Saturday, 18 April 2015.
4:36 am
Me: *drunken whinge*
Mr. L: *raises eyebrow*
Me: *more whinge*
Mr. L: Hey. Hey. Shhh.
Me: *pauses*
Mr L: Do you hear that?
Me: Um…what? *looks around blearily*
Mr L: You. Not complaining. That’s a wonderful sound, don’t you think? *smirk*
I’m spending this Sunday morning by the ocean.
It is quiet; almost peaceful. This morning is a landscape of muted blues and soothing greys bordered in shades of white and brown.
I am surprised that I have not seen many seagulls, but I have seen a lot of crows.
I was awakened by several of them calling to each other this morning, over the soothing rhythm of the waves. (These are two unrelated but much welcomed sounds to me, and this makes me happy.)
They left a few glossy black feathers on the balcony.
I have made a decision.
When I am old, and accountable to few but myself, I am going to live by the ocean.
While I am quite certain that there will always be an ocean
I hope that there will always be crows.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
I am *famous* for overthinking *everything*
And this post wouldn’t be the first time that this point wasn’t being driven home by random Internet posts….or by several Someone(s).So.
The point is taken ❤
Another emotional weekend.
Another chain of days wherein I am left contemplating the line between being compassionate and being naive.
~~~
And here. Here is a foolish thing.
This morning while I was out walking my dog, I noticed at least a dozen black vultures perched upon the streetlights lining the parkway that runs along a significant portion of my daily route. Even though vultures usually don’t roost in my neighborhood very often, I figured that there must have been some fresh roadkill somewhere. (I didn’t — and I still don’t — want to assume that their presence has any at all to do with the fact that that I’ve also been dreaming of vultures a lot lately. I comfort myself to think that there has to be some other mundane reason.)
So, as I was walking toward quite a large cluster of them, I realized much to my dismay, that, with the way in which the road was laid out, I was going to have to walk past several streetlights in the row.
And I was going to have to pass beneath quite a number of them where they were perched.
(Yes, I’ll admit that I feared being…hissed at and shat upon.)
As I got closer, I began to walk more briskly, all the while telling myself that I am going to be OK, I’m just passing through…this is not something that I can avoid. These are just…vultures. A lot of black vultures.
And looking back on it, you know, I can’t explain why I started to feel anxious, but I did….
and so, next thing I know, I had started running….
And because I was so busy feeling anxious
and not really looking where I was going
I promptly fell hard into a hole that I could not have seen
and I twisted my ankle.
I laid there for a good minute or two, feeling mortified, embarrassed and hurting.
Upon looking up, I see them – three vultures — calmly looking down at me, from their perches atop the streetlight.
They did not move. They did not hiss. And they did not shit on me.
They just looked at me.
(They were just like this – except for looking downward. I didn’t take this picture. ^Phil Thach did.)
Evidently, black vultures like to perch on street lights
…and eat ‘horrible things for tea.’
(I guess that ‘ and eat roadkill when necessary’ doesn’t have the same ring to it, though it has the same amount of syllables.)
Not making fun. Just trying to adapt.
~~~
Mr. L is wondering why I am avoiding again.
Asking why I am struggling to embrace my spirit animal.
Because, sometimes…vultures frighten me.
*sigh*
~~~
Thank You, my Beloved.
For everything
Today and Always
❤
I wish that there was a way to keep someone’s ex-girlfriend from moving to Florida at the end of this month.
She contacted me claiming that
she wanted to apologize for all the drama that she caused in my life and in the life of my kids
but couldn’t I just let bygones be bygones
because she could really use a friend
and she really could use some help
because she’d like to move to Florida to make a fresh start
but she can’t do it without someone helping her
So….please?
And I almost relented – because she wheedled and cajoled and gods know I can relate to how loud your brain weasels get when you can’t get the meds that you need
and I thought that I might
just maybe
want to show a little compassion*
for someone who is obviously struggling
just in case
she really was trying to make an effort to be sane
(and gods don’t I know about that too)
BUT….
Then I came to my senses
And I suddenly felt the overwhelming need to say:
Nope.
I can’t.
It’s too much.
(And Loki as my witness, It. Was. Too. Much. SRSLY.)
(So much for Tonglen, eh?)
Anyway.
So.
Now.
If only someone else would come to their senses and realize that what she is asking for in terms of ‘help’
seems
obsessive
disturbing
and altogether
an unhealthy amount
of
Too Much.
Boundaries?
Oh look…there they are! Am I the only one that sees them? Am I the only one that has them?
(I hope that he realizes what he is doing before it is too late.)
But mostly…
I wish that there was a way to keep someone’s ex-girlfriend from moving to Florida at the end of this month.
