baby baby steps.
Going to be a bit Pollyanna now and just fake it til I make it etc.
Positive thoughts and all that.
1) Get a job!
2) Go out!
3) Meet new people!
4) Get a haircut and new clothes (well 2nd hand "new" clothes I guess from the thrift shops of course).
5) Think about NOW instead of THEN either backwards or forwards.
6) Believe in the wonderful possibilities that exist right here and now that are already mine and already available and already excellent.
7) Let go of the angst and just let it all flow as it will down the river of life. No more fighting, no more wrestling with the currents... just let it all go in peace.
Back to those job applications then I guess :)
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
The great year of Letting Go
If you expect to be disappointed, you'll never be disappointed
Author: Me.
This is the big year of shedding more than just externals. It seems this long and winding year is also about shedding some very deep internal things.
Like a reptile literally shedding a too tight skin, this year (or two) is proving to be one where I am having to slough off a very great deal more than past relationships and lifestyles. It seems that God is making me shed a lot of unconscious beliefs I have had about how life works and how, in particular, the Future - ergo Hope - works!
That quote I made up (well...I think I made it up at least)... its been my internal driving theme for a very very very long time and I did not even realise it.
I HATE being disappointed so to avoid it at all possible costs, I actually MAKE myself be disappointed because that is so much easier than having hopes potentially dashed anyway. You can be entirely justified "right" in every thing you are sure of, if you bet on being disappointed and have it proven so.
When things actually go "right" for you... it's a nice surprise but you can dismiss them as mere coincidences anyway. You don't really deserve nice things happening, that's just an illusion. Reality is much more dark and horrid than that.
Disappointment is an easy deal. You just have to believe you don't deserve and/or won't get something in life and voila! You got it! You can now be smug and self-righteous because you were RIGHT! Life IS massively unfair! So there! I can PROVE it!
Not a pretty belief is it?
The depths of my cynicism amaze even me at times. I have honestly and almost completely believed for a long time now that there is only Hope in the inevitable denial of wishes and dreams. I even push away good things like love because its just easier to believe it has already let me down than face the responsibility of actually accepting it for what it is right NOW!
If someone offered you chocolate but you believed they were trying to poison you, do you still take it?
I do. I eat it too expecting to be hurt but I still take it because I tend to believe its unlikely I'll get nice non-poisonous chocolates anywhere else!
I may wish for beautiful things to happen to me but I don't take those wishes seriously or even act on them. My intentions are about being disabused of having the good stuff in life.
*sigh*
This skin is so tight it suffocates. Time to re-think, re-learn and re-do my entire approach to living.
This is the really stupid dichotomy inside of me in regards to Hope. I long for and wish for and think about having and wanting beautiful things to happen to me. Then I immediately set myself up for complete and absolute disappointment. I either deliberately set the bar too high into the realm of illusion and fantasy or I just simply believe its never going to happen TO ME!
Anything is possible ...even the tough stuff - the stuff I don't really want. That Anything is Possible also INCLUDES good stuff happening too and I have to understand that...like NOW. I have to also understand that that good stuff IS allowable, possible AND permissible FOR ME.
Belief in the possible means accepting that things could go either way. It means that I have to grow up a bit (a lot?) and accept that things can be good or bad - or anywhere in between - and merely allow them to happen in the time they are there.
I'm a lover not a fighter, but I seem to be endlessly fighting with myself instead of just Letting Go of the fight within and going with whatever IS right now.
My new purpose is to learn how to allow ALL possibilities, good and bad, love and abandonment, to happen if and when they will and keep joy and hope alive through any of them. Life IS beautiful if you allow it to be so. The shitty stuff just reminds us what its worth.
This is me. I am Michelle. I have love to bring to the table. It's not up to you (or me) to question how or why or when. It just is and it will be definitely okay.
Let Go and Let God!
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
a truth enough to believe in - a story
Out of the fog came the mysterious shape-shifter.
He looked at me and his cornflower blue eyes stared into mine and knew my soul. I felt the shiver of his knowing me as if I'd been unwrapped and bared to all the world.
Then with a baleful smile, he turned and disappeared back into the mists beckoning me to follow.
Mesmerised and completely, idiotically, unaware, I stepped into those mists and found myself completely alone. Sometimes a hand, his hand, would appear out of the clouds to beckon me to follow in this direction or that. But, mostly I had to fumble about and find my way on all fours, crawling along the damp, muddy ground trying desperately to find his trail. I couldn't keep up with him.
I found a small mossy, cairn and clung to it, exhausted and isolated in the swirling white, wet fog. The mists cleared a little and there was the soft warmth of gentle sunshine around me.
He came and looked at me again and burned his eyes into the very core of my being. He knew me but would not touch me. I felt safety in him but he was impossible to know and to reach. He was always just enough out of my reach that I could not cling to him and let him lead me out of the mists that surrounded the cairn - and me. It seemed he needed me to find my own way out.
Resentment and hurt welled up in my chest and I screamed. The air mollified the sound from my throat and made it seem like an angry shriek rather than the painful ache I was feeling.
Then he spoke to me in a voice that sounded like it belonged before time itself. I realised he'd been speaking to me all along, encouraging me and cajoling me to keep searching for my true direction, but I had not heard him for the cacophany of fear inside my head whilst I was groping for safety in that white sea of air.
He asked me if I knew the Truth. I said I did. He said to prove it! I tried and failed. I did not know the Truth at all. He said you have to believe that you can part the mists and see a clear path ahead of you. It's just "There". It is available. But I couldn't and I wouldn't believe him. How can one part mists with Belief? He asked me what I believed and I told him I believed in the impossible which would never be possible. He told me as gently as he could that I merely wished and did not allow for my wishes to become true.
I sat down beside the cairn I'd been clinging and crying into and felt his words sink into my heart like pebbles.
If what I wanted to escape the mists and see him clearly then why did I not merely wish and believe that it was possible?
It's a scientific fact that mists cannot be willed into submission, I told myself. I cannot will mists to defy the laws of nature. I can wish for all I'm worth but I will be disappointed always because that's the nature of the world I live in!
He smiled and said "It's not my world" and I looked at him and he turned and parted the mists with a sweep of his hand and I could see the path laid out bare as clear as if sunlight dripped from every blade of grass and stone.
"Where do you want to go?" He asked me gently.
"Where does that path go?" I asked back with admiration and hope.
He smiled yet again but with a sadness in his eyes. "If you cannot see what you want to see at the end of that path Mia, you will never discover your truth". With that he turned and left me alone again and the mists swirled back across the path he'd made visible and I was again left alone and gasping for clarity and focus.
I wanted to follow him. Desperately, I lurched into the soupy clouds and stumbled and fell, not knowing which direction was which except down. I crawled again along the ground, shedding skin and bleeding from my body and my heart at the futility and stupidity of it all.
I could hear his voice saying "I'm here Mia" but I could not tell where it was coming from and how far away he was. It was overwhelming. I felt completely alone despite his calling and encouragements. There didn't seem to be any point in continuing. I couldn't find myself out of the mists at all. They enveloped me as well as any prison. I refused to accept that merely wishing for them to go away was possible. I had no magic in me. Not like him! He was all magic and light, direction and unassailable wisdom. I wanted all of it - what he had but did not once believe I could ever come close to what he offered.
I stood up and willed myself to believe that I could part the mists and see a clear path ahead. But as I passed my hand across the soupy opaque wall of cloud, I felt ridiculous and inert. The mist stayed as solid as it ever did. I did not believe I could shift it as much as I wished it so.
Suddenly he was there in front of me again. He looked at me as if I were a child and shook his head at me with the deepest love written all over his magical face.
"You need to simply believe you are worthy of what you wish for Mia. Find it in your heart to accept things as they are and then reach for what you think is not possible. Open yourself to the wonders of having that right here and now. It's already in your hand dear one. Just believe it is true for you".
I didn't understand. I couldn't grasp how to do what he asked of me. Nothing wished for is EVER possible surely? Wishes are for fairy tales and dreams! They're not reality. This fog is reality. I am stuck in this fog and I am lost and alone and lonely and afraid! That is reality. How does believing in mere wishes make that change? I shall be disappointed for sure!
The thoughts tumbled from my lips like a waterfall and he simply shook his head and turned yet again to disappear into the mist. "We'll try one more time shall we?" he said as his back retreated and disappeared.
"NO!" I screamed at him. I did not want to be left alone again. I needed him to give me hope and security and to show me how he did that trick of making the mists part like that. I couldn't do it but I knew he was capable of anything and I wanted him close at my side so I would be safe and secure.
Silence like a blanket enshrouded me. His voice was gone and I could not hear him calling to me. I was truly alone. Either I had to believe in what I really wanted or I was doomed to crawl along the soggy ground for an age square ten.
A tiny desire rolled into my heart like a seed. I observed it and noted it. It was small but it was strong and full of life. I let the seed germinate and sprout. With all my courage I stood and summoned that desire to burst forth into a fully grown bush alive with promise in its leaves.
I want to be free.
I tested this wish to see if I truly knew that it was what I wanted and what I believed I would have in this moment.
I passed my hand across the mists and the beginnings of a path opened up before me. The sunshine seemed to be smiling as I stepped onto it. I was still alone but now I could move forward.
The man in the mists eluded me even so. I could not hear his voice and nor would he appear again to me. I believed he wouldn't so I asked for another seed to roll into my heart. On that seed, I wished that I might know that man again and with a certainty I did not know was in me before, I believed that I would.
And it was so.
end
He looked at me and his cornflower blue eyes stared into mine and knew my soul. I felt the shiver of his knowing me as if I'd been unwrapped and bared to all the world.
Then with a baleful smile, he turned and disappeared back into the mists beckoning me to follow.
Mesmerised and completely, idiotically, unaware, I stepped into those mists and found myself completely alone. Sometimes a hand, his hand, would appear out of the clouds to beckon me to follow in this direction or that. But, mostly I had to fumble about and find my way on all fours, crawling along the damp, muddy ground trying desperately to find his trail. I couldn't keep up with him.
I found a small mossy, cairn and clung to it, exhausted and isolated in the swirling white, wet fog. The mists cleared a little and there was the soft warmth of gentle sunshine around me.
He came and looked at me again and burned his eyes into the very core of my being. He knew me but would not touch me. I felt safety in him but he was impossible to know and to reach. He was always just enough out of my reach that I could not cling to him and let him lead me out of the mists that surrounded the cairn - and me. It seemed he needed me to find my own way out.
Resentment and hurt welled up in my chest and I screamed. The air mollified the sound from my throat and made it seem like an angry shriek rather than the painful ache I was feeling.
Then he spoke to me in a voice that sounded like it belonged before time itself. I realised he'd been speaking to me all along, encouraging me and cajoling me to keep searching for my true direction, but I had not heard him for the cacophany of fear inside my head whilst I was groping for safety in that white sea of air.
He asked me if I knew the Truth. I said I did. He said to prove it! I tried and failed. I did not know the Truth at all. He said you have to believe that you can part the mists and see a clear path ahead of you. It's just "There". It is available. But I couldn't and I wouldn't believe him. How can one part mists with Belief? He asked me what I believed and I told him I believed in the impossible which would never be possible. He told me as gently as he could that I merely wished and did not allow for my wishes to become true.
I sat down beside the cairn I'd been clinging and crying into and felt his words sink into my heart like pebbles.
If what I wanted to escape the mists and see him clearly then why did I not merely wish and believe that it was possible?
It's a scientific fact that mists cannot be willed into submission, I told myself. I cannot will mists to defy the laws of nature. I can wish for all I'm worth but I will be disappointed always because that's the nature of the world I live in!
He smiled and said "It's not my world" and I looked at him and he turned and parted the mists with a sweep of his hand and I could see the path laid out bare as clear as if sunlight dripped from every blade of grass and stone.
"Where do you want to go?" He asked me gently.
"Where does that path go?" I asked back with admiration and hope.
He smiled yet again but with a sadness in his eyes. "If you cannot see what you want to see at the end of that path Mia, you will never discover your truth". With that he turned and left me alone again and the mists swirled back across the path he'd made visible and I was again left alone and gasping for clarity and focus.
I wanted to follow him. Desperately, I lurched into the soupy clouds and stumbled and fell, not knowing which direction was which except down. I crawled again along the ground, shedding skin and bleeding from my body and my heart at the futility and stupidity of it all.
I could hear his voice saying "I'm here Mia" but I could not tell where it was coming from and how far away he was. It was overwhelming. I felt completely alone despite his calling and encouragements. There didn't seem to be any point in continuing. I couldn't find myself out of the mists at all. They enveloped me as well as any prison. I refused to accept that merely wishing for them to go away was possible. I had no magic in me. Not like him! He was all magic and light, direction and unassailable wisdom. I wanted all of it - what he had but did not once believe I could ever come close to what he offered.
I stood up and willed myself to believe that I could part the mists and see a clear path ahead. But as I passed my hand across the soupy opaque wall of cloud, I felt ridiculous and inert. The mist stayed as solid as it ever did. I did not believe I could shift it as much as I wished it so.
Suddenly he was there in front of me again. He looked at me as if I were a child and shook his head at me with the deepest love written all over his magical face.
"You need to simply believe you are worthy of what you wish for Mia. Find it in your heart to accept things as they are and then reach for what you think is not possible. Open yourself to the wonders of having that right here and now. It's already in your hand dear one. Just believe it is true for you".
I didn't understand. I couldn't grasp how to do what he asked of me. Nothing wished for is EVER possible surely? Wishes are for fairy tales and dreams! They're not reality. This fog is reality. I am stuck in this fog and I am lost and alone and lonely and afraid! That is reality. How does believing in mere wishes make that change? I shall be disappointed for sure!
The thoughts tumbled from my lips like a waterfall and he simply shook his head and turned yet again to disappear into the mist. "We'll try one more time shall we?" he said as his back retreated and disappeared.
"NO!" I screamed at him. I did not want to be left alone again. I needed him to give me hope and security and to show me how he did that trick of making the mists part like that. I couldn't do it but I knew he was capable of anything and I wanted him close at my side so I would be safe and secure.
Silence like a blanket enshrouded me. His voice was gone and I could not hear him calling to me. I was truly alone. Either I had to believe in what I really wanted or I was doomed to crawl along the soggy ground for an age square ten.
A tiny desire rolled into my heart like a seed. I observed it and noted it. It was small but it was strong and full of life. I let the seed germinate and sprout. With all my courage I stood and summoned that desire to burst forth into a fully grown bush alive with promise in its leaves.
I want to be free.
I tested this wish to see if I truly knew that it was what I wanted and what I believed I would have in this moment.
I passed my hand across the mists and the beginnings of a path opened up before me. The sunshine seemed to be smiling as I stepped onto it. I was still alone but now I could move forward.
The man in the mists eluded me even so. I could not hear his voice and nor would he appear again to me. I believed he wouldn't so I asked for another seed to roll into my heart. On that seed, I wished that I might know that man again and with a certainty I did not know was in me before, I believed that I would.
