Sunday, June 29, 2008

mayday! mayday!

wire to headquarters:

Ship going down stop

Send help immediately stop

Please hur

today

for today

i shall lie here with my skin touching the earth,


arms spread wide,

eyes closed for this moment

and opened in the next

depending on whom above me

is calling.


and I shall

just breathe.


and today I shall dance.


and I shall laugh.

and I shall love.


and discover again


how it feels to be enchanted.



today I find my breath

and live.

sacred life sunday: breathe


Awake Awhile


Awake awhile.

It does not have to be
Forever,
Right now.

One step upon the Sky's soft skirt
Would be enough.

Hafiz,
Awake awhile.
Just one True moment of Love
Will last for days.

Rest all your elaborate plans and tactics
For Knowing Him,
For they are all just frozen spring buds
Far,
So far from Summer's Divine Gold.

Awake, my dear.
Be kind to your sleeping heart.
Take it out into the vast fields of Light
And let it breathe.

Say,
"Love,
Give me back my wings.
Lift me,
Lift me nearer."

Say to the sun and moon,
Say to our dear Friend,

"I will take You up now, Beloved,
On that wonderful Dance You promised!"

Hafiz

Monday, June 23, 2008

operation: sparkle (or) Sacred Life Monday

As I was hanging up laundry on the line, I noticed this.Which made me think of this.

It caused me to be present enough to realize that while life with the babes right now is super sparkly and fun, an important part of me has been ignored - abandoned.
It's been run over with all the noise. Yada yada.

I'm not creating out of thin air.
I'm not living mindfully and intentionally.
I'm not smiling to myself over synchronistic or serendipitous happenings.
I'm not hearing the song on the wind, or even the whisperings of my own soul.
I've been living my life on auto-pilot.

Which means there's no magic.

I've missed the true joys that can only come from a spirit knowing itself and creating.
I'm so glad I've remembered my Self.

revelation

I read in a story -a novel- a couple of days ago ".....seven year old boys are obnoxious."
Oh, thank God, I thought.

Why don't people share these bits of wisdom more often?
Sheesh.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

by George...

I think I've done it.
We've been home for twenty minutes or so, and I have not heard a peep out of them.
I think I've finally made them tired.
Before 11pm.

Imagine that.

Pull Up the Drawbridge!

oof.
Usually when I feel like this it's because something dreadful has happened - ie I feel betrayed by the world, and I just wanna crawl into the covers for a week. Only letting kisses and cuddles in.
Or because of that and my hormones are letting thier wackiness be felt.

Today?

Well, Trev did manage to lose himself at the festival - I found him with the Sheriff's - but other than that, I think I'm just exhausted.

oof again.

More tomorrow or so.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Popsicles

Among our (mine and the children's) friends, it's understood that the children are welcome to the popsicles. They're likely to eat a a box or two in an afternoon.
Most of us have children that will eat a box in two days.

I don't get wiggy over it, usually. I figure it's no different than Kool-Aid, which has never been consumed in my home. (We're juice drinkers when it's flavor we're after, usually organic.)

Trev and I walked to the store a few minutes ago, and upon putting Maddie's tiny Dora popsicles in the freezer (remember when we were kids, and they were those double ones?) I thought I'd check out the stats, to deliver the news to DH, who tends to say "Eat something good before you have another popsicle, please..."

Dora Popsicles - serving size: 2.
Calories: 60. Psh.
Ounces of liquid: 1.1.

And there you have it.
They could eat 8 in a row, and it would not amount to one medium size glass of kool-aid.

Which I suspected all along, but it's nice to come face to face with it.

Next!

I'm not sure what I want to say.
Something interesting happened earlier today.
I've found myself over and over again in this funk the last few days.
Irritable, impatient, offended.
Yesterday I considered that some of it might be that I feel powerless.
Today I had the thought that more specifically, it's "time is a-wastin'."
I called Trev in from the front yard to get on his shoes for our adventure (for the second or third time), and Annabelle, and they mosied around, looking around, stopping to smell the daisies along the way to coming inside the house, and I somehow nailed it, and voiced "My life is wasting away, Trev." I meant it as an exaggerated complaint of his slow motion meandering, but then I realized that's what I was feeling. And in much of my life, lately.

