Gratitude and Humility

Let this be a rambling outpost tonight as I make an attempt to catch up to my thoughts and emotions which seem to be flying out of every orifous on my body! How's that for a pretty visual? 

Ok, let's start with 5 words, eh Beautiful Human Becoming GrandPip?

Scrambledeggsheaded

Lonelyhearted

Jumbledinnards

Deeplyseated

Surrenderedhuman

You know, sometimes all it takes is to find the words that attempt to describe the state of mind and heart for the uncluttering to begin.  You speak them, write them, express them and the power of the feelings lessen.  Focus begins to replace the flooding.  Awareness is invited through the door of the soul.  My 5 made up words brought me some smiling levity.  Silliness reigns!

Deep breaths....... in and out, in and out....... slow presence breathing....

Here's she goes....

Today started off well and then went into decline around 9 am after I left the Market when I allowed myself to relax and fully recognize the significance of Thanksgiving in my life and the lives of my family.   Hands down, it is the most loved dinner I prepare because the whole weekend is filled with the goodness of gratitude and the humility of stopping to remember the importance of sharing our harvest with others.   The meaning and the symbolism of preparing a meal with that in our hearts fills me with joy.  I love, love, love providing the meal for Thanksgiving.  So, it isn't surprising that I am having a tough time this weekend coping with the changes and the loss.

Since this morning, I have been shadow boxing with new and old ghosts.   Memories from way back of celebrating and giving thanks with friends and family in Spencer's Island and here in my home came marching into my presence.  Memories of last year's Thanksgiving celebration trumped all of them however, as I realized just how much my life had changed and I didn't even know it.  As much as I have tried to stop obsessing on this, I can't let go of the thoughts until I express them.  Do you have any idea how difficult it is to accept the fact that the life you were living and seeing one way wasn't that way at all?  It feels like a violation. It really does.

I am no victim.  I have no time for that mentality and I am fully aware of where my own head was at this time last year and how much it was impacting my marriage.  It was in stuck mode, trying to figure out what I wanted and trying my best to express myself.  However, I didn't express myself.  I was reacting all over the place.  Not responding. Reacting and making things much worse.  I couldn't be fully open to hearing what was being said and NOT said.  I was too angry and burnt out from years of shouldering things, which of course closed down any opportunities for intervention on my end.  And since I was the only one to have taken the lead on that, it wasn't going to happen.  I stopped asking.  I let resentment cloud my vision as I struggled to keep afloat trying to seek solutions. I was questioning everything, and the most predominant feeling I harboured was fear.  Yes, fear. I see that now.

• I was afraid to take a real honest look because I knew it was ugly.
• I was afraid to really see the disconnect and numbness being projected from the both of us.
• I was afraid to push for openness because I didn't know how it would impact his health.
• I was afraid I couldn't cope with maintaining the status quo or what the future held.
• I was afraid that I would remain stuck and life wouldn't get any better.
• I was afraid of being rejected even though I was already feeling its realness.

This is where I was at last Thanksgiving.  Truthfully afraid and incapable of helping to steer my marriage back to safe waters.  I was so foggy while defensively protecting myself that it wasn't until much later that I began to see the signs that someone else had already replaced me in the love department.  Today, a year later these revelations have surfaced.  I see the irony of it too because all along I have been told that my reactions and my expressed feelings scared him.  I scared him. 

Turns out how I was behaving and how he was behaving was out of fear. Fear begat fear.   Of course, I know now that he stopped loving me months and months before last Thanksgiving.  It was all a ruse. Even if I had lifted up out of my fears, it was too late.  Resignation had already happened.  I just hadn't been told yet.

So, where am I today?  Am I still fearful?  In some aspects of my life, of course I am but in a much healthier and productive way.   My courage is bright and shiny again.  Through the knee dropping humility and the comfort of learning, reflecting, expressing, grieving, grieving and grieving, I am finding my way as I continue multi-tasking throughout my days, and stepping out into new territories with a new feeling of freedom gratitude.  Insights, late nights, bright lights, and dark sights and a whole lot of tears has stripped me of the layers of resentment (though I have a way to go......).  So has the unconditional love and support of my friends and my family.  Thank God.  Thank you.

