touch, as varying as there are types of touch, from friendly handshakes, to an intimate embrace, to an aggressive punch. Based on the belief that energy flows between human beings, physical contact between people fulfils our fundamental desire to be connected to others.
http://psychfutures.ning.com/page/psychology-of-touch-1 

I have known this fact as truth ever since I saw the video's of the orphans of Russia crammed into too few cribs with too few nurses and attendants.  The affect on the psyche of those babies as they grew was troubling and invoked tears of sadness and sorrow.  That I could not reach through my television to comfort them was the least of my emotions at the time.  On a far more unconscious level, I think we all really know this from birth.  A brand new baby touches its mother during nursing and the babies vision at birth is the distance from the mother's face to the end of the breast!  Amazing.  As we grow, when we fall or get hurt, we turn to those we love for comfort.  As an adult living alone, I have had a lot of opportunity to consider this truth.   When I visit my grown kids who live on their own in another city, I get as many hugs as I can - storing them for my hug bank.   Thankfully, I have pets too, and they provide a lot of loving to me.  It is not the same though.  I know that I treasure my "alone time" deeply and actually, believe that I require it for my sanity.  Too much alone time though, can be detrimental.  This is how some people can really spiral into deep depression.  I have done that myself, in the past, and it really is no fun.  Thankfully, I had help in those days.  And theses days, I have coping skills that keep me on the saner side of quirky.  Once I get past this next big hurdle in my life ( my national exam ) - I Do hope that I will have at least two opportunities.  One of course is a job and preferably located back "home".  The second is that I find a man who also treasures his alone time, is kind, funny, intelligent and artsy, because I really love having lengthy discussions about "stuff" and I love going to artsy functions.  He does not need to have a PhD either - I personally believe that education is a wonderful tool for intelligence and this can be obtained either by a life very well lived and learned or a formal schooling.  I have met wonderful people who never finished schooling beyond secondary or some college.  And I have met some very boring albeit brilliant people.  What I really hope to find in this man is the touch of a lover.  That slow soft sensual touch that lingers.  The hugs that won't let go.  I crave that and cannot imagine living without for the next 50 years.  I believe he exists, the one meant for me to have in my life, sharing our later years together.  I hope we find each other soon.  That would be nice.

Race Point Beach Provincetown MA Aug 13,2011

Every night and every morn,
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night,
Some are born to sweet delight.
...Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

In the universe,
there are things that are known,
and things that are unknown,
and in between,
there are doors.

He who kisses joy as it flies by
will live in eternity's sunrise.

Love seeketh not itself to please,
nor for itself hath any care,
but for another gives its ease,
and builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.

Never seek to tell thy love;
Love that never told can be.
For the gentle wind does move silently.. invisibly.

If a thing loves, it is infinite.

~ William Blake ~

 

For me, missing the beach is a tangible emotion.  Not necessarily one that cuts like a knife or spreads butter with a spoon.  I ate watermelon for breakfast.  And as I stood looking out the window into the deep woods surrounding my back yard, my mind flew back to the yesteryears, when my grandparents had a house and boat on a canal off Stickney Pointe and the seed spitting contests Grandma always won.  I remember going deep sea fishing with Grandpa, going north on the waterway to get bait and gas, then out the pass for miles.  Learning how to scale and debone a fish.  Always, what we caught tasted so good.  And I always wanted to swim in the deep dark blue of the Gulf.  Often I did.  One time though, I was out of my clothes and ready to jump in when my dad halted me with that military tone of voice we heard when we were told NOO ( kind of a command thing ) ... of course I looked up at daddy on the bow and asked "Why" with a slight whine.  And he looked at me, winked, and said "Look over the stern - the reason is coming your way" - and the biggest hammerhead shark I have ever seen winked up at me.  It curved around both sides of grandpa's boat and stayed around for quite awhile.  I did not swim that day.  Eventually, I did learn to scuba dive - my treat in 2004/5 for many reasons.  And one certification dive off Dunedin was a compass dive.  And again, I had a shark visit - this time likely a black tip or tiger - it stayed in the peripheral edge of visibility and swam the full 360 degrees with me.  It was invigorating and just slightly annoying.  I actually wanted to get a good look at it !!!

