Watch the fear in your world.
Today I choose to watch it instead of eat it.
I used to take a dose every morning, swallow it, think for just a second, "Maybe this isn't the best thing to do", then swallow some more.

I can see it out there on the bridge. I can see people afraid to look at each other. I can see people skirt the edge, very close to the rickety posts just to not touch anyone else. I know they listen to the new several times a day. This is one of the ways to eat your daily dose. It's good to be informed. In most relationships, I listen with my heart first and then my head. When it comes to the news I find it useful to listen with my head not my heart. I have to remember that news anchors are actors usually, not journalists. They are hired more for their teeth than their objectivity.
Distance is key in my fear fight.

the face of fear

If fear is an insidious thread woven through our lives, well,I guess I wonder what else is in that fabric. Sure, there's some fear, a little tiny bit of terror, some narcissism etc. There's also a good bit of love, esteem, gratitude, more honesty than I thought there would be. All in all my fabric is holding up pretty well. I spend a bit of time working on this. Just never describedit before.

03/12/10
I wish it had been different.
I wish I had done what I always do, and I had talked to you till you were bored with me.
I screwed up and hurt you and never meant to belittle.
I guess I can’t even try anymore, I wanted to do that to, but I screwed that up also.
I keep hearing you in my head. I keep seeing that you don’t tell me that you want me, but you might someday want someone and I’m your best choice right now. (For what?, for waiting?)
You might be afraid of being alone someday, but you are much more afraid of not being alone today.
I can’t give my heart to your trial.
I wish I could. I love you.

I keep throwing away from me all the things I used to think I needed.
While I'm clear that I don't need them, this room is getting rather empty.
Participating is the key, I can't see it all, but it's there some how.
So I am participating. Slogging is more like it.

Anticipation…an act of trust

Anticipation…an act of trust

Grandmother moon rose very late and woke me before dawn.
The air is chilled and crisp. It’s light is peeking in between the new life on my oldest oak tree. The wind blows and the light dances, this moon is calling me.
She says I am a seed moon—plant roots in my wane.
She says my spirit will nurture what you put in the earth now. I will give what it needs for a good harvest. I will let the roots grow strong under the land. I will give enough water to prepare for the hot and dry that will inevitably come. Do not fear those times, they are part of the time needed for a good harvest. I will cover it with the earth for a time in order to break it’s shell and nurture it at the same time. She says will you trust me? Will you trust me to break and grow your heart, your life, so I can grow your ability to love? Will you give me that part of you?

I will, with trepidation plant my heart and my feelings of love. I will trust.
I will practice patience. Let the weight of the earth lay on my heart and sever it’s protective membrane. Let the minerals and water work their magic and show me the places where I do not know how to love. Let the roots grow so that my heart reaches deep, and deeper, down into the earth. When the sun is near and the earth has no moisture I can reach another way for what my heart needs. I can go deep below what is on the surface and find the hidden love that sustains me. Trust.

It went by so fast:

I dreamed of a painting. A dark background, with light only on a striking woman, looking down in such pain, she is feeling this:

Standing there, my red gown flowing down to the floor.
The shards of my broken heart all around my feet.
I know if I take a step it will slice quick and I will bleed.
I try not to move,
I hesitate more… Time passes I don’t know how much time
I begin to realize I’m being very, very still and quiet. I am afraid.
I begin to realize that I am hiding here.
I come to awareness like coming out of a fog for just a moment or two and the fog comes back.
The next time I am aware I realize, I may have been here near to a life time.
Where is this? I cannot see. Why can I not see?
My eyes are closed tight.
My arms wrapped in front of me to protect my breasts, my heart, but no, they didn’t, did they?
It went by so fast.
I can still hear the explosion in my ears.
Not feeling but fleeing down inside myself.
The shattering went into my head and resounded.

Now I stand here.
What can make this moment last.
This moment where I know where I am?
Where I know what is around me?
All is quiet now- I think, yes, I know now that I am breathing.
I remember the pain, I heard the shot whirring in the air, I heard it all like a million crystals exploding my heart.
Yes, I am breathing still…so How am I here?
How is there a way to survive and more than survive, breathe easier?
I open my eyes and glance around me.
I hear my heart beating in my chest, afraid and yet sure and steady none the less. It is a reassurance to hear my own heart, a reassurance I haven’t had in ages.
I see the razor sharp barbs on the floor.
How long? I can take a step between 2 pieces there only if I keep my eyes open. Not an easy task, forcing yourself to stare at them, but I choose to look.
So what happened? I am ok.
I am now, finally wanting to move away form the scene of this great tragedy.
What was it that broke? Was it something that protected my heart or restricted it?
I may never know.
What I know is that this hiding place is not for me any more.
Gently, looking down, I take a step, then another, I walk away from the pieces of my old self.
Step on into this new place.

