We Are Stars

Oh night, the comfort you provide after a day that is too bright and moves too fast.

The sun is warm, but I will take your chill and softness over her intensity any day.

You soothe, lull and restore me.

You are dark so that your children may shine. You are the keeper of dreams, fantasy and forever.

I slow down to pay homage to you, to appreciate your quiet spaces and the beauty I find there.

Peace is mine, stars reflecting in my eyes as I gaze upward.
They are your love letter to the world that I never tire of reading.

Skin

This is a bit more bold than I normally write...so if you're squeamish, perhaps this is not the post you're looking for

I breathe fire when your well worked hands skillfully find their way to my core.

I take that heat, I take all of you, and I taste the ocean, salty and warm.

Intensity. I am water converting to steam.

Instead of your name I say please… I must ask before pleasure takes me.
Your answer lingers on your lip, forcing me to ride this wave. I must brave this storm for you, this sweet and sweeping wave of expectation.

I am released. I am this moment. I am bliss. You join me and we drift, clinging.
Legs intertwined, fingers laced, we are infinity bound in skin.

It's a Fire

"Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death."
Arthur Schopenhaue

I am on fire with feeling. I am experiencing this day with exposed nerve endings, each brush of kindness setting my heart and mind ablaze. I look outward and feel love for each person I encounter. Harsh words have broken my heart a thousand times and quickened the defenses of that muscle that makes my life so full. I am walking hand in hand with nostalgia, her cold, transparent fingers touching my minds eye with each familiar smell, sight, touch. She doesn't care if her reverie brings about tears or smiles, her only intent to show me the vast stores of her memory.

I am happy to remember, even those moment that brought me pain. I am living each moment of my life. My heart is open, and while it is not the young, feverish thing that it once was, it beats strong and true with a depth I would not have considered possible years ago. Those things I loved, those things I feared, those things I couldn't live without, those things that I never knew I needed have all nourished me.

My skin fits.

I have felt empty a time or two during my life...numb but tormented with the dull ache of dissatisfaction.
I have never been more terrified of anything than that sensation.

I have those doubtful moments when those things that I perceive as wrong in my life reek havoc on my spirit. My mind lays siege to my heart, accusing it of recklessness and weakness...and instead of raging, the very essence of who I am grows quiet and still and listens. It takes the wounded thoughts that plant those seeds of doubt and holds them gently and with compassion. It see's them for what they are, joys turned to fear, trust turned to doubt, and forgives them.
"Be kind to yourself..." This has become my mantra. I realized long ago that my greatest foe was the person who I felt I should be. Today, I love the person I am, flaws and all. I am working towards abandoning expectation and appreciating what is. On bad days, I cry. On good days, I laugh. When I'm angry, I sometimes say too much. I forgive myself. I love myself. I am a human being, bound up in so much skin and heat and I will be what I will be.

Breathe

I take a breathe and hold it, savoring the warmth burning ever so slightly in my chest as it waits to be released back from which it came. It rushes past half parted lips, and leaves the space it once filled empty.
Long, deep, inhale. Exhale. Again. Again. Again.
Slow and rhythmic. My mind slows to meet this new pace.
Focus on the breath. It is my anchor in a world that was moving much too fast only seconds before. The world. Heart ache. Exuberance. Obligation. Excitement. Responsibility. Curiosity. Pain. Worry.
With this breathe, allow them to ebb out.
That's it, push them gently away. Your mind does not need their company this night. Focus on the breath, let it lead you back to peace.

Meditation has truly changed my life. I know I'm always going on and on about it, but I can't say it enough. I'm far from being some guru on a mountain somewhere eating granola and wearing robes made from the finest hemp, but it gives my overactive mind a much needed time out at the end of the day.

Only Heart

Is there any feeling that makes the soul feel smaller than that of indifference?

I am learning to be my own best friend, to comfort myself at times when those people that I have allowed into this heart of mine have not tended it in the way that it needs.
Tread cautiously, would be caretaker, this heart is riddled with wounds that will always be sensitive. As I get older, I realize how much more difficult it is to find someone who refuses to allow cynicism and reluctance govern their actions in matters of the heart. Someone who see's the potential in loving fully even if the risk is magnified.
How easy it would be to simply say "No more, I am done with you love. I am done with your risk, your intensity, your battles, your fickleness."
That is not my path. I will rage onward, heart bruised but still beating on my sleeve.

Heavy Heart

Quiet.
How deafening it can be at times. Generally, I slip into like a warm blanket. I pull it close and allow it to soothe my heart and mind. Tonight, it's like a wool sweater that is way too tight. It smothers me. It leaves me feeling uncomfortable and out of sorts. I try and fill it with music and meditation but I can still feel its presence.
I have been withdrawing inward for reasons that don't exactly add up to me. I sat in my living room earlier today and cried without provocation. This thirtieth birthday thing is fucking with me. It isnt' about the age/mortality thing...age is of no consequence to me. I'm happy that I've fought, tooth and nail, for my place in this world for the last thirty years. My place. There is the real issue. I'm not entirely okay with where I am and what I'm doing at this point in my life. I've never been one for setting limitations on my possibilities or making ridiculous and needless expectations or goals...I believe that my life will take shape daily and needs room for growth. However, I am human, and I had hoped for a smidge more.
I realize now, that it's all of my own doing. I haven't MADE what I want come to fruition. While I have changed some of the things about my life, like my marriage or my perspective on relationships and others,I still feel anchored to my current life by certain obligations.
I want to travel. My blood is on fire with the need of it. Then, fear rears its ugly head. Where will the money come from? What about my family? Friends? My dogs? My bills? The anchor hasn't budged in years and my soul is shackled to it.