There is so much to do, and so little time in which to do it. (You know, with the always perfectly tidy and clean house thing, and learning to walk on water.)

That's the mindset that I need to change.

I need to step out of the tumultuous "do or die", "now or never", these thousand things must all be done Right This Minute mindset from which I've been reacting. And reacting is exactly what I've been doing.

It's partly the laundry, partly the dishes, partly the stack of mail (emails and blogs as well as paper), but I'm drowning in (once again!) being consumed with arriving at the end, and not enjoying the journey.
Which pisses me off because I know better.

I'm attached, I've been living for another (more peaceful?) moment, and not finding what I need in this one.
And I think that's it. (When I saw it I recognized it.)
I'm living solely for another (different) peaceful moment.
Maybe that one will give it to me, 'cause it ain't in this one.

When I was stumbling around in my head today (when we were getting ready to walk to the library, after I said that to Trev) kicking things and turning over stones, waving away the cobwebs, and trying to air the dusty and dark place out, I had the thought "You need to walk."
"You need to meditate every day, and you need to practice walking meditations, again."

I remembered something I wrote here a little while back, something that might give me a clue on how to do that -fix my head-, and I searched back until I found it.
"You can't get there, you can only be there."

Everyone ready? Let's go to the library....

(this is a conversation I had with my Self, in case you're new to my ways. Er - head.)
Okay. I need help.
Alright, what do you need?
I don't like this place.
I don't blame you. I wouldn't like it, either.
What do I do?
You know what to do.
Change my mind.
Yes. Just change your mind.
Alright. Here I go. Without tools. Without fanfare. Without any sort of ritual or symbolic cleansing.... I'm done with it.
So be it.

And there it went. There it went, Friends. Just like that.

Inside the library there were two Episodes that might have gone quite differently.

One, Trev was over in the adult section looking for non-fiction dinosaur books (non-fiction adult and juniors are mixed together) and I was on the next aisle.
"Could you move, and move those books, please, so that you're not blocking the aisle?" I hear in a somewhat snooty voice.
I went over and saw Trev a bit frustrated, and he said "Rrrr, I hate it when people boss me around!"
"I know, Bud. But people need to get by. Let's move these over here. Here, Squirt, move over to this side, so no one trips."
Not an alarming occurrence, certainly. But I had no feelings about it. I wasn't embarrassed. I wasn't irritated with Trev for growling at the librarian. I wasn't bothered or offended by a snooty librarian.

A few minutes later (Lord, he's got it down!) he chose the same librarian's desk to slap out his frustration on her counter. I turned in time to see her blast him with The Look.
I went over.
"Hey, Bub. You alright? What's up?"
"uh..."
"Are your frustrated or angry about something, or do you just have lots of energy to spend?"
"I was just filled with chaos."
"I see. Why don't you go outside, and run on the ramp? I'm just going to finish checking out these books, and then we'll walk home."

Again.
No emotion. No irritation. No grumpiness. It just is what it is, and it's No Big Deal.

It's actually hard to imagine a different scenario now... I mean.... how else could it have possibly turned out? That's the only way it could turn out.
But these last few days... it could have been quite different. Not my words, probably, but my inner turmoil and my emotions. I could have added his actions onto The Pile Of Offenses. I could have started a new one of Hers.
Ridiculous, I know, but that's been my experience, lately.


And now for even more delicious Goodness.... the books I found today are How to Expand Love: Widening the Circle of Loving Relationships, and How To See Yourself As You Really Are. Both by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama.

Blessings to you, Friends.
And to Me.

Monday, June 09, 2008

hullo

just wanted to say I haven't ditched, and I"m not sad, we've just been busy playing, and my blogging energy is taken up by olm.

hopefully tomorrow.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

life

my life's been complicated.
well - sometimes.

sometimes i'm bemused, sometimes i'm stressed, sometimes i'm in awe (such as with maddie's skills - she has amazing skills with the computer. if someone else's desktop is up on the computer she wants, she'll shut it down and restart it again so that she can choose her desktop from the start screen. She navigates the computer and the mouse with amazing accuracy. went from "Mom, help me with this" -every two seconds- to all by herself. phew.)

