expressions

We have all seen the doorway that has served as a place to record the growth of a child though out the years. There is something poignant and universal when we view the ledger of a person thriving. Some years the gaps between marks is very small and then… The spurts are times when the child changes height, configuration and more subtle are the rapid changes in abilities and skills.
The vision I have held in my mind for these last 28 months since my old life fell away, or exploded, or imploded or was surgically removed is a vision of a caterpillar being encapsulated. Within the shell, a dissolving was going on.

The person who was became a formless mush. The sense of purpose was gone, the passion for life, the focus on the future fell away. The form of formlessness was where I floated. One day I had a vision of a self with no centre.

The centre I had held for the last 16 years was held by my concern and love for my husband, my job, and then my art. All of these fell away. So I sat meditation each day holding my grief like my baby and had the vision of a big mush of an entity with no centre.

At times I was almost werewolf frustrated and just needed the bright moon to call out to. At others I was in deep acceptance that what was happening was a process and that one day I would reform, I would feel a calling. What I didn’t know was what I would be after I passed through the process.

In April, it began. I volunteered to care for babies and toddlers at the Women’s Place. Sitting with a warm baby on my lap, having two three year old girls climbing me and touching my bracelets, earrings, necklace and saying , “pretty,” was healing. These open, vibrant souls are so present that each time I finished the session of day care I felt like I had left an acupuncture treatment… for the heart. They offer love like there is no tomorrow.

I joined choir because the director Barbara Samuels said to me, “Lean into it baby. Lean into it.” When I walked into the room I saw radiant, amazing women wearing (hold on to your door handle Kelowna residents) color. Real for sure color. Not urban camoflage that is meant to blend everyone into the same beige-gray. Purples and Golds and Coral and Greens were pure and bold. I was delighted. And each choir practice I was puzzled, challenged, stretched and could feel myself grow.

The writing in the dark experience of forcing myself to spend hours every day working on my voice became a doorway. Accepted into the Naropa Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetry Summer School program spurred me on to go the full out choice. I had given up my M.F.A. in Bellingham in order to protect my then husband from the draft. The dream of completing it had stayed with me. So now I am in the process of winding my way through the labyrinth of entry into Naropa’s M.F.A. program in Boulder.
I have never been to Boulder. I know nothing about the program but it feels right.

The shamanic practices that I have undertaken have helped to heal much of the anxiety and fear based reactions I have carried in my life. Tomorrow I will visit with two African Shamans to deepen my practice.

So as I stand assessing my life, looking at the doorway at the markers I see that April was a growth spurt. All of the work, the intention to live consciously and authentically is starting to manifest a new life for me. I feel taller, stronger, more substantial.

And what I now understand is that the “hole” in the centre of my being is a blessing. It is where all of my strength comes from. It is the garden at the centre of my physical being. It is quiet, empty and filled with silence. I do not need to try to jam another man into that empty place. I do not need to try to move emotional furniture in and make it a crowded room. It is where the divine lives.

The relationship with my body is more loving. I have worked out most days and built muscle, strength and substance. My heart is what I call “more fluffy” because of the children, the choir, the singing, the shamanic practices.

There are times when the patterns of the last 18 years are a source of loss memory. There are times of discouragement and desire for a strong calling.

There are nights when I am deeply sad.

However, I have friends around me who are on a spiritual path and they whisper sweet everythings in my ear. Their presence helps me to walk to the doorway and look at how I have grown. I am about to take what feel like big risks in the world. But I see myself as a fully formed butterfly and I trust my wings and the wind.

I am about to fly.

Much of my life I have felt I was an outsider. While others might have had safe homes, mine was a war zone. I was kept home for three months out of a year I see from my grade four report card most likely from being bruised so badly I couldn’t be in public. When I did attend school the possibility of frustration leading me to tears was a haunting presence. The report cards exclaim to my parents, as if they are the school’s ally, that “Cherie will frequently burst into tears for no reason.”

The dyslexia which I only discovered after it appeared in both of my children, caused me to have difficulty learning to read. I would sit quietly and listen with interest when my father read G.H. Well’s Outline of History out loud to me for hours at a time. So the failure to read was obviously not a sign of lack of intellectual curiosity or a lack of depth of mind.

My teacher in Grade three kept me in at noon hour to work with me until I made a break through. Bless her persistence. It is when I first knew that one caring person could change your life. It is probably when I knew I wanted to be that teacher, that person for others’ lives.

