This Is Really THE END

It has been one year and five days since I opened this blog. And, yes, I have closed it twice already but this is honest to God the last time I am going to post a closing blog.

I am adding one more post because while my son and I continue to experience our growing edges, we have done exactly that…grow (our edges that is).

Two days ago, I got my yearly Christmas card from my son and in it, he wrote to me:

“Thank you for being willing to make such drastic changes in your life for me, I hope I’ve been successful in doing the same.”

In addition, he gifted me something from his heart instead of his (non-existent) wallet…a musical composition featuring his guitar playing all written and performed by him for yours truly.

It was quite the Christmas, and considering how I began this blog, the perfect way to really (and finally) say “Good-bye” to this chapter in our lives.

It Was Mine All Along

So here’s the story, the title of my new blog rushed at me like a perfectly formed wave at First Beach, so thinking, of course, that no one else would have thought of the name I had chosen, with great excitement and certainty, I announced it to all of you.

www.It’s In Our Hands.blogspot.com!

It was already taken.

I was a bit bummed because I did have my heart set on it, but I figured the universe had a different name in mind so I waited for it. I told myself that I needed to be patient (cause I am working on that!) and allow the perfect name come to me. I waited and everything I heard in my mind was either already taken or not exactly what I wanted to say.

After an excruciatingly long six days of excruciating waiting, I did as I often do. I went to the absolute extreme and decided that I couldn’t come up with a great name because I had nothing left to say. (Sound familiar??? When am I going to get over myself???) Yesterday I decided to accept it, and let the blog go.

This morning as I was waking up, my title flew into my head like Cupid’s arrow.

By Guess and By God.

That’s the title and focus of one of my posts from a few months ago.

And it was right there in front of my face the whole time.

I am in the process of setting up the blog and hope, in the next few days, to launch my new website:

www.byguessandbygod.blogspot.com

Hope to see you there.

And, yes, I quickly reserved the name, but didn’t really need to. I realized it was mine all along and patiently waiting...

where I could see it.

I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together

Just to have a laugh or sing a song. Seems we just get started and before you know it, comes the time we have to say, “So Long.” Engage eye contact with audience, tug left earlobe, roll credits…

It’s a wrap (thank you Carol Burnett).

I have been avoiding the impulse to answer the call, but, since my last post, there has been a gentle knocking at my door.

My son’s dad is pulling together his pieces, putting himself and his gifts out there for all to experience, regaining all the years eaten by the locusts, and, generally, evolving into the man he was born to be.

Our son had a very successful summer school experience. He was able to settle in, be active in the classroom and show his teacher and his classmates who he is evolving to be. He is in his second week of a three week remote mountaineering and sea kayaking experience with the Outward Bound program. It is very rigorous (including a night or two alone in the Cascades…yikes!). He went off knowing (although perhaps not fully understanding) that he was going to be putting himself to the test: physically, socially, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. And…he was ready.

I am in a very expansive and trusting place within myself. I know my destination, but I have no idea how it will unfold. I am beside myself with gratitude to be living this deeply connected to my Self.

When I began this blog on December 22, 2009, my vision was to reconcile and heal the seemingly irreconcilable within myself so I could help my son and by extension, others. It was a global vision to be sure, but my focus was “at home.” I knew that I could not venture out into the world with my Calling unless I felt confident in my ability to deal with myself and my little family.

I am ready to (ad)venture away from home.

My newly revised intention is this:

I have responded to the call of the Greater Field of Life and stepped into my unique and essential leadership role in midwifing the birth of Global Family into world consciousness. In every way, I model and teach the ferocity, the skills and the capacities required to expand and extend the giving and receiving of Love from individual points of personal focus to a fully illuminated spectrum of Universal Love inclusive of all in the Global Family.

This new intention leads me back to the gentle persistent knocking at my door. What happened when I opened the door was, to me, nothing short of shocking or my own personal miracle because let me tell you, Honey, LOVE was the LAST thing I expected to see when I answered it, but there LOVE (He/She) was (suitcase in hand).

