A wise mother keeps her child's life simple.  She gives away ten thousand toys and keeps only that which is useful.

She lets her baby gaze into her face and at the wondrous colors of nature.

She gives her child household things and tells stories the same way over and over.

Feeling that you must have every toy, every device, every piece of equipment merely places objects between you and your child.  You have to work that much harder to provide them; work which robs your child on his most important stimulation, your company. 

Those who become trapped in the cycle of getting and having, spend their children's lives in a kind of fog.  The best moments are lost forever.

Ask the question: Who really benefits from all this consumption?

~Vimala Mc Clure

 

I am angry

No two ways about it...and none of these flowery techniques will touch it until I allow it to burn up.  My former partners family is reaching out to my daughter via the web, I can't tell if that is a good thing or a bad thing.  I can tell that I am too full of rage to see straight.  So sane or not I am going to let these feelings have a voice today.

I am furious that his family took his side without question.  I am furious that even with knowing his history they picked blood over reason and never once called to see if my daughter was ok.  Only his son had the courage to ask, quietly in the dark, sneaking a phone call to the "new enemy" after watching the police have to escort their drunk on rage and insecurity father out of I tried so hard to make OUR home.  That simple "are you ok?" was the only act of caring we ever heard from any of them for months.  From one of the innocents that never should have had to deal with any of that roller coaster ride. They know his history, the rage, the depression, hell ,he even took it out physically on some of them before, but loyalty or not wanting to get involved or whatever left me with utter and sudden overwhelming loss that I was too naïve to imagine. 

I am furious with myself that I allowed myself to get into that situation.  Alone in a state where I don't fit it, attempting to raise a child that I had neglected in favor of a 40 year old child and his children, finish school and deal with losing a 4 year relationship, children that I loved and help care for, and extended family that once told me I was one of the best things that ever happened to their son/brother were now stone cold silent.  That hurt, deeply.

And now "we miss you so much" messages are showing up for her?  Poor little Asalyn alone with the crazy mother?  Fuck you!  No one is saying that out loud, maybe no one but him was thinking it, but being bypassed in the communication chain feels gross, she's still a minor.  You think you only get to have interaction with her during the good times?  Only after the dust has settled? It might be time to look at attempting to heal, but I feel so disrespected at the approach. 

Oh the other hand I would be afraid to approach me too, because I am still wrapped in barbed wire, and dug in surrounded by trenches.  My resentment and rage boil in my belly.  But so much of that could melt away with any fucking word of kindness or acknowledgement that, yes, things were fucked up and maybe we didn't deal with it in the best manner.   It would do my heart so much good to hear, "I'm sorry for your pain and loss."  Were the steps that I took to end the sick cycle really that shocking?  Maybe when you only hear one side of the story it all seems justified.

 You misrepresented yourself and I was stupid enough to change my whole fucking life for what?  4 years of coming to terms with the fact that you had no interest in growing...I was simply the next mommy to soothe the wounds you never took the time to heal from feeling abandoned by your own mother almost 30 years ago now!  Face down in depression, unable to respond to your own children...wallowing in self pity or raging at how it was everyone else's fault that your life sucked so badly.  Grow the Fuck Up!  Then bring the next new mommy to my home, like you still own the place... all puffed up and justified.  I may have over reacted in my shock at your audacity... I wasn't feeling so Zen by the time I had finally found a way off of this merry-go-round...but you have to have the last word, blind to your motivations.

Me, a full year into it before the reality came into view.  Denial, thinking it was external stuff...which did contribute, but wasn't the core cause.  4 years learning my lessons, at the cost of my daughters wellbeing, my own physical and mental health, stress filled weekend never knowing what fresh hell awaited us... all my best hopes and attempts for making the kids lives better muddled with cycles of co-dependency and overwhelm.  

Then, shiny happy emails out of nowhere?  La la la, it's Christmas; can't we all just get along?  Fuck you.  We got along all these months with nothing from any of you.  Things are finally starting to settled down and we are beginning to heal.  I will allow my daughter the dignity and free will to decide how she wants to handle this, it's not my place to make such choices for her.  But she's not the person she is today by accident, I don't need you to acknowledge that, but it sure would be nice in the interest of overall healing if you didn't act like I don't exist while braving the faceless world wide web... to reach out to someone who got through the last year the best she could in spite of all this trauma/drama.  Did you stop to think that such a message after all this time might at least be perplexing, and at most open some wounds that were just starting to close? 

When was the last time a lover laid a slice of peach on your trembling tongue…and you tasted its sweetness and felt its softness with every last one of your senses...breathing in, breathing out…. The pleasure of so called simple things is so exquisite…the process that creates the fruit, which creates our flesh…this, is the direction I choose to turn my attention.