However, the social outfall of being abused, emotionally weak (with a hyper sensitivity to others’ energies) and having learning disabilities lead to a deep sense of shame. I retreated into myself. Others would bully me, isolate me and my response was not to defend myself, to step into my power but rather to shrink even further.

What effect has this had on the landscape of my life? Having a quick, perceptive mind locked in a shame-filled personality is a formula for failure.

Although I scored in the 98% on the standardized National Education Exams for all grade 11′s and all grade 12′s in the United States, I had few close friends. I could not speak out freely in class unless I was suddenly overcome by my inner power. When people talked about oppression of national minorities, about denying power to others, with a mindless philosophy that would lead to pain for others my mouth would open. I would blurt out something that I didn’t even hear or register. It was like channeling. My teachers told me I was brilliant. Classmates would come to me to ask what was going to be on the test or just before an exam ask me for answers to something they could not decipher. But that was one of the few times they spoke to me.

I know now that most of the failure to be seen was mine. Having taught acting classes for 25 years I have seen how those who carry pain and low self esteem make it almost impossible for others to show affection and to include them.

Where am I now? Today when I saw that artists had created banners for a street in our town, it came back. The full hit in the gut pain of being outside, excluded, not validated, being invisible. After working as an artist almost daily for 18 years, my work is not on display.

Is it that my work isn’t considered important? I am not selling. The work continues to be shown in secondary venues. Even though I garnered awards in the European shows in Florence and Vienna, I lose money when I have booths at local fairs.

Because of my spiritual beliefs and because of the interior plastic surgery I have done on myself in the last two years I am able to sit with the deep grief I feel coming up. Again, my body tells me I am less than others. I am not included. I am somehow damaged and a lesser being.

These stories are old stories. They are the stories of a little girl who is dressed beautifully and sent off into the world. But under her starched puffed sleeve dress are bruises on her arms, finger prints in blue and green.

Under her bow on the back of her dress are marks and fractured bones.

So my job, my practice is to step back and watch the reaction in my body. My lesson at this time in my life is to be honest with myself.

I am neither an insider nor an outsider. I am an artist who is called to create by some higher urge. My visual art, my poetry, my plays, my voice rising in choir, my dancing and spreading my arms out to take the space are my soul’s work.

These people whose banners are flying have spent time building a network. They validate one another in this tribe of artists. Social equity results in more exposure of their creations.

It is the hours over coffee, the showing up at events, the building a following that pays off. Literally pays off. So this is another in the lessons that I am learning.

I also realize that I can never quite trust my interpretation of events. As within so without, my spiritual teacher reminds me. How much of my reality am I creating and how much of my reality am I misinterpreting? As Buddhist teachings say, “If you see Buddha, kill him.” So being able to drop the story and just know feeling excluded hurts. Feeling invalid and invisible hurts.

The work is to feel that in my body, sit with it as if it were a baby as Thich Nhat Hahn says. Let it cry. Then move on to make my life more satisfying. Grieve it, feel it then heal it.

The questions always comes back, “Who are you when you are authentic?”

I am still struggling. Perhaps, because of my family history my social development is not very far along. But today, this day I am working on the problem that life has given me. My heart is open to those around me who offer me friendship.

I am learning that if a friend needs me, to stop everything I am doing and just go be with that friend. I am learning that I no longer need to isolate myself. I will never show up at an event or in life simply to push my agenda or to garner financial gain for my art. It is against my nature.

But perhaps, I can begin to see that by being genuinely caring there are connections I can make to others. That I don’t need to hide any more.

And as for bullies. Yes. They exist in the cultural community as well. But now I am strong enough to either turn around and leave ( if the energy feels negative) or to speak out against the attempts at manipulation. I am no longer afraid to speak up. And I don’t need to zone out, to disconnect and allow the channeling voice to speak. I can speak from my heart in my work, in my friendships and in my life.

I might be growing up. Gratitude for my lessons.

One day, my banner will be waving for all to see. I know this.

I have not posted for six weeks. The sense of making each day count has been the driving motivation for me lately. After reading Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, I made a chart for my refrigerator. On the chart are those things which are most supportive of my well being, in other words the care of my body.

