Dancing out my Soul...

There is something so ancient inside of each of us, so ancient that we don't even recognize the very roots of its origin. It is our own special passion for something that has been solid and present as we slipped and fought our way out of our Momma's womb. Our cries as a newborn were instinctive and primitive, screaming out with the voice of our being, solidifying our distinct personalities and acknowledgement of self. Even the infants emerging in silence, had their own voice be it hidden from the world, in their own way claiming their passion in ways, though quiet, making a deep impression on whomever welcomed them into existence.

As we journeyed, and learned to quiet our souls, to protect ourselves and to start building the walls of societal requirement, many there are who stilled their voice of passion. Pushing it back inside so as to fit in and not make waves in their pool; losing that bit of themselves that gave them fullness and richness and courage and purpose. Maybe a greed for stability, for financial achievement, for power filled up their intrinsic nature that once proclaimed itself in birth...overwhelming their soul, and instead of filling their hearts, their greed turned on them and emptied it instead.

As for me, my cries turned inward, strengthening my muscles, filling my sinews with a music that I heard in my head and my heart all my days...each beat and note moving my fingers, my toes, my arms, my legs... obligating constant movement...tapping, rocking, swaying, jumping, flailing, and expressing my heart. Joyful, mournful, restful, or wild... my passion let loose in my dance.

It has been that way as long as I can remember. Annoying as hell to people around me... my feet tapping out a new dance under my desks at school, rocking faster, slower as I read my novels and fairy tales.. running in fields became a joyful dance culminating in sliding up trees and swinging from branches, toes pointed and hanging on with the minimal amount of pressure I could get away with trying to defeat gravity and earthbinding rules. Climbing rocks as lightly as I could...flying whenever possible. It took me on many adventures, following the lead of my passion... flying on a trapeze, jumping on trampolines, climbing mountains and swinging on ropes over miles of sparkling water just waiting for the perfect moment , the perfect beat, the perfect note to let go and poise my body to fly....

Everything becomes a dance to me. Making breakfast is a dance, and my day is spent perfecting movement and expression... it is the voice I was born with. I dance out my soul.

What is your passion? How does your soul express itself? You need to dig deep inside, way back to that root, that cry that you made as you entered this world.... it is there. Search for it, find it...embrace it.... Cry as you will....find your way to dance out your soul.....

The Many-faceted Heart is like a Diamond

I think it must be in our hearts, that our souls actually dwell... although I feel my soul seep out into my limbs from my heart and my throat and my mind when I dance, it must rest in our hearts to nurture and fill. Maybe when we sleep.

Our hearts are not so different from each other's...not the way they are shaped nor the mechanics of their beatings. But deep inside, there is the diamond. The soul, that is as individual as a snowflake or a sunbeam, or as multifaceted as a diamond when cherished and cut and shaped to bring about the most glorious and valuable shine of all.

Diamonds have a depth where the shadows lie smoldering, and a glittering and smooth surface where the eye can see clearly it's beauty. No one can ever say they know their own soul unless they have delved deep into their heart. My mind and my heart and my soul are all disconnected in parts, yet enclosed within the same world needing the same life force to work...yet, if my mind and my heart stop living, I like to believe my soul will go on as it is... freed from it's bondage of our physical muscle and blood... recycling into something of magic, while regaining a host.

Thus our souls, our diamonds, are as old as the ages. And they have gathered wisdom from the ancient days when all was new...Our souls, like the mountains and the seas, are ever changing and evolving, adding new landscape to their design and burning with the heat of life and love and all things shifting. How wonderful that our bodies get to be the keepers of those diamonds while we live!

Many people believe that our "life force" is our blood and bones and muscle and grit...but I think it is our soul that brings to us our personalities, and our destinies. I never believed, entirely, of "soul mates" and used to "pooh-pooh" the idea of reincarnation, but I am beginning to feel differently nowadays. It is the ultimate recycling plan...it is the way nature works. Nothing really stops "being" ...it just changes, morphs or something, into another form. Why wouldn't our soul just go on and eventually find itself in another generation and another new body to carry on....?

There is something in all of us that speaks and draws us to a passion that is strong and magnetic beyond understanding. I happen to feel like I am still living outside of my "home"... in a new age, and a new place that I don't quite belong. I have never been to Ireland, or to Scotland, or to anyplace where Gaelic and Pagan hearts gather in peace, and yet here I am.... irresistably drawn to all things Celtic. I come to the conclusion that my soul remembers. Like Harry Potter's snitch, my soul has a "flesh memory" that hangs onto it's origin and it's "home"...

This could all be fantasy. An over-active imagination, brought on by boredom wrought from a suburban lifestyle of a middle aged woman who finds herself planted in a vast superficial bubble of soccer moms and pedicures.

