DEEPLY AWAKE - YESTERDAY

 

DEEPLY AWAKE – YESTERDAY

 

I am hoping that the 12-12-12 was everything you wanted it to be.

 

This is written for those whose 12-12-12 was neither magical nor comfortable. You guys, and I, need some encouragement today.

 

I was not visited by a space ship. No Ascended Masters came and made me a meal, taught me the mysteries, and left me their number. I did not glow, neither did I hum, shake, or get nauseated. I had a couple of those deep,deep flushes that I thought would turn into something more, another blacking out, but, no, I recovered quite nicely.

 

I sat in a tight ball of pain yesterday. Not one area of my life, many of which, regardless of my bitching, were going surprisingly well, worked out yesterday.

 

I sat in my recliner all day. That is all I did. I felt pushed down by a great weight. I kept imagining myself, quite to my dismay, as if I was glowing-on-fire. I felt expectant, detached, completely detached, and yet, highly disturbed. Little flutters of fear, big waves of it, that sharp, tangy fear that rides your body from the deep down stomach, and then shocks its way all the way up you from your core, a knowing of disaster.

 

And then I would talk to it, tell it how pretty it was, how strong it was, and I just observed it all.

 

A thought was forming, but I knew it to be a day of pain, so I accepted it, and I rode it. My experiences informed me that there would be gifts.

 

Today, I felt a strong urge to take a walk. It felt like a hunger, when I glimpsed the view out the front door after giving my neighbor her shot. There was the front door.

 

I finally got dressed and went out. I found myself in the park across the street. Strongly, so strongly, I felt the need to go walk onto that hill over there, overlooking the brook.

 

As I walked to that place, I heard/knew that THIS is where I've needed to be all along. I looked up, and there, big as heaven, were two contrails, making a huge “X” in the sky. X marks the spot. Go sit by the water, I was told, go sit and let us talk to you.

 

I'd been smoking. There was the creek. I know it's not good form, but I threw my butt into the creek, and watched it. I could see that there were few obstacles, and imagined that little butt just floating happily all the way to the drainage ditch a couple miles north of there.

 

And the butt got caught on a stick.

 

There it bobbed, being bumped and shocked by the turbulence in the little pool in which the butt came to rest.

 

I understand a few things now.

 

I understand that that ball of confusion I have been seeing lately, my life, the little one that causes me so much distress, you know the one, the “I hate my job, I wish my relationship was more whatever, I am broke, I need to clean my house,” that little life, the “I want to be an artist and I am stuck in this tiny shitty little life,” you know, THAT distress, that ball of confusion could very well be seen as the eddy into which my butt floated, so to speak.

 

My butt came to rest in a pool that had a lot of turbulence. It did not free itself while I was sitting there. But as I watched, I saw that the very make-up, structure, beingness of that cigarette butt was beginning to change while in the eddy. The white part turned tan, then slowly began to float away. Pretty soon only part of it was left, but it was still stuck.

 

I appreciated the river, and realized that if I consider myself that butt, then, I imagine the river as being where I want to experience existence. Less turbulence and no eddies. Nothing to encumber me, just floating, just observing, just floating.

 

Then I thought, well wait a minute, look above the butt area. There is also the river. Up there it flows, it bumps over stones and glides under grasses. And it comes floating down the river, and there, those magical bubbles that were way upstream? Now they are there, tickling my butt. Wow. So the good stuff flows to the butt even if the butt is stationary!

 

And so, thinking this way, I wonder how to free that butt. How does its story end? Does it break free? Does it get to flow within and on top of the water, unencumbered, in the end?

 

If it does, it will be changed, regardless. It will have been changed by its time in the eddy, the pool it found itself in. Will it even want what it once did, now that it is changed in form and function? What will bring it pleasure now? What will bring it meaning? What it once defined as meaningful and pleasurable may not be of interest now, and things that are of interest might not even be recognized as such right away, due to all the changes.

 

The eddy is not a bad place to hang out.

 

Further, look, there are stones and branches in the river everywhere I look. Are the stones, this one, that one so deeply embedded into the side of the river, this one I am sitting on, they are all part of this dance, and I wonder if any of them hate themselves for being where they are, doing what they are doing. I wonder if any of them resent not being in the Grand Canyon. I wonder if they consider this river the exactly wring place for a rock such as me. Interesting.

 

Isn't that a ridiculous notion? I wonder if the cigarette butt resented me putting it in this position, or did it have the sense to just accept, accept, accept, accept?

 

And what of that butt? What will knock it free? I thought a lot about that. The flow of the river will do more to free that butt than anything else, apart from a stone thrown, but that would upset the balance.

 

But I did consider, if that butt could just start thinking about the flow, that might help. Imagine that everything it is seeing is from a higher source, and that it is the flow and not its current position that matters. And thinking on the flow will help to move the butt forward, I was thinking.

