DEEPLY AWAKE – SURPRISING SIMPLICITY
Yesternight I went to bed at 6pm, and I stayed asleep, except for a couple awakenings which were mere interruptions, until this morning at 6:30am. I woke up feeling neutral. Not blank. Just neutral. Neutral curiosity. Feeling like a master.
Today I have begun to address my house. Two weeks worth of dirty clothes, in a heap, waiting for a little help, over here, the pile has called to me. And today, the mess, the tangle, the clutter, it feels so de-tangleable. And so it has been.
Here's a bit of fun. I put enough dirty clothes in my basket to fill four washers, I thought. So I filled two washers, started them, and then moved on to the next two washers. I started a dark and a light machine, and then figured I'd go upstairs and gather the rest of the clothes, since they were not full enough to run. Funny, I noticed, that after loading the last two washers, the timer on the first two seemed stuck on 29 minutes, the amount of time the washer allots itself to do its work. Many minutes passed as I fiddled with the two remaining washers, and as I am wheeling my empty basket away, going to get more, I look once again at the washing machines, still reading twenty nine minutes.
I got my basket full again and went downstairs. Sure enough, those washers were still spinning, still going, but still stuck on 29 minutes. I understood they all wanted to work cooperatively, so they'd been waiting. I put my clothing, soap and money into the remaining two washers, and then, together, they all started counting down together.
Weird.
And this is just another fun miracle.
It's funny how when I am in the groove, these miracles just seem so sane, so obvious, and when stepping outside of the moment, like trying to describe it, well, then, it takes on an other world quality. But while I'm slinging the clothes and pouring the soaps, it just appears as an interesting but not altogether shocking anomaly.
This morning I tried the meditation where you quiet and just become everything, and nothing. One of the goals of the meditation is to disappear, and although I am not yet near to this degree to focus, I am going to get there. It felt very lovely and reassuring, oddly strange and familiar, to melt into everything. To be focused, to hear the sounds of this environment, to appreciate this softness, that roughness on my skin, but to allow it to be part of a mathematical program, an abstraction, a construct, as malleable and soft as gold, as mystical and deep as a poem by Rumi.
This is not the stillness of idleness, or worse, of avoidance. I have spent many years in the camp of avoidance. Visiting hours suck and the food is awful. I prefer to be in the flow.
This idleness is borne of surrender, of purity and joy and curiosity. It is a different experience.
I remain confident that this is all coming together.
I failed to mention quite a few things yesterday in my last post, but that's ok, I captured most of it, but one of the things I wish I'd been able to better articulate is that the reason I got so unhappy, so lost and pain-filled was because I was struggling against this fear, this doubt, I had. You know, I came awful close in my life, to these sainted environs. I lived here once, not long, but I have been here. And then, I no longer lived there. The light went out, and I was lost again.
And so to come back here is the biggest gift I could receive. To finally be here again, in the land of miracles.
But the crying in my car, the gyrations and pain and screaming and fighting I did yesterday morning, I think it was that core fear, IT IS ALL A LIE. THIS IS ALL THERE IS. JUST FIND A WAY TO ACCEPT THIS MISERY. THIS IS ALL THERE IS.
Oh it was blasting through me. That drill sergeant, that psychotic lover, that sadistic boss, the ones who need, demand that you stay small, don't find hope among the miracles, stop focusing on relief.
I needed to skewer that part of myself, extinguish it, allow it to continue to prattle but to no longer be effected by the poison.
But how to remain unaffected when it is the core fear, the core conflict, the core, staring at me, sucking me into madness of self negation, self doubt, and deep, abiding disappointment in myself and my perceptions.
That's what I pushed through and out of yesterday.
I needed, once and for all, to decide whether the cleaner, clearer, truer realities were indeed valid and available for me this lifetime.
I had had enough of the doubt.
And now it is gone.
I will tell you, I spoke with my best friend this morning, and the level of permission we have with one another is truly astonishing. We know of no shame, no fear, when we commune as we did this morning. We are scientists teasing out the meanings, working backward and forward, intuitively and tenderly. We are magicians together. It has been a long, long time since I have felt so free with her, so heard and so willing to listen. It was a relief and a coming home.
And everything we talked about rang true, returned us to more celebrating of each other and our travels. It has been a long time coming. I understood that I was to go out and do this work these last several months, and that this was not the way for my friend. She made choices, interpreted the energies her own way, and someone I once feared quite thoroughly that I had lost forever, here she comes, limping in, as I am, bent over a bit, creaky, fatigued but feeling exhilarated, an ancient and respectful exhilaration, not the kind you see on a puppy's face. No, the kind you see in the old dog, the deep groan it lets out when you bend down and rub its belly, that groan of, “That is the right spot and all is well and thank you.” That's what this has all been like for me.