And it was so.
end
Monday, June 02, 2008
Kiss me! Then make me a map.
Kiss me out of the bearded barley
Nightly, beside the green, green grass
Swing, swing, swing the spinning step
You wear those shoes and I will wear that dress.
[Chorus:]
Oh, kiss me beneath the milky twilight
Lead me out on the moonlit floor
Lift your open hand
Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance
Silver moon's sparkling
So kiss me
Kiss me down by the broken tree house
Swing me upon its hanging tire
Bring, bring, bring your flowered hat
We'll take the trail marked on your father's map
[Chorus (repeat)]
Sixpence None the Richer
One of my favourite "silly" pop songs of the past decade.
Apart from the lovely romantic feel to this song I have taken a different view of it today.
"We'll take the trail marked on your father's map" is an interesting line.
I need maps.
Maps give me a great deal of security and comfort. Just like a compass that always points north... a map shows you what to expect on the journey. It provides signposts before you even reach them and grants you a virtual overview, so to speak, of the future landscape and terrain you are about to travel.
Maps give you a detailed concept of the outcomes you want. They provide incredible security in letting you know 1) where you currently are and 2) where you need to be.
I have always loved Maps. Old maps and new. I love the sense of secure perspective they give.
Currently I am without a map of my future. It has left me reeling and very lost indeed. I have struggled with enormous fears this past month or two and daily feel bereft of many things including a perspective on where I currently am in life and where I need to go.
Fear has me wandering an emotional landscape like none I have ever encountered before. I hardly know who I am and I know even less about where I want to go in life.
Separation from everything you took for granted is a big deal. I tossed aside the map I'd been using as it was getting me nowhere at all.
The thing though with maps is that its all well and good to have one, but you need to also know which way is up on the map. The top of the map has to point due North if you're going to get anywhere close to an accurate perspective on the lay of the land in front of you. A map twisted on a hunch that somewhere might be North isn't going to get you to where you want to go. Maps need to be grounded in some kind of fact in order to be accurately used to best effect.
Now it looks like I actually have to create my own map from scratch. I didn't expect this and am terrified of the prospect. I'm clinging to certain things for all I'm worth so I don't have to too. It's one thing to appreciate maps made for you - its quite another to actually articulate and quantify the landscape itself into a map of your own. I don't really know where to begin.
So I guess I need to climb a psychological tree or two first and survey the landscape of my future from a new perspective. I need to get some pointers about the immediate surroundings - my immediate future - that I can use as my starting position.
Once I get a clear view of my immediate arena of focus, I can get to know it so I don't get lost again and I can keep coming back to this space as a kind of Home-base, venturing further out as I get courage and stability back into my sense of self again.
This isn't stuff based on Hope at all - its about as pragmatic as anyone can get when they are feeling all at sea and emotionally spent. I've wrung more tears from my aching soul this past month than I can ever recall doing these past 20 + years. I've been challenged into facing some of my deepest and darkest flaws. I've been bitterly angry - more than I care to admit. I have begged and pleaded to God to make it stop and help me Let it Go and still I can't seem to do that successfully.
And I have learned that inside this human-shaped frame called 'Michelle'...there lies a heart so passionate and intensely alive with the need to Love that I demand no less from others.
That passion and that focus needs direction now. It needs its own map. Only I can make that map for me. I am about as shit scared as you could be about it but ...I cannot remain inconsolably lost for much longer or I shall surely die inside the very heart of me. The very last thing I want to be is to be cynical, bitter, lonely and permanently afraid to ever love again.
I dearly would that someone COULD come along and kiss me and make me a map so I don't have to do this myself, but... that seems about as "silly" and as romantically lovely as the song - which means I probably wouldn't buy that actually happening as being true at all.
It's time I climbed a tree and took a look around to see exactly where I am.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Entitled to be... unhappy?
Oh dear.
I've come to a point where I am facing one of the most inconvenient facts of my intrinsic nature.
I can't accept that I am allowed to have happiness!
I chase happiness away. Quite literally.
"It cannot be!" "It's not meant to be!" "It will never work!" "It's not possible!" "It's all going to work out wrong!" "Not possible! Not possible! Not possible".
I say and do those things a LOT! And I'm only just now hearing myself say them.
I SAY I believe that "Anything is possible". I've said it here in this blog a few times past. I say it but my actions and my own speech belies my statement.
I don't believe "Anything is possible" at all! In fact I believe that "Anything *I* WANT is not possible...everything else is entirely possible for others more worthy than me"
seems to me that I am "happiest" when I know I'm not getting what I want...or what I think I want. I seem to harbour a taste for personal misery and I generally get what I want all to often in that regard.
how screwed is that you reckon? How many other people in this world deny, deny, deny their own desires simply because they were consistently told as children "You are not allowed to have that".
"It is WRONG to want things for yourself".
"It's WRONG to have strong desires ...that's just selfishness"
"It's WRONG to be happy because it hurts others who are not".
"It's WRONG to be your SELF".
"It's WRONG to want to be better off than you are".
"It's WRONG to be greedy and want the best in life".
"It's WRONG TO HAVE ALL THAT!"
Those sentences were never actually spoken to me...but somewhere, somehow in my 46.5 years, I came to adopt them as inevitable truths in my deepest psyche.
As a kid growing up isolated on the farm, being bullied at our tiny primary school, having emotionally distant parents - I retreated inside my head. I was a lonely kid despite having younger siblings but I was lonely even so. I developed the most extraordinary fantasy life inside my head. I dreamed big dreams - big epic romantic dreams of everything that could be possible in my life. I was a star in my own dreams. I was feted and fawned upon by beautiful people. I was a heroine of great skill and prowess. I was the goddess of my dreams. I fought for and won the hearts of beautiful young men who fell at my feet in adoration and lust. I found the buried treasure in the bottoms of lost ships. I was the star and the most beautiful and popular girl in the world.
In my reality, I read voraciously all manner of books - most of them romantic epic tomes of dashing young men and spirited young women who could not be without each other no matter how much they avoided the "truth" of it. I absorbed the fantastic possibility of romance into my character as if it were plasma in my blood, then became a romantic hemophiliac straight away - "bloodletting" seemed so much more dramatic and "fun" to do! It was obvious that my real life world as a child and my fantasy world as a child would never measure together equally and I seem to have developed a habit of believing that solitary, bullied, lonely little girl is never going to have her dreams come true at all...even the realistic ones.
Hence this incredibly soul-destroying confusion and heart-wrenching ache I get now, when I believe I will not ever find - or that I am allowed to find - what it is I'm looking for.
Right now, I am very confused about what it is in life I actually want. Apart from finding work, there is this whole life stretching out before me as a newly single woman and I so do not even know who I really am or if I even like what that person is!
See my language above?
"Cannot" "Will not" "Don't" "Not, Not, Not".
These are my words that I tell myself in everything I think.
"Not possible"
"NOT NOT NOT!"
WHY?
Why do I believe so emphatically in what is NOT possible and make it my truth?
Why must I do this to myself? Why is it that I can't seem to believe in what IS? Right here, right now...finding the positive joy in this moment?
Because my "now" has always seemed so ....bloody disappointing! There is no drama in the now of my being...just life as it is. It's boring; it's mundane. There's no colour or sparkle to it? I'm a unemployed newly separated woman with two teenagers living on a shoe-string budget and relying on the good graces of her family and friends to keep her sustained for the duration! That is my current LIFE!
There's no romance, no love, no living. It's just an empty shell of regrets and heart-break.
Alone.
What kind of "alone"? I am sure my friends would say "You are NOT alone Michelle..you have US". Which would be true of course. And I have my kids and I have my birth family still, my siblings and my parents. And I have my church family I guess... but I still feel alone and I don't know why.
I seem to be always alone...even when surrounded by the most extraordinary love one could hope for and I never see it for what it is because I simply ...am not able to ...or perhaps willing...to see it. My habit of 46 years is to be in total denial of my "now" and see exactly what I don't have instead of what I do.
This must change of course.
Somehow, I have to re-shape a life-times worth of thinking into something more coherent and possible...realistic if you will.
My whole brain just rushed with "HOW? IT'S NOT POSSIBLE" immediately I wrote that line. Am I too scared to be positive? To be genuinely content with the Now of my life?
I have no fucking idea!
All I know is that I am slightly screwed in the head and I am letting life pass me by because I believe I deserve so much less than what I already have.
I don't want to fight anymore with my inner child. That little girl inside of me is a very lost soul in need of a great deal of compassion and love. The grown up Michelle must stop ignoring her and nurture her and help her feel her worth. Its time.
God grant me the SERENITY to love and appreciate the things (and people) given me in the here and now;
To allow the things (and people) I want to come to me freely
To let go of my silly fantasies and illusionary fixations
and give me the grace to have gratitude and joy simply because...it's there already.
I've come to a point where I am facing one of the most inconvenient facts of my intrinsic nature.
I can't accept that I am allowed to have happiness!
I chase happiness away. Quite literally.
"It cannot be!" "It's not meant to be!" "It will never work!" "It's not possible!" "It's all going to work out wrong!" "Not possible! Not possible! Not possible".
I say and do those things a LOT! And I'm only just now hearing myself say them.
I SAY I believe that "Anything is possible". I've said it here in this blog a few times past. I say it but my actions and my own speech belies my statement.
I don't believe "Anything is possible" at all! In fact I believe that "Anything *I* WANT is not possible...everything else is entirely possible for others more worthy than me"
seems to me that I am "happiest" when I know I'm not getting what I want...or what I think I want. I seem to harbour a taste for personal misery and I generally get what I want all to often in that regard.
how screwed is that you reckon? How many other people in this world deny, deny, deny their own desires simply because they were consistently told as children "You are not allowed to have that".
"It is WRONG to want things for yourself".
"It's WRONG to have strong desires ...that's just selfishness"
"It's WRONG to be happy because it hurts others who are not".
"It's WRONG to be your SELF".
"It's WRONG to want to be better off than you are".
"It's WRONG to be greedy and want the best in life".
"It's WRONG TO HAVE ALL THAT!"
Those sentences were never actually spoken to me...but somewhere, somehow in my 46.5 years, I came to adopt them as inevitable truths in my deepest psyche.
As a kid growing up isolated on the farm, being bullied at our tiny primary school, having emotionally distant parents - I retreated inside my head. I was a lonely kid despite having younger siblings but I was lonely even so. I developed the most extraordinary fantasy life inside my head. I dreamed big dreams - big epic romantic dreams of everything that could be possible in my life. I was a star in my own dreams. I was feted and fawned upon by beautiful people. I was a heroine of great skill and prowess. I was the goddess of my dreams. I fought for and won the hearts of beautiful young men who fell at my feet in adoration and lust. I found the buried treasure in the bottoms of lost ships. I was the star and the most beautiful and popular girl in the world.
In my reality, I read voraciously all manner of books - most of them romantic epic tomes of dashing young men and spirited young women who could not be without each other no matter how much they avoided the "truth" of it. I absorbed the fantastic possibility of romance into my character as if it were plasma in my blood, then became a romantic hemophiliac straight away - "bloodletting" seemed so much more dramatic and "fun" to do! It was obvious that my real life world as a child and my fantasy world as a child would never measure together equally and I seem to have developed a habit of believing that solitary, bullied, lonely little girl is never going to have her dreams come true at all...even the realistic ones.
Hence this incredibly soul-destroying confusion and heart-wrenching ache I get now, when I believe I will not ever find - or that I am allowed to find - what it is I'm looking for.
Right now, I am very confused about what it is in life I actually want. Apart from finding work, there is this whole life stretching out before me as a newly single woman and I so do not even know who I really am or if I even like what that person is!
See my language above?
"Cannot" "Will not" "Don't" "Not, Not, Not".
These are my words that I tell myself in everything I think.
"Not possible"
"NOT NOT NOT!"
WHY?
Why do I believe so emphatically in what is NOT possible and make it my truth?
Why must I do this to myself? Why is it that I can't seem to believe in what IS? Right here, right now...finding the positive joy in this moment?
Because my "now" has always seemed so ....bloody disappointing! There is no drama in the now of my being...just life as it is. It's boring; it's mundane. There's no colour or sparkle to it? I'm a unemployed newly separated woman with two teenagers living on a shoe-string budget and relying on the good graces of her family and friends to keep her sustained for the duration! That is my current LIFE!
There's no romance, no love, no living. It's just an empty shell of regrets and heart-break.
Alone.
What kind of "alone"? I am sure my friends would say "You are NOT alone Michelle..you have US". Which would be true of course. And I have my kids and I have my birth family still, my siblings and my parents. And I have my church family I guess... but I still feel alone and I don't know why.
I seem to be always alone...even when surrounded by the most extraordinary love one could hope for and I never see it for what it is because I simply ...am not able to ...or perhaps willing...to see it. My habit of 46 years is to be in total denial of my "now" and see exactly what I don't have instead of what I do.
This must change of course.
Somehow, I have to re-shape a life-times worth of thinking into something more coherent and possible...realistic if you will.
My whole brain just rushed with "HOW? IT'S NOT POSSIBLE" immediately I wrote that line. Am I too scared to be positive? To be genuinely content with the Now of my life?
I have no fucking idea!
All I know is that I am slightly screwed in the head and I am letting life pass me by because I believe I deserve so much less than what I already have.
I don't want to fight anymore with my inner child. That little girl inside of me is a very lost soul in need of a great deal of compassion and love. The grown up Michelle must stop ignoring her and nurture her and help her feel her worth. Its time.
God grant me the SERENITY to love and appreciate the things (and people) given me in the here and now;
To allow the things (and people) I want to come to me freely
To let go of my silly fantasies and illusionary fixations
and give me the grace to have gratitude and joy simply because...it's there already.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Souls broom sweeps the cobwebs out
I'm back.
Life has twisted, turned, twisted again and spun me about like I was clothing in a washing machine!
I have been washed, rinsed ...am still being rinsed...tumbled and am being rinsed yet again!
The stains will take much to get out I guess.
On May 2nd 2008, my eighteen year marriage to a decent man ended - at my bidding.
I chose to leave baz and it has not been an easy choice. I still care about him in many ways but.... yeah....the inevitable "but".
I am not really going to go into much detail about it in this forum, suffice to say that I have much I want to explore on the themes of Love, commitment and marriage as well as that old chestnut "What exactly IS a soul mate?", and everything in between.
Thought has followed me and hounded me with ideas a plenty these past few weeks. Many of them I want to exhume and spin about like plates over my head for all the world to observe and wonder about. There are twice as many more I do not wish for the world to observe and comment on.
Still, dirty laundry aside, I admit to missing this forum for my art (if blogging can be called "art"), very much. Too much in fact. I have craved to spin my thinking here in webs of words. I have craved to have "my audience" reading them! It's a weird kind of spotlight this but no less gratifying than the theater.