So I welcomed LOVE in to join my family and I (my son, his dad, my brothers, my parents, and my Mastery Sisters) and my extended (blog-inspired) family: J.C., my Muse, my Metaphor (no surprise, they had been waiting for Her/Him), the Ancient Mariner, and all those crazy, wild 12th Century French people who nourished themselves by holding a bigger vision of God for their families, their community and the world by building Notre Dame Cathedral knowing they would never see it completed.

With my newly inclusive family supporting me, I am able to release this blog, this chapter in my life.

Thank you everyone who took the time to read and, I hope, enjoy and learn a little more about the universal Us. I also hope that this blog has been as nourishing for you personally as it has been for me.

You are now a part of my family.

I will be continuing in a new blog on a more expansive field very soon. The name of the blog will be: "It’s In Our Hands"

www.itsinourhands.blogspot.com

With deep, deep LOVE and gratitude...

It's time to say “ So Long.”

I Wanna Know What Love Is

Since I released Disappointment, my personal Albatross, into the sea, I have enjoyed sailing in my oceanic Self sans over-protection from the elements. More importantly, I realized that a light coating of SPF 70 is all I need to prepare myself to engage a new way of relating to my Self and to the world from this exposed place.

With that in mind, I notice a wee bit of excitement when I look through my internal scope and see nothing but empty calm. And when the seas do come up, it’s kinda fun to go dead ahead into the rocking of the sometimes sudden waves of conflict and eventually feel release from its wake instead of ending up capsized and swimming in the turbulence of the moment.

With my Costco-purchased sextant in one hand and my Captain’s log in the other, I have entered in the quadrants of my current longitude and latitude while drifting here in my personal oceanic expanse. I must admit that I have absolutely no idea what I will encounter here, or where (or if) I will find land.

And I am surprisingly okay with it.

I am happy to report that experiencing the unknown and navigating via my North Star is alive and well and living in my Parisian infused body. Now that, mates, is an evolutionary and revolutionary new way of being for Ms. General, Ms Gotta Be In Control, Ms. Gotta Have (for safety’s sake) Not Only A Plan A, But Plans B And C.

I have decided that the reason I find myself here is the quest for a new home, an undiscovered and generative terra firma conducive to sourcing the internal and external skills and capacities required to fulfill my calling.

Now that I have removed my Albatross, the excess ballast of my habitual emotions, energies, and feelings, and attended to the song lyrics that were rolling through me like a gentle tide, I can recognize and embrace the truth for me right now.

My previous idea of love is not going to work for me anymore…it’s too tied up in drama, disappointment, and the push-pull of getting individual needs met. What I am looking for is an undiscovered and generative relationship with Love, and like a true explorer, I am searching without any evidence in my life that the quality, purity, and universality of that Love actually exists.

But there is something deep inside telling me that despite the fact that I have no idea what Love is in this Brave New (As Yet Unknown, Undiscovered and Generative) World… it does exist, and I will find it.

Even without the assurance of my inner knowing , I am committed to circumventing any worldly doubts… because I really…really…

Wanna Know What Love Is.

What Color is Your Albatross?

Mine is colorless. My amazing albatross doesn’t need any color because what it does is absorb all the color and light around it and reflect it back out to the world. How cool is that??!!

You see, my albatross is a large, teardrop shaped, multi-faceted crystal pendant that has been hanging around my neck for most of my life. It is a super-duper magical prism because not only is it multi-faceted, it is also multi-functional.

First of all, it is quite the fashion forward statement: a lovely piece of jewelry. It satisfies my need for beauty. Honest to God, I wish I could take a picture of it for you and really show it off. It sparkles like the Hope Diamond as I let it hang betwixt and between my breastal display cases.

Its visibility feels like a matter of life and death.