 

One of my cert dives was out of Pompano Beach and we went to the "Zoo" - this was a location frequented by most every dive operator as the submerged ship was 85' long and a solid 90' deep.. It had become a wonderful artificial reef and lay partially on its side on a sandy bottom.  There were mantas as big as a dining room table - one in particular that liked to be tickled by having my fingers flutter under its wings.  Others would just swim around underneath us in a dance all their own, so graceful and lovely.  And the fish - almost every color - schools of them.  Wishing I had an underwater camera for that day.  I had checked my gauges and had plenty of air.  I turned to look at the stern of the ship, she was at least 3 stories tall.  I could see the rudder that had led back towards where her props may have been.  So Many Colors and so mesmerizing.  I started to swim towards the cave like belly under the listed over stern.  I was about halfway there, less than 20' to go, when all the colors shifted, and suddenly I felt someone grab my BCD !!!  I turned and it was my divemaster ( he was so adorable ) ... he gave me the NO GO signal and I asked Why?, then he pointed.  I looked back, and all those wonderful "So Many Colors" was swimming slowly around inside that cave and was the size of a minivan - W O W.  It was HUGE.   And it had a mini-me too.  My divemaster smiled and pointed at the bow and so I did what I needed to do - this was a current swim.  Down near the stern was not so bad, however, the ship had listed quite heavily in a hurricane, and had created somewhat of a ledge - with the port side having a much higher profile than the starboard, which is where we were.  Swimming starboard towards the bow was fairly easy, until the terrain rose up and then I could feel the current.  That was when I wondered why we did not do the swim first and the Zoo last ... it took 1/3 of my air just to swim against the current around the bow and back to the stern again.  Of course, we also swam through a good portion of the cabins and bulkheads too.  Then it was time to ascend, stop and decomp and get on board.  It was a gorgeous day.   I miss the ocean.  I miss diving.  I miss the sand between my toes and walking for miles on the beach letting the sound of the waves, the seagulls, terns and the wind wash my mind , heart and soul clean.  I have been refreshed and reinvigorated by the oceans' song ever since I was a tiny child on the beaches of Okinawa, Shelter Island, Jersey shore, Atlantic Beach, the waterways off the Potomac, the Atlantic from VA all the way to the Florida Keys, the Gulf, the Oceans on every side of Okinawa when I was stationed there 21 years later, the caves in North Fla and the cold springs west of G'ville

"Live Each Day As If It Were Your Last... Tomorrow is Not Promised"

Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they were meant to be there,
...they serve some sort of purpose, to teach you a lesson or help figure out who you are and who you want to become.
You never know who these people may be: your neighbor, child, long lost friend, lover, or even a complete stranger who, when you lock eyes with them, you know at that very moment that they will affect your life in some profound way.  And sometimes things happen to you and at the time they seem painful and unfair, but in reflection you realize that without overcoming those obstacles you would have never realized your potential strength, will power, or heart.  Everything happens for a reason.
Nothing happens by chance or by means of good or bad luck.  Illness, injury, love, lost moments of true greatness and sheer stupidity all occur to test the limits of your soul. Without these small tests, whether they be events, illnesses or relationships, life would be like a smoothly paved straight flat road to nowhere, safe and comfortable, but dull and utterly pointless.

The people you meet who affect your life and the successes and downfalls you experience create who you are, and even the bad experiences can be learned from.  In fact, they are probably the poignant and important ones.  If someone hurts you, betrays you or breaks your heart, forgive them, for they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to whom you open your heart...
If someone loves you, love them back unconditionally, not only because they love you, but because they are teaching you to love and opening your heart and eyes to things you would have never seen or felt without them.

Make every day count. Appreciate every moment and take from it everything that you possibly can,
for you may never be able to experience it again...  Talk to people you have never talked to before,
and actually listen, let yourself fall in love, break free and set your sights high...  Hold your head up because you have every right too. Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself...
for if you don't believe in yourself, no one else will believe in you either.  You can make of your life anything you wish.  Create your own life and then go out and live in it!
Author Anon

25 July 2010

I can honestly say, that this must have been the Karma I was born into -- I have lost track of all the times I have asked myself what on earth am I supposed to learn from This.  The truth is, we learn from everything, when we are open to receiving whatever the message is meant to be.  And that message is assimilated through our process of the event.   So if we experience a trauma, and our response is to be so negative, deny our responsibility, our culpability, and deny deny deny that any part of the experience is our "fault" - then we learn little to nothing, except maybe more negativity heaped on the compost pile of our emotions.


