Trying to Reason with the Hurricane Season*

I couldn't sleep this morning, because my brain was buzzing with things to say and urges to express. Yet, when I got up and put myself at the computer, a dam went up in my brain and I began only to check email and read blogs.

I'm avoiding myself again.

I'm in a time of transition. I have been for several years now. Usually, when I think of transition, I think of relatively short bursts of energy, pushing me forward, like a snake shedding its skin. However, this transition has been slower and more laborious. Like pregnancy, it creeps forward, seeming sometimes endless. And like pregnancy, one major transition is then followed by another, for after giving birth, it isn't' like Mom gets to go right back to her childless life... no, now a new phase of change and adaptation begins as she surrenders her life to the whims and needs of her spawn.

By the way, I am (for the record) NOT PREGNANT. I'm just using that as an example.

What I am is... confused. Heading down a path I've not yet labeled or recognized completely. I feel a little lost in this body, in this life. I still don't make money in anything related to animal work. I still don't have an answer on school (well, I sort of do. I'm on the wait/alternate list. I'm number 5 on this list, and that's good... but it's not a definite yes or no yet, and the limbo is making me nutz!)

NO... it is more than just school or work. It is my body. It is aging. Goddess Spirituality talks about the triad of Goddess: Maiden, Mother, Crone. For so long, I was an embodiment of Maiden energy. Sometimes Dark Maiden, with over-indulgences and self-destructive behaviors, but always there was a youthfulness to my step. Although my body was that of a mature woman, my spirit felt young, and beautiful.

Growing up, I was not the standard beauty. It long plagued me that I was awkward and brunette and more curvy than statuesque. So I worked like a bastard to make up for it, with a ton of personality and an overt sensuality/sexuality. As I grew up, and did more inner work, I began to actually look in the mirror and say, "That girl there, she's .... well she's attractive, and that's not bad." I felt that I was beginning to accept myself. More so, I was very nearly able to love myself, how I looked.

But then things began to change. Was it all the emotional butchering of 2005? Was it the physical traumas caused by the IUD in 2006? Was it all the health problems and chronic pain I've had lately? Was it settling into a real long term relationship, sharing my space, my every mood and bodily function with another human being? Dealing with intimacy in a way I'd never known before and finding that I wasn't as good at it as I'd hoped? Or was it the Chinese water torture of year after year of office politics and useless corporate posturing that just sucked the joy out of me? I don't know what the tipping point was, but the last 2 - 3 years have aged me. I look into the mirror and the Maiden is gone. My eyes just don't sparkle. I notice more wrinkles. I can pinch way more than an inch, pretty much everywhere.

Somewhere inside, there is a very startled little girl looking out my eyes and saying to my reflection, "What happened to you? You Got OLD!" And in this town, Old = Unattractive. Old = Invisible. Old = Done. And I don't want to be done... I'm 36 years old. I refuse to be done.

The 1/4 sleeve tattoo on my right arm is a reminder to me that I am not finished with my journey. Clearly, the head shaving is also an attempt to redefine, reconfigure.... reimagine what "grown up" looks like. Like adolescence, I find myself trying to compensate for not being "pretty". Like a youthful rebellion, I am acting out, refusing to conform (because deep down inside, I know that if I tried to conform, I still wouldn't fit. I still wouldn't be "good enough" for the standard.)

To go back to my earlier analogy, I believe that I have completed the birthing portion of this transformation. But I'm still struggling with the surrender concept: the idea that I must willing let go of the rope to which I cling, that previous image of self, and give myself completely to a fresh, reimagined fledgling spawn of the woman I am to become.

Dude... it has to be said. Sometimes this growing-up shit sucks eggs!

* I know this post has nothing to do with hurricanes. The Jimmy Buffett quote is just my way of saying that sometimes we try to make sense of things that are beyond our control. We wish to understand cosmic nature and all her destructive forces, and sometimes, that just doesn't do a damn bit of good. What is, just IS. Grab your beer, hold on to your trailer, and try to enjoy the ride.

