Visitation

Reeling from a recent decision for lover and I to part ways for awhile, at least romantically, I was curled up in bed, watching a movie on my laptop, feeling lonely and bereft. At night, in the dark, alone with oneself, these emotions come welling up from our darkest fears and threaten to overwhelm us. Dark night of the soul. In my despair, I reached out, energetically, to my man, seeking his comfort out there in the spiritual plane, something for my crying soul to hold on to.

And I found it. As soon as I had the thought to find his energy, I felt him there with me, as if he was in the room. I asked him "I that really you?" And he said "Yes". The timbre of the voice was his, the soft way he draws out the syllable, the deep tone of the 'e', the slight uplift at the end of the word. And I could see the way his eyes crinkle up when saying it, the depth and spark of his eyes.

I felt him as if he were lying behind me in my bed. I talked to him for awhile, and eventually he started stroking my hair, his hand heavy and warm on my forehead the way he used to do when I was upset. I felt his other arm around my chest, and with his hand on my head, I felt totally held. I started to feel sleepy and warm. As I drifted, every so often I would have an anxious or worried thought, or want to ask his reassurance that everything was going to be alright. But when I did, he said "Shhhhh. Don't think, just feel. Do you feel my love for you?" And I did, so I stopped talking, stopped worrying. Love was enough, no matter what else was there.

Eventually, I fell asleep, and slept well and deeply for the first time in a week. When I awoke, I still felt the weigh of his hand on my forehead.

I wonder if he was feeling my presence, too, in his sleep or wherever he was? If I was comforting him as well. Or if I made it all up. But the lesson remains: "Shhhhh. Don't think, just feel."

From my journal 9/19/09 (Grass Valley, CA):

Sitting in a shallow, warm bowl of rock after forcing myself to swim in the deep green swimming hole accompanied by two young trout, I had a moment - am having a moment - where I do not wish anything in my life to be different than it is right now. The water is cool, the day not quite hot enough to balance out the chill of the water but it feels good to be warmed by this rock after swimming. Fed one of my pb & j sandwiches to the pack of ground squirrels who live in these rocks. Me, the squirrels, the trout, and one baby frog are the only life forms around on this pleasant day here on the edge of the river. J's friend L pondered about how often one experiences moments where everything seems to come together, and I noticed that, with all of my struggles, I experience moments like that quite often. I commented that I thought it more a matter of paying attention to the moments when they come, because they exist more often than perhaps we notice. This is one of those moments.

Why My Burning Man Boots are Still in a Box on the Floor of my Spare Bedroom

Ah, Burning Man. I haven’t written for awhile on here because I was expecting to be full of fluid, fiery wisdom from Burning Man. I expected something Big to happen there, something easily translated into words on the screen. And maybe something Big did happen, but it’s certainly not anything that’s come gurgling up whole from the headwaters of my creative muse, as most of my blog posts do.

As I’ve thought about it, I’ve realized that Burning Man is just like Real Life, only more so. There’s something about the intensity of the preparation, the drive, the environment, and the community that brings out all the stuff that’s already inside. I felt totally at home some moments, and totally alien in other moments. Full of joy, and full of fear and insecurity. Totally whole and happy, and totally fragmented and floating someplace where I had no place to land. Like I had found my community and like I will never, ever find a place where I belong. Totally in love, and totally despairing that I will ever find Love. Too hot and cold, too high and too sober, never quite clean, yet also, strangely, while tears streamed down my cheeks at the Temple, cleansed by the pure fire of human experience in all of its beauty – the joyful and the tragic.

What a trip.

I suppose the most intense experience was in wandering through the Temple, a place where human emotion runs raw. Just entering the intricate lotus made out of plywood, the energy shifted. It was like entering a post-apocalyptic cathedral; people sat, lay, knelt, wandered, amongst the notes, photos, personal items, altars, and art pieces that commemorated some part of someone’s soul, some pain or moment of wisdom or grief, some attempt to let go or to understand, some parting or coming together. It was like the sum total of all human experience was concentrated in that one structure, and just entering it, my throat tightened and I had to hold back the tears. As I wandered back into the dust, I felt awe at the strength of all the people who had left parts of themselves there. And as my companion sobbed, remembering one soul he had to leave behind, I held him and marveled that something that blossomed out of the desert and out of the creative minds of this motley crew could be so powerful, hold so much in its embrace.

As the Temple burned, lines of dust devils left it like the ghosts of marching soldiers, some large and stately, some small and mischievous, and I couldn’t help but think of them as spirits who were being released back into the deep space of the Infinite, leaving their fingerprints behind on those of us whose lives they touched.

When the Man burned, people were raucous and shouting; when the Temple burned, the silence almost had a sound of its own.

I guess I was expecting to escape from myself for a week at Burning Man, but what I found there was Myself, more intense and less escapable than ever. I’ve come back knowing myself better, with a better understanding of what it takes to be in relationship to others, and with a deeper appreciation for the ocean of human experience in all of its aspects. Coming up against Myself, at times barely holding on to it, I’ve found that I can now better ride the waves of emotion and experience, and that it’s slightly easier these days to stay centered in my essential Self, the core that is always there, always balanced, always serene, and always watching the shenanigans of life from a distance.

