Keep walking though there’s no place to get to.
Don’t try to see through the distances.
That’s not for human beings. Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.
– Rumi
just acknowledge the fear and do it anyway!
You will come at a turning of the trail
to a wall of flame
After the hard climb & the exhausted dreaming
you will come to a place where he
with whom you have walked this far
will stop will stand
beside you on the treacherous steep path
& stare as you shiver at the moving wall, the flame
that blocks your vision of what comes after.
And that one
who you thought would accompany you always,
who held your face
tenderly a little while in his hands—
who pressed the palms of his hands into drenched grass
& washed from your cheeks, the tear-tracks—
he is telling you now
that all that stands between you
& everything you have known since the beginning
is this: this wall. Between yourself
& the beloved, between yourself & your joy,
the riverbank swaying with wildflowers, the shaft
of sunlight on the rock, the song.
Will you pass through it now, will you let it consume
whatever solidness this is
you call your life, & send
you out, a tremor of heat,
a radiance, a changed
flickering thing?
Questo Muro by Anita Barrows
Happy 3 Year Anniversary!!
I have spent most of my adult life in bad relationships, and when I say bad, I mean it in the worst sense of that word. I’m not blaming anyone else. I ‘needed’ and chose those relationships to learn what I have learned about myself, I needed them to shine the spotlight on my dark places and I needed them to show me the differences between what love is and is not, and for my own personal healing, which has allowed me to leave harmful relationships and still fight through to stay open to love.
I believe in love! I want love! I want a life partner! I want tenderness! We are here to love.
I am a girl who loves deeply, loves passionately and has the ability to see potential in others, and have fallen in love with potential a few times.
All human relationships are tricky and there is always this balance of good and bad. The passion and the ugly underbelly of when passion twists and becomes something else, can easily happen.
I’m not calling myself an expert, I try not to judge, but to understand myself through what I have chosen. I have never allowed myself to be a victim. I make choices. I have free will. I am responsible for my own actions. I do not condone the bad actions of others, but I have to take responsibility for only mine.
Here are a few of my own:
I lived in a verbally, mentally and sexually abusive marriage for 12 years; I accepted a marriage proposal in which I was asked to be a consolation prize; I stayed way longer than I should have with a man with a drug addiction who stole all my money (I convinced myself I could help him-ha); I chose to stay for two years with a man who refused to even allow me to sit beside him on the sofa without his permission. I dated a man who was willing to commit what he believed was ‘sin’ with me and then say terrible words of condemnation and judgement of that sin afterward. Then choose to put us both back in that same situation again.
There were many good things about all these relationships as well. Things that made me want to stay, want to see them get better. That’s why it’s tricky. How do you give up? That’s not easy for me.
You have to examine what you’ll tolerate. What’s important. You have to be willing to lose things. Sometimes really big things, and without a guarantee of what you will receive in return. It’s a huge gamble to go for what you really want – and be willing to believe that a real equal relationship is possible. Takes a lot of faith and guts.
Yup, I have been in some real doozies. I am so grateful for paying attention and learning a few lessons.
One of the biggest has been the ‘Potential problem’ 😃 Every person I have ever loved, including myself, has vast amounts of untapped potential. I am hopeful that I have learned the lessons of entering into an intimate relationship with someone who has firmly chosen to leave that landscape under ice their whole life.
Just the other day a wonderful man said to me…’I could have…’ but guess what? He didn’t. I see that. It’s ok. He’s free to make choices. I am just so grateful I have learned and don’t allow myself to give him credit for what he could have done, but left undone.
There are so many things I could do, but what remains is what I do. It is what it is. Always.
I can love someone deeply, but that doesn’t mean I give up what I have learned. That would just be stupid of me.
Through all my adventures and lessons in this complex and wonderful thing we have simply named LOVE, my greatest blessing in taking responsibility for myself has been learning to love myself. I feel so fortunate to have found myself lovely, lovable and totally beloved and to know for sure, you can find that true for yourself – IF you choose to!!
I would love to find a life partner, someone to share myself and the rest of the journey with, but I am ok if that doesn’t happen. I would rather walk alone than be in an unequal relationship. I pray for the ability to keep that always in my vision!
I am so grateful for the words of Anne LaMott, ‘Grace meets us right where we are, but never leaves us there.’ and I have found EVERY little thing is grace, if we allow it.
ACL 1/9/15
miracles. everyday,
floods of riches,
handfuls of Jewels ,
purest gold and silver,
pour through my hands
all around me
I ask. I receive.