Secondly, not only have I, a complete novice at crafting jewelry, designed it (by myself!), but I have continued to enhance it since that first teeny tiny tear refused to be shed and, therefore, lodged itself in my little girl chest just to the right of my heart. Every unshed tear after that has eagerly attached itself to the teeny magnificent facet of my first foray into withholding my feelings, resulting in what has become my uniquely crafted, large, teardrop shaped, multi-faceted crystal pendant. I don’t think I have ever taken it off: not for a shower, not for dinner with family and/or friends, and certainly never during marriage (especially while lovemaking).

Wearing it feels like a matter of life and death.

So, here’s the problem.

I have recently begun to have neck and shoulder pain, a result, as told to me by my doctor, of the weight of my large, teardrop shaped, multi-faceted crystal pendant around my neck. After all the years of wearing it and growing it, it is beginning to take its toll on my body.

You know me by now, and I confess to being just the teeniest bit out there, so I decided to sit down with my pendant and have a little talk. Maybe we could strike a deal with some of those pendant teardrops. Would they be up for reshaping themselves into a matching set of chandelier earrings and possibly a chunky bracelet? In that way, I can continue to wear a more manageable, teardrop shaped, multi-faceted crystal pendant (that I need so much), and have a set of earrings and a bracelet to match!

I attempted a generative and open discussion. It didn’t work.

As it turns out this pendant has its own agenda. This is what it told me. My large, teardrop shaped, multi-faceted crystal pendant has no intention of being “busted up” (its words not mine) into earrings and a bracelet. It needs its size to protect me. Yes, it is my own very personal talisman.

Not only that, but this protection is very specific. I already mentioned that my large, teardrop shaped, multi-faceted crystal pendant absorbs all the color and light that comes towards me and reflects it back. Well, I stand corrected. This pendant told me that what it does is “refract” it back.

Big difference.

Reflect: to mirror, imitate, replicate, echo

Refract: to alter the appearance of something by viewing or showing it through a different medium.

And not only does this pendant have its own agenda; it informed me of its name. It wants me to call it Disappointment (and yes, I was told to capitalize). My large, teardrop shaped, multi-faceted crystal pendant is actually the accumulated unshed tears of my past disappointments.

And now on top of everything else, Disappointment is disappointed in me for even bringing up the whole matching earrings and bracelet thing.

Okay, now I know what the Ancient Mariner felt like.

So many things clicked into place when he/she/it told me about him/her/itself. I don’t wear my disappointments on my sleeve; I wear my Disappointments right in front for all to witness and for all incoming interactions to be refracted through.

It’s not my large, teardrop shaped, multi-faceted crystal pendant. It’s my large, teardrop shaped, multi-faceted crystal lens through which I have been viewing the world.

WOW…no wonder all I see is Disappointment in myself and everyone else.

So I made a visit to my old buddy Samuel Taylor Coleridge to see how the Ancient Mariner handled the release of his Albatross. The Ancient Mariner adrift on the sea, alone, surrounded by 200 dead mates, as close to death as one can get, suddenly saw the beauty of the water snakes as they swam across the sea.

O happy living things! no tongue

Their beauty might declare:

A spring of love gushed from my heart,

And I blessed them unaware:

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,

And I blessed them unaware.

The self-same moment I could pray;

And from my neck so free

The Albatross fell off, and sank

Like lead into the sea.

This not-so-Ancient redheaded Mariner plans on making every attempt to be open to and grateful for life embraced and reflected through my very own unprotected Self. To being willing to let go of experiencing life through the once beautiful but now burdensome lens of my past disappointments. Like my fellow sailing buddy, the Mariner…

It feels like a matter of life and death.

Ninety-Nine And Forty-Four One Hundredths Percent Pure

I am a bar of Ivory Soap…99 and 44/100% pure.

This morning after settling into my newly accepted emptiness in meditation, I heard a voice say, “It’s not emptiness. It’s purity.” What? Wait a minute. We’re talking about me here. Pure? Me?...Yes. At this moment in my life, my nothingness, my absolute 100% nothingness, is a return to my soul on the day I was created.

I felt “dry” yesterday because I have (at least for the time being) transformed into roomy and airy, porous, receptive, and empty of what has been bloating me.