I look for adventures and grit whenever I can... it's tough to satisfy my diamond of a soul, craving wild hikes and hunts, and challenges of defeating anonymous and invisible status. I have been known to climb on my roof to read a book, or just gaze at a star, and to climb fences ten feet tall just to feel it when I fly over them...and to know that I am halfway done with this life already...I want my soul to take my body with it this time... I want to go home, with my soul where it belongs. Wherever that is.

Landing on My Feet...

Back in my mind, when our lives were in shades of black and white, I wallow.
The 50's, the 60's, and even the beginning of the 70's when the grays starting showing pastel and the sharper colors of the day redefined photography. My journey had just begun, my bare feet just beginning to form the tougher layers of experience to protect them from the rocks and stubbs of life. Falling down, then, meant learning to push myself away from my father's arms when he caught me halfway down...gradually increasing my strength as his arms allowed me more independence as I grew. I am nostalgic for those days. Yet, I could not wait for those days to be behind me when I lived them. My falls became crashes, with longer and more painful landings, especially once I moved too far for my father's arms to ever reach me again.

There is a lot to be said for "falling down." My folks always told each other that "Sheree always lands on her feet"...not sure what that meant for the longest time, but I know it gave them comfort as they watched me struggle and journey through time. I have begun to believe "attitude is everything." Every single time I fell, I did not rest until I found some way to get back up, brush myself off and continue on my way. Not that getting up was easy. Never was it easy. But it was fulfilling, and my soul always celebrated with joy to be upright and maybe a little soiled, but certainly stronger.

Attitude is everything. It can keep you down, or it can lift you up. It is our choice, and our choice alone. A spirit of rebellion thrown in doesn't hurt, either, when one is on the bottom side of a pile. I think of the stories of Holocaust survivors...the amazing stories of human spirit and strength, both quiet and booming. Down deep in their souls, they were choosing to "land on their feet"... surviving and thriving to tell their stories and the stories of those who didn't have the chance to face the sun again. At great cost, those survivors gained strength and wisdom and learned what it is to cherish the little things.

Attitude is everything. Landing on our feet does not keep us from falling in the first place. It takes such instinct, such experience, and a great deal of flexibility and preparation. As we get older, we learn to anticipate the pot holes, the slippery slopes, the very movements of the earth that once would have taken our feet right out from under us. It is a dance. This is The Dance of Life... our steps chosen with care, and our bodies prepared to balance and flow into the winds, using our world as support and shield all at once.

I share with you the Balance of the World. The good, the bad...the horrible and the sublime. It is a part of our humanity. It just is. With every bad, we see a good that counter balances our footing, and shifts our direction. Dance the journey, folks. Just dance.

With Wine as my Muse and Wicket as my Familiar....

I be. Sitting in a swirling mist, hands gracefully draped around the wine glass...melting in our hot tub, alone. But yet, not alone...bigger. The mist, magic and science, alive and lively, surrounding me, while seductively enticing old memories of more sensual days, younger days...pulling my thoughts into it while my old mellowing body gives up its muscle into the heat of the water. I be. Transforming memory into body, and body into memory. With eyes closed, seeing clearer than in the sunlight.

Transformation completed, I see infinite worlds swirling with the mist created by heat and water. Through the Glass, through the yellow sparkle of the fruity wine that plays on my tongue...so close to turning into vinegar, yet magically growing sweet in my mouth.

It seems it is the mist itself that is taking me, drawing me, and turning me into a person who used to be me, but stopping short of actually Me. How could it have been me, when I didn't exist fully without the years padding me ....I am more me now than I was then, and I know, I FEEL that there is more of Me to come...adding substance and volume to what is me right now. I can't wait. How exciting to know there is more to come.

The thought that winds itself in and about the mist is Magic. I always wanted to be a Witch. Not the old thing that rides on a broom with warts on her face and has shrunken her heart to contain her tiny imagination...but a real, true witch that knows the earth and feels the heat of it growing and spreading and enriching and fertilizing populations of souls yet to come.... I want to be that Celtic ancient pagan woman who embodies the whole of the world of femininity and love...who can look at a single person and KNOW. Just know. There is such a divide between that Witch and our society's "appropriate" Christianity....and I know in my heart it is one and the same. I want the magic... I want to discard the science. I want to discard the logic. I want to live in the mist. I want to leave behind the judgment and the hard lines. I don't see them. To me, they all blend. Like mist into air. Like mist into water. Blend. Science and Magic. Where one melts into another...no lines, no borders.