My soul is still mourning the loss of that which promised so much! Love's tender threads are truly like webs of the finest spider silk, sometimes though you can get so bound up in them they give you the shivers and you must escape for then you suddenly realise it's not "love" after all, but entrapment.
It hurts to break out of silk cases and spread your own wings even so. And I have large wings that must "feel the cold" for a few minutes of this lifetime before I can fly off to be the butterfly I am meant to be.
:) Someday I might explain that last paragraph in more detail :)
So suffice it to say, I am back doing what I love doing most...writing as the thoughts come to me.... online.... where the world may read them if it so chooses.
Life has twisted, turned, twisted again and spun me about like I was clothing in a washing machine!
I have been washed, rinsed ...am still being rinsed...tumbled and am being rinsed yet again!
The stains will take much to get out I guess.
On May 2nd 2008, my eighteen year marriage to a decent man ended - at my bidding.
I chose to leave baz and it has not been an easy choice. I still care about him in many ways but.... yeah....the inevitable "but".
I am not really going to go into much detail about it in this forum, suffice to say that I have much I want to explore on the themes of Love, commitment and marriage as well as that old chestnut "What exactly IS a soul mate?", and everything in between.
Thought has followed me and hounded me with ideas a plenty these past few weeks. Many of them I want to exhume and spin about like plates over my head for all the world to observe and wonder about. There are twice as many more I do not wish for the world to observe and comment on.
Still, dirty laundry aside, I admit to missing this forum for my art (if blogging can be called "art"), very much. Too much in fact. I have craved to spin my thinking here in webs of words. I have craved to have "my audience" reading them! It's a weird kind of spotlight this but no less gratifying than the theater.
My soul is still mourning the loss of that which promised so much! Love's tender threads are truly like webs of the finest spider silk, sometimes though you can get so bound up in them they give you the shivers and you must escape for then you suddenly realise it's not "love" after all, but entrapment.
It hurts to break out of silk cases and spread your own wings even so. And I have large wings that must "feel the cold" for a few minutes of this lifetime before I can fly off to be the butterfly I am meant to be.
:) Someday I might explain that last paragraph in more detail :)
So suffice it to say, I am back doing what I love doing most...writing as the thoughts come to me.... online.... where the world may read them if it so chooses.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Sabbatical on aMusing
I'll be taking a sabbatical from writing here for the forseeable future. Not sure how long I will be away from this blog. We will see.
I have some work to do on my real life and I want to record it but not in this forum.
I may be back but I don't know right now.
Perspective is everything and I am jumping off bridges to figure out mine.
I have some work to do on my real life and I want to record it but not in this forum.
I may be back but I don't know right now.
Perspective is everything and I am jumping off bridges to figure out mine.
Perspective is everything
I'm coming to the realisation that this fact is more powerful than I ever gave it credit for.
I used to look at this saying and dismiss it in my mind somewhat, as being a bit prosaic and unnecessary. Whatever situation you are in will only ever have the perspective you give it right?
Right!
Thing is...the human mind is somewhat inclined to imagine and construct only those perspectives that it has either seen before or can imagine as occurring under similar circumstances. The mind rarely concludes a perspective that is outside of its own experience or knowledge.
It's important to develop a vast range of perspectives so that one doesn't get trapped inside circles of thought where only a few beliefs - aka perspectives - and points of view - aka perspectives - are available to you.
The addendum to perspective is Knowledge but that's a topic for another day.
When I was a little girl, I was drawn to an article in an old Australian women's magazine about Oracles.
There was this big chart in the magazine with lots of symbols and a page of questions you could ask. You held the question in your mind and then closed your eyes and asked that question and then when you felt the moment was right you waved your finger over the page of symbols and then pointed blindly.
On opening your eyes, you would see the symbol you had chosen and then could look up the corresponding "answer" to your question.
It was good fun albeit my christian friends would scream in horror that it was a great "evil" I am sure. Enough of that for now.
One of my questions as a child was "Will I travel?". Even as a kid I longed to see the places of the world I had read about in my beloved books.
The oracle came back with this answer "You will go on one long one that will cost you a very great deal".
I never forgot that.
In my childlike innocence, I processed that answer quite literally and absorbed it into my consciousness as a "truth" that could not be broken. For years and years, I've believed that I would only ever go on one trip overseas that would cost a great deal.
As the years went by, I did indeed go on a long trip overseas. I went as a mission group member of what was then called Lutheran Youth Encounter to the USA and India. That trip did not cost me much in terms of finances, but I did learn I was losing my eyesight and eventually lost the sight...and the beauty...of my left eye.
I thought that was the answer to that oracle sorted there.
It isn't.
Perspective is everything.
I finally grew up! And only this month I realised something about that answer regarding trips and travel that made me laugh out loud at my own stupidity!
You see...the oracle said "You will go on ONE trip that will cost you a very great deal". It didn't say it would be my ONLY trip!
My childlike perspective at the time was inclined to see the word "one" and assume it meant "only". I did so for many years with great heart-seated disappointment that I would never get to travel as much as I had dreamed.
Perspective now teaches me that there are many options within one answer. I will go on more trips, some long, some short over time. Some of these may perhaps cost me a great deal too, financially, emotionally, physically and some of them may not.
That answer implied I would have *A* trip in my life. I had a perspective until recently, that believed "one" meant "only".
Now that I am much older than my childlike self, I have realised that my options aren't limited after all.
Perspective is everything.
The balancing act I perform between my assumptions about reality and my emotional perspective, is as if I stand on a rope bridge of self-limiting beliefs. I fear the heights, so I cling to the ropes of a particular perspective.
There are other ways of managing the rope bridge that bring value to my perspective. And maybe, bungee jumping off the side of that bridge could be one of them.
I used to look at this saying and dismiss it in my mind somewhat, as being a bit prosaic and unnecessary. Whatever situation you are in will only ever have the perspective you give it right?
Right!
Thing is...the human mind is somewhat inclined to imagine and construct only those perspectives that it has either seen before or can imagine as occurring under similar circumstances. The mind rarely concludes a perspective that is outside of its own experience or knowledge.
It's important to develop a vast range of perspectives so that one doesn't get trapped inside circles of thought where only a few beliefs - aka perspectives - and points of view - aka perspectives - are available to you.
The addendum to perspective is Knowledge but that's a topic for another day.
When I was a little girl, I was drawn to an article in an old Australian women's magazine about Oracles.
There was this big chart in the magazine with lots of symbols and a page of questions you could ask. You held the question in your mind and then closed your eyes and asked that question and then when you felt the moment was right you waved your finger over the page of symbols and then pointed blindly.
On opening your eyes, you would see the symbol you had chosen and then could look up the corresponding "answer" to your question.
It was good fun albeit my christian friends would scream in horror that it was a great "evil" I am sure. Enough of that for now.
One of my questions as a child was "Will I travel?". Even as a kid I longed to see the places of the world I had read about in my beloved books.
The oracle came back with this answer "You will go on one long one that will cost you a very great deal".
I never forgot that.
In my childlike innocence, I processed that answer quite literally and absorbed it into my consciousness as a "truth" that could not be broken. For years and years, I've believed that I would only ever go on one trip overseas that would cost a great deal.
As the years went by, I did indeed go on a long trip overseas. I went as a mission group member of what was then called Lutheran Youth Encounter to the USA and India. That trip did not cost me much in terms of finances, but I did learn I was losing my eyesight and eventually lost the sight...and the beauty...of my left eye.
I thought that was the answer to that oracle sorted there.
It isn't.
Perspective is everything.
I finally grew up! And only this month I realised something about that answer regarding trips and travel that made me laugh out loud at my own stupidity!
You see...the oracle said "You will go on ONE trip that will cost you a very great deal". It didn't say it would be my ONLY trip!
My childlike perspective at the time was inclined to see the word "one" and assume it meant "only". I did so for many years with great heart-seated disappointment that I would never get to travel as much as I had dreamed.
Perspective now teaches me that there are many options within one answer. I will go on more trips, some long, some short over time. Some of these may perhaps cost me a great deal too, financially, emotionally, physically and some of them may not.
That answer implied I would have *A* trip in my life. I had a perspective until recently, that believed "one" meant "only".
Now that I am much older than my childlike self, I have realised that my options aren't limited after all.
Perspective is everything.
The balancing act I perform between my assumptions about reality and my emotional perspective, is as if I stand on a rope bridge of self-limiting beliefs. I fear the heights, so I cling to the ropes of a particular perspective.
There are other ways of managing the rope bridge that bring value to my perspective. And maybe, bungee jumping off the side of that bridge could be one of them.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
letting go
I had a wish I wanted to come true.
It hasn't.
It may.
But for now, its not likely.
I lost something today that I had put high stakes of hope into. It is not to be as I had hoped after all.
I am sad to my core. Emptied out and crushed.
I know its not the end. There are never endings, but new beginnings. However, I want to grieve the passing of this hope I had and let it go.
If you love deeply you find joy and even when that joy gets smashed against the rocky shores of reality, it will find its way back to you again even so...if you let it.
It hasn't.
It may.
But for now, its not likely.
I lost something today that I had put high stakes of hope into. It is not to be as I had hoped after all.
I am sad to my core. Emptied out and crushed.
I know its not the end. There are never endings, but new beginnings. However, I want to grieve the passing of this hope I had and let it go.
If you love deeply you find joy and even when that joy gets smashed against the rocky shores of reality, it will find its way back to you again even so...if you let it.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
the fine line between truth and fantasy
Hidalgo 
A quite good fun movie if a little bit rough around the edges in terms of quality and acting skill.
I was interested to check to see if the legend that inspires this movie about Frank T. Hopkins was reasonably accurate.
With Hollywood, nothing can be guaranteed Truth, so I did a tiny bit of research on that most reliable of information sources - The Internet (*cough cough*).
What a controversy!
Some saying he was a lier and a total fake and others saying they knew him as a unsurpassed Horseman who was skilled in the saddle such as depicted in the movie.
So The Truth about Mr Hopkins remains a bit of a mystery really and I guess in all fairness, its probably best to assume that both sides of the story are probably somewhere in the middle.
If he WAS as great as they suggest in the film... we'd have all known about him and his legendary races long before the movie came out.
If he WAS a lier and showman/charlatan, then it sort of doesn't gel that he is espoused for his humane and long-standing evidence of Horse Husbandry. A charlatan isn't usually inclined toward doing actual humane things to people or animals.
And besides, it doesn't really matter now that he's dead and gone and in his stead has left a legacy of doubt and a controversial movie for us to ponder about :)
That's quite some legacy in and of its own right you know. Infamy can be just as rewarding as fame in the end.
The fact is the man...if he existed at all... made an impact on the world in a small way.
That's something we all aspire to in one form or another.
A quite good fun movie if a little bit rough around the edges in terms of quality and acting skill.
I was interested to check to see if the legend that inspires this movie about Frank T. Hopkins was reasonably accurate.
With Hollywood, nothing can be guaranteed Truth, so I did a tiny bit of research on that most reliable of information sources - The Internet (*cough cough*).
What a controversy!
Some saying he was a lier and a total fake and others saying they knew him as a unsurpassed Horseman who was skilled in the saddle such as depicted in the movie.
So The Truth about Mr Hopkins remains a bit of a mystery really and I guess in all fairness, its probably best to assume that both sides of the story are probably somewhere in the middle.
If he WAS as great as they suggest in the film... we'd have all known about him and his legendary races long before the movie came out.
If he WAS a lier and showman/charlatan, then it sort of doesn't gel that he is espoused for his humane and long-standing evidence of Horse Husbandry. A charlatan isn't usually inclined toward doing actual humane things to people or animals.
And besides, it doesn't really matter now that he's dead and gone and in his stead has left a legacy of doubt and a controversial movie for us to ponder about :)
That's quite some legacy in and of its own right you know. Infamy can be just as rewarding as fame in the end.
The fact is the man...if he existed at all... made an impact on the world in a small way.
That's something we all aspire to in one form or another.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Life is a conundrum to be solved.
Having realised, recently, that this meme is a strong value within me, I am noticing how it affects my behaviours and thinking toward my Life Path.
We all of us want Perfection.
We seek it, claim it, harbour and hoard it, want it, desire it, are passionate and persistent in its pursuit.
We KNOW that nothing in this earth IS actually Perfect. Yet, we also instinctively know that there lies a realm of perfection in spite of this fact.
What defines perfect is anyones guess really. Perfect for one is not perfect for another. There is no global definition for defining perfect precisely such that others know it at the same time as everyone else.
What we generally get in lieu of perfection is an approximation of it. A sort of coherent blob of defining essences that sort of collude and seem close to the ideal of what should and could be Perfect.
I try to solve Life in pursuit of this perfection.
I get myself into all sorts of emotional and intellectual bother as a result. I prefer a bit of distance between my thinking and my emotional state. When I can observe and anaylyse my emotional state from a distance, it doesn't hurt so much and nor am I reduced to actually having to walk through those messy and terribly irrational emotions either!
I AM very very emotional. It disgusts and annoys me. If I can detach and remain cool in spite of feeling deeply, I am fine. Then I can proceed to analytically and strategically think my way through the conundrum that has triggered the emotions in the first place. My goal is to solve them and remove them from the equation and find peaceful perfect balance again.
Thing is; emotions just ARE. I can no more stop them than I could a freight train on an downward incline!
My thinking ends up feeding my emotional state and sending it into such spasms of confusion and disarray that I am left reeling, bewildered, stunned and totally incapable of making a rational and necessary decision.
I require coherent logic. I am mostly emo idiocy!
Life is a conundrum of imperfect thoughts and feelings, places, things, people and energy. Fitting all the pieces together is a persistent pursuit in the hope that an approximation of perfection can be attained.
We all of us want Perfection.
We seek it, claim it, harbour and hoard it, want it, desire it, are passionate and persistent in its pursuit.
We KNOW that nothing in this earth IS actually Perfect. Yet, we also instinctively know that there lies a realm of perfection in spite of this fact.
What defines perfect is anyones guess really. Perfect for one is not perfect for another. There is no global definition for defining perfect precisely such that others know it at the same time as everyone else.
What we generally get in lieu of perfection is an approximation of it. A sort of coherent blob of defining essences that sort of collude and seem close to the ideal of what should and could be Perfect.
I try to solve Life in pursuit of this perfection.
I get myself into all sorts of emotional and intellectual bother as a result. I prefer a bit of distance between my thinking and my emotional state. When I can observe and anaylyse my emotional state from a distance, it doesn't hurt so much and nor am I reduced to actually having to walk through those messy and terribly irrational emotions either!
I AM very very emotional. It disgusts and annoys me. If I can detach and remain cool in spite of feeling deeply, I am fine. Then I can proceed to analytically and strategically think my way through the conundrum that has triggered the emotions in the first place. My goal is to solve them and remove them from the equation and find peaceful perfect balance again.
Thing is; emotions just ARE. I can no more stop them than I could a freight train on an downward incline!