At the top of the list is drinking water. From all that I have read, getting enough water can offer immense support for the “plant.” Inflammation is a response which must be avoided. Inflammation damages the body, creates stress and can lead to a cancer response. Drinking enough water also keeps the body from signaling “hungry, hungry,” when in fact it is dehydrated. Toxins are also carried through with water. Honoponopono practice which is traditional Hawaiian spiritual practice has as its core drinking water. A blue bottle is placed in the sun (try that in the Okanagan winter). As the sun goes through the water, it is believed it activates it to heal. The thought that the practitioner is supposed to hold is that all past “scripts” are washing through the body. What happened to me when I was two or twenty or sixty is now flushed out. Now. That brings to you now. Without a story, a bag of past grievances slung over the shoulder. Just you, the ground, the breath and the flow of water washing through the body.
Sleep is the next item on my chart. Getting eight hours sleep can pull down the inflammation response very efficiently. When the body is rested, it feels strong and calm. The daily attacks: bills, broken appliances, family disasters, angry people are inevitable. But if the body feels strong and rested, a person is in a more capable state. Solutions are easier to discover. I also find that it is easier for me to not attach to the difficulty with an emotional state that strangely enough usually outlasts the problem. So often in the past I start to out run the tiger long after it has retreated to the dark forest again. The sound of my own hyperventilation and pounding anxiety would accompany me long after the threat had passed.
And friends are extremely important. In scientific experiments of people under stress, it was discovered that their telemeres shorted. These are the “shoelace” like tips of DNA strands. The longer they are, the longer your life span. Stress will shorter the telemeres whose job it is to repair cellular damage. So women under stress raising handi-capped children who formed into a support group had a slowing down of the telemere damage and in some cases actual repair to the repair kit.
My goal is to make contact with old friends or to meet new friends every day. As with all activities, it becomes easier the longer I do it. At first, going through the door after my long retreat was like breaking through one of those aluminum foil barriers on a jar… only it was over the door. One evening I went out just because I didn’t feel like going on.
These simple items top my list on my happiness project chart. Another part of the process, is to realize that it is a process. When I misstep or don’t have an X to put in the box, I realize that I am changing myself for the better. I celebrate that and treat myself with compassion because I am my friend as well. Right?

I have been staying with my daughter, Dominique, and her husband Troy since I was coughed up by the Greyhound Bus after a twenty hour ride on rough roads. The fact that somewhere along the journey my suitcase that I foolishly dropped my medications into and that was full to the gills with Christmas Presents had gone veering off in a separate direction from my bumpy trajectory could not lessen the experience of arriving.

Firstly, seeing my daughter was wonderful. Secondly, just being able to stop the alternating of the rough jostling with being kicked out into the yellow-green slime of light that coats all the surfaces in the small “cafes” lining the route was a cause for celebration. Had I been able to unbend my knees sufficiently to dance, I would have. However being in hedgehog-fetal position to try to fit onto the seat through the night precluded anything more than being calmly thankful that I had enough stamina left to disembark.

Lastly, I had the practice. My mind wanted to run to the first window which was victim. Oh poor me. No suitcase. Then came the second window which was blame.

“You stupid twit, why did you put your medications in the suitcase. You traveled all over Europe. Twice. And you knew enough not to separate yourself from clean underwear and medications.” But because I have been basting my brain with Buddhism, the last part of that alternative of bad vision was minimized. I managed to shut the curtains shortly after, “You stupid twit.”

Then came the use of the practice…. being patient. I asked to file a missing luggage form but was told by a very terse woman (who had previously hung up on my daughter) that they waited five days or more before filing a lost report.

Now my mind did its work. I saw that the woman was angry. I saw that her life wasn’t working. I saw her treat people without respect including hanging up on another caller as I watched and I wondered, “How’d you get that way?” Reading Wayne Dyer and How to Win Friend’s and Influence People taught me a few skills.

I was patient. I didn’t crowd the woman but I didn’t go away either.

I came back to the depot three times, phoned three times. Politely. I explained that my daughter would be living with a werewoman after my withdrawal from my bionic woman meds. My poor little waifs of grand daughters would be deprived of their Christmas presents.

And lastly I went for the heart or the jugular. I said I had no other clothing and needed a change of underwear after 21 straight hours on the bus. What human being could resist that plea?

During the recounting of my tale, it spilled out that I had purchased my ticket on line. The woman’s face shut down like a castle gate under attack.

“On line. We don’t want you to purchase tickets on line. We don’t get any commission for finding lost luggage for people who purchased a ticket on line.”

Poison words. I had poisoned my case and now had to begin reworking our relationship. She was mistress of that desk and I a mere suppliant. The very repetition of the phrase, “on line” was for my benefit because I was obviously an “idiot.”

Part way through the days of sweet persistence, she deigned to fill out a form while asking me questions. I described my luggage in laborious detail. When we were done, she handed me a slip of paper indicating that I now had permission to pick up my suitcase. And when the detailed, adjective rich depiction of my suitcase was complete the line for description on this power-of-pick up form simply stated,” suitcase.”