She's a crazy drunk

She’s a crazy drunk.

No, I really mean it.

There are people who are drunk and it makes them crazy
Then there are those who are crazy and then they drink, to cope.
Like that one, that keeps cleaning the walls with her ping pong ball.
They kind of shuffle along. They don’t rush anywhere even to the liquor store.
She’s there, sober now, locked up and crazy as a betsy bug.
Unable to be treated at all until later. Later when all the drugs and alcohol have worn off.
When she’s there with only her own personal dragons surrounding her.
With the knowledge that she should be different knowing this is all she has ever been.
Nothing has ever made it all right, really. The best she has ever gotten is a little abatement on the battle.
She screams in agony and fear as the dragons taunt her, but no sound comes out.
What we get to see is a little girl smile a sort of nod and a shuffle. That is what the training has done. That is what has gotten the goods.
This world can honor that in her. They cannot honor the reactions to being surrounded by dragons, when they see that they run away and are afraid. Then she’s all alone with them. On her own. Everyone knows that’s bad. So she pretends and makes the little girl smile until she can’t and sometimes it’s embarrassing and she scares people. She tries harder, and harder. She’s getting better at the smile, the nod, the shuffle. She’s getting old from it, but that’s ok. She always knew she’d never be a great beauty. That was never going to be her way of getting by.

So those people come and watch and see and try to imagine what is really her, so they can “assess”. Then they watch when she doesn’t know and they assess some more.
In all of this there is no mercy.
They give her drugs they keep talking but know she really doesn’t care what they say.
The beasts are resting now but she is really alone because she can’t really hear anyone.
So there’s not much to do till it all comes back, so she smiles, and nods, and shuffles

Thirty is a big birthday

There’s a photograph of us in a box in my closet.
I get it out every so often.
I’m glad someone took a picture I can freeze that moment in time and hold on to that feeling.
I can feel your cheek against mine in the sunshine.
You smell divine. You are nestled up on my shoulder, safe.
We are both laughing and happy.

What neither of us could recognize in that moment is that our lives had changed forever.
You came and made me grow up…then gave me the ability to love enough for the rest of my life. You needed me in a way that mattered more than I knew.
We both grew as fast as we could.
We still are. And here we are miles apart and I want to celebrate that moment and all the moments from then until now that you have been in my life.
You have been a gift to me beyond measure.
When I get so stuck into myself that no one can tell me anything, you can. I will always hear you.
When I’m uncertain if I’ve made a difference in this world, I look at you and know that I have.

Thanks for still being here.
Know that you are loved.
Happy Birthday, son.

Lessons in Volleyball.

Lessons in Volleyball.


To hold a ball of Light in your hand you have to open your fingers wide.

To hold the love of God in your life you have to open your heart wide.

To hold the love of Man in your life you have to open your Life wide.

Voice

I got in the shower and let God wash your voice for me.
I want to make it easy for you to speak your true voice.

So you can find it in the rubble that your life has left you for today.
So you can use it with a power that is yours to have.
Speak away the stones in your path.
Speak away the failings of the past.
Talk in the wind and you can be heard far away.
God will speak your truth if you ask Him.

So you can come to me with a pure voice that is your own.

That’s what I want to tell you that I did.
What I say is “you ok? Honey?”

Whose voice needs this washing?
I will choose to have my own clean pure voice today too.
What I will say today is.

Let me be the child of a living God.

What a place to be.
Let me speak with his voice whenever I can.
Let me live my own truth with this voice.

I have been here since your beginning

I have been here since your beginning.
I have loved you more than anyone else has.
I still do. But just for today, this will be changing.
The day is coming when that won’t be true

That one is coming that can see you better than me.
That one will be with you till the end.
I flinch with pain at this, but it is so.

Many years ago I let you fly. And fly you have.
You were never a manageable child.
You were a coat of many colors worn by a whirlwind.
Management was not what you needed.
Love was always what you needed most of all.

While I know I failed to love you enough here, I know I gave what I had.
I still do, I always will love you with the best of me.
It will never be enough.
You are one of those that will always need the love of many.
I can see you differently than ever before.
You are different than ever before.
You have reached well, flown well.
You haven’t found all of what you wanted but it is coming.

It’s coming to you sure as Summer comes to Florida.