My thinking ends up feeding my emotional state and sending it into such spasms of confusion and disarray that I am left reeling, bewildered, stunned and totally incapable of making a rational and necessary decision.
I require coherent logic. I am mostly emo idiocy!
Life is a conundrum of imperfect thoughts and feelings, places, things, people and energy. Fitting all the pieces together is a persistent pursuit in the hope that an approximation of perfection can be attained.
food game
Last year I was incredibly disciplined in my diet and weight loss goal. I lost somewhere in the vacinity of 20kgs I think. Not sure exactly how much it was.
I ate extremely healthy food and practically eliminated most of the junk from my diet almost overnight although I still indulged on the odd occasion.
This past month finds me eating eratically and I am fast falling back into old habits again.
Most of it is emotional.
I am an emotional eater! It feels like one is confessing their secret addiction, but I am seriously an emotional feeler type eater.
I am hungry all the time currently and its only because food sates the anxiety within so immediately. Fast, efficient salty, fatty high-carb foods that buzz my system with happy pleasure chemicals. I feel peace when I eat because the sensation of the food overrides the hunger within.
Hunger for what?
Resolution. Gain. This. That.
It's a long story.
I'm aware of my issue in this. Stopping it will take time and some deep soul searching about my emotional "issues" I want and need to deal with.
I don't WANT to be the size I was again but that desire isn't currently strong enough to sway me into keeping on the narrow path toward wellness. 99 percent of "dieting" is inside the head, in the part that says "I CAN and I WILL" and is happy and positive that success will be assured.
Too often, we say we are going to "lose" weight only to fail dismally at it the very next mouthful of creamy, cheesy lasagna! The missing link is the optimism and the determined belief in being able to win to the point where lasagna is a non-issue and salad greens are!
It is about what we put into our mouths and it is about how we perceive our choices as we do so.
I am emotional eater. I followed my mum's example from my childhood on this. When she was bored or stressed she snacked. But we snacked on the good stuff. Sweet biscuits mostly in those days.
For me, my emo food of choice is bread. LOTS of bread and bread-type foods. Pastries run a close second.
When I was a kid, we didn't have a lot of really fancy foods easily available (except for those sweet biscuits), and I in my youthful vigor and raging hunger would head for the loaf of bread and the toaster. Lashings of butter/marg and blackberry jam thrill me like nothing else for a quick fix easy meal for soothing the blackened soul within.
I know its time to stop. To stop the bread addiction and deal with the actual problem that underlies it.
I feel very much like I am swimming through mud emotionally lately. There is some heavy duty shit on my emotional radar right now which I won't go into here.
Food will not solve this for me but I am using it as a stop-gap comfort even so.
The things we fail at are often the things that teach us best. I am currently failing at my diet strategy. It's teaching me to deal with the core issues of which there are many. It's teaching me to have courage and face my fears of which I have many of those too. It's teaching me that I have little will power when I hurt inside.
My self-esteem requires that I claw some dignity and that will power back. I refuse to be towed under by my own emotional negative excesses.
How I do that is a strategy that requires I face my emotions head on and accept them and work through them without leaning on food as a drug to fleetingly assuage the pain
I ate extremely healthy food and practically eliminated most of the junk from my diet almost overnight although I still indulged on the odd occasion.
This past month finds me eating eratically and I am fast falling back into old habits again.
Most of it is emotional.
I am an emotional eater! It feels like one is confessing their secret addiction, but I am seriously an emotional feeler type eater.
I am hungry all the time currently and its only because food sates the anxiety within so immediately. Fast, efficient salty, fatty high-carb foods that buzz my system with happy pleasure chemicals. I feel peace when I eat because the sensation of the food overrides the hunger within.
Hunger for what?
Resolution. Gain. This. That.
It's a long story.
I'm aware of my issue in this. Stopping it will take time and some deep soul searching about my emotional "issues" I want and need to deal with.
I don't WANT to be the size I was again but that desire isn't currently strong enough to sway me into keeping on the narrow path toward wellness. 99 percent of "dieting" is inside the head, in the part that says "I CAN and I WILL" and is happy and positive that success will be assured.
Too often, we say we are going to "lose" weight only to fail dismally at it the very next mouthful of creamy, cheesy lasagna! The missing link is the optimism and the determined belief in being able to win to the point where lasagna is a non-issue and salad greens are!
It is about what we put into our mouths and it is about how we perceive our choices as we do so.
I am emotional eater. I followed my mum's example from my childhood on this. When she was bored or stressed she snacked. But we snacked on the good stuff. Sweet biscuits mostly in those days.
For me, my emo food of choice is bread. LOTS of bread and bread-type foods. Pastries run a close second.
When I was a kid, we didn't have a lot of really fancy foods easily available (except for those sweet biscuits), and I in my youthful vigor and raging hunger would head for the loaf of bread and the toaster. Lashings of butter/marg and blackberry jam thrill me like nothing else for a quick fix easy meal for soothing the blackened soul within.
I know its time to stop. To stop the bread addiction and deal with the actual problem that underlies it.
I feel very much like I am swimming through mud emotionally lately. There is some heavy duty shit on my emotional radar right now which I won't go into here.
Food will not solve this for me but I am using it as a stop-gap comfort even so.
The things we fail at are often the things that teach us best. I am currently failing at my diet strategy. It's teaching me to deal with the core issues of which there are many. It's teaching me to have courage and face my fears of which I have many of those too. It's teaching me that I have little will power when I hurt inside.
My self-esteem requires that I claw some dignity and that will power back. I refuse to be towed under by my own emotional negative excesses.
How I do that is a strategy that requires I face my emotions head on and accept them and work through them without leaning on food as a drug to fleetingly assuage the pain
Sunday, April 13, 2008
I so hate the simpsons
Having to share this space here in this lounge room with teenagers is really beginning to annoy me!
I have done it for a LONG time now.
I am sooo OVER The Simpsons and Futurama and "The Family Guy" as to be almost sick with disgust when they are on the tv.
My son seems inexorably attracted to these shows to the point where I want to scream "ENOUGH!"
Which I just did by the way *blush*
And so now...we have to endure the inane youth pop culture shows on the Fuel channel *sigh*
I really really really REALLY want my own office space! This sharing of space is about to wreck havoc on my sanity today!
How do people in jam-packed, crowded civilations around the world COPE with living on top of one another?
How do they manage to assuage their frustration for privacy and space when they must share every square inch of space with family and others?
How can they limit their emotional intensity and propensity toward frustration, anger, depression and anxiety when they are surrounded by the temperamental flesh of other people all the time?
Perhaps I am moaning about nothing much! I should perhaps be "grateful" that I do have opportunities to make space for myself. But it isn't as easy as it might sound. Our house has only one main living area. To find myself a space for private peace and reflection and space to write freely without distraction just isn't the option I crave to have.
Argh! I like the television but on my terms, which currently are limited to the occasional show on the sci-fi channel, the weather channel, or the food channel *blush*. My children apparently beg to differ and I am more or less forced to endure the crap that is The Simpsons in various guises!
Enough!
I have done it for a LONG time now.
I am sooo OVER The Simpsons and Futurama and "The Family Guy" as to be almost sick with disgust when they are on the tv.
My son seems inexorably attracted to these shows to the point where I want to scream "ENOUGH!"
Which I just did by the way *blush*
And so now...we have to endure the inane youth pop culture shows on the Fuel channel *sigh*
I really really really REALLY want my own office space! This sharing of space is about to wreck havoc on my sanity today!
How do people in jam-packed, crowded civilations around the world COPE with living on top of one another?
How do they manage to assuage their frustration for privacy and space when they must share every square inch of space with family and others?
How can they limit their emotional intensity and propensity toward frustration, anger, depression and anxiety when they are surrounded by the temperamental flesh of other people all the time?
Perhaps I am moaning about nothing much! I should perhaps be "grateful" that I do have opportunities to make space for myself. But it isn't as easy as it might sound. Our house has only one main living area. To find myself a space for private peace and reflection and space to write freely without distraction just isn't the option I crave to have.
Argh! I like the television but on my terms, which currently are limited to the occasional show on the sci-fi channel, the weather channel, or the food channel *blush*. My children apparently beg to differ and I am more or less forced to endure the crap that is The Simpsons in various guises!
Enough!
Friday, April 11, 2008
125 versions of Love
Well...
I'm not exactly sure that there is indeed 125 forms of "Love" - I just said it coz it sounds good as a blog title.
I've been wondering for some time now about all the varieties of actual attachment or affection we imbue into the one English word called 'Love'.
I notice advertising that says "You'll love our pies", or, "You'll just love our new range" and, "Lovin' it!".
Then there are the full gamut of human relationships that are encompassed within the word 'Love'. All these loves are quite different in nature and style, expression and ideal, but we still use the word 'Love' in order to convey the shades of attachment and affection we attend to these relationships.
Is it possible to invent new words that mean exactly, the relationship to the person or product without having to use the global word 'Love', which to be honest, kind of loses its impact and punch really!
When you say "I love you" to the one closest to you, the power of the word 'Love' just doesn't have the same well...meaning... it might have once had in the past.
I cannot think of a book in early English literature that uses the word 'Love' so expansively across such a wide variety of places, things and people. The word was reserved specifically for the relationships between people and even then used very sparingly within those relations! Romantic Victorian literature was quite specific about when and where the use of the word 'Love' defined the exact meaning of its intent - the romantic desire and passion of one person for another. At least I think it did given my inability to recall many of the classic books I read in my youth.
It's just lost its pull. The word 'Love' has become a weak word with no real depth or boundary anymore. Saying "I love you" is about as inane as saying "I love that movie!"
So again I ask, is it possible to find words from the languages of the world, or even invent entirely, new words that will replace the use of the word 'Love' for the meaning that is inherent in the context?
Instead of me saying "Oh I LOVED that new book by Elizabeth Gilbert, 'Eat, Pray, Love:'" Instead, perhaps I could say "Oh! I absolutely flubbered that new book by Elizabeth Gilbert..." with the word "flubber" giving the exact meaning of "To have a strong feeling for or attachment for any work of literature, cinematic, fine or theatrical arts"?
Instead of saying "I love my parents", I could maybe say "I shruggle my parents" where the affection for ones mum and dad is sort of roll ones eyes and yet holds very dear etc!
I dunno!
It just feels like its time English, as a language, got a grip and tried to define 'Love' a little more succinctly instead of relegating this once fine word to the banal and stupid.
Feel free to begin your own search for words that might best describe the sentiment meant for the stuff and the people in our lives we hold in varying degrees of high esteem.
:)
I'm not exactly sure that there is indeed 125 forms of "Love" - I just said it coz it sounds good as a blog title.
I've been wondering for some time now about all the varieties of actual attachment or affection we imbue into the one English word called 'Love'.
I notice advertising that says "You'll love our pies", or, "You'll just love our new range" and, "Lovin' it!".
Then there are the full gamut of human relationships that are encompassed within the word 'Love'. All these loves are quite different in nature and style, expression and ideal, but we still use the word 'Love' in order to convey the shades of attachment and affection we attend to these relationships.
Is it possible to invent new words that mean exactly, the relationship to the person or product without having to use the global word 'Love', which to be honest, kind of loses its impact and punch really!
When you say "I love you" to the one closest to you, the power of the word 'Love' just doesn't have the same well...meaning... it might have once had in the past.
I cannot think of a book in early English literature that uses the word 'Love' so expansively across such a wide variety of places, things and people. The word was reserved specifically for the relationships between people and even then used very sparingly within those relations! Romantic Victorian literature was quite specific about when and where the use of the word 'Love' defined the exact meaning of its intent - the romantic desire and passion of one person for another. At least I think it did given my inability to recall many of the classic books I read in my youth.
It's just lost its pull. The word 'Love' has become a weak word with no real depth or boundary anymore. Saying "I love you" is about as inane as saying "I love that movie!"
So again I ask, is it possible to find words from the languages of the world, or even invent entirely, new words that will replace the use of the word 'Love' for the meaning that is inherent in the context?
Instead of me saying "Oh I LOVED that new book by Elizabeth Gilbert, 'Eat, Pray, Love:'" Instead, perhaps I could say "Oh! I absolutely flubbered that new book by Elizabeth Gilbert..." with the word "flubber" giving the exact meaning of "To have a strong feeling for or attachment for any work of literature, cinematic, fine or theatrical arts"?
Instead of saying "I love my parents", I could maybe say "I shruggle my parents" where the affection for ones mum and dad is sort of roll ones eyes and yet holds very dear etc!
I dunno!
It just feels like its time English, as a language, got a grip and tried to define 'Love' a little more succinctly instead of relegating this once fine word to the banal and stupid.
Feel free to begin your own search for words that might best describe the sentiment meant for the stuff and the people in our lives we hold in varying degrees of high esteem.
:)
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Don't want to be a tree
Trees are such overachievers!
If they don't get everything in constant supply, they chuck a wobbly and just give up and die!
They compete, they strive, they commandeer, they assert, they invade and conquer. They wuss out if they don't achieve any and all of the above and stay runts in the shadows or wither away and die from sheer deprivation of their goals.
I don't want to be a tree!
I don't want to have it all, only to find myself alone among trees and starved of the very things I competed for all my life.
I want to be....
THE RIVER!
I want to flow and meander and fill up and go down according to the whims of circumstance. I want to feed trees but not be gobbled up by them. I want to carve my path toward a certain future and melt into the vast anonymous company of other rivers at the end of that pathway; united and serene in life giving purpose for the benefit of everything and everyone.
I want to feed and not take.
I want to impart beauty and nurture it.
I want to go with the flow of wind and earth not suck at it and compete with the earth for its resources.
I want to GIVE the earth its resource.
I only have one foot in the love of nature. I admire nature but I also fear it. I see its beauty and I feel its power but I cannot feel comfortable engaging with nature for nature's sake. Nature does not provide comfort, it does provide the provisions for comfort however and for that I am grateful even so. Nature is not corrupt but nor is it easy and affable. Nature is hard and fierce, passionate and incredible. It is both prayer and command and it is uniquely reminiscent of Divine Providence for all that is alive.
If I was a part of nature, I would not want to be a tree.
I'm still learning what it means to be a river and just "Go with the flow".
Saturday, April 05, 2008
As it is in Heaven
Watched this movie this afternoon in a blissfully people free lounge room. No interruptions and so on!
Ahhhh! :)
That was nice.
The movie is really genuine and provides a lot to think about.
The themes are about the search for The Heart inside yourself. Who you are, where you come from; how you fit into the world and finding your inner child again. It's about learning to love - yourself and others without expectations and fear. It's about coming home!
There are a bazillion ways you could check out the plot of this Oscar nominated movie. Suffice it to say that there ARE a few glitchy patches in it and it is kind of stumbling in its style. That seems to lend a certain authenticity to it though, so the jumps between scenes do make sense and are easy to pick up.