To understand the depth of mini-autocracy at work, I had talked to this woman daily. She is working at a depot with only two people. Both people had been included in the conversations I held with them. So as I took the paper which said that I could pick up my luggage should it ever arrive and present it to the only two people in this tiny, unadorned closet of a depot to make sure that it was official, I was silenced by the sheer force of convoluted logic. Perhaps the idea was to get rid of me by sending me away with a white scrap of hope.

She could, apparently rule her kingdom with an iron will.

So I called the Greyhound national office… It is in Texas. The woman who answered gave me the Canadian corporate headquarter’s phone number. And thus began my Christmas conversation with Emmanuel. I explained to this savior the details of my plight… now for the eighth time. It was good practice. I was becoming more succinct and gently hopeful while maintaining my dogged persistence with each retelling of the saga of the lost suitcase.

He said I should call the national office in Texas. I told him that I had. He said,” You should ask the depot to put a trace on it.”

I said, ” I asked the depot immediately.Yes. Yes I have tried for three days, six different times,” I informed him.

“Why don’t you go to another depot and fill out the form?” he asked.

I fell for a moment into a pool of confusion. Whaaaat?

“The nearest town with a depot is four hours away and I took the bus. I don’t have a car with me, ” I said starting to blank out from the sheer confusion of those I was dealing with.

“Well, I don’t really do that, the tracing. But I can ask for a trace if I file a complaint at the same time,” he offered.

And there it was. The rune in the full moon light. The switch to the sliding bookcase. An opportunity to educate the Houston, B.C. Greyhound Depot staff on the company policy. A chance to help those poor fools who thought they could call a business and ask a question without having someone slam down the phone. My intention was to stay out of anger and just keep the attitude that everybody was going to be alright. Even my dark blue almost black, 35 lb, cloth covered suitcase with a pull handle and wheels.

On the fourth day, Donna, who reigns supreme, allowed me to fill out a form. From then on everything changed. She actually looked at my face when we talked. She immediately faxed the request to the stations along the way where some, in her words, “idiot” could have miss-routed my luggage.

The next day after the fax went through to the six stops along the way, my luggage showed up. The woman was actually happy for me. Her face had softened. She said, “Now your grand daughters have their Christmas presents.” She let me hug her.

I will write a letter. But now it won’t be a letter of complaint. Communication is the problem all down the line. The mistresses of the desk needs to know that, yes, a trace can be filed immediately. The company needs to know that a review of procedures will help bring in more customers. And the driver needs to know not to leave Christmas parcels out in the parking lot where some “idiot” will back over them.

My body is now nicely humming along with all of my bionic woman meds, I have clean underwear, the Christmas presents are under the tree. I have learned so many things about travel, about loss of focus when packing, about compassion and not least of all about why I want to be rich enough to fly first class.

Merry Christmas everyone. Blessings out.

I have had my ups and downs in the last year. The ups are like an elevator overshooting the floor I want to be on and I either get out for only a short while or just stand waiting for the momentary euphoria to pass.

Reading and studying; meditating and praying; seeking counsel and shamanic practice has moved me a few floors higher up. It has given me a larger view as I look down over my life.
Recently while at an event, the woman who dated my ex-husband on our anniversary, went to coffee with him while we were still trying to get back together, went to dinner and movies with him approached me. I went into shock and lost the feeling connections with my legs. In my head I could hear the question, “What do you want from me?”
It was kind of a report card for me about where I am spiritually and as a person. I felt sick to my stomach, weak and sad but in the moment I understood that her issues involved her sense of self worth. She, wounded in some way, could date and call it not dating. She needed to show her self off in black lace and find solace in a man.
How different is she than the way I am? Not really much different. My self esteem issues around being loveable, of being someone’s wife were huge.
As I stood checking in on my body which is my practice, I felt fear, anger and actual nausea. If I had had any feeling in my legs I might have fled. So instead, I made eye contact. I thought about why she could possibly want to talk to me when I had had friends who had tried to carry on a conversation with her and been rebuffed. She had walked across a very crowded room to stand in front of me. Months ago I had wanted to warn her to protect herself against the known dangers of being in any relationship with this man: health issues, financial issues, mental health issues. But now, I have come so far that I realized that her journey is her journey. Unless she specifically asked me a question, there was nothing I could do.
I remained pleasant, made small talk and as soon as I could feel my legs again, I excused myself. My grief was enormous and I went home to crawl under the covers for two days. I cried for my loss of a dream. I cried for the betrayal of someone who would not only go out on our anniversary, but would come to me the next day to tell me. But it was like the returning fever sweat of Malaria. It came and it left.
So how did I conduct myself? What was my report card? I had one negative thought as I was talking to her. I thought, “I could give her some suggestions about that dry skin problem.” Mostly, I just saw how desperate being desperate for love makes anyone.
Today the frozen sun is out and I am beginning again. I have come a long way and I am proud of myself. I see where I want to be…. and how I want to be in the world. The elevator is on the way up.