~~~
*
From Wikipedia:
A derailment is said to take place when a vehicle (for example a train) runs off its rails. This does not necessarily mean that it leaves its track. Although many derailments are minor, all result in temporary disruption of the proper operation of the railway system, and they are potentially seriously hazardous to human health and safety. Usually, the derailment of a train can be caused by a collision with another object, the mechanical failure of tracks, such as broken rails, or the mechanical failure of the wheels.
Also:
In psychiatry, derailment is a thought disorder characterized by discourse consisting of a sequence of unrelated or only remotely related ideas. The frame of reference often changes from one sentence to the next.
In a mild manifestation, [this] is characterized by slippage of ideas further and further from the point of a discussion. Some of the synonyms given… are used by some authors to refer just to a loss of goal: discourse that sets off on a particular idea, wanders off and never returns to it. In some studies on creativity…it describes a similarly loose association of ideas, [but] it is not considered a mental disorder, or the hallmark of one; it is sometimes used as a synonym for lateral thinking.
~~~
From Thursday, 18 February 2015:
I was feeling good. I really was.
I was feeling as if a fog had lifted. I was feeling that I was being seen and understood. Things were good.
And then my friend, Phil called, wanting to talk. Phil said that he had been concerned about me and he simply wanted to ‘check in’ with me.
We ended up getting in an argument over the historical accuracy of the show Vikings.
Now I must wonder if Phil might not be as aware of my spirituality as I had assumed. While I’d thought that Phil was somewhat aware of the fact that I am a polytheist and a Pagan, it occurs to me that he might not given it much thought beyond that. He was flippant and downright condescending towards the spiritual beliefs and culture of pre-Christian societies, including the Vikings.
(I cannot seem to think of the concept that I’m trying to convey here – the belief that one’s ancestors weren’t as intelligent or spiritually developed as those living in the modern age. Edited to add: Urdummheit. The concept is called Urdummheit.)
He made several comments about the Eddas as ‘being a stupid bunch of poems,’ and that ‘the Havamal is a poem that has no basis in reality’ when I pointed out the cultural relevance of both in giving insight to Viking society. When I brought up Tacitus- since he was trying to make his point that his belief is that there is no historical record of Vikings being anything beyond what he was saying that they were – that is precisely where our conversation truly degenerated into something that was more contradiction than intellectual discussion.
We were talking about history, and the next thing you know, we were getting defensive with each other about the legitimacy of each other’s opinions.
And it disturbs me when that happens. Initially, I’d felt the need to defend my point, but then I realized that I’d lost all patience to do so.
I haven’t any patience to educate you on my opinions today.
~~~
In an attempt to cheer myself up and focus on things more positive, I thought about my upcoming flight to Atlanta to visit another friend over the weekend of March 6th-8th.
Earlier in the day, my friend had texted me concerning my plans.
I allowed myself to feel good when I read about how excited and pleased she was for the opportunity to see me, as we hadn’t seen each other in several years.
When I realized that I had missed some of her recent responses, due to my being on the phone with Phil, I returned her call.
And she didn’t answer.
I had to remind myself that it was OK. I had to remind myself that I was just feeling defensive and put off energetically by my phone call with Phil.
~~~
He asks me what is wrong. I can’t even articulate it.
~~~
A friend posted something today – and I responded to it, but I probably should not have.
It dealt with something that I could relate to that Loki had said, about joy being one of the only things that impresses Him; the sense of presence, the joy of being in the moment is all He’d ever seek. How He seeks energy, energetic presence that is pure, unadulterated by shame or guilt or guile.
This reminds me of the words that He has often said to me:
Just feel. Just be.
Do you know what you are?
You are light. You are energy. You are electricity. You are fire in a bottle, contained.
Shine on.
But, as is a human habit, I get hung up in negativity, in conceits, in an inability to see the opportunity, to allow myself the experience of the raw joy of being.
We squander it, I suppose, spending all of our time in making comparisons and in competition with each other rather than feeling compersion, or allowing ourselves connection.
Maybe that is the lesson.
If I am ever going to love him
I should just love him
and stop thinking of how I could do it better
or more profoundly
or whatever –
and just love him
Just letting the light of what I am –just letting that love flow out of me.
Just be. Just love.
It sounds woo-hippy-crazy, I know.
But I don’t care.
It’s difficult – but probably not nearly as difficult as I am making it out to be.
Let go of fear and open to love.
❤
“The joke is even the surrendering is not in your control. Why? Because so long as there is an individual who says ‘I surrender’ there is a surrenderer, an individual ego… What I’m saying is that even the surrendering is not in [your] hands.” – Ramesh Balsekar
Happy Valentines’ Day.
~~~
While I’d actually intended on posting another piece that I’d found a few weeks ago (that I’d been saving to post here today), here is a lovely poem by Mary Oliver that I woke up to find on my RSS feed this morning:
THE FOURTH SIGN OF THE ZODIAC (PART 3)
I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.
So why not get started immediately.
I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.
And to write music or poems about.
Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.
You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime.
— from Blue Horses, collected poems
bloodteethandflame 