Revelations at 15,000 feet

Tag had a business trip this week (it is his busy season). However, time and location being in line with the stars, I was able to go along for a small vacation. Our jaunt took us up to Seattle, a city I had longed to visit. Raised in Florida, but living in a desert, I find myself chronically desiring a good rain. Seattle seems a likely candidate for providing such pleasures.

However, I find that the trip allotted me so much more than just precipitation. The flights themselves were fairly uneventful, often hovering over or barrelling through fluffy worlds of grey and white. Below me the land stretched out, a luscious green, rising and falling in large crinkly waves; emerald velvet discarded by some frivolous seamstress. Deep pools of black decorated the fabric of the landscape. Tract housing, with its circular patterns and identical roofs, reminded me of ringworm signs in flesh, and the irony of that was not lost on me. Urban sprawl is a parasite, leaching its way through virgin wildlife. Forehead pressed to the tiny window, I was simultaneously awed, inspired, saddened and disgusted. The more I study and work with conservation and rescue, the more I rage at the majority of American culture, with its need for instant gratification and its "Me First" attitude. And yet there I was, riding on a plane, for a recreational trip to another city, for no other reason than "Oooh, that would be cool."

Tag says that I worry too much. He's not the first to say something along those lines to me. But I can't stop my mind from spinning into a frenzy. I can't stop it long enough to sit still these days. My actual mental health scares me sometimes, as I feel that my long time depression is slowly transforming into something more bi-polar. I don't want to be sick, but the signs seem so inevitably obvious. Yet I don't want it to be true. I don't want to be on medication, not now... and certainly not forever.

I've read on various blogs the argument that if I had diabetes, I wouldn't hesitate to take insulin. Or if I had cancer, I wouldn't hesitate to treat it with radiation or chemo. But the simple fact is that I wouldn't want to. I would resist traditional therapies and would like to pursue other methods of healing. I don't care what the disease, I don't want to be on medication for the rest of my life. However, I fear that I am inherently lazy, and would not do all that needs to be done to treat the illness holistically. It is overwhelming to look down the barrel of that gun and feel so disempowered.

So runs the gamut of emotions that I experienced over the last three days. Awe at beauty, but fury at its demise. Impassioned about living, but despondent over where life is headed. Lucky, but unlucky. I am urged to take life by its proverbial horns and change the world, but discouraged by the feeling of being perpetually behind the 8-ball. Like the tiny ice crystals that form on plane windows, there are moments of small, unparalleled beauty, but they melt before your feet touch down.

Thinking never stops in my brain. I wake from dreams still pondering the questions that were asked of me during their neuron-dancing frenzy. And yet still, I wake without answers. Hanging in mid-air, the ground below is magical and enticing to the touch. I just need to find a way to bring that essence down, pluck it out of the wind like a butterfly or stray balloon, and let the floating freedom transform me. Because if I don't figure out how to manifest that transformation soon, I fear that I will remain this neurotic pill-popping people hater. And that is just one step closer to becoming part of the problem.

There is so much that needs transformation and healing. But tonight, I am overwhelmed and jet lagged, lost in thought that handicaps my desire for action. It is not the most comfortable seat on the plane.

The Fringe of Danger

A friend of mine, Ms. Scarlett, just came to me, trembling and crying and on the edge of a meltdown.

It seems that last Friday, she was held up at gunpoint, at an ATM less than a mile from where we work. The shock is just starting to wear off, and her conversation with the detective, in regards to identifying suspects in a line up, and the possible impending trial, pushed her over that cliff of emotion. I held her while she cried, and then sent her home ill. She was in no space to manage calendars or answer phones or in any way pretend that the world was fine and normal.

When I relayed the story to Amandarin she remarked that this was the second mugging she'd heard of this week.

Additionally, I just sent flowers to one co-worker for her sister's passing while another colleague is waiting by a phone at home, hoping for some good news regarding her grandmother's recent heart problems.

Laughably smaller, my radiator blew up two week's ago, and I'm just finishing a round of poison oak that I contracted around Halloween (during our pet funeral services).

So my question is... Hey Universe, what the hell is going on!?? October was a month full of deaths (for myself and others), and now November seems to be badly wired, waiting to short out and start a fire.