The story is rounded, complete and the acting is sublimely understated and natural as seems to be the case in most Scandanavian films. There is something inherently genuine in the movies that come out of Sweden, Norway and Finland.
So yeah. A big thumbs up from me about this sweet little movie about a "famous" conductor who goes back home to his roots to find himself again and make peace with his heart.
Ahhhh! :)
That was nice.
The movie is really genuine and provides a lot to think about.
The themes are about the search for The Heart inside yourself. Who you are, where you come from; how you fit into the world and finding your inner child again. It's about learning to love - yourself and others without expectations and fear. It's about coming home!
There are a bazillion ways you could check out the plot of this Oscar nominated movie. Suffice it to say that there ARE a few glitchy patches in it and it is kind of stumbling in its style. That seems to lend a certain authenticity to it though, so the jumps between scenes do make sense and are easy to pick up.
The story is rounded, complete and the acting is sublimely understated and natural as seems to be the case in most Scandanavian films. There is something inherently genuine in the movies that come out of Sweden, Norway and Finland.
So yeah. A big thumbs up from me about this sweet little movie about a "famous" conductor who goes back home to his roots to find himself again and make peace with his heart.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
The pressure to perform
I'm frantic right now.
Today I feel enormous pressure to get things done in a timely way.
The shop is proving it will be a VERY busy enterprise in the coming months as we move into winter...and therefore meat pie weather...down here.
I don't know how to fit everything in. Usually this isn't a huge problem for me as I generally cope quite well even if I do get a bit frazzled at times with the intensity of being really really busy. But in this instance, I feel so completely overwhelmed I am struggling to get a grip and G.T.D.
I know what I want and need to do to get a sense of calm again. Thing is, I am constantly being frustrated by the lack of SPACE to get on top of my game.
Yes! I realise this is a blatant whinge - but seriously, there are only so many years a person can stand having to run "the office" from ones lounge room and I've been doing it for nearly 18 years.
I am OVER it!
Currently, I am in the throes of trying to get a complete office set up down at the new premises so that all stuff relating to the business can be on site rather than split across two places as in shop and home like in the past. It's been so frustrating though of late to have everything so unfinished and disorganised. I'm going to have to set aside some time to get my head around what needs to be actually done to resolve this situation as quickly as possible.
And there is the rub. The time! I just crash when I get home and really do not want to have to look at my In-tray. I am tired and cranky and I have no patience for online bill paying and the like. But I seriously have to to get it all out of the way before it gets even busier.
The TV is constantly ON and LOUD because I share this lounge/office/living area with two teenagers. There is a constant stream of people in and out of the house and demands on my time and attention left, right and centre! It's bloody HARD living here without privacy and an office to cloister away in and just get on top of the paperwork in peace and clarity.
Okay. So? I am really cranky and pussed off about my current lot. I'm getting this off my chest. Now, I shall MAKE some space within a day or so to grab some quiet time and make my lists of things I want to get done.
David in his book talks about the across and up of task management as if it were a runway with a plane taking off. The runway represents the daily minutiae of "next actions" that one must do to get various projects moving forward. Then as the plane goes through the various altitudes, these become the types of focus we must have in terms of our "agreements", our projects, plans, goals and values.
I have to do that vertical planning stuff too.
You can only cruise through life for so long before you realise that to get to where you WANT to go, you have to have a flight plan. Mine is long overdue.
So consequently, I feel very overwhelmed with the extent of what I must achieve along with everything I want to achieve.
This is not some To Do List, lenghthy and unwieldy; this is about making sure I know what happens when and where and how. I'm not clear on that stuff currently and I can totally feel the stress behind it all. I feel completely unable to concentrate effectively on the surprises we all inevitably get every day.
Focus and Application to getting that whole processing of the STUFF is what I want to do.
I am so grateful, that the gift of my love for writing my thoughts down, releases some of the pressure or I'd go mad from it I think. There may not be enough hours in my day but I WILL make time for the things - and the people - I love first. Bookkeeping and housework are just grit in the oyster for making pearls.
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
Today I feel enormous pressure to get things done in a timely way.
The shop is proving it will be a VERY busy enterprise in the coming months as we move into winter...and therefore meat pie weather...down here.
I don't know how to fit everything in. Usually this isn't a huge problem for me as I generally cope quite well even if I do get a bit frazzled at times with the intensity of being really really busy. But in this instance, I feel so completely overwhelmed I am struggling to get a grip and G.T.D.
I know what I want and need to do to get a sense of calm again. Thing is, I am constantly being frustrated by the lack of SPACE to get on top of my game.
Yes! I realise this is a blatant whinge - but seriously, there are only so many years a person can stand having to run "the office" from ones lounge room and I've been doing it for nearly 18 years.
I am OVER it!
Currently, I am in the throes of trying to get a complete office set up down at the new premises so that all stuff relating to the business can be on site rather than split across two places as in shop and home like in the past. It's been so frustrating though of late to have everything so unfinished and disorganised. I'm going to have to set aside some time to get my head around what needs to be actually done to resolve this situation as quickly as possible.
And there is the rub. The time! I just crash when I get home and really do not want to have to look at my In-tray. I am tired and cranky and I have no patience for online bill paying and the like. But I seriously have to to get it all out of the way before it gets even busier.
The TV is constantly ON and LOUD because I share this lounge/office/living area with two teenagers. There is a constant stream of people in and out of the house and demands on my time and attention left, right and centre! It's bloody HARD living here without privacy and an office to cloister away in and just get on top of the paperwork in peace and clarity.
Okay. So? I am really cranky and pussed off about my current lot. I'm getting this off my chest. Now, I shall MAKE some space within a day or so to grab some quiet time and make my lists of things I want to get done.
David in his book talks about the across and up of task management as if it were a runway with a plane taking off. The runway represents the daily minutiae of "next actions" that one must do to get various projects moving forward. Then as the plane goes through the various altitudes, these become the types of focus we must have in terms of our "agreements", our projects, plans, goals and values.
I have to do that vertical planning stuff too.
You can only cruise through life for so long before you realise that to get to where you WANT to go, you have to have a flight plan. Mine is long overdue.
So consequently, I feel very overwhelmed with the extent of what I must achieve along with everything I want to achieve.
This is not some To Do List, lenghthy and unwieldy; this is about making sure I know what happens when and where and how. I'm not clear on that stuff currently and I can totally feel the stress behind it all. I feel completely unable to concentrate effectively on the surprises we all inevitably get every day.
Focus and Application to getting that whole processing of the STUFF is what I want to do.
I am so grateful, that the gift of my love for writing my thoughts down, releases some of the pressure or I'd go mad from it I think. There may not be enough hours in my day but I WILL make time for the things - and the people - I love first. Bookkeeping and housework are just grit in the oyster for making pearls.
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
lessons
When one is in a low state of mind and heart, one feels confused and forlorn.
The painful questioning and doubt can take their toll.
There are decisions to be made and plans to execute with care and responsible attitudes toward loved ones.
I learned today in such a state that I am very much "All or nothing" when it comes to my desires.
If I can't have it now, I might as well not bother having it at all and just go elsewhere - or stay here! Either way it transpires I am way more impatient than is healthy or practical for the greater good.
What I want and what is possible do not mesh right now and its hard to accept or hear that fact. I want what I want and I want it yesterday!
No incremental steps towards it over time - I want it now!
No wasting time having to go through the process of change - I want it now!
No suffering or pain in the achievement of goals - I want it done now, smoothly with minimal fuss and absolutely no recriminations! I want it NOW!
yeah!
I didn't know that about myself until today. I was blind to this flaw inside of me.
I don't do anything by halves! That's exactly what Martin the masseur said to me last week!
Intuitive son of a gun huh?
All or nothing! I need to pick the times when that approach is entirely appropriate and all the times when it is not.
It seems that I am far too controlling of - and way too competitive = the natural flow of Life. I can't let it go and let it be. I have to be in control of my destiny. I have to KNOW what's ahead. I am a a completely narcissistic strategist for my own physical and material well-being!
I feel so guilty for it.
It seems so inordinately wrong to be like this.
I dont' want to be all or nothing!
and if you don't notice the irony in that statement - you're as bad as I am probably!
ho hum!
Time to work on ringing in the changes within. Yet again! The wheel never stops turning on lessons.
The painful questioning and doubt can take their toll.
There are decisions to be made and plans to execute with care and responsible attitudes toward loved ones.
I learned today in such a state that I am very much "All or nothing" when it comes to my desires.
If I can't have it now, I might as well not bother having it at all and just go elsewhere - or stay here! Either way it transpires I am way more impatient than is healthy or practical for the greater good.
What I want and what is possible do not mesh right now and its hard to accept or hear that fact. I want what I want and I want it yesterday!
No incremental steps towards it over time - I want it now!
No wasting time having to go through the process of change - I want it now!
No suffering or pain in the achievement of goals - I want it done now, smoothly with minimal fuss and absolutely no recriminations! I want it NOW!
yeah!
I didn't know that about myself until today. I was blind to this flaw inside of me.
I don't do anything by halves! That's exactly what Martin the masseur said to me last week!
Intuitive son of a gun huh?
All or nothing! I need to pick the times when that approach is entirely appropriate and all the times when it is not.
It seems that I am far too controlling of - and way too competitive = the natural flow of Life. I can't let it go and let it be. I have to be in control of my destiny. I have to KNOW what's ahead. I am a a completely narcissistic strategist for my own physical and material well-being!
I feel so guilty for it.
It seems so inordinately wrong to be like this.
I dont' want to be all or nothing!
and if you don't notice the irony in that statement - you're as bad as I am probably!
ho hum!
Time to work on ringing in the changes within. Yet again! The wheel never stops turning on lessons.
Friday, March 28, 2008
hot and cold
We flew home last night.
It was humid and sticky late last night when my sister dropped us off at Darwin Airport.
It was also incredibly quiet.
As per usual for my style of doing things, we were waiting way too early. At least we were for Darwin standards.
We were the first to check in for our flight at 2130 hours *sigh* Mind you... I am quite sure my sister and her husband were only too pleased to get their home back to normal after we left as their little boys had been totally disrupted all week and were just a tad out of sorts - let alone a decent bedtime! So leaving them an hour earlier than we really needed to was most likely a blessing for them perhaps anyway.
We went through security and found our way upstairs to the departures lounge where there were plenty of vacant comfy seats. The shops were shut!
I fiddled on the internet briefly and the kids spent more money on more food for an hour. Then the shops finally opened at 2230! I bought some soft neck pillows to use on the red-eye flight to Melbourne :) I confess to being the consummate shopper and will usually find a good excuse to shop for "something" no matter where I am in the world!
Finally, we boarded our plane for Melbourne at 2335. Unfortunately for baz and I, we were right in front of the exit panels in the centre of the plane so our seats did not recline back!!! Much good our neck pillows did us then as they uncomfortably pushed our heads forward, making it hard to sleep!
When we landed in Melbourne, our son sitting in front exclaimed how "Quick" the flight had been - he had had a lovely nap on the plane thanks! No so his ragged parents who were fighting a sea of fatigue of tsunami-like proportions! At least I hadn't sat next to someone with bad breath/body odour this time though PHEW! :)
As we left the plane to face the outside air on the Tarmac - I shivered. We had left a warm and slightly sticky Darwin evening to arrive in a very cool and crisp Melbourne morning. I think it was only around 4 degrees outside when we landed!
Ballarat railway station was worse at a mere 2 degrees with that typical Ballarat frosty edge to even that temperature! Our car was made ready for us and we slowly made our way homeward.
Baz did a great job in driving all the way home really even with my pleas for us to stop and have a powernap. We did stop for tea and coffee once but my...I am so glad it wasn't me who was driving or we WOULD have had to have stopped somewhere for a nap - I could barely keep my eyes open despite the chilly air.
I have since tried to have a nap in my own bed but alas...I haven't been able to get my feet to warm up since arriving home. I did sleep a little but feel worse now than I did before I went down.
I feel quite flat and wrung out actually as if I could be coming down with a cold or such like. I sort of want to get up and move and maybe take advantage of the lovely day outside and go for a walk but I feel so zombie like and heavy I'm not sure if I'd make it back home.
I might perhaps try a truncated route and make the walk a very short one. That might do the trick in waking me up enough to get supper sorted for this evening.
Am I pleased to be home? I was when my house was quiet and empty for a little while! I love being at home when I am in my own company. The house is clean and tidy and when there are no noisy teenagers or television sets going, I revel in the freedom to just Be. That was a delightful pleasure after spending close on 24 hours a day with people this past week or two!
It's still amazing to remember though that I left family back in Darwin who are still wearing thongs and shorts in 30 degree weather and 68 percent humidity and I'm now rugged up in track pants and jumpers with the heater going coz its only 16 degrees with 34 percent humidity!
Brrr! But hey? I'd rather This cooler weather than that drippy, slimy, wet heat for long term living comfort so I won't complain too loudly :)
It was humid and sticky late last night when my sister dropped us off at Darwin Airport.
It was also incredibly quiet.
As per usual for my style of doing things, we were waiting way too early. At least we were for Darwin standards.
We were the first to check in for our flight at 2130 hours *sigh* Mind you... I am quite sure my sister and her husband were only too pleased to get their home back to normal after we left as their little boys had been totally disrupted all week and were just a tad out of sorts - let alone a decent bedtime! So leaving them an hour earlier than we really needed to was most likely a blessing for them perhaps anyway.
We went through security and found our way upstairs to the departures lounge where there were plenty of vacant comfy seats. The shops were shut!
I fiddled on the internet briefly and the kids spent more money on more food for an hour. Then the shops finally opened at 2230! I bought some soft neck pillows to use on the red-eye flight to Melbourne :) I confess to being the consummate shopper and will usually find a good excuse to shop for "something" no matter where I am in the world!
Finally, we boarded our plane for Melbourne at 2335. Unfortunately for baz and I, we were right in front of the exit panels in the centre of the plane so our seats did not recline back!!! Much good our neck pillows did us then as they uncomfortably pushed our heads forward, making it hard to sleep!
When we landed in Melbourne, our son sitting in front exclaimed how "Quick" the flight had been - he had had a lovely nap on the plane thanks! No so his ragged parents who were fighting a sea of fatigue of tsunami-like proportions! At least I hadn't sat next to someone with bad breath/body odour this time though PHEW! :)
As we left the plane to face the outside air on the Tarmac - I shivered. We had left a warm and slightly sticky Darwin evening to arrive in a very cool and crisp Melbourne morning. I think it was only around 4 degrees outside when we landed!
Ballarat railway station was worse at a mere 2 degrees with that typical Ballarat frosty edge to even that temperature! Our car was made ready for us and we slowly made our way homeward.
Baz did a great job in driving all the way home really even with my pleas for us to stop and have a powernap. We did stop for tea and coffee once but my...I am so glad it wasn't me who was driving or we WOULD have had to have stopped somewhere for a nap - I could barely keep my eyes open despite the chilly air.