Life it seems is a process of neverending surrendering.  What gets me is that the more you surrender, the less afraid you become.  Who knew??? Maybe I missed this lesson when I was too busy stubbornly trying to be a fixer, failing at it and then giving up? Or maybe I misunderstood, thought it was a commercial and went to the kitchen to plug in the kettle?

• I looked at the ugliness and it ran away, replaced by growing beauty.
• I reflected on the reality of the disconnections and take ownership of my side of things, while learning to forgive myself and others.
• I let go of the responsibility of his health issues and began to address my own.  I have more to do in this area, but I am taking it one day at a time.  I still have troubles sleeping.  The anxiety still kicks in when I am alone falling asleep, but it will leave soon.  Feelings are just visitors with messages.  They eventually go bother someone else.
• I am not living in the status quo of last year.  I broke free and learned quickly that my wings will continue to unfurl, my potential only grows as I learn to let go, as I allow my confidence to meet up with my competence.  What stalls me at times is this unresolved fear of being rejected.  When you've experienced the ultimate rejection and that happens to be your trigger button, well........... it takes time.

What I fear the most did come true.  But guess what?  I didn't keel over and fall into a fetal position.  Ok, I did a couple of times, but let's just call that meditative moments shall we?  However, I didn't remain there.  I got back up.  Dusted myself off.  Put on a cute little black dress and got my sexy little butt out there in the world again with a bunch of new learning stuffed in my lacy push up bra.  

Why is it that our most important learning seems to have to germinate from an open wound?  Why is it that personal enlightenment and transformation only occurs in the middle of a messy shift?  Maybe the imbalance, lack of footing, discomfort hurt we experience is the best way of appreciating overcoming our fears.  Kicking at darkness until it bleeds daylight, sings Bruce Cockburn. There's a crack in everything.  That's how the light gets in., croons Leonard Cohen  I guess you've got to kick hard enough to make a few new light emiting cracks?  Beautiful Imperfection, writes Pip Wilson 

Tonight, I began this bloggie post with a scrambledeggs head.  I finish it in a very different place, with new awareness.  I will be attending a dinner at a new friend's place tomorrow surrounded by folks I will meet for the first time.  I'm very grateful and humbled that they are sharing their harvest with me.  I have much to be thankful for.  I know this deep in my heart. 

Happy Thanksgiving. 

furious angels

On those days when darkness covers the world around you, then somehow slips under your skin when you're not paying attention, you find yourself counting shadows instead of sheep.  Contented dreams remain out of reach. Calm is peppered by a hideous invasion of internal noises.  Shadows can be loud visitors.  They don't lovingly bleat like sheep and happily hop back over the fence. Instead, they stick around hovering under your breath until you begin to fall into night's bottomless cavern.

one,

two,

three,

four......

Shadows resemble a chorus of fear, accompanied by the looming rhythm of your own heartbeat. Regular pathumps intensify to a loud drumming of dread.  These pulsing disturbances push you past any realm of comfort to a suffering soul place. You're struck hard by the acute realization that you come from dust, and that no matter how hard you try... no matter how long you seek out relief through a solution, the fact is what it is. All suffering is simply a version of coming face to face with mortality. 

five ......................................................... six

seveneightnineteneleven

The din continues, ...... a nagging rapture of furious angels leap out from the shadows to summon your drumming heart. A blurring flurry of fussy wings thresh, summoning awareness that all you've ever known is not enough....that what you're struggling with cannot be fixed by your combative ego .... that the reins you've held onto so tightly for control have to be released.  When it feels as though the air can't be any darker, when the hum of angels hit a crescendo making the shadows dance like they have won, surrendering is the only option.  

Just when you're about to let go of any form of faith you have, your hands automatically turn upward with plea in your heart.  To stop the flight of furious angels.  You've heard their message.  It is then and only then that you have opened up wide enough to let in the light of God. .... to ask for His guidance.  

May you stay right there amongst the dancing shadows, the frenzied angels, and the pain of suffering until you can hear an answer to your prayer.  Don't let your ego get in the way. 

the awakening of temptation

temptation may

steal away focus,

create internal conflict

shrug off moral reasoning

taste like nectar

leave a bitterness

catch your breath

tantalize thoughts

launch you into thin air

cry for freedom

frighten a grown man

start a new journey

tamper with dignity

strip down integrity

be gloriously sinful

stir a curious woman 
 shower you with shame

heighten your cravings

bait your spirit

harmonize two minds

be the answer to a great mystery

spark a lost soul

generate energy

kick you in the gut

knock you to your knees

create an obsession

fill you with shame

force you to confess
AWAKEN

leave you wanting more.