I once had a friend who reads charts react to my straight forward statement that I was Leo but had ten houses Virgo. She responded, “The only thing worse would be to have Capricorn rising.”
“Why,” I asked.

Her response was that I would be serious, work oriented, have no patience for small talk and focused on the bottom line at all times. All I said was, “Yep.”
So knowing that play is anathema and can only be indulged in if it is in the name of some higher goal, makes me more comfortable with what is. I am not a social freak. I am simply ten houses Virgo with Capricorn rising.
The way in which we give ourselves permission, fascinates me. There is permission for delusional behavior. The ability to create excuses is profound and creative. When I put on weight because it is “winter” or “too hot” or “not the right time” to make healthier choices, I am a genius at establishing an inclination to live in the future.
The future is such an exciting and vibrant place to live. It is like my own little Disneyland. There will be castles, jewels, ball gowns, muscled arms, trees with sparkling gold pieces growing on them. My art will be in airports gigantic and impressive. The rich, fit and handsome man will swoop me up into his bosom to blossom. And he will not have old man/woman chest.
The difference I experience in my body, the overwhelming sensation of lightness of being that sweeps over me when I change my focus from now, now, now to tomorrow is magical. It is in its very nature a sign of my delusional capacities. I am my own genii. The opium pipe of possibilities can trance me out of action.
As I recline on the silken pillows of these current hours and exhale the shimmering visions of “what if”, I lose power. However, there is always a struggle within me.

My desire to be a “good girl” has ironically enough (Yes. Alanna I know what irony means) lead me into every sewer slosh in my life.

Speaking up, speaking out has only become a skill since I started doing some serious personality rebuilding. Recently, I reviewed my Myers-Briggs profile. Being an ENFJ, my inclination is to put others first. I want to be able to make others’ lives better. So I would select a fixer-upper mate and turn my life over to that person.
The result of not seeing the anxiety and short-circuited thinking in myself combined with my laser-like focus and intensity has meant that I have been running furiously in the circular race below tide line, trying to get dry as the ocean splashed over me… anyone read Alice in Wonderland?

So settling into what I am, the ten houses Virgo; the Capricorn rising; the ENFJ; the sensitive personality; the ebullient creativity and just moving forward without fighting the “what is” gives me more energy for the moment.
I have never been more authentic, transparent or curious as I move through life.

And one thing I know for sure, is that I don’t like to play unless there is a goal, a product, a statement I am making with that play.

But dance. Yes. I will always dance. Because it is good for my body. And it makes me smile. Okay you thought you got me there, right? No!!! Smiling is good for my immune system. So that is why I dance. I don’t bother to just play.
Now I can go mark, “Write in your blog,” with a check mark on my chart for today.

I asked myself that question this morning. The sense of a tiger in a packing box came over me again. Another day of gray, the feeble light mimic of sun stopping just inside the windows. The fact that the intentions in my life are moving forward so cold molasses slowly into action states, builds a closed circle of
despair.

Because of the loneliness at night, I have been unable to break the habit of watching old television shows at bedtime. Frequently, I fall asleep while watching and it is somewhere between 2 and 4 in the morning. So when I awaken the choice is to “do” the day with only five hours sleep or to shift back into my downy nest and sleep unbidden by any appointment with destiny until noon.

My day is punctuation by the sound of the clock ticking and by the appearance of Dick, the mail carrier. He is a round man who frequently wears his coat like a cape. The diamond earring glistens in his left ear and he chats about his wife and daughter at times. But he is dependable and committed to making his crisscross path from side to side on our street in a timely manner. He flys off again his cape glistening with raindrops bouyant behind him.

Getting a grip on the day always feels like a struggle; however, the years I have spent reading, listening to Hay House and watching You Tube videos inform me that it is not about the day, or how I choose to live it. The struggle is something I order from the limiting menu of perfection. No matter how “well” I have done in a particular yesterday, each new day begins with regrets: I didn’t floss twice, I missed the third glass of water, I didn’t write in my Gratitude Journal.