“Howard Hughes, the famous playboy and one of the richest men of all time, who at his death had more money than the gross national product of most countries, died in hunger in a Las Vegas motel, completely alone, reduced to skin and bone, looking like the wraith in a concentration camp. He died in poverty, poverty of the senses and spirit. A few radishes pulled from the earth and some water would have saved him. So much wealth, so little abundance! We are so obsessed with an insatiable appetite for ever more vivid sensations, because in our haste to devour everything we see, we separate body from soul. A subtle caress, the pleasure of skin against skin, or of sharing a peach, is not enough anymore; we demand cosmic euphoria that nothing, not drugs, not the most brutal pornography, not cinematic violence, can provide. Searching for relief from boredom, we raise cruelty to the level of art…or a joke.”

~Isabel Allende from Aphrodite*** A Memoir of the Sense

Severance,
The birds of leaving call to us,
Yet here we stand
Endowed with the fear of flight.
Overland
The winds of change consume the land,
While we remain
In the shadow of summers now past.
When all the leaves
Have fallen and turned to dust,
Will we remain
Entrenched within our ways.
Indifference,
The plague that moves throughout this land
Omen signs
In the shapes of things to come.

Tomorrows child is the only child.

~Dead Can Dance

I tend to feel things long before I "learn" them. I grapple, seemingly alone with feelings, intuitions and ether like mists of deep questioning and curiosity. This process usually leads me to seek some sort of explanation or common connection with others, my endless quest to not be completely isolated in the skin that holds my form. It can take a while, but I always find something, somewhere that speaks to my experience...I step around it carefully, viewing it from all angles, making sure it smells "right", and if it does...I immerse myself and devour every ounce.

Many times what I am finally able to put even limited language to, might not necessarily be profound, but it soothes such a deep ache that I revel in its simplicity. I have recently found words that speak to this malaise I have been laboring under. It's multilayered, but the surface of it is collective overwhelm.

"We can define collective overwhelm as a pandemic depressive state which combines excessive stimulation (both positive and negative), unrelenting pressure, massive information overload, and neither enough time nor sufficient suitable means for proper psychological digestion and integration. Such a state keeps us in energetic debt, borrowing from our reserve tanks until we're basically running on empty; we're behind in the payments, and we're paying far too high a price to keep up the pace to which we've committed ourselves." ~Robert Masters

Part of my strategy for coping with this reality is slowing down. Not in any forceful manner, but in tiny, soft steps that bring more consciousness to the struggle I face to not let life pass me by while my attention is focused on simply trying to keep the fuck up with the treadmill.

One of the ways I have been integrating solutions is incorporating more music into my daily routine. Rich, textured, soft music that I can literally feel soothe my frazzled nervous system. I especially love music that provides this in an organic manner, without planning or pretense. It simply speaks to a collective experience and reminds me that I am not isolated from the pulse of life, while I grapple with collective ego...the craftiest being my own.

"Because people are desperately trying to find a way of releasing themselves from this fleshy prison, they turn to you and they see you escaping momentarily and think 'How did you get out?' It's very easy.... You have the ability to, through arts, tongues; create a dialogue to make you travel to places more beautiful than we're ever promised." - Lisa Gerrard.

This is one of the ways I am able to release tremendous amounts of grief and negative energy. Music, hot baths, talks with people that feed, instead of drain me and limiting the constant flow if chatter that circles endlessly, seeping into my skin.

"Spiritual stamina is essential; don't postpone developing it. Go to the heart of collective overwhelm, beyond the fear and anger and numbness and shock, and there you'll find an enormous grief; take it in, expanding your heart as much as you have to, cutting channels for the grief to flow, to cut loose, to tear open your sky, until its cry is your cry, and what's below and beyond all the pain starts to shine forth, inviting us into what we never left but only dreamt we did." ~Robert Masters

Are you in touch with this collective overwhelm? If so, what are some of the ways you recharge your body, mind and spirit?

I used to think the only way out of a parasitic predicament was suicide…sweet, selfish release. My vision shifted to a Just Perception and a sort of elevation took place… going up? I was shiny and fluid…with a crystal clear vision that spanned beyond the horizon, above, below, inside, outside, upside down. I saw rightly and what I witnessed was the sublime mess of Truth. I no longer loved… I WAS love and I still am. But not the love we are conditioned to believe is love…something most of us have or still run from because of what it exacts from us.

The love that I am has a stark, rich, aching quality…that witnesses horrors and feels them to the core. I am not graceful with this being human business. I find it hard to function in day to day life. The beauty of things often leaves me in tears, awkward in social situations. The ghastliness about can lead to pulling over the car as my body vomits in response. I look disturbed I suppose…and often wonder why I don’t see kindred in the sea of faces about me. Most of the time I am invisible or if I am seen the hunger in another wants to exact something from me that I do not have to give. The gem they seek is already in their pocket, yet chaos is unleashed in the pursuit of a ghost. My inability to see this has cost me, and seems less than noble in the downward spiral of ego attachment. I have to be vigilant, for the humanness is touch starved and longs…deeply. But nothing in the flesh, in the mind, in the heart will match the power of that stark ineffable. I simply cannot engage the illusions of life without That at the center of all.