Temptation entices a wandering passion in need of affirmation with its spicy bravado.   It spins self control on its side, wrapping it in an alluring flame with mesmerizing dreams. It chokes discipline leaving it impotent to that charismatic  serpent and charms you into playing out your unrelenting wishes.  Acting on a tantalizing temptation may alleviate the trembling ache of emptiness or it can fuel the heart with an burning desire for more.  Is the allure ever beyond judgment, or does it always embody sin?   

What tempts you?  Have you decided to acquiesce?  

'tis the winter season of Lent. A time for dark soul reflections, confessions and forgiveness. Lead us not into temptation.........

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.

November

As the full moon rises from the depths of the river bed, leaving its remnant glow on the ambling current, November's silence drapes the landscape with the last vestiges of warm golden light. The downturn of autumn looms.

Fragrant earthy decay settles into slumbering comfort. Traces of amber senses from leaves past their prime litter the pathways and mask the green grasstips on abandoned fields.

Somber moods steeped in burgundy passion yawn contemplative lyrics of longing. The land has been threshed, mourning the passing of time. ....the passing of lifegrowth.

The season of rustic thoughts, shared by ancestral hauntings is upon us. May we have the courage to listen to their ripened echos caught in the boughs of the pine, captured in the cold gales of a storm, wrapped in the forgotten sheds where ancient dreams have been laid to rest.

November is here. Crawl under the blanket. New dreams need to find the sacred germination from stories told by the firelight. It's time to share.

best intentions....

Intentions are halfway promises posed beside the shadow of time kept desire. Believable reflections of wanting, they have the power to alter a lifetime of breathing in night's indigo blues, nuanced by the light of a slivered moon. There is a deep resonance so strongly shared when intentions are transformed into words spoken out loud. Tell me what you want, what you wish for and I will meet you there.

Like a light touch whisper kiss filled with horizon promise, intentions wreathe around hope tendrils of temptation and breathe out yearnings with relieving force. A secret held onto until it becomes unlatched by the promise of receiving it unblemished by judgement, untouched by questioning, find focus only when they become a blossoming expression. When they become sensory, dreams find life.

Intentions can easily transform into lethal knives that puncture the heart of lonely. They can refresh wounds when they become rejected specks blowing in the wind.

When they feel the most believable, they hurt the most deeply when all of a sudden they evaporate. When they seem incredibly close to happening and then get yanked away by a change of heart, they leave gashes of ugly looking doubt on another.

With no explanation, beautiful potential evaporates....whisked away and thrown onto a heap of shards made from broken promises. It can just about rip you in two.

where do you think i am?

I usually have the ability to write without feeling a sense of wondering how someone is going to react or question what I write about. The words come....I grab them from the air around me .... I add a photo, a quote, a piece of a poem ..... I format it and then I publish it. Once its published, I usually feel like it's finished for now. If it resonates with you in a way that adds a kink into your thoughts, or stirs you in a way that you can relate to what I've written about, I'm pleased. If it doesn't.... well, then I don't hear from you. It's fine either way. What makes me very uncomfortable is when I get the feeling that what I have written is being analyzed as a way to understand me.

Though all of what I have shared on this site is first draft, I haven't returned to many pieces to tweak it in anyway. An idea stews in my head and then finds its way through my fingertips and out into cyberspace. Yes, I own the work. It DEFINITELY has my fingerprints and personality all over it. But, it is only a glimpse of who I am and/or what I'm thinking and feeling and/or sensing and seeing.

There is a personal sense that I am a vessel of some kind, unattached to a specific piece I've posted. This happens only when I am free of second guessing myself...... when I don't have those stupid thoughts about how someone is going to interpret it as what I may be tackling personally. When I can't take a step back from the topic and let the words flow, I get clogged up. Right now, I am clogged up. There are many ideas floating in the abyss of my brain, but heck if I can finish them. Too personal? Maybe. Too intense? Maybe. Too open to bizarre interpretations that perhaps I'm on some kind of radically driven religious journey that for some reason makes you uncomfortable? Stop looking at me. Start looking at yourself.

