Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

There are days when there is nothing I want to say or post.

It is a period of being devoid of having anything new to say or an opinion that is not expressed elsewhere.

Perhaps it is uncertainty.  (And no, the “perhaps” was not a play on words).

Many people out here in Blogland have volumes to write in a seemingly endless and reliable fashion.

I am not one of those bloggers.

I find that silence is sometimes my best friend.  I have days where I absorb, I hear and think and feel what is going on around me, but I let it pass through without grabbing on to see what will settle and to not push myself into believing one thing or another.

A recent post here related to Widows in India, arguably only a very small percentage of a vast population, but the subject induced a long series of comments.  I understand why, the title alone:  Widows in India, did nothing to demonstrate that the subject was less than the entire class of Widows.  I could understand why someone who has lived and breathed in a Society, and has taken on obligations and watched others around take on obligations, would feel the need to enlighten us further.  I also understand the varied responses and different interpretations of others who commented on that particular piece.

It made me realize, not for the first time in my life, how much of this world is an illusion.  I say this because we all see the world with a different vision, different senses, different emotions, etc.  All of these “reactions” play out what our individual world amounts to, whether accurate or not, I am not convinced that there can ever be only one version, one vision.

So few are these moments, listening now, late at night, work tomorrow, Opera, a silence again within the spaces, rivers of words find themselves upon the page, three pages to be exact, untitled…

1.

Holding onto children

the fear they will grow

away from you

remote

is as if

stuffing

spun cotton

sugar

into your pocket

to save for another

cold day

2.

I want to hear your words

as pictures

translated

visual

then I can see

your thoughts in between

where your mind stutters

stammers

filling in the gaps

between our language

my hair

now falling

pieces on my arms

I mistake such occurrences for insects

only

age

3.

What happens

when your stories

of stories

have become more familiar

to me

than

to you?

Open Letter to God (original)

Hi God.

It’s me, again.

I know that you hear me everyday, chatting, begging, pleading, reasoning-asking for faith. You would think the mere fact I turn to you is faith itself, wouldn’t You?

But I know me, and You know me, and I am wrestling with my ego, unwilling to give it up, unwilling, because I think I will lose me, and my faith in You in the process.

Is that what they call, a paradox?

My “second” letter to You I started in a small, discounted, bound leather brown book, gold edged pages, a piece of fabric to mark where I left off. Small enough to go with me wherever I choose, anywhere but in my pocket. I will get back to that, that the book I choose to speak to You within could not fit within the smallest spaces. But not yet God, not yet.

I started my book, the first page, like this:

“To any who may enter here, turning the pages – remember – this is my journey – my perception of the world. Without collective consciousness, you may find yourself lost and without understanding as to my wording, my intent, my context and that will be as it is.

Namaste.”

But I continued God, I turned the page.

Another day I said to You:

I am unsure whether it is truly a grand awakening or as we stumble step by step, we find ourselves in a new place of thought.

I desire in these pages to embrace my voice, my connection with God, to truly hear the voice of God and live with that knowledge.

We know so little, barely skimming the surface of this Earth. What can I say as to how much I know of ultimate Truth or knowledge?

I long to amass, piece by piece, a web, a ladder, a matrix of higher learning. Why is there so much unknown? It came to me that with a shift in the energy fields, a rebalancing, we could accomplish anything. We could form energy barriers to prevent destruction of humanity along shorelines. Energy bumper fields to prevent cars, trains and planes form impact and consequent calamity.

On some level, answers are known. At the point it becomes realized, we will have most likely also have abolished the need for mechanical transport.

The hardest part is breaking out of the self created barriers. The nine to five of the imposed Society.

I no longer have any aspiration to remain a lawyer. None. I find it distasteful and I resent people’s refusal to move toward resolution.

I want to cry. Big, tearing gulping sobs. It is my own own inaction that keeps me stuck in place.

Hi God. Yup, me.

Here I sit. In a “County”, a seat of justice. I drove down the highway, a torrential rain pour. I was lucky I even brought myself to drive 50 mph and the other people, flying by, driving so fast, do they wonder what would happen if they hydroplaned?

Same day, later than who I was this morning. So much later that I must try three times to flip the pages of this journal, so thick the leaf edge, I don’t dare believe I bought this for myself to speak to God. I throw down my old glasses, they fall from my nose anyway, so stretched the arms have become. I don’t need them to read these pages.