I am seeing someone new, that is fantastic. We are indeed kindred spirits...and I am terrified of this. I worry that I will fuck it up. I worry that he will see me, all of me, and run screaming in the opposite direction. I worry about caring too much and appearing foolish. There seems to be something terribly interesting about me...for a little while. Years pass, and I'm left behind like so many childish things, a little more used up and cynical. Things have moved so slowly, like a tiny insect caught in honey. I start to feel things, and I pull back and hide. I am so scarred....and while I have found a path to peace through meditation and confession (in the form of blogging), I still have days, like this one, where I need to be alone and just sort out the bullshit that accumulates in my psyche. Can someone really understand this need without feeling slighted?
So. I sit, in the quiet and let it force my thoughts to come to the forefront. I hope that I am enough....that I will continue to grow and heal. I hope that I will be forgiven for days like this and that someday that I will not feel that forgiveness is necessary.

The Raptors?

SO
Here I am on yet another "eve of destruction" (remember Y2K anyone?) with one more on the way according to John Cusack, and I can't help but chortle about the willingness of so many cults (and this is most assuredly a cult) to die (or be raptured whatever the heck that implies). I suppose I would be too if my religion bound me so tightly that I really wasn't living at all. Sacrifice is at the root of all religion and I can get on board with that. I've never received anything in this life that I haven't worked for, so of course I would carry that same mentality into working towards my afterlife. You can't make something from nothing (unless you are a Creationist, in which case we were all finger snapped into existence!) and in most instances in order to excel in one area, you have to give, or sacrifice another. We are finite in our ability to focus. Well. Except for Stephen Hawking, and really, what else is he going to do besides focus? (BAZINGA!)
What I take issue with is all the finger pointing and condemnation that always surfaces with every end of the world scenario. With todays rapture, brought to you by the "prophet", Harold Camping, he states that anyone can go to heaven regardless of religion only to go back and say "as long as you believe in the ENTIRE Bible and the teachings of Jesus Christ." Basically negating his previous statement and replacing it with if you aren't Christian, your ass is going to hell. Period. This loving God that I've heard so much about in the last 29 years, is going to have an exclusive VIP party and give the middle finger to the majority of the planet? I'm sorry, but that's a jerk move and the God that I believe in, the one that has it's (because this being transcends gender!) hand in every religion, whose primary purpose is to inspire love and hope is shaking it's head.
I have an excerpt from a favorite book of mine that I just had to share that I think blends nicely with where I'm going with this blog post.

"Religious rituals often develop out mystical experimentation. Some brave scout goes looking for a new path to the divine, has a transcendent experience and returns home a prophet. He or she brings back to the community tales of heaven and maps of how to get there. Then others repeat the words, the works, the prayers, or the acts of this prophet, in order to cross over, too. Sometimes this is successful--sometimes the same familiar combination of syllables and devotional practices repeated generation after generation might carry many people to the other side. Sometimes it doesn't work, though. Inevitably even the most original new ideas will eventually harden into dogma or stop working for everybody...Be very careful not to get too obessessed with the repetition of religious ritual just for it's own sake. ESPECIALLY in this divided world, where the Taliban and the Christain Coalition continue to fight out their international trademark war over who owns the rights to the word God, it may be useful to remember that it is not the tying of the cat to the pole that has ever brought anyone into transcendence, but only the constant desire of an individual seek to experience the eternal compassion of the divine. Flexibility is just as essential for divinity as it is for discipline.

Basically, it's about the search for God and the desire to be more like this being that should motivate us, not the honor of saying "I told you so" to any other religious sect. God doesn't want us to hate one another, or exclude each other from partaking of divine love. The end game for this being is love. It's not about how many feet you wash on Sunday, or how many wafers you eat, or how many snakes you handle, or how many visions you receive, it's about the the quest to be more like God. It's about kindness and love.

I think, on this the eve of my third imminent judgement, I will just continue to be myself who strives to be kind everyday, who loves with an open heart and mind that meditates and feels closer to God than I have at any other point in my life who has no agenda to try and spread any idea except one of love and tolerance.

" The Yogic scriptures say that God responds to the sacred prayers and efforts of human beings in anyway whatsoever that mortals choose to worship-just so long as those prayers are sincere. As one line from the Upanishads suggests " People follow different paths, straight or crooked, according to their temperament, depending on which they consider best, or most appropriate-and all reach You (God), just as rivers enter the ocean.