It is hard to be in both worlds. If anything will drive me crazy it is that I try hard to make lines. It is not within me. I don't have borders. I don't have lines. I look at each person and see a life, a mist, that has a music of their own and a substance with no borders. It is okay. I want to say that to everyone I meet. It is okay. You are okay. Stop trying to contain the mist into borders. Please don't make me hard. I don't want to be hard, and contained. I want to flow. To just feel my way around and go where my mist seems to leak and seep.....

I do not do well when I put myself into boxes. I keep trying. Many times in my life I box myself. I don't want to hurt anyone who strives hard to "believe"...in the Jesus that is "true" and "one" .... I love that Jesus. I love his words. I love his belief. And yes, I love his humanity. He did not cause all those wars or those harsh mainstream judgments of "believers" who harken to some of his words, but mostly to words of people, like themselves, who are just trying. It's okay. Your boxes are intended to keep you safe, I understand. But test the waters...test the mists. Question a little. Put your toe out, gently....feel around. The mist is not evil. It is science and soul.... it will set you free.

I don't have answers to anyone's questions. Certainly not the big questions. But I know that a little nakedness of soul will do you good. Let your life fill you, let it swirl around you.... let go, just a little.... I believe there is a little Witch in all of us. We just call it different names.

Old Things in New Times...

Food digestion is an interesting thing to me...How long it takes meat to digest as compared to a boiled, mushied pea just makes sense. I heard it takes more than 24 hours for a human body to digest one bite of steak. When I think of the huge T-bones I used to consume at a sitting, along with those butter and sour creamed boats of potatoes...I am surprised that I was hungry ever again. Memories and life are like food digestion.

Having over half of a century on this oddly meandering path that is my journey, looking backwards I tend to remember best the "steak" times, the meatier memories. We all have them. The milestones: certain birthdays, the first kisses, the first orgasms, the first funerals of people we depended on, to say nothing of weddings and births and...well, you get it. Those are the meat of our memories, and ones that take much digestion and much of what stays with us as we move on to other days. The funny thing is, although those memories are with me in a familiar level each day, it is the less meaty memories, the "peas" so to speak, that I work at digging up and re-visiting in my quieter moments.

I let myself sink back into my memories of "a regular day"...of a day I would get up and get ready for work and walk into my next minute with no distinction between today and tomorrow. Our lives are made up of those days, the days that build the foundation for our "special Steak day memory"...days we walk through without consideration of it being the only day, that day, that we will ever see again. "Getting through" it seems to be all it is worth. Contrary to what it seems like, those are the days that I concentrate on and enjoy wallowing in...those days that are vague and long ago, and blending into my meatier memories like applesauce filling in the hollows.

Closing my eyes, sitting in my wonderful easy chair, I let myself slip back through old days, sifting my "meat" and my "peas".... Usually, I choose the "pea" days to wallow in. I bring up memories of, as a young girl, brushing my little sister's hair...careful not to pull the tangles, and smelling her little-girlness in the shampoo waftings as I brush her airy hair into a pony-tail. I think of the warmth and steady comfort as I cuddle into my mom's soft side when she reads the chicken scratch on the pages that say things like, "...and I shan't get home tonite" about a little old woman and a stick, stick that beats pig... I wallow even more in the memories of an every-day time when my chubby little baby boy giggles on the floor as I sweep my hair over his sweet face to make him laugh when I say "boo."

Another memory pea happens in a time lost to me when I worked in a wonderful group home facility in Oregon. The people I "took care of" (who were actually my teachers in disguise) and the everyday-ness of our lives together as we taught each other and became entwined as family rises as a foggy pea memory. Marilyn, my sweet friend, had multiple "issues" the least being that she was developmentally delayed...with her useless tiny little legs, but overwhelmingly huge toothless smiles...who just wanted to "marry" every man who walked into her vicinity. I think she even asked me to marry her once. The sadness and the sweetness of the lives within that home lives on in the misty pea memory of my mind. Michelle, whose intelligence could not even be tested due to her multiple "disabilities" was an amazing teacher and excellent confidant, since she could not "talk" like us, but communicated by smiling and laughing so hard we thought she might die from lack of air...but who kept laughing in spite of the peril.

The memory of feelings are my pea memories I hold precious. Remembering walking, alone, on a sandy beach growing up...feeling the sand grains soften my hardened barefoot soles and smelling the bay water of fish and rain. Memories of the quiet excitement of having my grandparents join us on a Saturday, slicing the luncheon meat and cheese and being lovingly teased by a grampa who smelled like love and laughing and potato chips warm from the box.

More recent pea memories are even more poignant. The lurch of love and joy when, after answering the phone with my Caleb's number introducing it, and hearing his voice saying, "life is so great, mom...I'm okay"....I love that. And having my littlest child, with lengthening legs and bones jutting into the soft areas of my middle age, cuddling and resting as a familiar nest...I know those days are too soon lost, and he will join his brother out in the world, making and digesting his own "steak and peas"...I can only hope that they find me someplace in the sweet pea memories of their mind, too.