Sure I write about my own experiences, but often I will tackle a topic but place it in the first person so that it may be received by another more resonantly than it would be if it was posted as some kind of lecture. It's a style I'm comfortable with. If I appear to "own it" than it seems to normalize and take the edge off of what may be an emotionally charged topic. Of course there are times when I share a story that is uniquely my own. This happens when my confidence is at its peak, when I don't feel a sense of being "watched" or when I'm not feeling self conscious. Right now, this is how I'm feeling..... and I don't like it.

Sometimes I will start a piece based on a personal experience, but then take it beyond the event I have been involved in. My writing is normally a blend of my life observations, my personal interests that I may be attempting to learn more about, my opinions, and what a friend or an acquaintance has shared with me. Whomever has been reading my stuff for a while knows that there are certain themes which obviously resonate with me. That's only natural. Why would I explore topics that hold no meaning or importance to where I may be at in my journey? I don't believe anyone can completely excuse themselves from what they choose to create. Even if it is a journalistic piece published as a news story, the personality always shines through as do opinions. However, writing is a vehicle for the expression of one's imagination as well as one's truth. Illusions and truth........ now there's a topic!

Blogging is a venue used for many reasons. I originally started this blog as a way to express my political opinions through clarifying lens. I intended to expand my own "awareness" of issues affecting both the community I live in and the world around me, while sharing my thoughts and feelings to perhaps stir another. It quickly morphed into something else, as I opened my head and heart to delving into the human stories of struggles and accomplishments I had accumulated throughout my life.

Soon, it became a vehicle to integrate what I had learned with what I was learning. I found myself in the middle of a spiritual awakening of sorts, one that is both oddly convoluted and not in anyway formalized. Given how FULL I felt of stories and unanchored thoughts (the ones which aren't attached to reality because they had never been formally put into words....) blogging under the title of "awareness" seemed like a good place to park them.

I may seem to be a person without boundaries, willing to share everything stirring inside me. Believe me, I am not. Fiercely independent, I actually have very strong boundaries and only allow a small select few past the line. I am open, but I have a personal side to me that you don't know about. The values I hold on tight to, the ones which I use as a guide .... the same ones which trip me up when I don't feel them coming from another person, are often what I write about. Respect, honesty, integrity, a growing faith in God, independence, equality, life long learning, love .... these are what I believe in. Does that make me different than others? Does writing about these topics make me unbalanced or off kilter from the rest of the world? NO. In fact, they are pretty darn universally held onto. I write on topics that are generally avenues most people are delving into. So, why do I feel like I'm being examined? And why does it bother me so much? Because I am a private person. I only choose to share what I want to. Because it is very large gulf between analyzing the topic and analyzing the writer.

I have been writing a piece I was hoping to share on this site for about a week now. It's long and its personal.... perhaps too revealing and maybe that's what is bothering me too. This may not the venue for it. I don't know yet. I'm too self conscious right now. I'm also thinking that blogging is not where I should be writing because so often what I write about gets misinterpreted by others, or worse, makes them feel uncomfortable about where I may be at.????? It's a weird feeling to think that who I am and what I am sharing is causing others to question my mental health, when in fact I am feeling very much at ease with where I am. To have to justify myself with "I'm fine, really I am" like a mantra is not kosher. To have to justify that the path I am taking is really quite normal and and that the DIScomfort is with the reader and not the writer is not where I want to put my energy.

So, I will hobble along wondering where I am with blogging.... but where I am as a human being? Exactly where I want to be. If you're uncomfortable with that place, then perhaps its a good time to turn it back on yourself and ask why YOU are uncomfortable with it. It's not my issue.

whiskey soakin'....

Fix me a glass of your restless complications
I will drink them 'til I bleed
Let me inhale your tenderhearted secrets
the ones you won't let me read.

Weep no more inside your fighting soul
Complications can unwind
Straight up whiskey summons late night stories
share with me what's on your mind.

Pour another round of hurting memories
Amber drops to ease the pain
I'll sit with you 'til the moon's forgotten
when that loving sun delights again.

If experience is your chosen mistress
then the blues will set you free
Fix me another glass of your complications
Restless fears never frightened me.


the words found me during a drive this morning to Saint John while I was thinking about a friend.

echoes of truth

They float within the stream of your conciousness looking for a pore to trickle and drip out of. Sometimes they are harboured deeply, pushed and repressed down into a forgotten recess which only a dark dream can discover when our guard is down. They then slip up to the forefront of our thinking where they itch from the inside until you become aware of its presence again....until you acknowledge it as a reality.