The habit of critical mind has become much more quiet about the performance judging of people. Instead of measuring them up to cut them down, I now hear the voice in my head say, “Isn’t it wonderful that I get to know this person.” There is so much I am learning about and from others in our shared stories. How many tragedies people have undergone in their lives… the childhood disease that left her deaf on one side, being sent to boarding school at seven, being betrayed by two husbands, multiple bouts with cancer, etc. From the outside, we assume we know another and an impulse is to be competitive with her or with him. Most people are valiant survivors of multiple woundings. The very fact that others around them are not aware of their strength is in and of itself a testimony to their resilency.

Competitiveness with the gifts and successes is my de-facto setting. “She got a book deal. What is wrong with me?”

I am a master of this type of dualistic, poverty of opportunity thinking. Then the really grotesque competitiveness comes out. We all laugh at comedy sketches of two old geezers comparing gun shot wounds in the battle of life. One has had a cold, the other six bouts of pneumonia. I understand that we, sometimes, celebrate how badly victimized that we were as a means of displaying our merit badges.

Nonetheless, we hold courage in our hearts each day as we set intention and carry out actions. For me this fragile edge is the gripping place. If within twenty minutes of awaking, I sit meditation for heading out into the day with compassion and love, I feel like I have my ship’s bow lined up to cut across the waves. I won’t go under no matter what happens.

The aching restlessness that inhabits me at this time is like a large, lurching, drooling dog. It wants to run, jump up, sniff different object-tasks, pick things up in its mouth. “Patience,” I tell myself. “Patience.” I hold the choke chain firmly in my hands.

I have debts to pay down, I have a task of turning this blog into a book. The late illness still leaves me coughing with a sore throat and ear aches. So my body is saying it isn’t ready for one of my manic sweeps of accomplishment. (Oh how my monkey mind loves these workaholic binges.)

My sprained knee did not magically heal with mind control. So I have started acupuncture. It says quite a bit about the condition of my chi when both knees, my shoulder blades and my hands began to ache like fresh injuries. My entire body became hot and sweat covered blanketed. When I came home, I crawled into bed for hours.

So looking at the circle of dysfunction: surgery after surgery; broken relationship; no sense of being needed in my work arena; weak financial condition; deep loneliness. Each item in the circle feeds into the next until I have established a closed system of victim hood and powerlessness.

Using the book The Happiness Project and making a chart, I have begun to work more on my body. Doing crunches and weights is starting to give me good definition. Going to the acupuncturist, I believe will help resolve the issues with my knees. But I know full well that much of that issue is a lack of flexibility and a lack of knowing where to go. I have just manifested in my body, that which I hold in my mind.

I am making new friends and I no longer try to hide anything about my life. I don’t offer up the bitter, hard lessons I have learned like over-dried fig turds on a plate. But if someone asks me, I will be very open about the events in my life. I refuse to carry the shame which was not my shame either from my parents or from my ex-husband.

Moving my life to a higher level, I now am saying my affirmations and intentions out loud. Yesterday, I wrote them on index cards and placed them around the house. They become the voice in the background much as successful people who have had parents who hypnotically repeated, “You can do it”.

So I am learning to parent myself, to act as my own cheer-leading team.

Strangely enough, what I have come to realize is that being filled with shame as a child, feeling like a lesser being really stopped me from loving. I would feel rushes of love or affection to those around me but I wouldn’t feel good enough, important enough to act on those urges. I would want to pick up George’s dropped book, help Jim with his homework, hold a sleeve up for easier access when Susie was putting on her jacket. But when we fell lesser or damaged, we become invisible.

And I think the worst of the situation is that we become so self absorbed that we can’t see that our heart’s urge is power. It helps to heal ourselves when we understand that others really seek affection. It is ultimately a selfish act to send love out.

Passivity is what I struggle with at this time. How much sitting meditation, journalling, waiting, making myself stronger physically is necessary? When will the universe part these heavy mists and give me some stars to navigate by? Am I missing the messages?

When I had acupuncture the bright note was my report card for Chi. Over the decades when I have gone to Chinese medicine doctors I have always been told that my masculine side was outrageously dominant and my feminine side almost wraith like. Yesterday, after 24 months of a life of quiet and contemplation, the male and female energies were almost equal. The workaholic pathways of action over accomplishment are re-patterned.

I am giving birth to a new self and sitting by the death-bed of those delusions which had me dancing mindlessly to their tune. But it is difficult, the patience, the reformation and internal struggle. I want my old toys to play with.

