Fires and news

The fires that were started by lightning over a week ago caused a thick pall of smoke to blanket the sky all week. 800 fires raging throughout California and not enough human power to tackle them all. The sky has been beige, lungs have been stressed, and if you step outside it smells like a campfire. I've felt like I'm wearing an iron helmet all week, or like someone dropped the ceiling down to five feet. I've been restless and stir-crazy, cooped up inside, avoiding the smoke, and the lack of oxygen has made me groggy and tired. But yesterday, blue sky was actually visible with wispy white clouds, and I spent the afternoon at the river, completely restorative. This morning it still smells like a cookout outside and the ridge beyond my house is hazy, but overhead is blue sky, and I'm grateful for that.

The blossoming in my relationship with J continues to feel miraculous, even as our fears, anxieties, old wounds occasionally resurface. I marvel at the ease with which we are dealing with them, and the clarity of the communication between us.

Meanwhile, looking for another housemate for the open room in my house. The one I had lined up fell through yesterday, two days before the first, leaving me to come up with that part of the mortgage again. Darn!

Oskar, my sweet but demanding dog, is happy in his new home with neighbors of mine. I still miss him a lot and am also enjoying the greater freedom of my days.

I keep delving into this feeling of letting life come to me, letting things flow in their own way and timing, finding and feeling the flow, less resistance, less striving and pushing against things, more trust.

Hawk

how do we dwell
inside the day
needing nothing
but what is
how do we find
the innocent
country of heart
all images
and moment
leave the land of
the discursive
full of worry
identity
the birds sing
and the trees
impossibly
lush and bright
a density
of perfection
mind cannot
fathom to swim
into that
or float on
these fine shining
threads the spiders
weave i am
looking for some-
thing elusive
called meaning
while it glitters
all around me
a thousand coins
of light i do
not understand
my place in the
order of things
a hawk circles
in the blue sky

And what i mean by that is…

I am a little depressed the last few days. And what i mean by that is i am being held under a small bag filled with sand that i carry everywhere. And what i mean by that is that sand has a kind of heavy, sodden quality that pushes down on you and is hard to carry around, though sometimes weight feels good. And what i mean by that is that i like it when bodies press on me as in doing contact improv or in cuddling. And what i mean by that is i sometimes have an insatiable need for contact, touch, weight, pressure, just to know i am still here, alive, in a body, to remember my body and not feel that all the pieces might just fly apart. And what i mean by that is sometimes it's so hard to hold it all together—life, i mean and self, and feelings—and i just want to be contained and remembered to myself by another. And what i mean by that is the painful feeling of aloneness, separation, isolation, cold, that sometimes dogs me, making the world seem hard. And all i want is to be honest and real, and the pressure is so strong to be otherwise, to wear our masks, be polite and put-together and comfortable and happy, and isn't it heartbreaking because aren't we all just wanting out of that box?

Sometimes a sense of despair comes over me and defeat when things seem hard and i feel like i'm pushing a boulder up a hill and my life suddenly seems stupid and my attempts at things pathetic and i can see why people just suddenly go ballistic from the pressures of this crazy, hard, disjunct, modern world and the lack of love and recognition of our gifts, and i'm wanting so much to remedy that in so many ways, but it feels like a drop in a desert sometimes. And what i mean by that is i am carrying this sand bag around the last few days and i don't know why and it scares me and i don't want it and i just want to be loved and i wish i could go back in time and fix my childhood so i don't have to feel this way now and isn't life weird?

But i guess it's part of what gives emotion to my writing and compassion to my listening and god knows what all else, probably something beautiful to my dancing. Isn't the Divine weird, how it shows up in everything and is sneaky and strange, the way it's working all the pieces? And what i mean by that is creativity and love and miracles and how things that seem so fucked up are also blessings and gifts and it's impossible to really make sense of any of it with the mind. That's not what the mind is for. And when i see the mind run rampant—like practically everywhere—i want to cry and also to scream.

And i am grateful for writing. That's all i know. So that's what i give.

Clear Lake, Muddy Waters

My violin at the bottom of a lake. Clear water. The violin in its case. Somehow the water didn't get in. I'm dismayed that i fished my identity—bag with wallet, etc—out first, but then i'm surprised the violin was there at all in the dream.

I feel incomprehensibly sad now writing this. It's not the dream and yet maybe it is. I feel tired of the ongoing struggle of my life. But the lake was clear. Still i feel submerged even though i rescued everything—dog, children, women, we were even going back for the car.