Yup. Digestion of food is like digestion of life. Building memories and nourishing our lives to help us keep walking and keep traveling until we can reach a destination that is made just for us. Whatever it may be.....

November in North Carolina, through one old lady's glasses...

I think, next year, I would like to skip over October and jump right into mid-November. Choreographing my year, I will have to remember to add that simple leap into the dance.

I have immersed myself into old music, and "new" old music just to calm my jagged spirit. Having fallen into the bottom half of my "half full glass" in October, trying to swim to the top, only to be met with the hot air of mid-term elections, then gulping and grasping for a savior to keep me afloat while I search for the sand bar...music seems to be the life-float I needed. And not just any old music, but music that once touched my soul and filled me with strength and sorrow and joy, all at once. I have been listening to Tom Waits, Gordon LIghtfoot, Harry Chapin, and Joan Baez...musicians who I feel familiar and safe with...all whom carry my sadness with grace and share their voice in harmony, even while fighting for goodness and tolerance.

The mid-term election threw me for a loop. As you can tell, I am not one of those people who "got what they wanted" with the outcome. There was no rejoicing for me, no "Booyahs" pouring forth from my lips. I still feel like "the American People" made a bad choice, and the Poor Loser that I have tried to tame and civilize, rises up from within if I spend too much time thinking about it. I have learned many things from this election, and still have many curiosities regarding human psychology, but I am finding some footing along with learning about friendship and kindness. I have always been a vocal, politically minded person...partial to words, always, and fairly warrior-like when it comes to issues of humanity and generosity. I hope, in the long run, to be able to have an epitaph that my sons will be proud of, in my fight for human rights and justices, and that my spirit will be interpreted instead of my words.

I lost a few friends on this little jaunt. It is sad, a bit, but I feel assuaged knowing it wasn't MY choice and I will be here when they calm down and learn that Friendship is more important than an opinion. I give great KUDOS to the friends I have in my life, who hold some beliefs extremely opposite of mine, who remain with me and understand that although extreme in some things, are tied by a cord stronger than the moment. Knowing I can simply say, "I'm sorry for my harsh words, and I am glad you understand..." makes me love them even more. It doesn't mean we are ever going to agree, but it means that we are more valuable to each other for the dimension and perspective we can share...

Sipping my glass of beer and tomato juice, I ponder. Every once in a while I wake up in the morning with a too familiar rock on my chest: that old demon, Depression. I can usually tell he is taking over my day as soon as awareness slips into my dreams...you know, that time in between when you hear a noise in the real world and right before you open your eyes after a night of the drifting nothingness we call "sleep." Depression seems to be a family trait, a curse, a genetic cord that silently binds my sisters and brother to me. It hasn't become deadly yet, mostly a time-stopping annoyance, but I can see repercussions of nurturing it and wallowing in it a tad bit too long. I'm pretty sure that depression slinks and slides into everybody's heart now and then, but also pretty sure that its effect is planted more deeply in some due to the more fertile soil of their souls. I might be wrong, but I believe our "gift" of creativity may, indeed, be an indication of fertility in which depression can root.
I'm really enjoying my beer and tomato juice right now...it helps me wallow, in a mellow way. It makes me feel even very clever with my words, and "special" in a way that only someone with alcoholic tendencies should feel. Contemplating alcohol should probably be a red flag, if indeed, I am in bondage to spirits of grain, but it happens so rarely to me that I must immerse myself into it's magic. I know that the solid ground of morning will certainly manifest itself into a headache and remorse. But for now, I will just let myself feel it's power, misguided though it may be.
Tonight is Halloween...the most ghostly and pagan night of creation...Very Irish of us to celebrate, as if the deep roots of ancient times cannot touch us in our sterile, and modern lives. We dress our babies in costumes and encourage our young ones to seek candies from our neighbors, without thought to our old and deep roots to the magic that binds us to earth and history and an otherworld existence more real than the day. We play with the fright and the fear of another dimension, another time...play with it as if it were yet another toy made of plastic or make-believe. It is good that it comes only once a year. It might be just my imagination, but it seems as if more "to-do" is made of this holiday more nowadays than in earlier days ... I think it might have something to do with many more things to sell in stores and wild creations to market than any actual consideration of it's meaning. The same with Christmas, I believe. Marketing holidays seems to be a lucrative operation. It is funny that I am so easily lumping Christmas and Halloween together. A very odd combination of spiritual economics. It all seems to boil down to God and the devil. Why is that?