The box of dust-covered playa boots still sits in the corner of my spare bedroom, reminding me of all the places I walked in them, both physical and metaphysical. I danced in those boots, I cried in them, I walked far out into the desert and stared at the ancient mountains, and I shoved them under the bed before crawling into the love nest that was the refuge of my partner and I; those boots have seen a lot. Either that, or I’m just too lazy to clean them and put them away.

Love Letter to Myself

My love – you are a wonderful person. Your compassion and kindness shines from your eyes, your laughter lights up the room. Your sweet gentle presence calms people, grounds them. You listen and people feel heard; people feel seen. Your silliness makes people laugh, lightens their load, even if just for a moment.

People respect you, your insight, your intelligence, your quickness. When you stand tall and proud, and your confidence shines from you like a light, you are unstoppable. You move forward with the things you need to do, exuding grace and calm under pressure; you realize that pain is part of life, and even though you sometimes lose your grip in the intensity of the pain, you always come together again, stand up, dust yourself off, take responsibility for your part in it, and move on.

You are stronger than you know, and more lovely than you know, too. Your soul is light and kindness and gentle strength, insight and wonder, You see the mystery in all things, even the pain and suffering. You stop in awe at the flight of a bird. You drink in the moonlight as if it was an offering from God, which it is. A flower is a magical being to you. A rainbow stops your breath. You see what others don’t, and you want to share it with others.

Your frustrations are based in wanting others to see the wonder and beauty that you see. Your frustrations in love are based on wanting, more than anything, to be able to give of the incredible amount of love you have inside you, and to feel that love from another. When you meet your partner, the light will grow a hundredfold, and the two of you will fill the world with sacred love.

You don’t just see people as a means to an end, but as sacred beings. That’s why they sometimes frighten you; because you don’t always believe that you are sacred, too. But if you can see your own light and stand proudly in it, you will be a goddess, capable of anything. Your humility stops you, because you feel intimidated by the grace you possess – you are, as all are, a sacred conduit to the universe. Your purpose is to see this, to witness it, to bring it out in yourself and others.

The sacred, divine light shining from your eyes is a beacon to others that says “come out and play, divine one. “ All it will take for you to spread your wings and fly, as your favorite song says, is for you to embrace your own divinity, to stand in the light of your own grace, and let the light shine from you like a star of peace and wonder, embracing all in the universe, uplifting all.

Your lover

You

Sometimes you get kicked in the teeth. Not in a bad way, but in a way that says "wake the hell up." That happened to me last night. Someone I love very much, struggling with his own frustrations and fears, took off the kid gloves and made me look at myself in the mirror. After I got over being defensive, hurt, and angry, I realized that, though he maybe could have been kinder about it, that he's right. I am holding on to the pain, I am choosing to be here, in this morass of confusion, hurt, disappointment, and anger. I have lost my way, become somebody I'm not proud of. I continue to cling to things that no longer serve me, and I'm deathly afraid to let them go. My ego is ascendant, trying to force him to be someone he's not because it would feed my ego, because I think it would make me happier. I've become a whiny, depressed, sad little child, hungry for something I can never have, and I continue to seek solace in the cave of my own fears.

In talking about each of our fears, I remembered going into a trance once, at an experiential workshop in Portland, and encountering, in a deep, dark, dripping, primordial and feminine forest, a laughing fox and a beautiful laughing naked woman who took me on a flying, laughing tour of the forest, and who told me I was perfect, that I'm in the right place, that there's nothing wrong with me. I had forgotten the feeling of being OK, deeply, profoundly, perfectly OK, the way the enlightened ones say we are.

Remembering it again made me sad - sad that I had let go of the memory, and sad that I can't seem to let go of other memories and other stories of who I am. Me the lonely, misunderstood one, the ugly one, the one nobody loves. My friend, who sees auras and energy, looked at me with tears in his eyes and told me that he can't understand how I can't see myself the way I am, can't see the kindness, compassion, beauty, and light that he sees. I felt like crying, too, wanting more than anything to see that.

He told me something that others have told me: that one day, I will drop the baggage, just open my hand and drop it, just like that, and that only then will I be free to embody my true self. As he said it, I felt a deep sense of fear, fear of letting that pain go. As if that pain is my only identity - what makes me who I am. Fear of having to discover a new way to be, one where the self-pity and sadness, so comfortable to me, are no longer valid paths. The one where my ego is not the most important thing in the world, where my longing for someone to make it all stop hurting, and my tendency to take out of rage and hurt on others, is simply no longer acceptable. The one where it's my responsibility and mine alone to be my joyous, kindhearted, compassionate giving self, and where I can no longer blame the world or anyone else for how I feel. That kind of responsibility is terrifying.

I don't know if I have the strength yet to let go. Even knowing all this, I feel the fear and the resistance. I make plans to hole up with vodka and movies, to numb myself yet again because I don't want to face the truth. I worry that I'm losing my friend, yet know that this worry is just my own grasping on to something I'm comfortable with, even if our relationship has been painful and confusing almost from the beginning.

For awhile now I've felt that I'm transforming into something, someone else. This kick in the teeth is part of that, I feel. Maybe, as my friend said, I'm not yet ready, but maybe I'm getting closer. Maybe I need more kicks in the teeth. Or maybe I can steel myself to face myself, finally, in a way I never have before. And to let all those old stories of pain go.