fly on the wall of your heart

come out, come on, come outside.
don't you hide your handsome face from me,
I wanna see you half-lit in the half-light
laughing with the whites of your dark eyes
shining
darkly

way over yonder, I'm waiting and wondering
wither your fonder heart lies

come out, the streets are breathing
heaving green to red to green
come with your nicotine and wine
tambourine keeping time
come and find me in the evening

way over yonder, I'm waiting and wondering
wither your fonder heart lies
way over yonder, I'm waiting and wondering
wither your fonder heart lies

come out, come inspired
you will not come to harm
if I cannot take you for a liar or a lover
I'll take you for my brother in arms

way over yonder, I'm waiting and wondering
wither your fonder heart lies
way over yonder, I'm waiting and wondering
wither your fonder heart lies

~~~~anais mitchell*

*i fell in love :)
i am speechless.

up, up, and away ~

despair, rejection, deep-seated fears of being nothing: empty, hollow. as compared with others who, of course, are something.

that my pain is in some way, fundamentally "different" from everyone else's, that my intrinsic inability to find a sense of self that is permanent and stable means i am forever destined to be alone; afraid.

what is real and what is illusion?

my answer is that i am nothing. but everything is nothing. therefore, nothing is everything. nothing is everything; everything is nothing.

just this morning i realized that my fundamental nothingness is not something to despair or deny, but something to embrace. it is the gateway to becoming everything i want, to being open to every kind of energy that radiates about this universe. that it is all contained within me, and you, and every little thing.

a few months ago in the autumn i wrote to my dear friend scott a reflection on a meditation experience that i would like to share here. scott is a very very dear friend of mine who i am so so blessed to have. :)

October 15, 2008

...*We were doing meditation at the end of class, laying on our backs on our mats in the dark, sweet soft music playing with birds chirping...and I was imagining my soul becoming free from my body and swirling in the wind with the leaves ...then being immersed in ocean water crashing into the shore with the waves, just in time with my in and out breaths. I also imagined myself with the singing birds perched atop a tree branch in the mornings after sleep, ready again to join my friends and enjoy the morning sun with bird song!! All of it, the seasons, the turning of the tide, the ebb and flow of nature, reminded me of how we as people also move in this way, through joy and sorrow or love and hatred...never staying in one emotion or state for very long and only with the promise that it will go but that it will also return in time. Mmmmm... and it reminded me to revel in the moment and to just 'be' the emotion I'm feeling without getting attached, yet to immerse myself in it like the leaves tumble across the ground with the wind, soon to settle and experience something new. I have never experienced anything like this in meditation. I found myself smiling over and over again, and thinking also how in some way it may seem sad that the leaves are falling off the trees to die...but when they do they get to tumble about the ground as if they are dancing and moving freely without being bound to the earth (or well the tree) any longer...I guess it was my first really personal experience with the idea of death and yet understanding how intimately life and death are related. Osho (from a book I am reading) says that you cannot love life until you love death. I always had trouble with that but now I think I'm starting to understand*...

"I believe in everything, nothing is sacred. I believe in nothing, everything is sacred."

-Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

"When a dewdrop slips from a lotus leaf into the ocean it does not find that it is part of the ocean, it finds it is the ocean. And to find it is the ultimate goal, the ultimate realization. There is nothing beyond it."

-Osho

la lune.

I had a really excellent yoga class last night. I'm talkin' dripping sweat, can't stand in downward-dog-cause-your-mat's-too-slippery, can-barely-move-the-next-day good. I love playing the why-I-love-yoga game; my list of reasons changes and expands daily, but today I am especially loving the dose of humility it brings me, and the way my practice allows me to open my eyes to my own ability for growth and change over time. Last night's yoga + my sister visiting from Barrie = a smiley me. She had an early engagement today so we had a little breakfast of raisin bread, bananas and tea and I played her Joanna Newsom's The Milk-Eyed Mender while helping her deal with her (incredibly long) hair. (Right now all I'm thinking is mmmmm... raisin bread.)

After she left, I got all gung-ho about my blog and started to customize it with all these little gadget-thingers...what fun! I'm just gonna put it out there: the internet friggin' rocks. My love for it may be bordering on addiction, but I figure it's better than watching tv. You know those times that you just feel good, not necessarily about anything in general but just, positive, excited? In those moments all I can say to express it is..... I LOVE.

Don't get the wrong impression here. I'm not positive or happy all the time. But I'm learning not to get all hung-up-running when my emotions dip into sadness, anxiety, fear, anger and so on. My tendency is usually to run around in my brain all the possible reasons for said "negative" emotions, desperately trying to make them go away--which I think may just be breeding confusion about emotions that are natural, rather than just letting them flow. On the other hands, sometimes emotional reactions can be manifestations of deeper psychological issues, which I believe are worth exploring.

Fierce Moon: this is about me finding my roots in my wild-goddess-self, my ultra-feminine fierceness, rather than suffocating under the superimposed, socially-conceived conceptions of what I, as a woman, should be. The moon is a significant symbol of the feminine, and planetary influence for me both as a cancer sign and a woman, and I am all about embracing and loving my womanhood, and yours too. Feminism is not about man-hating, it is about woman-loving. "Feminists" do not hate men; rather, they seek to change the male-dominated systems that structure our world. Ever since I was a child I had always thought that I had to be nice, that I had to do the nice thing. If someone did me wrong, being nice and forgiving was the way to deal with it. My feelings have changed a lot since then, and I want this new chapter to be all about letting go of those expectations and listening to my inner Kali, my own feminine strength and power that has been lying dormant all these years. Kindness and forgiveness are important, but so is assertiveness.

This is about finding a balance; being my authentic self.