Heart Grenades and the Art of Looking Sideways.

Strange to look at life sideways.  Strange, but oh so imperative.  It stretches the muscles in our eyes in a way that doesn't feel natural.  However, if ever we really want to make changes in this world we live in, and in our own individual lives, we must look off to the side for the options.  Conformity, the lemming kind, is the death knell of our society. The routine of sameness depletes our energy, sending us down a heavy footed path of apathy, dulling our senses.  What always perks up the brain, kisses the heart, zippity dips the pace is a fresh perspective.   Fresh awareness.....

Lemon scented fresh.

First kiss fresh.

After the rain cool breeze fresh. 

Puppies pouncing in the snow fresh.

Pussy willow promise fresh

Blooming pink blossom fresh

New slivery moon fresh

Stepping out of the shower rinsed and naked fresh.

We drop the blinders, take off the armour, stretch out our yawnings, open our minds, and look around?  Suddenly our way of seeing, which became our way of being, alters.  We shift.  In a blink. Aha! 

Here's a NEW way of looking at this issue!

Here's some light seeping through the dark realities of our sufferings

Here's a possibility!

But, am I willing to make the shift? Do I have a choice here?  MAN! What a frightening thought!

Life is easier to stay confined in a pocket of protection, away from new perspectives.  It seems safer, more predictable, more sane.  Yeah, right! What an illusion that is.  Still, we hold on tight to what we consider is the truth. It's what we know.  It's what we built our lives on.... those beliefs that you had some control over the events in your life.  Maybe that's the purpose of those "heart grenades" that often get lofted at us?  To wake us up?  To make us question everything around us??  To shake the inner stuffing loose.  To help us lose our balance in order to feel vulnerable?  When we are shook up enough and the vulnerability is ripe for the weeping, there is no more truth to hold onto.  What is left is an opportunity to look at life from another vantage point. 

God, will you help me do this?  Give me the strength to look at this life sideways...... to stand it on its ear.... to relax enough to let go of the ruminations..... to open the valve and let the possiblities flow upon the shiny rocks which I continue to stub my toes on! 

Shut off the valve of possibility, our whole being dries up. Turn it on full blast and the pools of creativity fill up and up and up with the cleansing spirits to quench the thirst we sometimes didn't even know existed.  At first, when new perspectives arise, we want to gulp it down....God, we're so thirsty for answers, for comfort, for colour!  When we first realize that how we are living, doing, being is not working, we want to change it ASAP!   Because of desperation and the motivation to douse the flames licking at our shame, we shuffle forward without taking the time to learn how to use our refreshed senses properly.  We need time to "retool" as well as to assess whether this new perspective is the right fit.  An oasis of water flowing to a thirsty person wounded by a heart grenade can be just as dangerous as staying in a pocket of protection.....

hmmmmm............maybe we need to look both ways, allowing the green twinkle of our eyes to cast beyond the first glance.....  looking beyond the sideways just at our feet......... over the horizon sideways... leap of faith sideways..... There is an art to it.  But there are no clear cut linear instructions.  You have to figure out your own glancing, looking, observing, assessing, glimpsing, gazing.  Not alone.  You don't have to learn this alone.  There is a Holy Spirit all around us to guide us. 

Sometimes we are the last to know how dehydrated and thirsty we really are.  Until we learn the art of looking sideways.  If we allow it to, it can soothe the wounds left by the blast of a heart grenade.  Late night loneliness does not have to smell like napalm.  It can be soothed by the aroma of perfuming comfort and the essence of insensing courage.......... let me turn my head to the left..... to the right....  Now?  let me look up and out.......... and what do I see?  Delicious possibilities.

Tell me...... What do YOU see when you look sideways?

_____________________________

ps.  This post was inspired by two things. I found myself in the valley of emotions today, so much so that I think I need to get my hormones checked!  The dips are too severe and I'm now thinking that there could be a medical reason feeding this trip I'm on.  Heaven help anyone who goes near a PMS-ing 49 year old in the throes of a divorce. You have no idea how ugly it looks from the inside! But, I'm relieved to report that I'm pulling out of this mass of snottiness and will be myself once again tomorrow.  (thank you Mavis!!)

I am also thinking a great deal about the upcoming Greenbelt Festival which I had the pleasure and the opportunity to attend last year.  In some respects, it was life changing.... many shifts occured and insights were gathered.  Sadly, the one which was so predominantly recharged in my being.... to return home from the festival with a clear desire to work through the issues in my marriage, I wasn't even able to kickstart.  It was over.  I just didn't know it.  