 

It would not take much to get that little butt floating, on the move again. Just a nudge is all it takes, really. No stones, no sticks, just a gentle nudge. A nudge. And really, all it really needs to do is ask. Yes, if that butt just asked, I am fairly sure the water would comply with its wishes!

 

I saw myself in that little ciggy butt, and I understood a lot. I saw the eddy as my ball of confusion. And I see all the angst, all of it, as optional at this point. And I have been told by them that really, all I have to do is just the beginning. Let us carry it through, let us help. But you must show us you are interested, ready.

 

A thought dawned on me yesterday, a tiny pin prick of light, a way out.

 

I really cannot tolerate people who walk around really mad about the condition of something, and then I give them a couple obvious, easy, convenient ways out, or new ways to consider something, and they tell me to go away and stop talking. I am that person! I am that horrible, stuck person who just craps on good advice, says no to party invitations, and cannot see the answer that is just sitting there, large as life, on the living room floor. Instead I walk around it, over it, and I bitch so bitterly about there being this THING in the middle of my living room that just will not budge!

 

If I really really want something, I can have it. I can. If I don't want to do something, I really probably should listen to that and not do it.

 

Hmm.

 

This brings a lot of freedom with it.

 

If I really don't want to do my old job anymore, then I should find a different job.

 

Hmm.

 

Interesting.

 

If I really want to pursue this new piece of wonder in my life, I should probably make that a priority.

 

If I really want to get my house cleaned up and my desk moved, I could do a little bit of work. I won't be able to get it all done today, but I can start.

 

You see, the weight crushing me yesterday was this weird little fellow that has been with me for a couple years, maybe longer. My unwilling companion.

 

Last night it came to me that when I gave up caring about how things turn out in my life, just truly not caring anymore, because of the losses and disappointments and confusion in my life, what I realized is there is a whole big set, and tons of subsets, of human endeavor to catch those who choose not to take responsibility for themselves. There is assistance. There are rules. I needed to explore that.

 

And now I work with people who see the world that way. A big scary monster, literally taking chunks out of their flesh, broken, and often broken by self and self alone. I work with the homeless, with strung out addicts and diabetics living in so much chaos they wind up coming into the ER comatose and with a sugars of over 600. This is now who I treat. People like me, exploring extremity. Just exploring extremity.

 

And I don't judge. I really cannot judge. I am no judge. I'm right there with you, friend.

 

But, sitting by the water today, I said good bye to that old friend. The one who just gave up.

 

I have been struggling with that one pristine, beautiful notion of complete and utter defeat. Having a big fat thick notebook stuffed, crammed, with notes on all the things I have loved with my heart wide open, held wide, wide open, and then being misunderstood, judged, shamed, my creations laughing at my disappointment and shock.

 

This is a hard thing for someone like me. Many I have traveled next to in this life do not take this kind of thing so hard. But I do. When I put heart and soul into a creation, and it turns out ugly, or harmful, or disappointing, it would kill me a little. When creation after creation has proven to be shaky, unsustainable. How does one continue to believe in magic, and in redemption, and in ascension?

 

Yesterday, I realize now, I was given the answer.

 

How does one, how do I, free myself from this soul disappointment? How do I recover from defeat and learn to live again, to hope and know and trust again?

 

I do it by realizing I have done nothing wrong.

 

Holy shit.

 

I have done nothing wrong.

 

Every disappointment, failed relationship, crappy little job, mean clerk and unreasonable judge, they are not evidence of failure, and they are not reflections of my worth.

 

They are imperfect creations, and they were never laughing at me. Never.

 

All of this is neutral, and it only has the meaning I assign it. And if I decided, really and truly decide, to look at myself and my reality as made by a master, then that means that the hard stuff is part of it all. And it doesn't sting or harm or hurt me, as long as I see it for what it is.

 

Nothing in my reality is an indictment of my soul, and I have not done anything that cannot be fixed, righted, created differently. And there is no shame anymore, no blame, no indictments, no persecution within now.

 

I think these are valid issues which deserve exploration. This is not a willing dip into the dark, slick, oily pool of depression. No. This is trying to figure out a couple of things, and not being afraid to get my hands dirty. There is a big difference there, one I hope you appreciate.

 

I have no interest in staying in the muck. I want to get unstuck, I want my butt to start floating down that river, I no longer want to be in the eddy, in the pool, getting bumped and thumped by the current.

 

So, there is a notion of self definition in here. And a lot about just having no judgment about anything, ever. Ever. It's silly, really. Judgment just indicates what you have yet to incorporate into your psyche, and that is all. Simple.

 

So I refuse to judge this process. And I am getting unstuck.

 

I left my little butt riding that eddy, going no where, having all its scenery come to it, as it could not travel to the scenery. I left a part of me at that river bank, too.

 

In fact, I did do a meditation there, and I will leave you with it.

 

I understood that this angry, recalcitrant, rebellious, bitter person who has just jammed up my life by refusing to participate, she is so tired, good God she is exhausted. She is my age, and she is defeated. I imagined putting her to bed. I tucked her in and talked with her, me on my knees, kneeling next to the bedside, talking with her.