By Saul Williams:

Do not bow your head. Do not close your eyes.


Let us look deeply within one another.


TODAY, I give thanks for the light that exists within each one of you.


TODAY, I acknowledge that your quest for light beyond shadow, your desire to defeat your own cynicism, your work at believing the impossible possible, your faith in change and the ability of humankind to transcend past transgressions and overcome the shortsightedness of ignorance and fear, and our collective effort at stretching the boundaries of reality, has enabled us to achieve the dream that is TODAY.


TODAY, I acknowledge that even my own success is a simple spoke in the wheel of our collective success, and that our collective success is in response to all of the individual effort that we have put forward in our individual lives, in private moments, in private struggles against our lesser selves.


Some of us worked on being more honest.

Some of us worked on being more kind.

Some of us worked on not hiding our emotions.

Some of us worked on becoming less angry.

Some of us worked on becoming better listeners.

Some of us worked on facing our fears.

Some of us worked on remembering to say thank you.

Some of us worked on trusting our loved ones.

Some of us worked on having more faith.

Some of us worked on detoxifying our environment.

Some of us worked on detoxifying our minds.

Some of us worked on monitoring our diets.

Some of us worked on strengthening our discipline.

Some of us worked on broadening our skills.

Some of us worked on learning new languages.

Some of us worked on becoming better parents.

Some of us worked on becoming better friends.

Some of us worked on remembering our dreams.

Some of us worked on forgiving the past.

Some of us worked on strengthening our bodies.

Some of us worked on sharing and giving back.

Some of us worked on taking on greater responsibility.

Some of us worked on our art.


As a result of all of the work that has been done quietly in our individual lives, we have collectively contributed to the blossoming understanding and simplest expression of what God is. God is our good, and even the good we do for our self counts. Each fully blossomed flower on the hillside of our destiny adds to the broadened spectrum of our being. And together, we create more than beauty, more than fate; we evolve the depth and scope of the All-Seeing.


We may never see it reported through the media, but there is more good happening in this world than evil. There are more children smiling in this moment than any single one of us could fathom... and someone just fell in love, and someone just helped a stranger, and someone just scored a goal, and someone got their hearing back, and someone's joking with their co-worker, and someone's sitting in the kitchen, while the rest of the household sleeps, writing a poem.


Today, I give thanks for all of the good that has gone unrewarded, for every kind word, action, or deed. Today, I gave thanks for the God that is within each and every one of you, that is us, when we claim who we are.

Living in Athens, GA on the 25th anniversary of the release of Murmur is an interesting synchronicity. REM was background music to many profound and fleeting moments in my life.

Babies conceived, drugs ingested, mind altering dancing, recycled art projects, cooperative markets opened, punk/hippie basket case ... astounding things happen in the course of a three minute song. Short clips of these mental home movies stored in my brain. Feel them flood back like chemicals rushing from the spinal column... each time that song is cued. I can still taste your lips, I still feel the heat of the bodies in the slam pits, stumbling, fumbling humanity...you understand why I had to leave, Yes?

I am looking back tonight...it's been a good life.

Talk About The Passion

Empty prayer, empty mouths, combien reaction
Empty prayer, empty mouths, talk about the passion

Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion

Empty prayer, empty mouths, combien reaction
Empty prayer, empty mouths, talk about the passion
Combien, combien, combien de temps?

Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
Combien, combien, combien de temps?

Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion

I am totally broken and utterly whole all at the same time. At my Core, I am ONE; the shining face of god burns from deep within me. Sometimes that light pours out of my eyes, mouth and fingertips. For a time this Core, which I had no intellectual conception about felt like a fragile gift I had to protect and I protected it ferociously. Against many bumps and bruises, rapes and wrongs. A little girl with a toy sword, fighting back the monsters.

One day a wise man tapped me on the shoulder and pointed my attention in a new direction. A direction I had not ever looked in on my tireless quest to heal my shattered psyche. What he shared sent a bolt of energy through my spine and my mind was emptied. Stopped! Bliss! When the dust settled, I realized that it was really that Core that had always held me in safe, strong arms. I had some deep belly laughs at the futility of thinking anything could damage the Core. I felt a deep profound compassion for those parts of me worked so hard to keep me intact I was able to disassemble some of the fortress around my heart. I thanked them for serving me as the walls started to dissolve.

Sometimes, even though I know THE TRUTH, my find parts of me sneaking off to find nails, hammer and wood to start the reconstruction of my fable. I suppose this might look like madness to some, jadedness to others, maybe even high maintenance. But its really just kid fears that are rattled in times of stress, grief, overwhelm, and also in times of great joy. My ego wants to grasp or run. But I am practicing standing still... still enough to be present for Core community that can hold me... to seep its way into my soul, where our shared faces can commune in celebration of all this breathtaking beauty we fight so hard to recognize.