However, on a spiritual level, the depth of my faith and interest in pursuing this path of believing strengthened beyond my expectations.  Consequently, it has provided a foundation I sorely depended on last spring and continue to.  So, I wish I was going again this year....... to Greenbelt.  To refresh, to remind myself, to recharge, to remember, to reflect and to have some really really good fun with a group of people who are a part of my life and my heart.  When I think of them fondly, their beautiful faces and friendliness feed my soul with such delicious soulfood.

The theme for the Greenbelt Festival this year is "The Art of Looking Sideways..."  It's such an inspirational theme.... and fits nicely with how I try my best to look beyond the sides of my life.  The creative side of me, whether it's writing or photography, or even counselling (there is a lot of creativity and openness in the field of counselling) embraces this theme wholeheartedly.  So, I thought I would try to capture my feelings of this day as well as my thoughts on the theme.  I guess you could say, I was a multi-tasking blogger tonight.  And it worked.

  

My head cleared.  

I looked sideways.  

And you know what I found? 

MY SMILE!  I found MY SMILE! 
The little bugger was smirking 
off to the side!

Love to all of you............ xxxx

imagine

Imagination, be it friend or foe is the firelight that beams into your soul.  It is the necessary tool to be able to expand on a raindrop of an idea.  It can also turn one teardrop into a puddle big enough to splash around in.

Our imagination carries us beyond the mind by inviting us to enter through passageways of possibilities.  It is the sweetening of wonder.  It is the booster juice of inspiration.  It is the fuel injection required to unblock and unleash the musings wandering aimlessly in the galaxy, motioning them to formulate creatively. 

Sometimes that curious imagination finds out things before you're even ready to go there.  It thrives on questions and various "what if" scenarios and turns them into wicked flights of fantasy where wishes upon wishes transform into a multi-sensory carnival of dreams just waiting for you to unleash your inhibitions, doubts and fears so you can replace them with passionate exploration.  If you allow your imagination to run freely you may find yourself on a ride you never knew existed, or you thought was beyond your reach.  But, if you can imagine it can you then transform it into something tangible and real?  Can an illusion ever be held in the palm of your hands?

Imagination dips itself into the well of mystery........... oh, how it LOVES a good mystery.   Feed it with pieces of life puzzles and it folds itself into a hideaway nook to savour ever single tasty morsel.  Be careful of the stings.  Be prepared for some surprising feelings.......for our imagination often has a unique way of rebuilding the puzzle.  It may not be how you want it to look, sound, feel like.  It may be dangerously painful.  It may distort the lines of reality all the while trying to convince you of its honesty.  Sometimes our self created imagery will carry us into a sinkhole of doubting dialogue and with one full swoop, send you far away from any comfort you have carefully tucked in all around you.

At times it seems almost impossible to rein in our expansive fabrications.  We start spiralling down into a tunnel, haunted by memories and prickly pain only to land with a thud inside a chamber of horrific thoughts?  Why do we allow ourselves to go there?  Do we need to experience the dark side reality of our imagery in order to eventually let go of it?  Is this where we kick and kick until we bleed daylight?

Maybe the travels we take down the side of the mountain where the sun doesn't shine forces us to wrestle the truth from the sticky goo of falsehoods.  Maybe its all a part of learning from our sorrows. Maybe it allows us to ask the question.... "IS this the truth?  Is what I'm thinking the truth?"

Most days, I embrace my imagination and allow it to lead me beyond the wild.  I love the fact that my mind is an endless babbling two way conversation with ideas rich with possibilities.  On days when it is my friend, I can float on optimism and hope.  I can plan productively, think clearly, sharpen my view of what could possibly be beyond the horizon.  Its those other days when the it feels more like a noose around my soul and all I can hear is the same dialogue.... the same song over and over again. It's an obsessive mantra full of failure and rejection, cascading over a waterfall of tears. 

My imagination can lead me to an open beach with life affirming salty breezes where I feel loved and at one with this glorious world all around me, but it can also steer me into a abandoned alley reeking in human waste.  No matter how hard I try to avoid those stinking alleyways, sometimes its just impossible. 

Yesterday, I made it to the beach.  Just in time.   The singing sands beach in Souris, Prince Edward Island.  I had it all to myself.  I made the sands sing as I walked along the shore.  These sands are famous for their singing.  And when I returned to the car to head back to Charlottetown, my toes were still humming........ my friendly imagination was returning.  The noose was loosening.  Though my sense of failure and rejection still rattles inside me.  The shock of hasn't worn off yet. My raw anger has not floated away.......yet. 

_______________________

ps..... so many good things have happened to me over the past two months, and a few very funny things too.  I havent had much time to write these days, and long to.  I hope I will be able to capture some of the lighter parts soon........... Just have to find the stillness in me to start, write and complete a piece all in one sitting.  Its seems impossible right now.  Stillness is a fleeting wave  .......

river girl.......