Currently, I am “using” entertainment to dull the pain of not knowing and it is eating up hours of my day.

Driving home instead of driving to Choices to get a big slab of carrot cake last night was a major victory. The sugar fix is on its way to being extinguished. I win some and I continue on with some delusional behaviors. But how exciting it is to watch the dynamics of learning how to be in a life.

Now. What would I do today if I weren’t afraid?

The recent civic election in Kelowna left me sickened. I have watched Sharon Shepherd grow as a person and maintain her political presence through the most difficult of circumstances. She is a woman in a town that is controlled by the old boys’ club. She is small in stature and has a voice which is not meant for theatrical exclamations. Yet whenever she has been met by challenges, she has chosen to stay true to her vision of a sustainable city. Her concern for the environment, for maintaining neighbourhoods, for giving people time to understand a new development proposal before just driving it through has been consistent and non-wavering.

During her campaign, she returned funds from the fire fighters because her stance has always been to be a free agent who does not have to “pay back” those who give her funds for her campaign. Her ethics and her stalwart refusal to cast aspersions on others have made this short woman cast a long shadow.

My belief is that when this town wakes up and realizes that the natural beauty, the environment and the social diversity issues are the most valuable assets the town holds, she will be seen as the large spirit that she is. She has left a legacy of humility, rigorously ethical behavior and consistent concern for the citizens who live in Kelowna.

All citizens have had her attention: the gay, the bohemian, the financially fragile, the young families, those who live in small houses in older neighbourhood. She has demonstrated her commitment to those attributes which city and urban studies programs say are the guarantees that a city will stay attractive. The rich, these studies tell us, are fickle. They will come and buy in until the environment goes. They will purchase a seasonal condo in the sky until there are no arts events to attend. The IT community can move anywhere to work. If there is no social diversity, bohemian culture, they will move on.

What we are seeing in so many cities in North America is a desertion of cities that do not provide an environment that will attract a lively, vivacious culture. If we have not learned that the 80′s and 90′s mentality leads to the decline of a city’s culture from observation, I guess we will have to learn it through reliving that trajectory.

I feel very discouraged by what I saw happen in this election. Do the young, the environmental warriors and the intellectuals want to stay here and fight for a collective vision or is the direction of the newly, elected council and mayor just over whelming?

One thing I know for sure, we get the kind of future we voted for.

Watching The Nature of Things special on Jungle Medicine which featured Gabor Mate’s journey was such a reminder of my own journey. One of the participants in the Shamanic healing circle was a woman alcoholic who had lost custody of her children. Her moment of clarity was when she touched the pain of being a four year old who was following her mother down the street. Her mother’s absence was a choice between staying home and protecting her child from being raped by a family member or going to a bar.

I noticed that the woman had a tattoo on her arm that read “rape”. Her desire to tell the world about her life was manifested in this tattoo. Her truth was blazed on her skin.

Gabor’s deep listening skill and his compassionate presence were evident even in this cold format of a television screen. The truth of Ayahuasca, that it heals the brain synapses for people who have been traumatized, is an important truth. However, health Canada has shut Gabor down by sending him a cease and desist letter. Anti-depressants have caused people to take their own lives. Ayahauasca has changed addicts and alcoholics into clean and sober people 60% of the time without further medication or follow up counseling. Never in the hundreds of years of use has one person died. But Health Canada will not let him continue.

One wonders if the pharmaceutical companies are behind this move. A single depressed person, or bi-polar person will expend thousands of dollars on medication over a life time. Will the use of ayahuasca by a medical special and two shaman’s who have spent a lifetime apprenticeship in the use of the jungle plant cause the companies to lose revenue? It is a certainty.

My art show comes down from the Streaming Cafe on Wednesday next. I have no further art shows or events lined up until March.

However, I am working in a fairly concentrated mannner on turning this blog site into a published book. I have edited the myriad spelling errors and faulty parallelisms into something more presentable.

The year 2008 is complete and I am about to move both forward in my reading and backward in my remembering through the year 2009.

Physics tells us that all times are simultaneous and the multiple scenarios for our own lives live in layers parallel to our own like pages in a book. We, however, can only perceive one linear plot line. The physics of choices are such that we can move that plot line into another field by taking differing actions. There is so much we cannot perceive from our very physically limited point of view. What we do see… a solid table, a solid rock is a myth. The particles are a field. Our personalities, our existence is a field of energy not a limited, constrained object.

When I think of that, it opens up for me more peace and more gentle confidence that change is not in a moment but a constant. Combined with my Buddhist practice of meditation, it helps me with my naturally depressant mind habits.

