January Fever

After the 20 hour bus trip back from Houston, I was fairly depleted. I often remark how the “let down” period is usually two days after the life marathon event. Les Mis with friends was a total sob fest for me.
The combination of being physically tired; bored at the routine existence; having no project of passion in my life; missing my daughter, her family and my grandchildren probably played into the prodigious sobbing.

Canadian Beige series Capri Bean Scene

Also, lately I have been feeling so much that I am at a fork in the road. I see others my age who are choosing to leave. The thought of the “legacy” that I haven’t completed plagues me. What if I were gone? What have I done to fulfill my dreams? What gifts have I left in the lives of others?

My life seems so small in comparison to my dreams. The choices that I have made to play safe, stay in the ridges of routine, keep myself disciplined have left me feeling disappointed in myself.

When I was young, I saw myself as an aerialist swinging high on a trapeze. The risk taking, the physical skill, the star power was in me. I could feel it. Power. Power in sequins.

So when did my life become so mundane?

Capri Bean Scene Art Show Kelowna in January

In the past three years, I have come off of work addiction; relationship addiction and have learned to sit calmly in my center. But the sound of the big top still plays in the background.

How can I be myself; hold to my dreams and be so cautious?
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One of the biggest difficulties for me is learning acceptance. I accept the fact that I always double think everything. I am cautious until I react as if someone has hit me by a dart of some kind of adrenal intensifying plant. Then I suddenly lurch out into action. Do I think I can do things differently?

For instance, after the Les Mis sobathon that began as the lights dimmed (I have seen the movies and stage plays), I got very ill.

Keeping my spiritual practice in focus, I began to support my body. I stayed home. I drank lots of fluids. I kept my mind calm with meditation and affirmations. Prayers for healing were offered up.

Underneath was the foley like music. Underneath the intention and spiritual practice was the voice, “See. You never start. There is always something you create that keeps you small. Now you can’t start because you are sick.”

As I watch myself, I think of how everything is spiritual practice. Can I just watch my self-denigrating voice and learn from it? What is it that holds me to a place that makes me so restless and yearning? How much of these impatient thoughts are because it is time to reform my life and how much of them are old habits of mind?

When it is time, it will be time. This is what I tell myself.

But I made a chart which covers my intentions. I can check it off in a daily manner. I can walk along the lines of intention. Disciplining myself even further, when in my heart I wish to run away to the circus, stand in the centre ring and astound myself and others with my courage and my fashion sense.

What comes in?

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.

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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.