I was the “Blurter Truth Teller,” the “Emotional Sponge” in my family. In addition to carrying my own emotions, I learned to absorb the sadness, the unspoken bitterness, and the disappointment of my mother, and the fear, the rage, and the humiliation of my brothers. I absorbed every ounce of emotion that was energetically alive in my home in an effort to remove the threat of verbal assaults to myself and my mom and my brothers.

I learned early that I could “fight back” at the source. When my emotional sponge was full to overflowing, I could yell as loud as my father. I could be as verbally abusive as my father. I could take what was thrown at me, magnify it and deflect back its verbal ugliness.

My little girl body felt such force behind my counter-assault to his volcanic rage that, as I spewed back, my insides wrung out and twisted like a sponge. All the accumulated familial emotions in one little redheaded sponge pitted against the hot and all-consuming lava of Mr. Mt. Vesuvius Dad.

Talk about some kind of wild and crazy dysfunctional David and Goliath story. However, in this version, David never ever felt that she could win, but maybe she could protect for a few minutes.

On some level in those clash-of-the-titans moments, I thought my internal wringing out was ex-sponging me of the hurt, the disappointment, the sadness, the anger, the humiliation and the fear, but we all know it wasn’t. Once I was dry, the cycle began again. I filled up and waited for an opportunity to wring myself dry.

Please understand, I mean absolutely no blame nor do I feel victimized here. It is simply the way it was or, at least, the way it lodged in my mind, heart, and body. My point is that I have continued to chose to be an emotional sponge with all the bloating, the filling full to overflowing, the weighing down, and, eventually, the pulling under the surface.

That’s why I am so grateful for the vision I had yesterday. Sailing through the turbulent wake of the motor boat and feeling the experience of the conflict, but not letting it overturn me, or bloat me full of toxins like some cheap brand of soap that eventually weighs itself down and sinks to the bottom of the tub.

I have been experiencing something exciting and new. In the face of conflict, I have maintained enough purity to remain buoyant and stay afloat in my oceanic Self.

Who knew?

Me and a bar of Ivory Soap, 99 and 44/100% pure.

Patience Is A (New) Virtue

Something is gently transitioning in my mind and my body, but I have no idea what it is.

I tell myself to be patient.

What is difficult and different for me is that I feel empty. I am usually so fully jazzed up by emotion and ideas and annoyance and impatience. This is just weird.

I have no idea how to handle this new internal nothingness.

So, I tell myself to be patient.

Over the past ten (wow) days since I posted, I have had my share of wack-a-doodle ideas and clever titles pop into my head, but my physically manifested and insistent NEED to explain it to you and myself has left the building.

And yes, there have been conflicts and challenges since I last posted but they haven’t been sticking to me and churning me up into a human coastal eddy. I have experienced turbulence in the waves of my inner ocean, but they have quickly subsided like those of a motor boat crossing my path as I sail on, through the experience but not overturned by it, to my North Star guided destination.

Not sure I like it very much.

I miss my redheaded Irished-induced fire-y passion energized by making sure I am noticed in the room, or being on a mission to annihilate someone, or challenging and overpowering any Goliath brave (or uninformed) enough to get in my way.

I worry that I have nothing left to get excited about. I worry that I won’t feel my friendly neighborhood fire any more. I worry that I will never create another new thought, or fun title, or internally woven metaphor to describe the experience of being me. I worry that I was once a ripe, supple, sweet, abundant, and juicy fruit that has now withered on the tree.

I worry that I not only have nothing; I worry that I am nothing. I worry that everything up until now has been a big stinkin’ circus act replete with costumes, buffoonery, sleight of hand and pink cotton candy. I worry that this work I have been doing has stripped me of my colorful, multi-striped polyester clown costume, rainbow wig, and red nose only to reveal a colorless empty outline of a person.

So I remind myself to be patient.

Patience and I have not had the pleasure of each other’s company. I never made room for it. But I am committing to a more patient patience and allowing the winds of my passion to come from a new and undiscovered territory within my oceanic self.

I’m doing it the only way I know how…by guess and by God.

And by reminding myself to be patient.