I have since tried to have a nap in my own bed but alas...I haven't been able to get my feet to warm up since arriving home. I did sleep a little but feel worse now than I did before I went down.
I feel quite flat and wrung out actually as if I could be coming down with a cold or such like. I sort of want to get up and move and maybe take advantage of the lovely day outside and go for a walk but I feel so zombie like and heavy I'm not sure if I'd make it back home.
I might perhaps try a truncated route and make the walk a very short one. That might do the trick in waking me up enough to get supper sorted for this evening.
Am I pleased to be home? I was when my house was quiet and empty for a little while! I love being at home when I am in my own company. The house is clean and tidy and when there are no noisy teenagers or television sets going, I revel in the freedom to just Be. That was a delightful pleasure after spending close on 24 hours a day with people this past week or two!
It's still amazing to remember though that I left family back in Darwin who are still wearing thongs and shorts in 30 degree weather and 68 percent humidity and I'm now rugged up in track pants and jumpers with the heater going coz its only 16 degrees with 34 percent humidity!
Brrr! But hey? I'd rather This cooler weather than that drippy, slimy, wet heat for long term living comfort so I won't complain too loudly :)
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Martin the masseur
Not this Martin at all :)
But an equally clever one in his own inimitable way.
Martin B. is a quirky, irreverent and slightly eccentric Darwin character. He also has a wonderful gift for talking muscles into "behaving themselves"
He is a masseur of extraordinary talent.
I had an appointment with him this morning. My sister introduced me and he remembered me from my first visit some six years earlier. He was suitably impressed that there is significantly less of me than last time too. :)
As he works on you, you can literally feel electrical energy vibrating through the muscles. Martin mutters at the muscles and tells them off in a fatherly, authorative way.
"You don't have to do anything now. Just let go. That's better now. Ah! Ah! Ah! That's NOT what I told you to do. You don't need to assist that one; it's fixed. You can let it go. There now! Isn't that better? Good on you my precious! Much better!"
That is a sort of sample of the kinds of things Martin will mutter during the course of a massage session.
He will slide his arms and hands over the legs and kind of jump occasionally as if startled by something. He told me later that this is a sort of electrical shock he gets from the muscles fibres, within his patient, unlocking and releasing their grip.
The massage can hurt - quite a lot - at times, but honestly? I have been to so many masseurs in my life, I've experienced significantly worse pain with some than I've ever had with Martin but with a lot, lot, less satisfactory results.
Technically, I could probably do with a few more treatments from this Master of Muscle but our flight heads back down south tonight.
Some people go into massage as a way of making a bit of money. They're either okay at it or reasonably good at it. Those with a true gift for it seem to approach the whole ethos of massage from an entirely different stance. For them, its like they are connected to the source of their gift at a fundamental level that goes beyond fiscal or other reward. There is a kind of power in the exercise of the gift that is more satisfying than simply a relaxed (and paying) customer. It's as if the process of the massage becomes a spiritual expression and its value is inherent in that process.
Now that its a few hours past my own massage experience, I am feeling slightly heady, a little droopy, relaxed and kind of chilled in a "I-dance-on-the-inside" kind of way (I am still quite warm and sticky from this relentless humidity even so :)).
Our flight leaves at midnight tonight. I hope Martin's vibrational, electrical, energy-charged "discussion" with my tensed up bio-mechanical self will have achieved positive results by the morrow. I am sure they will. :) He IS a genius after all :)
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
12 monkeys and a map
Okay!
so my christian brothers and sisters will probably have a heart attack over this one but I wanted to test it to see if it "could" work.
On the road in the Airport shuttlebus last week on our way to the airport for our trip to Darwin, I asked God a rather impertinent thing.
I wanted external validation for a particular conundrum and decided to test whether God agreed to my desired choice. I wondered if what He thought could be proven with a projection of something a little bit "unlikely" to occur at any other time.
So, with a bit of silly childishness, I demanded that God show me 12 monkeys over the course of this week. From Thursday 20th March to Monday 31st of March.
There were certain "rules" to this game.
1) The monkeys could be in any form such as on fabric, or in a cartoon or real and so on.
2) The monkeys had to be recognisable as clearly being monkeys (chimpanzees and apes did not really qualify)
3) That multitudes of monkeys within the same context such as a pattern on fabric or in a movie, were to be counted as a single monkey. The exception being if they were live monkeys!
By yesterday afternoon, I had an abundance of monkeys! I had counted up to 9 yesterday morning but after our trip to Crocodylus Park, I saw 12+ monkeys in one hit in a place I hardly expected to see them!!! I was going to a reptile park afterall and never in my imagination did I expect to see monkeys of at least four different species but all recognisable and definitively alive!
My "conundrum" is now further embedded into my psyche.
You see....NOW... I am wondering if it was just my desire to have MY particular answer clearly stated in the affirmative that I actually "attracted" the monkeys to my visual cortex through sheer mental focus!
Dang it! That bloody Law of Attraction thing sucks you know! One can't ask for external validation that is objective when one sets the rules of engagement of such validation. I have learned that now.
Thing is! HOW does one receive external validation without getting preached at with over-used biblical injunctions? You can't KNOW anything it seems until after the event
That is so frustrating! My eternally quixotic nature wants to have every detail of the future explored before I actually get around to exploring it. I am highly strategic by nature. I move only if I feel that the foundations for movement are secure. When I do not feel secure, I fret and aim to see around corners, including the ones in my future, so I can effect as strategic a plan as possible based on known information. I simply hate not knowing! I want a MAP for goodness sake!
And now I sit here confused and frustrated because I wonder if my 12 monkeys I essentially ordered from God were not from God at all but from my own desires to have my future plotted and planned according to my own selfish agenda!
Do not order stuff from God. If he answers you in the affirmative, it may prove more information than you are willing to handle. I can't begin to describe how confusing it can be either!
I really don't have that much faith in the Law of Attraction for this very reason. If it does work (as in my case it seems to have on first appearances), it seems to be just an extension of the desire within to manifest without - which has nothing to do with God but everything to do with ones personal intentions, to get what one wants come hell or high water! Not exactly an objective moral ethic I should think even if it is... extraordinary/miraculous...whatever... to the mind of the beholder!
Some might answer, that the map I seek is already here in the form of The Bible.
Alternatively though, some might say, "So? What is the problem? You have your answer and even it IS from within you, doesn't that prove that what you want is truly what you want, so you can go for it anyway?"
Both are true opinions.
Both are also frustratingly not-that-simple. One usually contradicts the other. The Bible is clear about moral ethics. What I want is clear. The two haven't yet gelled into a clearly coherent form enough for me to feel sufficiently balanced and calm about the direction I need to take.
In other words, I want my cake and I want to eat it too and the bible will tell me otherwise!
Oh dear! I am so going to get into trouble for this one!
Please don't question my Faith my fellow christians! I question it enough already!
And those in the LOA camp can also go jump in the lake on this one - it's already screwed with my head enough this week thanks. Selfishness and self-aggrandizement just isn't on the agenda no matter how grateful I feel for my 12 monkeys!
hmpf
circles .... I am going in circles!
MY KINGDOM FOR A BLOODY MAP! Arrgghhhh!
so my christian brothers and sisters will probably have a heart attack over this one but I wanted to test it to see if it "could" work.
On the road in the Airport shuttlebus last week on our way to the airport for our trip to Darwin, I asked God a rather impertinent thing.
I wanted external validation for a particular conundrum and decided to test whether God agreed to my desired choice. I wondered if what He thought could be proven with a projection of something a little bit "unlikely" to occur at any other time.
So, with a bit of silly childishness, I demanded that God show me 12 monkeys over the course of this week. From Thursday 20th March to Monday 31st of March.
There were certain "rules" to this game.
1) The monkeys could be in any form such as on fabric, or in a cartoon or real and so on.
2) The monkeys had to be recognisable as clearly being monkeys (chimpanzees and apes did not really qualify)
3) That multitudes of monkeys within the same context such as a pattern on fabric or in a movie, were to be counted as a single monkey. The exception being if they were live monkeys!
By yesterday afternoon, I had an abundance of monkeys! I had counted up to 9 yesterday morning but after our trip to Crocodylus Park, I saw 12+ monkeys in one hit in a place I hardly expected to see them!!! I was going to a reptile park afterall and never in my imagination did I expect to see monkeys of at least four different species but all recognisable and definitively alive!
My "conundrum" is now further embedded into my psyche.
You see....NOW... I am wondering if it was just my desire to have MY particular answer clearly stated in the affirmative that I actually "attracted" the monkeys to my visual cortex through sheer mental focus!
Dang it! That bloody Law of Attraction thing sucks you know! One can't ask for external validation that is objective when one sets the rules of engagement of such validation. I have learned that now.
Thing is! HOW does one receive external validation without getting preached at with over-used biblical injunctions? You can't KNOW anything it seems until after the event
That is so frustrating! My eternally quixotic nature wants to have every detail of the future explored before I actually get around to exploring it. I am highly strategic by nature. I move only if I feel that the foundations for movement are secure. When I do not feel secure, I fret and aim to see around corners, including the ones in my future, so I can effect as strategic a plan as possible based on known information. I simply hate not knowing! I want a MAP for goodness sake!
And now I sit here confused and frustrated because I wonder if my 12 monkeys I essentially ordered from God were not from God at all but from my own desires to have my future plotted and planned according to my own selfish agenda!
Do not order stuff from God. If he answers you in the affirmative, it may prove more information than you are willing to handle. I can't begin to describe how confusing it can be either!
I really don't have that much faith in the Law of Attraction for this very reason. If it does work (as in my case it seems to have on first appearances), it seems to be just an extension of the desire within to manifest without - which has nothing to do with God but everything to do with ones personal intentions, to get what one wants come hell or high water! Not exactly an objective moral ethic I should think even if it is... extraordinary/miraculous...whatever... to the mind of the beholder!
Some might answer, that the map I seek is already here in the form of The Bible.
Alternatively though, some might say, "So? What is the problem? You have your answer and even it IS from within you, doesn't that prove that what you want is truly what you want, so you can go for it anyway?"
Both are true opinions.
Both are also frustratingly not-that-simple. One usually contradicts the other. The Bible is clear about moral ethics. What I want is clear. The two haven't yet gelled into a clearly coherent form enough for me to feel sufficiently balanced and calm about the direction I need to take.
In other words, I want my cake and I want to eat it too and the bible will tell me otherwise!
Oh dear! I am so going to get into trouble for this one!
Please don't question my Faith my fellow christians! I question it enough already!
And those in the LOA camp can also go jump in the lake on this one - it's already screwed with my head enough this week thanks. Selfishness and self-aggrandizement just isn't on the agenda no matter how grateful I feel for my 12 monkeys!
hmpf
circles .... I am going in circles!
MY KINGDOM FOR A BLOODY MAP! Arrgghhhh!
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
escape
We had a late picnic by the beach the other day. Just hot chips and sea air. It was beautiful. The breeze was a welcome relief from the pressure of this wet heat.
Darwin is a beautiful place but I don't think I have the fortitude to live with this kind of madness-inducing warmth like my sister. She came up here for a sea change, intending to only stay for a "couple of years", and that was fourteen years ago!
Coming to Darwin is apparently easy; leaving it is quite another matter once you've "settled in".
Time is going slowly here. Lazy days for us being with family and going hardly anywhere. It is sort of what we needed but honestly? We would probably do more if we had the inclination.
We went to Crocodylus Park today. The crocs were being fed and it was rather good fun to see the big "Harold" waiting with open-mouthed anticipation for his raw chicken head :)
The kids spent our money in the souvenir shop as they do and then we all trapsed off to Macdonalds for a quick bite to eat - mainly so us older ones could get cool again and the little ones could run rampant in the playground. :)
Later, the four of us went back to our resort cabin and chilled. The kids used the pool and internet cafe and I read my current book "Blind Faith" by Ben Elton.
At first, I found this book so sharply satirical and black, it irked me. But I have gladly stuck with it and am finding its hero "Trafford Sewell" a truly likeable and believable character. The type of world this book is set in, is all too familiar albeit set in some not-too-distant future. I cringe on occasion as I read the cultural "imperatives" in this book but which I see are actually beginning to take root in our present digitized generation. It IS a black, ironic, satirically sharp cultural analysis of current pop culture and bloody good fun if you can ride the initial cringe factor!
Later today, I went to watch my wee nephew do his Karate thing. It was cool in the school playground under the giant ball court covered in shadecloth. Pleasant indeed.
H did not cry when he fell over as apparently he is wont to do. My sister is suitably proud and impressed. He also recieved another stripe on his yellow belt, which I guess means he is not far from progressing onto orange belt. :)
This is in stark contrast to his wee brother. R. sent the wind of fear up all of us last night when he absconded from this house as we were very not-so-focussed on this energetic 2.5 year old. We found him some 500 metres away. He had escaped through the gate on his tricycle and terrified his mother (not least his aunty) so much, she got a headache from the stress! The naughty little monkey KNEW he had done "something wrong", but is so curious that hardly anything can contain him. He RUNS all day if possible - stopping just long enough to exclaim in glee at some new discovery and then runs onto the next "cool thing". I can barely wonder what this bundle of mayhem will be like at fourteen! My own boy is fidgety enough to know its hard to keep them still when they burn for adventure!
So it feels actually weird now that Easter is done and we are still "on holidays". I expect to wake up tomorrow and have to rush off to work. We have NEVER had a holiday over the Easter Period before so it is sort of feeling odd and surreal - for me anyway.
Oh and yes! I did take the photo that graces this post :)
and yes... it would be a Paradise here if it were not so bloody humid! :)
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Easter 2008
My sis observed that I seemed a little "out of touch" today.
I guess I am.
I have my head elsewhere as per usual. I don't have to think about work and I don't have to think too much about housework and washing. I am in La-La Land. Thing is I don't apparently seem all that happy being there from my external demeanour. I will get over it, whatever "It" is, I guess.
The itchy hive rash on my arms and legs is getting to me though. I am trying my best to be a bit cautious about what I eat. It is an allergic reaction to "something" but I cannot pinpoint what it would be right now. I shall have to go into a solid detox diet out of necessity once we are home in order to get this rash under control. The heat seems to exacerbate it too. When my arms are cool, it isn't nearly so bad.
We managed to make it to church about 10 minutes before the end of the service this morning. My sis was convinced that the service started at 10am when in fact she was looking at the time for the Palmerston service - a good 25 minute drive away. The city service started at 9am! hahahaha I did feel a bit odd barging in on communion at such a late stage but oh well... this is Easter Sunday morning and surprises go with the territory! Literally!
After church we went and did that other Aussie Religious Passtime and went shopping!
Yes! We went to Casuarina Square shopping Centre to escape the oppressive heat and humidity and chill out in air conditioned Consumer Paradise.
We ate food, we drank liquids, chilled to within an inch of full condensation and then browsed the multitudes of branded businesses, one can find nearly all over Australia - quite possibly the world!
