A Lone Reflection

a·lone:  adj  Separated, apart or isolated from others

lone·ly  adj  Affected with, characterized by, or causing a depressing feeling of being alone; lonesome.

Alone is a state of being.  Lonely, a state of mind.   They should be easy to differentiate between.  They should be two separate things.  But sitting here, on the ending side of a 6+ year relationship, I cannot always find a way to separate the two.  

This time last year, I had completed the Spartan Sprint in Malibu, and felt empowered and invigorated.  This Saturday and Sunday, that race once again took place, but I could not participate.  I needed to work and make money, but to be very honest, it is more the fact that I cannot yet run it without him, and I'm certainly not in the place to run it with him (even though he participated both days and invited me along.)

I lost a lot of myself over these last years.  I feel like a shell of the vibrant girl I once was.  Reading some of this blog's archives, I hear her sweet laughter and confidence bubble forth through her tales, but she seems a stranger to me now.  Where once, I dreamed of being unattached, proud of my independence, now I sit in a dark quiet room with cats and a computer for company and I dread the empty silence.

I do have moments.  Crystalline insights and moments of connection where I feel that vibrancy start to cut through the clouds.  This morning, I was feeling exhilarated and alive as I drove to work, promising myself that the worst of the darkness was passing and that I was well on my way to survival.  But somewhere, in the dreary smallness of my day, amidst forced holiday retail cheer and a million commercials about kissing and "forever love", the bubble burst and the tears and confusion settled in like the storm outside.

I used to be ok being "alone", but I have not yet conquered the deamons that accompany "lonely."

So here I am, trying to connect with my age old touchstone, writing.  Perhaps this blog and I will once again be on regular conversational terms.  Perhaps I will return to my keyboard and let my fingers express the snippets of thoughts as they pass through my cluttered brain, purging feelings and fears, hopes and heartbreaks, leaving what is no longer needed here on the page.  Perhaps bit by bit, I'll uncover that courageous girl with the sparkling giggle and a glint of hope in her eyes.  And with her for company, how can anyone feel lonely?/ˈloʊn li/ Show Spelled

Honoring the Temple Gaurd (repost from 2005)

Was just telling a friend this story the other night, so I was quite pleased to come across this old blog post in which I captured it more clearly than I can now.


Honoring the Temple Gaurd
written May 27, 2005

Once in a while, someone will come along in your life that you just “KNOW”. I don’t know the way you all think, but for me, this is experience is what I call “Knowing your Tribe”. We recognize our own.

Let me take a moment to explain some portion of my cosmology. I do believe in Past lives. I believe that we, as our ‘highest selves’, chose/design some aspect of our current lives, and this includes some say so in what souls we will encounter. I do believe that certain ‘souls’ show up in repeated lifetimes. (and by soul, I don’t mean that I am the exact same entity who was in a previous life time. My theory- and it’s only my theory - is that, in a universe of finite matter and infinite time, the mathematical combinations of particles of matter and energy will begin to repeat, or come together in similar combinations. These combinations, carrying with them a “cellular memory”, would account for “past life remembrances” or “deja vue” or that feeling of “knowing someone before”. The flaw in my theory is that the “timeline” of my memories vs. the amount of matter/span of time, would have repeated or similar combinations happening in a regularity that is inconsistent with the mathematical probability of such.)

Wow… I really didn’t want to get into all that, because it’s not really the point of this post.

This post is about ONE person I’ve met in this lifetime. At a party… about 3 years ago.

Friend’s birthday party, out in Marina Del Rey ( a portion of town I almost never go into, because it’s far west and south of where I usually like to drive). I didn’t know most people at this party, but that hardly stops me from being a social person. The bottom floor of the gorgeous house had a dance floor with DJ, so naturally, I spent a great deal of time there.