There is something needed to reach this thing you want.
It is pause.
Waiting is the most difficult thing for a whirlwind.
They are afraid that if they are still, they will disappear.
While there may be some logic there, you are so much more than the wind.
You were made of Noble ingredient and it is so much more substantial than your doings.
Be still for a minute and let the world look at the wonder that is you.

Let them see you just as you are and let them see the joys and pains you have come from and the road you are on. Then that one will come. That one that can see past the wind.

I love you, Happy Birthday

-Mom

Life lessons in 20 minutes or less

Catching lightning bugs is a tricky business.Sometimes I think loving is much like this.You have to blindly lunge into the dark and hope you have grabbed the right piece of air.You see lots of little blinks in your jar and are delighted at the show.
You may imagine this is affection.After only a few minutes the blinks cease with a similar consistency.
Doubt creeps in about the worthiness of this endeavor.
You think about shaking the jar, but that really does seem mean-hearted.
Having a captive is a rather guilt ridden proposition.That wasn’t how this was supposed to go.Occasionally there is a little blink from your jar and it brings no delight.Casting your eyes across the yard and see all the play and joy in the lights near the back hedge. Clarity oub your situation comes.With hope and anticipation you open your jar and move about to let your little creature free.Suddenly aware your recent captive flies out to join his compadres.
Your heart claps as your jar sits empty.
With new perspective you smile and know that with whatever limited vision you have tried and you have loved and you have been changed by it.

Take me to the mountains

Take me to the mountains.
Please, take me there.

To a place where there is wind and rain and rocks.
I want to lie down there as close to the sky as I can get
I want to breathe air closer to heaven than here.

I want to erase this place I’m in.
I want this pain to stop

Not only do I want all this, I want you to do it for me.
I want to lie here in repose and weep while I am wist away from the scene of this great tragedy.

Pretty arrogant wouldn’t you say?

I hurt today and it seems so much more than anyone else’s hurt.

In fact it is just the same as everyone else’s hurt.

We open our hearts to each other and become Human once more.
In doing so, we try, and sometimes we fail, on some level we all fail each other.
It is our nature to do so.

It isn’t till we reach outside of ourselves that we even feel, much less heal.
If I can embrace this pain, this grief while reaching out, I can make it less.
But it doesn’t need a trip to the mountains.
It needs a trip to the heart.

You want me....

You want me…drunk on delusion


Small whispers in my ear, “You want me”.
You tell me over and over that you want me.
Those words cause a reaction you may never know.

I have been told I am wanted and then tossed aside like so much rubbish.
I have been cherished in the dark and derided in the day.

I think all my desire is for you, in fact, It is for me, because I need so much.
I need to hear that you want me.

I know this rush of lust is from the reflection of me in your face. From the hope that you can see me and still want me.

Everything I know about you is wonderful.
But I can’t see you clearly, yet. I’m getting the outline of your face pretty well.
I will eventually see all of you, but you keep smiling at me and I am blinded by it.

I remain

Try not to listen
I try again, but I can hear the sound.
My heartbeat alone.
It is like a harsh music that pounds into me,
you are here alone
Steady each and every moment, it tells me,
you are alone, there is only you.
No one is here, no one.
Just you and you and you alone.

This ardent music comes at me each minute of the day,
It moves me to do the most ridiculous things.
I moves me to try to forget, but it is there,
and then still I hear it.
It remains unceasing.
I can be easily distracted but not for long enough.
It is always there, in me,
in my very self, telling me again,
just you, it is only you, just you, you are here alone.

Time passes, life moves on,
I continue to hear this music but not attend it’s pounding loneliness.
It has becomes like the dust on the television, neglected and ignored,
now I don’t even see it when I cast my eyes across my life.
It is there.
If someone was very close to me I would notice it, but it has become a part of the landscape of the every day.

Life is a river of experiences moving the shape of the land around. As this river begins to change me, things fall in and out of my life.
With each change, I take a sharp notice of the sound.
I hear it, I accept it, I begin to know deep in me that it is not what I thought.
It is a comfort to me.
It is there steady each and every moment, it tells me,
I am here, alone and there is only me and yet I sustain,
I remain.

I moves me to do the most amazing things.
It moves me to love better and more and with a wider brushstroke,
it distracts me not at all.
It helps reassure me that my fear is an illusion,
that I am enough, alone here in this domain,
I am strong.
It is there, in my very self to tell me again,
just you, it is only you, just you…and I remain

Lessons in rope holding

There are those that hold the rope
There are those that swing off of it.
It takes two a lot of the time to accomplish big things.
If you doubt this just ask Mrs. Obama, she’s a rope holder.