So, anything new?

There is so very much I write in my head, between the moments – now and before – it never gets on the page. For now, I will put aside this journal, this memorable me, put it aside and read the book I bought on Gandi. I so passionately want to continue reading and I will slip inside the realm of semi-consciousness sleep state, when I dream in guarded dreams of tomorrow.

*If they ever obliterate tactile writing and reading, I will elect to ascend, immediately.

Siting outside today, another day without a blackberry. How much more peaceful. Sitting outside, a small diner, with tables set out on brick pavers. Small sign says: ‘sorry, we do not accept credit cards’.

Quickly I ask, how much for a cup of coffee and a toasted english muffin? $2.25, plus tax. I check. I have a five and some change, fair enough for a decent tip, I order.

I sit across from the courthouse, another case where settlement negotiations will change and the mood of the equity judge, King of all Kings, or as Alice said, the King of nothing, all at once, is less predictable than a storm at Sea.

I had a dream last night, I’m sure of not many things, but this I recall…a bird coming to land on my shoulder, momentarily frightened as I am not sure if it will claw me; then my fear becomes less and I began to worry of the bird relieving itself on my back. It begins to sing with me. I ran around to show people the miracle, but another bird, a small sparrow, flew into my mouth.

I’m tired now God. I will go, there is never a moment You don’t hear me anyway.

***Hey God, as an afterthought, I sound like I’m just stamping my feet.

***Upon further thought God, I need to say, although You know this already, I was in fact stamping my feet.  I complain about the justice system, about being a lawyer, and the simple fact is, I simply wish we lived in a world where we needed neither a justice system nor lawyers.  My acts of complaining about it, poking at different sectors of the system, does nothing to change the whole and only adds negativity.  So thanks for listening.

Thank you Mystery.

Reading Mystery’s post moments ago sent me on a trip through the cobwebbed sections of my memory, years and years ago, a hot day, marching in D.C.

The rally call, “I am woman, hear me roar”.

I never, ever signed a Declaration of Rights on behalf of myself testifying that I was 50% or 3/4 of a man.

I have lived and have grown with perceptions given to me, that I incorporated into SELF, to define myself. And somewhere along the way I forgot it was not ME, it was the ME given to me.

I had an incident today with a treasured loved one, who was upset I did not see things their way. Not only not see things, but I refused to give back the words they wanted to hear. I heard Romancing the Crone, her That’s Not Ok, but darn it, the words didn’t come out of my mouth. I couldn’t get out the three simple words.

Rather, I was forced to look at the trees and say, Amma, God, someone, give me the words, because I truly don’t want to hurt this person, but I can’t transgress myself, I can’t transgress the part of myself that is attuned to the whole, that to know that to indict another, the subject of the conversation by silence or words, would be to transgress myself.

In that moment, there was no difference.

If I gave in to the bad talk, the gossip, the judgment, just to make one who is insecure and vulnerable, feel allied, then I would hurt another, who also believes themselves to be one of my loved ones. (Alert! I know I am trashing the English language!).

So, was it a choice?

Hurt one over the other?

Or, find a way to balance the scales?

I wish I could say the perceived reality was full of that kind of equality of judgment.

It was not.

I had to storm, and stamp my feet, and advise the pleading person, I will not judge, I will not give you back the words you implore upon me to give you what you perceive as salvation, because then I participate in being less than the whole.

Oh, I struggled, because on some level, I worried, that the better thing to do would be to simply supply the words, after all, on some level, wasn’t I cutting off the person pleading from my so enlightened platform.

See?

It is the plight of women!

Do Men do this?

I am not a sophisticated listener of music, I only know what calls to me, and it is such a wide variety.

I sat this early evening outside, surrounded by trees which must be hundreds of years old, and I watched them watching me.

Did you know the movement of the trees, if watched with an open mind and without hurry, do not follow the patterns of proscribed wind?

The leaves move in different patterns, fluttering even within the stronger gusts, they are dancing and shaping themselves against the sky for us to read, if we could only but remember.

There are things calling me to go inside, the day to day events, chores, what you might call, existence, but I am enraptured by what I am witnessing, the leaves and the branches, the very limbs are acting against the wind and dancing.