I told Diane that I finally understand that the pain and agony I've put myself through with this writing stuff, well, it's been instructive and helpful, but a lot of it has been unnecessary, in that, moving the work out involves a grid that, up until recently, was still under construction. What I interpreted as being thwarted, it was just a natural part of the whole process. I am now to share this experience, and this requires a matrix still being set up.
But then I told her something which I found surprising, and true, and real. And that is that I feel I am in my final exam week. One of my most closely held goals was to be able to get so pure, so clear and right within, that I can literally be in the midst of great chaos and suffering, and I can be unaffected. More, I can transmute it, see it for what it is, calm the sea, calm the waters and walk right over them. This has been my ambition. That is what causes me a fair degree of shame at work, that I get knocked off center, knocked and rocked and pushed and toyed with so easily. There are always lots and lots and lots of people around telling me just how to do things and why. Lots of critics.
Now that I have stilled my internal critics, I imagine I will have to deal with less of that nonsense on the outside. The other scenario I have created is one which will severely constrict my finances and my freedom of movement. I drive in my car feeling very little permission, and it's just a little legal tangle I have to iron out, but the effect has been to produce huge ripples of feeling the weight of uncaring authority.
These scenarios tell me that I have been hyper-critical, judgmental and demanding of myself, demanding the undoable. These are markers to tell me what I can give myself. More permission. More freedom of movement, more awareness of the judgments and sentences I place upon myself.
And as these blocks are dissolved in this superb and compassionate light, the impossible becomes probable. Tomorrow, when I go back to my tiny job and all its frustrations and indignities and dishonesty, I will wield my light, my power, and I will find that I can still the room, the environment. I can slow or speed up the energetics, calm things, quiet things, align things.
I will be a calm eye within the storm of other people's creations, conjured from their beliefs in victimization, being less than, being stuck.
And I will reach out, and I will smile, and will shrug and laugh and sigh and offer my fellow travelers my hand. An encouraging word. A moment of levity. And it will all be made right. And I will experience no diminishment, finally, while I choose to surround myself with those convinced of their weakness, their fragility, their put upon status on this crazy planet.
I will stand as tall as my diminutive frame will allow, and I will smile, and I will know it ain't nothing' but a thang, just another day, just another set of experiences. I will pray, each step and each gesture and task completed a prayer for the highest good, for us all to be held in that net which only allows awareness of the highest good for all involved.
And until that other creative and expressive grid is in place and lit up, humming with light and love and welcome, I will be this energetic master, and I will do well, and I will no longer be diminished.
So now I will go do more laundry. I plan on just walking out boxes and boxes of clutter today. Boxes I have filled and left for another day, for a stronger person to come along and sort.
I have decided that the strongest person is going to not sort, she is going to throw.
I trust that anything that needs my attention at this point will assert itself in my awareness in all gentleness, and I will take care of it. But so many loose ends, so many ideas, half realized, quietly murmured prayers left uncorrelated with anything in my physical reality, all these bits and pieces, these little pieces of fear and these little slips of thought, of impulse, of planning and hopes and intentions. Boxes and boxes and boxes of misinterpretation of the data. I want to just get rid of it all.
I am marching it all to the bin and disposing of it. So much of it does not apply. And now I will act as if. As if, when I need something, it will manifest. When I want to be reminded of something, or an old thought would bring pleasure, there it will be, and I no longer need to carry with me totems, reminders, of these higher thoughts and all my hopes.
These are amazing times, and I just felt so moved to tell you how magical my laundry day has become.
Nice to know how beautifully its all coming together.
And that's how I will leave you, with this thought.
I used to live here. The land of miracles as jam and bread, miracles in stretching time and perception, communication and union. It's fun.
The weird thing is, the amnesia still plays with the creations. It is fascinating and shocking but not alarming that all the washers wanted to spin together. It seems to make some sort of sense. But it is something I did not will, you see? I did not will my body to shed light on the page I was reading the other night, but there it was, my book lit up by a light source not plugged into an electrical cord. I did not think, “Gee, I think it would be fun to make my book glow.” No. It just glowed. And I did not set out to have weirdness with the washing machine timers, but there it was.
And I guess that's the part of this is actually the most fun. When these surprises come, they seem to make so much sense, and they seem to be memories, almost, lessons, primers, tests. But they are delightful and they are surprising. And I find that fascinating. How I can be creating these anomalies while still being surprised by them. Interesting paradox.
I am pleased to feel again the sweet surprise of this simplicity.