I look at couples and so much of the time it’s clear who’s holding, who’s swinging.


I have been a rope holder for much of my life.
It has it’s rewards and it’s drawbacks
Times and people change and I haven’t been holding anyone else’s rope for a while.
It’s refreshing to have your hands free to do all manner of other things.
I reached down and picked up my own rope, found a tree to tie it to
Gradually made my way to the edge, tested the rope and found everything had changed again
I hold on and swing a lot.
Having spent some time swinging, I’ve got it down to a science, carried my binoculars down there. I’ve been looking around to see if anyone else has figured out how to do this yet.
I’ve seen some people.

I wonder if you are one of them

There is a space

There is a space coming to you.
There is a time coming to you.
There is a small minute in this universe that is yours.

If I can be a shelter ok
If I can be a friend, better.
If you can heal up, good.
That’s a concern. I don’t want to be another one.
I want to have a minute to heal too.
I want to take a breathe.


Taking a step. For a little minute in this universe.
I fell inadequate to the task.
I almost always do.

That’s because me myself and I are woefully inadequate to the task.
We don’t run my life or anyone else’s.
We don’t even keep the house standing.
We can’t even stay sober.

They come, these people…these pieces of God on Earth. They come and hold me up.
Help me step
Help me stand and look at the world.

I know how to show you how I lean on them, how I ask of Him, How I shave it thin, scrape by, ride the envelope
I know how to love.

I know how to share.

I don’t know if I know how to share love.

I fell inadequate to the task.
I am in awe of the power of love.

Mantra for today
Love can be found
Love can be lost or tossed.
Love can always be given,
Love can never be taken
Love is never wrong
Love is never wasted.

Samurai's Delimma

Pace yourself.
Change takes energy.
You are no longer made of steel.
You cast it off.

You spoke it away in the wind with a lioness’ roar.

This being that wore that steel has fought foes and stood.
Stood so still and withstood it all.

That time for steel is passing.

A task is coming that requires different armor.
This is the task you ask for.
The task of change.
The armor you will need is vastly different because the battle is vastly different.

Clothe your self in love and vulnerability. Seek others similar. Together mountains will be climbed.

There is a piece of you that has been in God’s hand for a millennia.
This task of putting the rest of you there is time consuming, unsteady, treacherous, demanding, thrilling, exhilarating, exhausting, inconsistent and lasts forever.

How would we measure the enormity of life passing in this task?

One day at a time.

For that moment that is today, celebrate

I finally have a minute to tell you I got my pics posted out here.
Nurturing my creative side is a soul filling proposition.
thanks for looking.

Trees kissing the earth

A magical snow storm in late February, Texas trees bend to kiss the earth.

Free floating life

Which way is best? Opinions sought

The tempest

There are gales of Thalo blue that can cover the most heinest of sins.

Gustav Klimt's other girl

This is Libby's special woman. A coquette for her.

Cypress Forest and fairy lights

In the fall when the moon is low and red, the forest glows and the fairy lights are seen.

Tuscan village

I'm not sure if this is like knockoff designer bags or not. But I need to give Paul Cezanne's Hanged man's house it's due as inspiration.

Tom Pelican

This is my tom pelican with his lovely bride standing behind him.

This is my tom pelican with his lovely bride standing behind him.

Mom...

Every mother is a dragon at heart. Sitting and sparkling atop her treasure. Truly beautiful and a delight to look at. A hint of smoke curling from her nostril, she smiles at me. Most days it is just this way. It is however a good idea to keep a shield to hand.

Marraige

This marraige is a dream for now, but not for long...

Angel Prayers

I wonder what Angels pray for for themselves?

Being from Tornado alley, as they wheeled her down the hall, my mom said, Look, there's a tornado coming. And here I am....

In some parts of the world women wait. They wait for their people to come home, they wait for the bombs to start or stop falling, they wait to be told if they can learn to read, they wait to see who it is they will marry, they wait to see if their children will learn love or hate.

These women are becoming invisible to the world and so they are painted such here.

Late in the day after the sun really is already set there is a blue Moondance

There was this cowboy. He looked like an old Hispanic man, or maybe he had been outside much of his life. He had that leathery skin one sees. He seemed to have no need to talk. Content to sit and watch other commuters. He had a fishing tackle box he was sitting on. As the sun came up his eyes squinted to the point they almost disappeared.

You know you were having a good time at your superbowl party when someone says, "look for this on youtube tomorrow!"

It was a lot of fun, some good conversations, good food, silly ideas, kareoke and the Saints Kicked Butt!