I am nowhere near perfect and do not pretend nor purport to be.  However, I have always had a "glass is full" attitude.  I remember so many times, being told I "was too nice, people would walk all over me, use me, abuse me, treat me like crap" ... well, the speaker did.   But that is not for here.  What I am getting at, is that I have always been one to give someone the benefit of the doubt.  To give someone enough leverage to see-saw their way into or out of my life as a friend, acquaintance, or someone who needs to keep on moving along.   From living my life this way, Yes, I have experienced a tremendous amount of pain.  I have also experienced a tremendous level of Joy.  Both levels of tremendous keep me believing that the Joy is far superior to the pain and that I would rather live in Joy, Love, Peace, Acceptance, Equilibrium, Sensory Immersion, Truth, Faith, Hope - all the positive adjectives I can apply to my state of mind and attitude about my life.  If I were to live any other way, I  may find myself sinking into a deep pit of darkness - one I have been in and do not want under any circumstance, to go back to.   The flip side of this, are those moments that transcend what experience we have control over.  Those split second moments when life stops.  The world stops spinning.  You cannot hear or think or see or reason.  You die.  Part of you is ripped out and can never be returned.  Then time begins again, the world returns to its orbit, and all the sense return with razor sharp clarity and what we take from THAT experience, I believe, is the true test of our Inner Strength.  Do we stay and fight for what is right, or do we flee in fear and find the first place to hide until the bleeding stops and the pain goes away.   Life being lived fully in the sunshine and the rain, in the light and in pain - means experiencing all the emotions and the lessons therefrom.  Hiding from life, even while going about your daily routines .. means never really truly experiencing that seesaw, and I think that is just existing and waiting for tomorrow.   Embrace every moment life sends today, Live and learn something from each moment of today.

Libra-Scorpio Cusp "stuff"

The Libra-Scorpio cusp is an overlapping and admixture of the seventh sign of the zodiac, Libra, and the eighth sign of the zodiac, Scorpio.  Oy Oy Oy :(
A heightened sense of the drama of life, both in a philosophical and personal sense, leads to an increased awareness of the dynamics of one’s own existence, both past and present; a highly critical attitude emerges which cuts away careless generalizations and sloppy thinking, and aims for the essence of truth. Such an attitude can lead to profound changes in personal relationships, how leisure time is spent and in general to a reevaluation of one’s place in the world.
The days which comprise the Libra-Scorpio cusp exemplify various aspects of Drama and Criticism, where the airy, social, theatrical Libra nature confronts the more serious, deeply feeling and critical nature of the Scorpio.

You are your own Biggest Fan !

Forgive yourself for all you ever thought was “wrong” about you. We as humans are our own worst critics. You put up with and in fact, encourage ways of speaking to yourself that most would NEVER put up with if someone else spoke to you that way. Always the first to tear down your dreams, poke a hole in your bubble of happiness, ridicule yourself for just being yourself. Give yourself a break, look at yourself with the eyes of love. Never believe for an instant you are not worthy of all your heart desires. Wrap yourself in love the same way you do your children, family members, friends and pets. Give yourself a pat on the back for all you do every day. Learn to become your own biggest fan.

October 2010

This has been the hardest lesson for me to learn about myself.  Most of the first 50 years of my life were spent making sure "everyone" else was nurtured and enriched.  We really should do the same for ourselves, especially for those of us who are alone.  Alone is good, healthy and fortifying.  It is also Not the same as lonely.   We should "Never" ever tear down a person.  If there is a behaviour that is incorrect, we address the behaviour.  I need to address my lackadaisacle housekeeping - this however, does not mean I Am insufficient.  I just have priorities not in line with most !!!  Vacuuming and dusting are chores I truly and adamantly do my very best to avoid.  However, in essence, I am a quite organized person who likes a clean environ.  I just need to love my home more. 

Whatever that one "chore" or "essence" of ourselves that, once separated from us as a person, becomes The Behaviour and is no longer "Us" --- lock, stock and barrel --- give it away ! Release, realize, rebirth, re-energize, regrow.