Sometimes holding onto one is like trying to grasp an anchor made slippery from seaweed and kelp.

Sometimes we feel like we've thrown it away, we've let go of our role as keeper of the internal light.......its been cast off into the deep waters to float away unrecognize and unable to hurt or to change our course in life.

Sometimes, they retch out of us like projectiles in need of release.....gotta get them out.....gotta share NOW....

We rely on them as contracts held and promises kept, and yet they dance within us and twirl around the sirens named desire and temptation. We even seek them out, yet they entangle us in the long reeds of mystery, trapped in the glowing temptress of imagination. Reality becomes blurred as we hold our breath in an attempt to gain control over our own invaded thoughts. Alluring, it can leave you stunned by its flirtatious nature.

A cousin of desire, a sister of a dream.........they enslave you behind a mask made of clay. Only porous clay. Even if we fire that clay with a beautiful glaze to give it strength to hold back truth, those sneaky secrets have the capacity to reveal themselves. They may bring joy, surprise, and celebration with them, or they may accompany shock, dismay and sorrow. It all depends on what it is made of. It all depends on who the keeper decides to share it with and how it is received. They are powerful little atoms which can be used as threats and coercion......you throw the gauntlet down by adding a seemingly innocent secret to the mix and you have the capacity to create emotional, spiritual and physical havoc. One little revealed secret can do that.

On the other hand.......there are many hidden gems which if shared with the right person can lift you up out of a place of vulnerability and into a sense of being understood..... maybe for the very first time.

We are complicated beings. Many of our own secrets lay dormant in the pulse of our souls and we have yet to discover them ourselves. These tend to reveal themselves when the timing is right.....when we have taken a risk to meditatively sit in stillness where we begin to hear the echoing message rise up into our awareness. Stark and shadowy at first, they can evolve quickly into new starting point in our journey.....like we are given the gift of a freshly staked signpost.

We choose who we share our innermost demons, dreams and desires with people we have an intuitive notion, whom we can trust. They are few and far between. Sometimes we mess up. Sometimes we choose the wrong person. Sometimes we tell someone a secret only to have it bite you back with a sign of vengeful judgement wrapped around it. Nothing feels worse than when that happens. Betrayal is forever a foe.

Many are never revealed. But, we have strong premonitions that they exist, that they may be out there. Many remain a mystery for us to follow as part of our destiny where leap of faith showers our trusting tendancies and tickles our inherent motivation to carry on as pilgrims in search of revelation. Its the spicy aroma of a secret in need of unveiling which tantalizes the explorer in our souls.

What are your well kept secrets?? What are your secrets left to be unveiled even to you?

temptation

it can

steal away focus,

create internal conflict

shrug off moral reasoning

taste like warm nectar

leave a bitterness

catch your breath

tantalize thoughts

launch impulsivity

cry freedom

frighten a grown man

start a new journey

tamper with dignity

strip down integrity

be gloriously sinful

stir a curious woman
shower you with shame

make you crave

break your spirit

harmonize two minds

be the answer to a great mystery

spark a lost soul

generate energy

kick you in the gut

leave you wanting more.

temptation entices a wandering unanchored passion in need of affirmation. it spins control on its side, wrapping it in an alluring flame with mesmerizing dreams. it chokes discipline leaving it bruised and unable to swallow.

acting on one may alleviate the trembling ache of emptiness with the heat of fulfillment or it can fuel the heart with an unrelenting desire for more.

aren't you curious to know where your temptations will lead? I wonder whats just beyond that door??

regrets, i've had a few

sorrow weeps winter's blue light mourning

it's inner siren

strangles hopes with tangled tears

and

blankets dreams of youthful temptations

everlasting regrets awaken empty half breaths

it's quickened tempo

surges awareness with heated panic

and

sparks impulses resonating shameful memories.

refresh

refresh

relive

panic

relive

repress

repress

deny

refresh

refresh

awaken

relive

panic

admit

admit it

weep

weep

own it

own it

grieve

grieve

refresh

face it

own it

grieve

weep

learn

learn

learn

forgive

forgive

love

love

and dream again.

never let regret win

This week's Sunday Scribbling's prompt is regrets. We've all got a few. For more interesting perspectives, check out this site. You won't regret it.