Then why does life feel like the insurmountable skyscraper or the scaling up its sleek, terrifying side?

I would like to give up all trying, all effort, and it seems to me it should be possible to live this way, and yet i don't find it. I feel a vast disappointment. Perhaps it is a precursor to something better—like acceptance, surrender. I certainly don't want to have to earn anything anymore—praise, approval, friendship. What else is at the bottom of the lake?

I believe in the magical process of writing. Isn't it enough? I could walk out of my life now and just keep walking, but that's not it. I wish i could find the closet that contains whatever it is supposed to contain. I'd rather not begin again.

What does the lake symbolize? Clear lake in which we might have drowned but didn't. I am ready to crawl under the comforting mountain, burrow in the dark. We are not free and i long to be. I need a moment to re-collect, remember, myself. But i lost that moment somewhere in some lint-filled pocket with the old ticket stubs and gum wrappers. If there were a backdoor, i'd put the hate out into the dirt yard with the chickens. Sometimes we need our rage to keep going. It's like fuel. I'm angry about the years, the lies, and the obscene price of gasoline that has only to do with disgusting profits for the few while the rest of us suffer. But i'm tired of that too. When i was little i liked games with elaborate stories of people's lives.

I would like to feel what's running through my veins. I wish someone would come and clean up all the mess. I am tired. I can't do it anymore. It feels like a long way out. I wish i knew what the wind has to say about it all. I'd like to stay up all night just to listen. Erase me, i keep saying, without knowing exactly what it means. I don't have to know. Erase me, enfold me—those two.

Non-resistance

What i am becoming so much more sensitive to—thanks to M and the Human Design stuff she has turned me on to, and to the events, challenges and teachings in my own life—is right timing, letting things flow in their own way and time, not pushing or hastening things, feeling for the natural flow and being patient with it, accepting of it. The beauty of just letting things be, trusting in the flow of life, not reaching and grasping after everything is that it all becomes so much easier and more pleasurable and i am able to better contact my own innate guidance about the rightness of each decision or action. With it comes a natural faith, an exhaled breath, release from fear, a sense of finding the place where things just work themselves out. I feel so much more trust in that flow, not wanting to control or make things happen or even decide what "should" happen, a deeper breath.

For example, letting the house sale move in its own time and flow but attentive to what that is and my part in it. Letting my book sell (or not) in its own way, not fretting over it, trusting the rightness of it. What i feel as i do this is an allowing, which i can feel actually opsn doors, opens possibilities, where before my anxiety and striving kept the very things i wanted at bay.

Mainly, i am getting so much more sensitive to what resistance and pushing feel like, how bad and off they feel, and what flow feels like. I taught my whole Contact Improv class on following the flow this week.

Renaissance

Renaissance—our love flowering suddenly again, new and not new, lovely, open, sweet, startling after all. How twisting are the ways. But all this comes, i think, from surrender, acceptance, grief too, a passing through of the dark shadows, and grace, that unnameable, unseeable force. Miracle i no longer take for granted, remembering, reminding myself, to stay in each moment, enjoy it as fully as possible for all its richness, assume nothing.

We are experiencing something of a miraculous rebirth, both individually and together, a peace, joy, acceptance, ease. Able to be truly in the moment. Giving up worrying about the future or clinging to the past. Suddenly the present becomes so rich, full, surprising, easy. When stressful thoughts arise, I recognize them as such and let them go. I feel grateful, and i accept myself as best i can, that i am not perfect and that it's workable the way i am. I feel blessed to be able to enjoy the richness of my life and love again.

What i allow is the Will of the gods, the Great Way. It moves through me like a wind. I ride those currents, allowing them to move me. Letting loose the false conditioning of the past, so i can move with my true nature, at one with the Will of the gods, and so, at ease in my heart. "Move me where you want me to go," i say, cultivating trust, reminding myself of their kindness when fear rises up in my heart. Aligning my heart to the world heart and finding it has my best interests held lovingly in hand.

The body is a key and prayer. Its healing is part of the whole work. And words, taking on sacred shape and meaning, used with care. Love is a conduit. Listening is the most powerful tool. What is erased in me i am relieved to be without. What has been consumed by the fire is transformed to light, heat, radiance, passion, life-giving joy.

It is necessary to get very quiet inside, to take dictation from above, beyond, within.

I make mistakes and i learn, so it is ok and even necessary to make mistakes.

I am an open question. A powerful change is at work.