The last three days I have cycled down again. Christmas alone after sixteen years of marriage is desolate at times. Reaching for cookies, staying in bed under the covers and isolating myself from others is the “bottom” for me now.

My years at Elizabeth Fry; my spiritual practice; having a week with Gabor in intense therapy has made a huge difference. I no longer believe my mind. It is a tree full of black crows singing songs of despair.

My life has been an arduous and challenging path but the amazing lessons that have come to me are the result. To live without authenticity, to live trying to “be” something, to set out the door carrying my ego-monkey on my shoulder are just choices that I no longer make.

What I know is that we must set intention every day. We recreate ourselves constantly. Because we are not a “thing”, we are a field. And the lesson of life is to be a field of love. May we all make the choice to stay in love.

My show at The Streaming Cafe looks wonderful. Saturday night was a fantastic event. Eighteen artists hung their work in the Jeffrey Wong Show which was created in a house that will be demolished soon. The conversations I engaged in were not trivial. Intelligent people gathered in a space to discuss their practice of creativity and the opportunities which can be structured in the future. We shared ideas.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoL5bakAfO4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQMqg2RUGxA
When I got home, I chatted with a Chilean engineer who teaches at one the largest universities in South America. Falling to sleep that night, I thought about the new contacts I had made, the new ideas that were coming to mind, the new possibilities.

Just the day before I had a green fire which consists of a bed of epsom salts with alcohol poured onto it. Writing the difficulties, the anxieties, the old patterns, the last fragments of my past relationship on slips of paper was the next step. Lighting the paper, I repeated to myself that which I wished to release to the universe so that I can move forward full of peace and love.
I burned the last pictures that I had held on to from my past life and released the necessity to have those memories in my present life.

Tammie O’Reilly arranged for a group of people to see the movie Thrive. The take away line which I really enjoyed was that when a tape worm inhabits your body, it releases a chemical which causes the host to eat the foods that help the tape worm to grow. So when we have an urge to “feed the worm” by over-eating, distracting ourselves with entertainment, using alcohol, using drugs, starting with porn and moving on to sex addiction, consumer addiction, and work addiction, we are insuring that the worm grows.

The work I have been doing through meditation practice and living in silence is to focus on self. When I went to a social gathering lately, I was amazed at my ego. I was assessing others, judging them. I felt impatient when people around me hadn’t even heard of the Occupy Movement. I was cold and distant with the older man who sat next to me when there were empty chairs he could have chosen from. So I saw that my inferiority complex, my damaged self-esteem was causing me to play the inferior/superior game. My fear of men who seem to be making advances kicked in resulting in my being down right rude.

As I drove home, I was fully aware of how I could have been in the situation had I not been in ego. I would have accepted all those around for whom he or she was. I would have made more effort to ask questions, to focus on the surrounding individual’s lives and interests.
On one level, I behaved well. A little girl sitting across from me looked bored and a bit overwhelmed. I was able to engage her in conversation and give her affection. In addition, the secondary judging of myself was released. I saw what it was that I had done, released it and talked myself through the situation examining better, alternative behavior for the next time.

Gabor Mate talks about facing everything that happens to you in life with curiosity. Instead of naming things, attaching or fearing, one simply asks the question, “What was that?”
After reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin I put a chart on my refrigerator. So far my chart is motivating me. I have been doing over 100 crunches a day, 15 repetitions of four different series using ten pounds hand weights. After a little over a week, I am getting to the point where I am actually enjoying the process. I look forward to being firm and more muscled.

Continuing my pledge to myself to pay down my debt, I took all of my saving out of the bank and put it onto the line of credit I had to take out to pay off my ex-husband. Despite the slight feeling of fear that arose, I did it anyway. Gretchen says, “Act as if.” I still haven’t found a renter or a part time job. That will be the next part of the plan that I concentrate on in order to pull that debt down.

It has been over a week since I worked on my “blog into book” project. So far I have copied all of the text from 2008 to the present with all of its errors. For four hours tonight I worked on cleaning up the text from April and May 2008. The dyslexia is so evident. None of the images transferred but I intend to copy some over to brighten up the book.

It feels so good to be having my life opening up. Meeting new people, keeping my resolutions and measuring my small steps toward a larger life is very energizing. My focus is on staying in the present while creating a better future. I continue to read, listen to CD’s and seek wisdom. To move out into the world in compassion yet unafraid of being authentic, stay in curiosity. “I wonder what the hell that was about?”