She was never one to walk in a straight line.  Wandering suited her life tempo. You could describe her thinking process that way too, as she much preferred to allow her mind to drift into creating whole scenes of possibilities inside her head.....multi-sensory scenes fed by the flurry of interactions which made up her days.  More often than not, she kept them to herself. Every once in a while, she would share them with people who were open to listening, open to believing that truth requires a broader leap than even faith.

When she combined her wandersteps with her straying mind there was no telling where she would end up.  Maps confined her.  Routines bored her to a point where she would feel suffocated by the deadening air of predictability.  No, straight line ambling made her feel out of touch much more so than the freedom of embracing the mystery of an unveiled meandering. For it was then that she fell in touch with her faith.

Some would describe her as an anchorless nomad, who wasted time. Flaky and terminally beyond practical matters were their opinions.  Others found her unconventional manner beguiling and wished they could trade their own life trappings for one amber taste of a free flowing spirit.  As much as they were captivated, however,  they were tentative about whether they truly wanted to know how vast the realm of the unknown was.  Some seemed to accept her ways without question.  But most people didn't even notice her.  For them, she was an invisible human being whose life never really mattered in their own lives. 

Interestingly, she noticed them. 

For those who paid attention,  they all agreed on one aspect. She was a river girl.  It suited her to be close to unstill waters that drifted from a mystical source.  They could see how much they were the same; how her spirit blended in with the spirits present in the moving currents which created new patterns as it flowed in its unfolding, and cascaded freely towards the open tidal bay.  The same description applied to her. Like the river, her journey was full of surprises.  Her life steps complimented the character of the river and in fact it was where she preferred to meander.

Nothing triggered the broadening of her imagination than a visit to listen to the cold water echo nuances.  On most days, you'd see her standing along its banks, or sitting under a weathered old maple looking down stream, lost inside her dreams.  Sometimes when no one in her family needed her attention, she would set off for a short walk and end up stipstepping along the path until the sun went down...... the sure sign that she had once again lost track of time.

"A rambling stroll down to the river was like greeting a kindred spirit," she often said upon her return.  Hardly anyone understood what she meant, but that didn't bother her.  She was comfortable in her own shoes, with her own beliefs.  It was her truth.  

Strangely, or maybe not, her favourite time of year to filter the clarion sighs of the river was in the dead of winter........ in February when the bitter winds nipped reminders of hallowed stories muffled through winter shadows. At this time of the year, when the world was as quiet as a deep sleep, her whole being was captivated by a sense of being vibrantly alive.  

When the climate was just right, she could grasp the river sounds aching in grumpy indignation.   Her flesh felt pierced by the river's icelips leaving shivers under her woolen bravery.  It was like the river held onto its stories like a holywell holds onto tears and wishes until the silence pervaded the last surface rippling.  It was only then that there was enough trust to reveal its true identity.

Like a few others, the river girl instinctively knew when the long winter shadows formed along the riverbank, then and only then did they reveal their deeply held secrets.  This never happened during the summer months.  Shadows in July are used simply as shade against the heat of the light flowing day.  Shadows in February, however, breathe an ancient hunger, through frosty voices which scrape against their brittled courage.  

Their legends held the ingredients needed to awaken her ability to inhale the truth held beneath the frozen valley, and to fuel her awareness that she was exactly where she belonged............ part of the legacy of life surprisingly unfolding as it should.

Surprised by a Daydreamer

Creativity thrives when one lends credence to one's intuition and replaces certainty with the wide eyed curiosity. Tapping into one's imagination allows one to see the world through the clarity of a prism.......acknowledging the hues of light and colour reflected in all directions and then some. Creativity is our best attempt at capturing a sacred beauty tucked in the mystery of our souls.

Tonight, I was given a surprise and I want to share it with all of YOU! There is a new blogger in town.... Her name is Daydreamer and she's my beautiful daughter. Martha's creativity is definately not a surprise. She was born with a confidence to rely on her intuitive imagination, and to see the world through her own prism of light and colour. It was evident from a very young age. Her blog, which will primarily be an avenue for her to share some of her photos and her love of music and lyrics, is a beautiful surprise! I love it and I believe you will too.

I welcome you to check out Daydreamer's photoblog for a glimpse of her captured creative gazes. And please "sign" her comment guestbook. She would love to receive some feedback. Thank you.

ps. There is a link to Martha's blog on my sidebar for future reference too.

For more surprises (this week's photo theme), check out Carmi's Written Inc. blog...a link to his blog is also on my sidebar.