The first symphony I ever have understood.

Suppose, you recognized that in the moments when you first awake from sleep, you have no name?

Suppose you recognized that in those few spare moments in the day there was no list, no bills, no anger, no complaints, no one outside of the limitless mind that you awoke to?

Limitless of course implying that you woke to some collective whole. As if whole could be separated from collective.

Switch………….

I recently read something…what a laugh as I am always reading…but I read something, I believe it was on The Spiritual Oracle…and I was questioning something, suprise, repeating number sightings I think, and someone replied that they had learned to accept what is and was…hmmm.

I think I get it now.

I have this odd occurrence daily, birds sweep and hover in front of my car, my windshield, it used to freak me out and I would duck…recently I shrug it off, knowing it means something, but also knowing I do not know the language of birds and I just better let it go. Now I am talking as if I have really mastered sitting back and nothing could be further from the truth, but I swear, I haven’t ducked so much in the last few days.

What helped me was thinking of children. Children don’t to our knowledge recognize the written language and it takes most years of integration to get them to conform and see it “our” way. Yet, a part of them recognizes the power of the written word, the mystical aspect, the magic, and will hold a book, a piece of paper, a dollar bill…and “pretend” to read. I recently saw this and thought: that is me on a spiritual search, I pretend to know the language.

Recently, I found myself with an extra hour in an unknown town. I took a ride and for some reason my head snapped in the direction of one of the hundreds of strip malls. I almost dismissed my head turning, because after all, there is rarely anything I want in the strip malls, save milk. This time though, I looked again, sure enough, there was a paperback bookstore, trading the old and still slightly new. What the heck, it was the Friday before Memorial Day, what better time to stock up on books, and cheaply at that…

I wandered in and was enchanted that I didn’t know my way around. They were kind enough to stick up index cards to show me the way. It took me quite a few minutes to even notice the index cards, let alone to understand they were showing me the way.

I wandered up and down and in circles, looking at my watch, afraid time had converted in that small shop and I would find myself late for a meeting that I actually had arrived early for just moments before.

I touched books, at first slightly recoiling, wondering who touched them before me, what they thought, why they picked the book to begin with….it didn’t occur to me how many people touch the books first that I claim as my own when I am in a store full of “new” books. For some reason, I felt it more strongly in this store, felt a true love of reading, felt so many desires, hopes, questions from other minds rushing out at me as I looked for my own answers.

I came across a tattered copy of “An Autobiography or The Story of my experiments with the truth”, by M. K. Gandhi. At first I didn’t want it, I felt the presence of the prior reader or readers too strongly and as I flipped through the pages and saw highlights on certain passages, I put the book down. I didn’t want someone else telling me what was most important inside of what could only be all important.

I went back to the shelf, it was only $6.99 and everything was further on sale by 50%. Ok, I had to get over myself and simply buy the book and forget about the past, the prior ownership.

Today, I sat waiting in Court for a case to be called. Surprise, I arrived early on a day full of the aftermath of another State’s tropical rains. I sat hunched on what should have been a church pew in an old forgotten historical building and I opened the book I had already begun to read and came upon a passage that made so much sense to me, more so because I am an attorney paid to speak:

“I must say that, beyond occasionally exposing me to laughter, my constitutional shyness has been no disadvantage whatever. In fact I can see that, on the contrary, it has been all to my advantage. My hesitancy in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has taught me the economy of words. I have naturally formed the habit of re[-]straining my thoughts. And I can now give myself the certificate that a thoughtless word hardly ever escapes my tongue or pen.  I do not recollect ever having had to regret anything in my speech or writing. I have thus been spared many a mishap and waste of time. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech, he will measure every word. We find so many people impatient to talk. There is no chairman of a meeting who is not pestered with notes for permission to speak. And whenever the permission is given the speaker generally exceeds the time-limit, asks for more time, and keeps on talking without permission. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buk[-]ler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discern[-]ment of truth.”

I often reflect upon the benefit of silence, not only for myself, allowing space for my soul to step in where my mind has mucked up the space, but also, the benefit to others, even though at first they may find my silence an affront.

Ironic, on the back of the book I have, there is a quote:

“I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills.” M. K. Gandhi

Yet, the practice of truth and non-violence is still regarded as new when we look at the world we continue to live in day by day.