I seek. I am given.
I knock. and gain entrance to the magical kingdom.
invisible. appears. visible.
I begin to write on blank sheets of paper. Poems appear.
I take a step. The hidden way opens and I find a path prepared.
I open my heart and mouth. Ripe music, melodies erupt in time and space.
I breathe in perfume of fresh air and flowers fill my being.
I breathe out and trees greet me with waving branches of thanks.
My way is effortless. Life flows easily with all this vast abundance.
These miracles go on and on. Every minute. Every day.
I am in awe. I smile.
I am here. I am full.
ACL 1/2/15
I said to the man who stood at the gate of year:
“Give me a light that I may tread
safely into the unknown.”
And he replied, “Go into the darkness, and
put your hand into the hand of God:
That shall be to you better than light
and safer than a known way!”
– Minnie Louise Haskins
As this year ends and gives way to a new one
think of it as a gift you have received.
In the joys and struggles, delights and losses,
grace has made its way into you.
Give thanks even if you don’t know what for.
Whatever regrets you have for the year just passed,
hand them over now. Without judgment,
place them in the hands of the Forgiving One
and let it all simply become part of your story.
Whatever hopes you have for the year to come,
trust it as another gift.
Be prepared to welcome the moment
each moment, with wonder and love.
Whatever resolutions you make for the new year,
know that a deeper current than what you want
or what you resolve is what God is doing in you.
Attend, and follow.
The new year will bring you grace.
May you receive it deeply.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
It’s easy to love a deer
But try to care about bugs and scrawny trees
Love the puddle of lukewarm water
From last week’s rain.
Leave the mountains alone for now.
Also the clear lakes surrounded by pines.
People are lined up to admire them.
Get close to the things that slide away in the dark.
Be grateful even for the boredom
That sometimes seems to involve the whole world.
Think of the frost
That will crack our bones eventually.
Love for Other Things by Tom Hennen
An ordinary life you have,
like baked bread, the aroma of love,
like old wood, edges worn from kindness.
In a moment’s pause, a small step aside
from the rush, the proof—
the abyss opens. Heaven inhales.
Deep, wordless, you sense
wings, breathing, Presence.
Silence speaks.
Sunlight on a plain rock,
music of a flower not usual
for this season: You are Beloved.
The Infinite names you, adores,
finds in you, in your flesh, your voice,
your hands, a place to live.
What is within you is holy.
What is of you is of God, Mystery
spiraling out from you like a nebula, a child.
You will not cease being ordinary,
nor feel different. You will bear
the Divine made infant into the world
if only moment
by moment you say
Yes.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
The authority of God made all creation. But it was the affection of God that made all His children.
You are made of the dust of this earth, and you are made of the happiness of heaven. You are flesh and you are spirit, and you are of two worlds longing for the home of forever and Him.
No matter your story before, this is your beginning now: you were formed by Love…for love.
– Ann Voskamp
We are God’s thread
weaving through the tapestry of life,
our masterpiece is slowly
created.
Potential for beauty, we can’t know,
or even fathom,
unfolding,
becoming,
revealing our glory
so bright
it makes the sun squint
and reach for sunglasses.
Grace producing brilliance
so far beyond what we would claim ourselves.
We step shining into the gray,
as we open to the new.
Virtues, like jewels appearing,
sparkling in the moonlight.
As we step into the needle’s eye,
off the edge of the known,
into spirit worlds unending,
the angels catch their breath,
cheering our sheer audacity,
our blazing garments,
dazzled by the vision
God is revealing through His creation.
As we surrender to the greatest mystery,
the beauty we inhabit
becomes us,
walking in humble clay,
eyes outshining those stars
set in the heavens,
until we totally disappear, and all that’s left
is holiness
so pure
all we can do
is
bow in wonder
at what God can do
with a fragile human.
We give thanks
as the silk thread
becomes liquid
gold and silver
opening us ever
deeper, wider
pure and simple
glory
as we realize our place.
We are the temple of our creator.
The home of God.
ACL 1/ 19/14
Ever meet someone who immediately fits right into your bones? Someone you just want to talk to for 5-10-unlimited days straight, just to see where the conversation could take you? Someone who speaks your language, makes you laugh AND gives you chill bumps in that brief encounter? sigh…I hope you have…cause it’s really good!
Friendship is like a garden. -Al
Never put a period where God put a comma… – Al
Let us be grateful to people who make us happy;
they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
-Marcel Proust
life: acoustic & amplified 