Is it too much to ask that we gently glide into a warm and uneventful Thanksgiving? I can't speak for the rest of the world, but we Angelinos could use a break!

Taking my Lumps

“The more time I spend in my body, the more difficult it is to lie.”

That’s the first line of a hand written journal entry I started last week. I only got down that first line before being distracted, so it is all that exists of that entry. However, last night, as I lay awake with wicked insomnia, it occurred to me again.

I am in the middle of a shift. A shift of body and mind and soul. A shift that is taking frustratingly long. I had a healing sometime last year, because I’d been feeling that “my skin doesn’t fit” itch. The healer spoke of angels and spirit guides, and said that they wanted to let me know that I was preparing for a shift (it was nice to have this verified, without asking about it or bringing it up at all). However, they wanted to let me know that said shift would occur in 3 – 6 years.

Now I know it’s not polite, but I believe I responded with “What the f’k?”

Throughout the healing, he would talk of all the work I’d done and how I was molding into this new soul form and each time, he would begin to hint that perhaps the shift would occur sooner, and then he’d stop mid sentence and say “3 – 6 years”. Eventually, he stopped mid-sentence and laughed and said “NO… they appreciate all the work you’re doing, and you need to keep doing it, but they want to make it very clear…. It’s 3 – 6 years. Stop pushing!”

Ever had your hand slapped by a spirit guide? I had to laugh.

That was a year ago, and the ever-crawling snail's pace of this shift is driving me bonkers. I’m doing some work, and I think the dancing is a large part of that. Dancing has always been a joy for me, but now it’s like life’s blood. I can’t do well without it. My sanity is becoming directly tied to my ability to be in my body and work it as a form of expression. However, this new level of personal intimacy has brought with it greater awareness and less tolerance for bullshit.

The last two weeks, I’ve had a series of health issues. Nothing drastic. A migraine, on top of food poisoning, last night’s insomnia, and now this morning, my throat is swollen so much I’m having trouble swallowing. Throat issues often relate to “not speaking one’s truth”. And that’s certainly the case here, as I am dealing with a great deal of anger towards someone very dear to me. Someone who needed a friend once and I was there, but now… they prefer a fan club, and when I don’t wish to be relegated to just another of the adoring masses, I get shut out.

Insomnia makes sense, as my soul is restless indeed. The anger has also stirred up my ideas on love, friendship, relationships, what it means to be self-sufficient versus self-involved.

...

And here the writing flow just dams up. Grrr. I guess that is to say, I don’t have words of resolution for this issues I am facing. And thus my body is turning on itself and growling and consuming itself. As much as I would like to run, avoid, or pretend that these ugly questions are not staring me in the face, my newly ‘tuned in’ body will not let that deception pass.

I find it fascinating and challenging that I cannot lie to myself- that the shift of living in what is real and what is now is REALLY beginning to manifest physically. Additionally, I would be VERY excited about it… if it weren’t kicking my ass up and down the block.

Two weeks pass

...and I feel there is nothing to show for it. A flurry of activity, always moving in this seemingly endless swirl. Like a dust cloud, all stirred up, but only shuffling around the discarded bits of trash and worry.

Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. *sigh*

There's a lot of unresolved issues and angers floating around. Bubbling under the surface, not close enough to break like a wave, but certainly causing an undertow that is deceptively strong, pulling me under,when I thought I was having a lovely swim.

Meeting people's expectations. Having my own remain unmet (or sometimes worse, undefined). Even the articulation of a blog entry is just beyond my grasp.

And thus... you get left with a poem, cause that's all I have to give today.

Our love is like a dead squirrel

fallen too young from its nest

decaying beneath the tree that was once home.

There is no one to bury him

But as the seasons come,

the leaves will gently fall,

obscuring his corpse from sight.

Grandmother Oak, laying him to rest

Tree Dryads giving him a 21 acorn salute.

Through the turning of the wheel,

he will breakdown, feed bugs, disappear

under a foliage drop cloth.

Come spring, perhaps

some haphazard garderner

will rake clear the spot,

showing that he is gone.

Consumed by his Earthly Mother,

leaving a memory for no one,

and a fertile spot for something new to grow.

copyright yummyteece 02/19/06