 

I told her that she has done the impossible, because she got through Sam's birth, Mom's death, the dissolution of her marriage, the loss of her friend, job unhappiness and poverty and debt and stasis, she has experienced the ass end of dreams and promises. She has been rescued and bloodied by her long lost lover. She has tried to wrangle with the meaning and structure of her life while completely forgetting that she is creating it all.

 

She did it believing herself to be utterly alone.

 

She really did do the impossible.

 

No wonder she is so tired.

 

So I told her that her job has finally come to an end. She no longer has to struggle, and she is free to rest. I will now take over. She's not alone anymore. And then Roy Orbison started blaring in my head, “You're not alone, you're not alone, you're not alooone, anymoore.”

 

And it is not a source of shame or concern that we find ourselves contemplating balls of confusion, smoky quartz balls filled with ravenous snakes, eddies and pools making butts stationary... no, this is the course, the path, the way things are.

 

This is what the river taught me, and what I told my exhausted one. There is no judgment here, because all is as it should be. Look at the totality of the scene, sky and trees and water and stone. Look at the symmetry, the beauty, and appreciate that everything, every single thing within this scene is supposed to be right where it is.

 

Imagine that.

 

No judgment.

 

So, I got up, and I walked home happy, because I knew that I would find myself here, giving you this, giving this, happily and totally, to myself.

 

Now the work in front of me gives me none of the defeat that always used to accompany the thought of work. It's not the thought of housework I hated, it was the constant barrage of judgment that would slam through me like a tide, knocking me over every time. The self hate would simply overwhelm me, the judgment.

 

Now I know that work, industry, tasks, are at hand, but now things are different. Yes, there is joy here, and a lot of laughter. There is sweet, sweet relief. A suspension of the need for anyone to meet me here, a suspension of the need to be met.

 

I see this as an interesting experiment now. One that will no doubt lead me odd places. I hope that is so.

 

Now I see that, with the defeated one finally napping, finally getting something she so desperately needed, a sense of not being alone, well, now, I really do feel like rolling up my sleeves.

 

Yesterday was unpleasant, and it led to this miracle.

 

I know now, know so well, that pain is simply a gate that swings a little creakily, needs some WD-40, but a gate none the less, opening to my Akashic Record, the whole library now so close to being accessed, the whole ball of wax so close to being revealed.

 

But, dear ones, you will not hear me prattling on about another date.

 

Yesterday, on the pot, I felt so let down, so pissed off and sad that I wasn't getting any goodies. I'd read a reply to one of my blogs all about the new operating system and all the goodies we are getting. And here I sit. Being squeezed so hard I feel like I must either implode or explode, finally.

 

Just the gate squeaking, just the gate opening, lurching forward, into the park, now dark, now the moon is shining and the wolves are out, but only to make music, only to serenade me as I walk through this bone yard, taking in the tombstones bleached white in the moonlight. Here I find myself, not in a wonderland, not on a spaceship, in the land of endings, of finality, of the way things are.

 

And oh the judgment I heaped on myself.

 

What it comes down to is this, and I got this with capital letters, all neon, yesterday afternoon:

 

“YOU ARE NOT DOING ANYTHING, ANY OF THIS, WRONG.”

 

And I thought about that a lot while I watched my butt in the water. That butt was thrown in. And it is having an experience. How sad it would be if the butt hated itself or its experience.

 

Perhaps the eddy it finds itself in is the pool of false belief, an eddy of illusion. Then it would be doubly sad if that little butt did that to itself.

 

But it is free to do as it wishes. It will discover preferences. And it will begin to squirm, just imperceptibly at first, and it will get free, because that is its wish. And it will come to see that the longing to go downriver was a longing. There is no fundamental difference. Yes, there are a spatial and scenery differences, there is an experiential difference, but no difference at its core. And it is that which I am exploring.

 

Defeated one resting, enthused and hardened (in a very good way) and ready one walking up the steps, negotiating the elevator, tapping on the keyboard, understanding a thing or two.

 

If you had fireworks, I am very happy for you. If you had a day filled deeply with peace, good, good, good, good. Keep it coming. Thank you.

 

I was over here processing, imagining myself squeezed, sitting on my recliner, totally alight and feeling miserable.

 

That is my process. It is my way. And I will state without a hint of embarrassment or shame that I did not reach an observable state of nirvana yesterday.

 

But yesterday brought me here, to this day, to my brook and my butt and my exhausted, irresponsible one fast asleep within me, finally resting, finally, once again, in the arms of very good company.

 

Now I can see through different eyes, and I see possibilities. I see no limitation. If I want to live in the mountains, I should look into doing that. If I really want to get published, I should probably work on that. And I feel no defeat. I feel no defeat. I feel enthusiasm.

 

Yesterday brought me here, to today, 12-13, a day I never anticipated would bless me so overtly.

 

That is all for now.