My kids loved it of course and were endowed with purchases from both me and their Aunty.
Even I succumbed to the bling and glitter of a jewellers store, finding some silver charms of Australian native animals, which are hard to come by otherwise. :) I also bought a very bright purple scarf on sale that can also act as a shawl on the plane. I didn't bring any jumpers or pullovers but now when I think about arriving back in Melbourne at 6am on Friday morning, I am assuming it could be just a little bit cool compared to what we are enduring at the moment. That shawl will prove handy I hope. :)
Finally we came back to my Sisters place here and veged out in front of the tele under the ceiling fans.
A lazy dazy afternoon. It's nice.
I think we head off to the beach to sit and watch the sunset as we eat our supper soon.
I guess I am.
I have my head elsewhere as per usual. I don't have to think about work and I don't have to think too much about housework and washing. I am in La-La Land. Thing is I don't apparently seem all that happy being there from my external demeanour. I will get over it, whatever "It" is, I guess.
The itchy hive rash on my arms and legs is getting to me though. I am trying my best to be a bit cautious about what I eat. It is an allergic reaction to "something" but I cannot pinpoint what it would be right now. I shall have to go into a solid detox diet out of necessity once we are home in order to get this rash under control. The heat seems to exacerbate it too. When my arms are cool, it isn't nearly so bad.
We managed to make it to church about 10 minutes before the end of the service this morning. My sis was convinced that the service started at 10am when in fact she was looking at the time for the Palmerston service - a good 25 minute drive away. The city service started at 9am! hahahaha I did feel a bit odd barging in on communion at such a late stage but oh well... this is Easter Sunday morning and surprises go with the territory! Literally!
After church we went and did that other Aussie Religious Passtime and went shopping!
Yes! We went to Casuarina Square shopping Centre to escape the oppressive heat and humidity and chill out in air conditioned Consumer Paradise.
We ate food, we drank liquids, chilled to within an inch of full condensation and then browsed the multitudes of branded businesses, one can find nearly all over Australia - quite possibly the world!
My kids loved it of course and were endowed with purchases from both me and their Aunty.
Even I succumbed to the bling and glitter of a jewellers store, finding some silver charms of Australian native animals, which are hard to come by otherwise. :) I also bought a very bright purple scarf on sale that can also act as a shawl on the plane. I didn't bring any jumpers or pullovers but now when I think about arriving back in Melbourne at 6am on Friday morning, I am assuming it could be just a little bit cool compared to what we are enduring at the moment. That shawl will prove handy I hope. :)
Finally we came back to my Sisters place here and veged out in front of the tele under the ceiling fans.
A lazy dazy afternoon. It's nice.
I think we head off to the beach to sit and watch the sunset as we eat our supper soon.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Chasing Wet
Well...no sooner are we cool and relieved from the pressure of intense heat but we fly north to the tropics!
Yes! My family and I are on our holiday we had to postpone back Christmas time, to Darwin to see my sis and her family.
It is just a little warm and humid here :) Which for us dry-hearted southerners is something of an understatement.
Humidity that is relentless and persistent. Humidity that is intransigent and stifling.
When we left the airport terminal last night on our arrival, my daughter said as we trapsed out to the carpark..."I can't BREATHE!" Such was her amazement and chagrin at the level of moisture which hangs in the air like a pair of over-sized earrings on a well endowed gypsy!
Darwin IS a beautiful place though. It feels a bit like a paradise but with shopping.
I must say that I found the four hour flight something of a chore though. We flew the "new'ish" carrier Tiger Airways from Melbourne to Darwin. A small glorified bus of a plane with six seats across with the aisle splitting them into three seats either side.
A gentleman sat next to me which is an unfortunate thing really, as I am prone to needing the loo pretty regularly when I travel - I have a nervous constitution under all this calm, cool, collected travel-buff exterior it seems ;)
This gentleman is a stranger of course and we didn't bother to exchange names or hello's. We were just passing by. He sat next to me and I sat next to him and we tried to tolerate each other invading each others personal space for the next four hours.
I imagine his life; where he might be travelling to; where his family might live; if he has liver failure!
His breath and/or body is malodorous in the extreme. If he does not move or breath or, heaven forbid, belch... all is well.
He burbs softly under his moustache. The stench reaches my nostrils and assaults them viciously and exactly. I am rendered instantly nauseous.
I try to isolate exactly what it smells of. It smells of imminent death of course but without that sick cloying sweet rotten aftertaste that death has. This has an even more malevolent strain of stench to it. This breath (or body odour... I wasn't exactly sure but it was intermittent which makes me assume it was his breath). This breath was like an acidic blending of sulphuric and gaseous ingredients that might have been mixed by teen boys in a backyard chemical lab.
What would we get if we mixed ancient mothballs with the bilge water of a sea going vessel from the 17th century perhaps?
What might be the smell of rotting sun-baked sea kelp mixed with chlorinated eggs?
I travelled pretty happily for up to 11 hours in a plane only very recently. No problems at all. Yes! It was cramped! Yes it was slightly boring! But on the whole it was fine.
This trip of a mere four hours felt like those 11 hours stretched into 22! I even felt myself verging on the edge of a real panic attack! My heart was racing, I was very hot, I felt slightly sick, and I wanted to actually leap out of the plane just to experience the freshness of cold wet air on my burning, itching skin and my starved-for-air lungs!
I can assure you...this is not a pleasant feeling at all. I caught myself and watched with mild interest the rising panic racing up my spine and I deliberately called a halt to it and spoke kindly and calmly to the internal workings so they let go and relaxed and then blended together again and breathed deeply of the clean un-fouled air around me.
If the man beside didn't move or breathe it was okay and I was able to doze and dream pleasant half-awake dreams of faces and things that I love.
Whenever the fetid stench reached my nose again, I would wince and imagine that this man needed prayer for he may indeed have a vicious ulcer in his belly or a cancerous tumor or was worried sick about a family member. All of these things could have been that which made his breath so foul. One can only hope it was a treatable case of Simple Halitosis and not some other dire physiological ailment!
***
My sister was only too pleased to see us late, last Darwin night. She greeted me with tears as we are wont to do, my sis and I. Often it is years in between physical visits for us two: we two, who grew up sharing a bedroom together on an isolated farm in an isolated family.
The Big 4 resort/caravan park is quite okay. Our ensuite cabin is very small but I don't mind seeing as we have a sink and a loo within stepping distance from the bed.
Once upon a time in a life long ago, I was in the Australian Army Reserve and pretty much wore the camping gene that may (most likely may not) live in my DNA down to an X - which essentially means NO WAY will I go the route of "camping" with tents and such. I hate it! I did enough of it in three years to have the idea extricated firmly from my system for a good many years to come. It is approximately 17 years since I last went camping and I have refused to do it again ever since.
I may change my mind in the future - I am inclined to that sort of thing when it suits - but for now...I prefer the finer luxuries in life like a clean toilet and a comfortable bed and AIR CONDITIONING!
Sorry! I know its so terribly un-small-footprint-on-earth of me, but its what I want.
I usually get what I want.
***
We expected it to be raining when we got here. Darwin has had over 70 inches of rain since the beginning of January. It is telling that they still use the old scale measurement of inches as opposed to centimeters! The numbers just seem silly in centimeters. 177 centimetres of rain just seems... well... other-worldly, especially for those of us who come from the Wimmera and have seen no more than 30 centimetres of rain in nearly 2.5 months!
I was a little worried this morning, that *I* might be the reason of why we are not getting rain down south. It had not rained when we got up this morning at all. It didn't really rain while I was in Germany either...well not much that I could tell, and it hasn't properly rained in my home region in years. Perhaps it was ME who was making the rain go away?
It probably sounds just a tad arrogant and thankfully, the heavens opened for us this afternoon to remind me that I am not god and cannot control the weather! Phew!
The humidity is claustrophobic though. It saps your ability to energise and motivate the soul into doing things. You need to sleep and rest during the cloying pressure of the noon-day for to move muscles and bones seems to take an extraordinary amount of energy. It's no wonder people drink so much up here. It's not so much about dehydration as about chasing a cooler core body temperature!
Under the fans here, in my sisters home though, I guess we will acclimatise eventually. Our cabin is almost frigid by comparison, with the air conditioner being refrigerated. It is only drying out the air inside. The temperature is set only a few degrees below that of outside but drying the air makes the outside feel about 1000 degrees hotter than it actually is. It is quite surreal actually.
25 degrees celcius seems to be an "ideal" temperature for mankind. It is where we feel more or less most comfortable and relaxed. When it is cold outside, our thermostats are set to around 25 degrees. When it is steamy hot and sultry, we set our air conditioner thermostats to 25 degrees. Give or take a couple either side of course! :)
Maybe its because 2+5=7 which has always been thought to be a "Heavenly" number!
hahaha! I digress...
Tomorrow we SWIM (and go shopping :)).
Happy Easter everyone.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
cool
ahhhhhhh
the cool change is finally here!
I can smell the fresh scent of cool crisp moisture in the air. The breeze billows and softens the heat within walls and floors.
Goosebumps shimmy up and down my arms whenever I go outside.
My son enjoyed a few blissful hours in the shed airbrushing paint everywhere to his cool hearts content. He's not been able to go out there except for a brief drum session as its been over 40 degrees (that's around 104 Fahrenheit on the old scale) in that shed for days and days now .
The bones are weary and tired. The feet are swollen and pressured but all is now shrouded in collected calm with the advent of the enlivening breath of cold air coming in through open windows.
There will be smiles aplenty among folk tomorrow I should think. Restful sleep in temperate bedrooms and overheated brows softened as if by a cool reassuring hand will go a long way in restoring hope that the rain will soon come.
If that happens...then that will be very cool :)
the cool change is finally here!
I can smell the fresh scent of cool crisp moisture in the air. The breeze billows and softens the heat within walls and floors.
Goosebumps shimmy up and down my arms whenever I go outside.
My son enjoyed a few blissful hours in the shed airbrushing paint everywhere to his cool hearts content. He's not been able to go out there except for a brief drum session as its been over 40 degrees (that's around 104 Fahrenheit on the old scale) in that shed for days and days now .
The bones are weary and tired. The feet are swollen and pressured but all is now shrouded in collected calm with the advent of the enlivening breath of cold air coming in through open windows.
There will be smiles aplenty among folk tomorrow I should think. Restful sleep in temperate bedrooms and overheated brows softened as if by a cool reassuring hand will go a long way in restoring hope that the rain will soon come.
If that happens...then that will be very cool :)
Monday, March 17, 2008
Go North my heart!
An interesting concept I read today.
To follow "True North" within ones heart and soul.
I like this idea.
True North is magnetic and compelling. When one just ALLOWS oneself to spin into its central node, just like the arm of a compass does, we end up at True North and all possible directions are clear and established around us. We can choose to travel in whichever of these directions we want, but it is more reassurring and confidence building when we have a built in sense of our North - the direct pathway toward our best self.
True North is the souls intention matching the hearts direction. We are what we say we are and behave in kind. We are true to ourselves but also provide a comforting pointer for others to follow if they are so inclined.
True North of the heart gives confidence and courage in the face of the maelstrom. True North is positive, joyous, intentional and serene. It sticks and it does not waver.
We do not pander or ponder in confusion or disarray when we follow True North. Our steps are sure and our vision is clear. We know what we are in the greater scheme of things and we know where we want to go!
I'd like to re-centre so I can spin naturally toward the direction of my own True North. This may require a shift in direction...perhaps unexpectedly; I don't know! I don't mean I want to spin out of control in pursuit of the stability of my true North but I will spin even so. The thing is that the spinning is not forced. It is just a gentle swinging until the polarity is found and settled into place. The compass just drifts the spindle toward the magnetic attraction - it does not need to seek it, it just knows its there and allows itself to be spun into its direction naturally and spontaneously.
My faith inclines me toward the True North of belief in Jesus. My soul wants to travel along the path of its North with hope, joy, peace and love. My heart wants to smile in relief that it is not lost or alone because the compass rarely lies.
Yeah! True North! Everything is clear once one knows their right direction on the journey.
If my sky does indeed have five directions, then my True North is somewhere in the vast infinity of that globe which surrounds me and I will find it soon enough - if I just allow it to find me and take me there.
To follow "True North" within ones heart and soul.
I like this idea.
True North is magnetic and compelling. When one just ALLOWS oneself to spin into its central node, just like the arm of a compass does, we end up at True North and all possible directions are clear and established around us. We can choose to travel in whichever of these directions we want, but it is more reassurring and confidence building when we have a built in sense of our North - the direct pathway toward our best self.
True North is the souls intention matching the hearts direction. We are what we say we are and behave in kind. We are true to ourselves but also provide a comforting pointer for others to follow if they are so inclined.
True North of the heart gives confidence and courage in the face of the maelstrom. True North is positive, joyous, intentional and serene. It sticks and it does not waver.
We do not pander or ponder in confusion or disarray when we follow True North. Our steps are sure and our vision is clear. We know what we are in the greater scheme of things and we know where we want to go!
I'd like to re-centre so I can spin naturally toward the direction of my own True North. This may require a shift in direction...perhaps unexpectedly; I don't know! I don't mean I want to spin out of control in pursuit of the stability of my true North but I will spin even so. The thing is that the spinning is not forced. It is just a gentle swinging until the polarity is found and settled into place. The compass just drifts the spindle toward the magnetic attraction - it does not need to seek it, it just knows its there and allows itself to be spun into its direction naturally and spontaneously.
My faith inclines me toward the True North of belief in Jesus. My soul wants to travel along the path of its North with hope, joy, peace and love. My heart wants to smile in relief that it is not lost or alone because the compass rarely lies.
Yeah! True North! Everything is clear once one knows their right direction on the journey.
If my sky does indeed have five directions, then my True North is somewhere in the vast infinity of that globe which surrounds me and I will find it soon enough - if I just allow it to find me and take me there.
the heat goes on
relentless and unyielding, the Wimmera heat scorches and burns whatever is left of the will to do.
Water!
What we need now is water! Not from bores, not from dams, not from tanks or wells.
We want natural life-giving rain from the Heavens to soak us and wet us through.
Will we complain once we are soggy and mouldy from such rain?
Yes! Positively yes we will complain for the human memory is dull once acquaintance is long past. It remembers only that which is etched into the membranes like photographs.
So yes, we will of course complain if we get so wet the water is lapping at our feet, we will complain to God that we cannot endure another moment of being so deluged by the rain.
We are greedy, fickle, self-obsessed and ego-centric enough to believe that our happiness is fundamentally from outside of our natural selves. So while it is so hot and while the days curl our toes and teeth with the melting intensity of sunshine, we will crave being wet to our ears!
When that day comes and we have the water again... we will undoubtedly crave to be dry!
It's inevitable and unequivocable that we will never be content with our climate in the moment of its fact.
Water!
What we need now is water! Not from bores, not from dams, not from tanks or wells.
We want natural life-giving rain from the Heavens to soak us and wet us through.