Occassionally, I would come upstairs to the kitchen to refresh my drink. On one of those trips upstairs, I began to notice a tall, dark, handsome stranger. It’s not so much his looks that attracted me as the fact that he was constantly manipulating a pair of those metal charm orbs (I think they are Chinese in origin- you probably know of what I speak. Metal, about an inch in diameter, and people typically have both in one hand, moving them around each other in a meditative sort of way)

He was approximately 6’4”, my guess is 270lbs. Dark dark chocolate skin. Enormous eyes. Bald, except for the very top of his head, where two thin, long braids sprouted and draped down the back of his head. He oozed an aura of unquestioned authority and strength, but at the same time, seemed infinitely gentle. He didn’t seem to be talking to much of anyone, but watching everyone. When I looked at him, I could see him, in another outfit, standing against a brick wall of heated mustard brick (does anyone else have those moments, where you see someone, not as they are right now, but perhaps as you’ve seen them before? You blink, and the image is gone.) then suddenly we were back in the kitchen, and I smiled at him. I trusted him instantly. In my head, I dubbed him “the Temple Guard”

I went up to him, commenting on the ever moving orbs in his hand. We talked about meditation and focusing the mind. Always he referred to me as “My Princess”. I laughed and pointed out that I’m a Priestess, not Princess. And he smiled and said “Of Course, My Princess.”

Over the rest of the night, we would pass each other occasionally, and finally both ended up on the dance floor, where he again, stood guard (it’s the best way I have of expressing that). I felt protected, I felt watched over. He danced with me at one point, fully holding my weight with one arm, while never missing a beat with the Chinese orbs in the other hand. By the end of the night, I let go of my vision of myself as priestess, and for a moment, truly felt like the Princess he saw in me.

We left that night with no exchange of numbers ( I can’t remember his name, although I do think he told me at one point). He called me “My Princess” and I called him “My Guardian”, and we understood in those names there was an endless amount of love and respect.

I think of my Temple Guard often; remember his quiet strength, and wonder where he is, in the vastness of this Universe (and LA). Today, I’m wearing a headband that says “Princess”. To me, it’s more a joke than an attitude… but for one moment, in the mirror today, I saw the word, and thought of my Guardian, and wondered if somewhere, he was smiling.

Pondering Past Thoughts

So much has been happening in my life lately, and it caused me to reflect on a post I wrote back in 2005. So I went serching through a million locked down livejournal posts till I found it.

Heroines for the 21st Century
written March 8, 2005

Motivated by my own comment to mamaluna about the new breed of Amazons.... i sought some guidance/comfort in the wisdom of the tealeaves.

Reading No. 16
Every man's life is a fairy tale, written by God's fingers. ~ Hans Christian Anderson

You are the hero of your own life, not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived. It's not the agony of the quest, but the rapture of the revelation

My own hero..... my own true Amazon warrior (with 2 whole breasts). Can it be a call I answer happily? Rise to the occassion and embrace? I see all these wonderfully empowered women, each of us smart and savy. Able to look at what is going on around us and say "This works" or "This is unhealthy, and I don't want to play that game anymore." We are healing and moving forward at what soemtimes seems to be a lightening fast pace..... and while we have each other, we simply cannot find a "partner" that will move at that pace with us.

Perhpas it's not meant to be. I've theorized before that as the human race moves forward, we step further and further away from monogomy (a state i believe has been trained into us by society and is not genetically what we are designed to do). Perhaps as we leap and bound away from accepted roles of wife and mother, we continue evolution, returning to the warrior state.

You know, all i've read by the modern gurus & elevated minds, they talk about the higher self, being a being of love..... but they don't really focus on marriage, or even life long partnership. There is an element of Bhuddism that seems to be the enlightened but unattached state. Unattached to material things, unattached to wants and desires. And what is a life long relationship, if not built (on some level) by wants and desires.

which takes me back to my longing for a new Avalon, for convent life..... unattached to the material, embraced only by spirituality.... tending gardens for the goddess.... each silent day a testimony to balance and bliss.

can we be on the path, returning to the Temple Priestess.... sacred in body and mind. sexual, sensual, yet sacred? Unhampered by earthy drama. And if that's where this is headed, then I shouldn't be upset by it. I should embrace it. Dance with it. Rise above the daily bullshit and see that this is the path put in front of me, and walk it with dedication and joy.

Alone,
Unhampered
Unattached