Will we complain once we are soggy and mouldy from such rain?
Yes! Positively yes we will complain for the human memory is dull once acquaintance is long past. It remembers only that which is etched into the membranes like photographs.
So yes, we will of course complain if we get so wet the water is lapping at our feet, we will complain to God that we cannot endure another moment of being so deluged by the rain.
We are greedy, fickle, self-obsessed and ego-centric enough to believe that our happiness is fundamentally from outside of our natural selves. So while it is so hot and while the days curl our toes and teeth with the melting intensity of sunshine, we will crave being wet to our ears!
When that day comes and we have the water again... we will undoubtedly crave to be dry!
It's inevitable and unequivocable that we will never be content with our climate in the moment of its fact.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
the thing not said
I wonder how many of us carry the deep unspoken "Thing" we must and "should" say but cannot find in ourselves to say.
It might be anything.
It might be a memory not shared.
It might be a pain not expressed.
It might be a future unexpected.
What are the words we want to say but cannot?
Is it about timing? Or is it just about fear?
There are two questions every human being that ever lived asks if they have the courage to hear the answers.
"What do I want?"
"What is my deepest fear?"
Once we know ourselves enough to be able to clearly and calmly answer them, we grow exponentially into our potential for Love and Integrity.
It might be anything.
It might be a memory not shared.
It might be a pain not expressed.
It might be a future unexpected.
What are the words we want to say but cannot?
Is it about timing? Or is it just about fear?
There are two questions every human being that ever lived asks if they have the courage to hear the answers.
"What do I want?"
"What is my deepest fear?"
Once we know ourselves enough to be able to clearly and calmly answer them, we grow exponentially into our potential for Love and Integrity.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
soulmate movies make me cry
I watched the movie "The Notebook" here on Preciousss tonight. While husband slept in the chair in front of some airline crash doco on satellite tv... and daughter disappeared into bedroom to talk for hours and hours to boyfriend on the phone and while son is at a youth camp down south overnight...I watched a movie about the depths and breadth of love.
Noah and Allie fought all the time, but there was one thing they had in common; they were crazy about each other!
yeah!
Lovers who met and fell in love in their youth one pristine summer when things were hopeful and wonderful before wars and cruel pain enters their world of pre-adult starry-eyed wonder! Lovers who were thwarted in expressing that love by other people! Lovers who hated each other and loved each other with every soul stretched breath between them.
They were not so compatible those two with their feisty and belligerent ways. She called him an arrogant arse-hole; he called her a self-absorbed brat and then they would look into each others eyes and know that they were meant for no other person on earth but each other.
Together they created a better world. He made the pitiful wreck of a house into something wonderful. She brought colour and light into the world with her music and art.
When they were with others, they both died a little inside and stopped creating. When they were with others, no matter how much they loved them, they could not stop, either of them - even through the long dry years without contact - remembering that summer of wild and free love between them!
It was real.
Souls like birds.
free to be themselves but more whole when together. Content and happy because they are blessed to be with someone so wonderful, so beautiful, so extraordinary.
And even when they fought, they were fighting for their soul union to be made even more complete, more connected, more real, more everything!
And in the twilight of their years, when shadows fall across the mind and the forgetting is more common than the remembering; when the heart can no longer stand to be broken each day by that forgetting; when there can be no life worth living without that other beside you...they fade together into other realms of reality and find their truth again as one soul, united for eternity, in the pureness and rightness of Love.
Noah and Allie fought all the time, but there was one thing they had in common; they were crazy about each other!
yeah!
Lovers who met and fell in love in their youth one pristine summer when things were hopeful and wonderful before wars and cruel pain enters their world of pre-adult starry-eyed wonder! Lovers who were thwarted in expressing that love by other people! Lovers who hated each other and loved each other with every soul stretched breath between them.
They were not so compatible those two with their feisty and belligerent ways. She called him an arrogant arse-hole; he called her a self-absorbed brat and then they would look into each others eyes and know that they were meant for no other person on earth but each other.
Together they created a better world. He made the pitiful wreck of a house into something wonderful. She brought colour and light into the world with her music and art.
When they were with others, they both died a little inside and stopped creating. When they were with others, no matter how much they loved them, they could not stop, either of them - even through the long dry years without contact - remembering that summer of wild and free love between them!
It was real.
Souls like birds.
free to be themselves but more whole when together. Content and happy because they are blessed to be with someone so wonderful, so beautiful, so extraordinary.
And even when they fought, they were fighting for their soul union to be made even more complete, more connected, more real, more everything!
And in the twilight of their years, when shadows fall across the mind and the forgetting is more common than the remembering; when the heart can no longer stand to be broken each day by that forgetting; when there can be no life worth living without that other beside you...they fade together into other realms of reality and find their truth again as one soul, united for eternity, in the pureness and rightness of Love.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
A little hot under the collar!
It has been inconceivably HOT this past two weeks!
We have had a number of days well over 35 degrees now for what has seemed like an age. I don't know how much longer our poor land here can survive under this heat.
My town where I live has been put on part bore water just last month. Drinking water from the tap takes on a whole new connotation when it tastes so brackish and "underground'ish".
About 12 years ago....the drought here in Western Victoria was a significant and challenging event we had hoped would only last that year.
Sadly, the suicide and depression rate among farmers rises with each year we face such dry conditions.
No one can cut a break! The only businesses doing well are those which are directly funded by Government or food businesses and even some of those will feel the pinch over the winter months if this dry keeps going.
I once had a thought that we might perhaps be half way through a 30 year drought! Who knows? I hope not but still, it seems to be a never-ending cycle of dry here. What was once a lush, beautiful, water-rich environment is now parched and spare...the foliage dry beyond belief!
Some might say that this is a direct result of global warming and climate change. I don't know! Climate is an entity we are only just beginning to understand, and we as a species have barely scratched the surface of what climate will/can do on earth.
The weather is the weather no matter where you are in the world and the only difference is degrees.
I could not be stuffed going to the gym this afternoon after work. I am TIRED and my body aches with a fatigue I can only attribute to the prolonged heat of this current period.
Quite possibly, I will be whinging about how freaking COLD it is come August! :) I just hope I can whinge about the cold and still rejoice that its raining!
Please God ....make it RAIN!
We have had a number of days well over 35 degrees now for what has seemed like an age. I don't know how much longer our poor land here can survive under this heat.
My town where I live has been put on part bore water just last month. Drinking water from the tap takes on a whole new connotation when it tastes so brackish and "underground'ish".
About 12 years ago....the drought here in Western Victoria was a significant and challenging event we had hoped would only last that year.
Sadly, the suicide and depression rate among farmers rises with each year we face such dry conditions.
No one can cut a break! The only businesses doing well are those which are directly funded by Government or food businesses and even some of those will feel the pinch over the winter months if this dry keeps going.
I once had a thought that we might perhaps be half way through a 30 year drought! Who knows? I hope not but still, it seems to be a never-ending cycle of dry here. What was once a lush, beautiful, water-rich environment is now parched and spare...the foliage dry beyond belief!
Some might say that this is a direct result of global warming and climate change. I don't know! Climate is an entity we are only just beginning to understand, and we as a species have barely scratched the surface of what climate will/can do on earth.
The weather is the weather no matter where you are in the world and the only difference is degrees.
I could not be stuffed going to the gym this afternoon after work. I am TIRED and my body aches with a fatigue I can only attribute to the prolonged heat of this current period.
Quite possibly, I will be whinging about how freaking COLD it is come August! :) I just hope I can whinge about the cold and still rejoice that its raining!
Please God ....make it RAIN!
Thursday, March 06, 2008
River deep
It has been over a week since landing back home here.
I have come down from the Mountain High of February.
How do I feel?
Dunno actually!
Reality is a strange thing. One can be content with reality when one accepts it just as it comes without complaint.
Thing is...one is ever rarely content with mere Status Quo.
The heart yearns for adventure and rich experience. The mundane butts up against the cruel taunts of time and I am caught in the middle.
I think Nürnberg changed something inside of me. I miss the energy and the freedom.
Perhaps that is just a fantasy. Maybe I am just rebelling against the expectations of my reality!
I wonder now ..... what IS my role here and WHY?
I have come down from the Mountain High of February.
How do I feel?
Dunno actually!
Reality is a strange thing. One can be content with reality when one accepts it just as it comes without complaint.
Thing is...one is ever rarely content with mere Status Quo.
The heart yearns for adventure and rich experience. The mundane butts up against the cruel taunts of time and I am caught in the middle.
I think Nürnberg changed something inside of me. I miss the energy and the freedom.
Perhaps that is just a fantasy. Maybe I am just rebelling against the expectations of my reality!
I wonder now ..... what IS my role here and WHY?
Sunday, March 02, 2008
The dishes and the washing!
I collected my baggage from the baggage carousel in Melbourne and promptly broke the carry handle on my almost new suitcase pulling off that stupid whirling thing! I am rather cross about this! The luggage is like brand new this year! I bought it off Graysonline for a song but yeah...it now has a broken carry thingy. And it's too late to get a return on it! Oh well....live and learn. I may be able to fix it with gaffer tape. One can fix almost anything with gaffer tape.
I declared my shoes! Australia has very strict quarantine rules and being a long-time farm girl from years ago I am highly conscious of the dangers of soil-born diseases and spores in the soils on shoes that have travelled to yonder shores. I don't care if it does seem a little bit over the top - I like declaring if I have been wandering around fields near sheep and horses in foreign countries and I get my shoes checked to ensure that what I bring home will remain safe and clean for my own country.
I declared the Lebkuchen I bought back from Nürnberg too :)
Everything was cleared.
I managed to make it in time to get the 2pm shuttlebus to Ballarat. I dozed on the shuttle bus, it taking some 90 minutes to reach Ararat train station. Then I found I had a four hour wait before the train left the station to Ballarat and my subsequent bus back to my home. What an annoyance!
I am so tired by now, I can barely think. I have not really slept soundly for the past 40 hours. My brain is this numb mush of thoughts so brief they are forgotten like cotton threads on the wind.
I decide to store my luggage in a locker at the station and I go for a meander (literally a meander in the style of someone who may have had too much to drink), toward the main street in Ballarat. I walk as far as a favourity pizza restaurant of our family, that we frequent when here and I have a small pizza and a coke. I really don't actually feel like eating much though. I feel stuffed, uncomfortable, weirdly out of zone with myself. But, like some automaton who must eat at 5pm each day, I eat and feel strangely guilty about it like I went behind someones back.
I go back to the train station and try to rest on the hard planked seating until my train arrives. It is late! There was a suicide on the line down in Melbourne somewhere causing chaos with the schedules in stations across the state. I send up a silent prayer for the family and friends of the person who so chose to die this way.
I board the train. It is a short trip to my next stop, only 45 minutes or so. I note the difference between this train and the ICE I travelled on only two days ago. This one is neat, tidy, clean and comfortable too. The only thing it lacks is ....Panache! The ICE is more than a train, its like the luxury liner of the railway, it makes my basic aussie train look pedestrian and "common".
I've always loved train travel, as a kid going to boarding school and then in my late 20's on regular hospital visits to Melbourne for eye treatment, I have always enjoyed the strange solitary nature of my train travels. I find trains a kind of meditative experience where my mind is free to expand its horizons even while my body is encapsulated by speed within steel. Train trips soothe me.
I arrive to collect the bus for the last leg of my journey. Buses are not so comfortable as trains. They are cramped, bumpy, and they are noisier I think too. I don't like bus travel as much as train travel!
Back in my home town, I wait just a little longer and get a taxi home. I walk in my back door at 11pm Australian time. I have been more or less awake for over 48 hours. My dear son hugs me at the door and I peer over his shoulder into the kitchen to see the sink piled high with dishes!
Mum is home.
Since being home, I've done dishes, bookwork, washing by the truckload (10 loads on Tuesday and Wednesday of my arriving home no less), errands, grocery shopping, phonecalls, visits with telco companies, friends, relatives; I've baked, cooked, cleaned and blogged.
Mum is going back to Germany! hahahaha
I declared my shoes! Australia has very strict quarantine rules and being a long-time farm girl from years ago I am highly conscious of the dangers of soil-born diseases and spores in the soils on shoes that have travelled to yonder shores. I don't care if it does seem a little bit over the top - I like declaring if I have been wandering around fields near sheep and horses in foreign countries and I get my shoes checked to ensure that what I bring home will remain safe and clean for my own country.
I declared the Lebkuchen I bought back from Nürnberg too :)
Everything was cleared.
I managed to make it in time to get the 2pm shuttlebus to Ballarat. I dozed on the shuttle bus, it taking some 90 minutes to reach Ararat train station. Then I found I had a four hour wait before the train left the station to Ballarat and my subsequent bus back to my home. What an annoyance!
I am so tired by now, I can barely think. I have not really slept soundly for the past 40 hours. My brain is this numb mush of thoughts so brief they are forgotten like cotton threads on the wind.
I decide to store my luggage in a locker at the station and I go for a meander (literally a meander in the style of someone who may have had too much to drink), toward the main street in Ballarat. I walk as far as a favourity pizza restaurant of our family, that we frequent when here and I have a small pizza and a coke. I really don't actually feel like eating much though. I feel stuffed, uncomfortable, weirdly out of zone with myself. But, like some automaton who must eat at 5pm each day, I eat and feel strangely guilty about it like I went behind someones back.
I go back to the train station and try to rest on the hard planked seating until my train arrives. It is late! There was a suicide on the line down in Melbourne somewhere causing chaos with the schedules in stations across the state. I send up a silent prayer for the family and friends of the person who so chose to die this way.
I board the train. It is a short trip to my next stop, only 45 minutes or so. I note the difference between this train and the ICE I travelled on only two days ago. This one is neat, tidy, clean and comfortable too. The only thing it lacks is ....Panache! The ICE is more than a train, its like the luxury liner of the railway, it makes my basic aussie train look pedestrian and "common".
I've always loved train travel, as a kid going to boarding school and then in my late 20's on regular hospital visits to Melbourne for eye treatment, I have always enjoyed the strange solitary nature of my train travels. I find trains a kind of meditative experience where my mind is free to expand its horizons even while my body is encapsulated by speed within steel. Train trips soothe me.
I arrive to collect the bus for the last leg of my journey. Buses are not so comfortable as trains. They are cramped, bumpy, and they are noisier I think too. I don't like bus travel as much as train travel!
Back in my home town, I wait just a little longer and get a taxi home. I walk in my back door at 11pm Australian time. I have been more or less awake for over 48 hours. My dear son hugs me at the door and I peer over his shoulder into the kitchen to see the sink piled high with dishes!
Mum is home.
Since being home, I've done dishes, bookwork, washing by the truckload (10 loads on Tuesday and Wednesday of my arriving home no less), errands, grocery shopping, phonecalls, visits with telco companies, friends, relatives; I've baked, cooked, cleaned and blogged.
Mum is going back to Germany! hahahaha
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