finally finished my work with bc. all is going pretty well there, had 259 pageloads (none of them my own) and 87 visitors yesterday, so i'm pretty pleased with that. hopefully people like it, and will keep coming around. we'll see. the only feedback i get is the statcounter, so i have no idea what people are thinking.

but other things are complicated.

had to send my notebook in to Dell - my speakers were doing some funky thing.
had to (completely, mind you) wipe out my computer before hand to see if it was software. it wasn't. grrr.
got it back yesterday (Dell is soooooo fast! - think it was gone for four/five days - over the weekend) so yesterday when i had planned to clean house, i got my laptop back instead, and fiddled with it all day. cant get itunes/library to work. hmmph.

the other day, saturday, trevy and i were invited to go to the children's theatre.
when i got back home, eric and my mother had a story for me.
apparently, my mom stopped by to see us for a sec. eric was gardening in the backyard, with maddie. my mom pulled up, and Gladys (you know the one) said to my mother, "oh, you've just missed them. she left a little while ago with The Boy, and He walked up the street with something in his hand, i think he went to mail a letter."
"What?" my mom asked, confused.
"Yeah, he left, too."
"Well.... did he have Maddie with him?"
"No, no. Just him."
"Well..... did Stephanie take Maddie with her?"
"No, just The Boy."
"Well he wouldn't just leave Maddie by herself!" my mom answered her, irritated.
"I dunno, maybe he took 'er to the babysitter or somethin'."
"No. I'm the only one that babysits them!" (irritated with her, not with eric, mind you. knowing damned well now that she doesn't know what she's talking about.)
and my mother preceded to walk into my house, and headed out the back door to find eric in the backyard with maddie. (who pretty soon came into the front yard to show my mother our veggies and berries growing in the front yard - with maddie on his hip.)
eric said she knew damned well he hadn't gone anywhere. he said, "maddie and i have been out here, in front, and so has she, we've been playing and going in and out of the house...." etc, etc.

so my (sickening) question is.... is she being malicious? or is she just a nitwit? i mean, i totally believe her to be a nitwit, but is she deliberately causing us trouble, too?
i was actually relieved at first, because i was thinking "well, obviously whatever she says is not to be taken seriously. she's just one of these people that gets an idea in her head and runs with it." but this is someone that gossips with the neighbors. and this is someone who called dcfs (oh, i forgot to tell you about that - they came to our house AGAIN!) and told them that i locked my son out of the house when he was naked and made him eat his sandwich on the porch. in the rain.

so at this point, i am thinking.... obviously she cannot be trusted. which i knew. my relief came from "her suppositions are not reflections of what is going on in my home. it never looked like i locked my son out in the rain. i am not to be blamed for this. (her erroneous conclusions)"
relief, there.
but not if she talks to the neighbors.
and here i just wanna cry, and say, Please, God.
Please protect us from Her.
Please protect us from her telling the neighbors her stories, and having them believe her.

complicated.
it feels akin to conspiracy, you know? i mean, what if the things she puts in people's heads they come to believe?

my mind has been all around this. "I wonder if i'll end up suing her for slander." Can I call dcfs and complain? should i be more visible and loving with my children in the front yard, for the neighbors benefit? speaking of which...
the other day my mom and i were outside talking, and she came out, talking loudly - totally for our benefit- "Oh, Lucky, you're such a clean dog. Did you get a bath? Lucky, no, Lucky, no! Now you stay outta that dirt, Lucky. Lucky, you're a clean dog, you stay outta that dirt. Oh, com'ere, you clean dog....."
I didn't say a word to my mother, just rolled my eyes in my head to myself. A few minutes later, we came inside, and my mother (who is absolutely not the most astute person in the world) "Did you hear her over there? She was saying all that to impress us. She wanted us to hear her."
"Yup." I said.
"Gah!" my Mom said.
Now what the hell do I care, I ask you, if her dog is clean or even has fleas. Other than i'd feel bad for his discomfort.

So the answer is no, i shall absolutely not live my life in a false manner to impress the neighbors. But I worry about raising my voice. I always feel like she's peeking out her window to see into my house. We pretty much live -when the weather is not way too hot or way too cold - with open windows, doors, and always open curtains.

I don't think she's out to get me.
But she has a really wierd somethin/somethin going on in her head. She told me she's gardening organically. And bought mantises to help control the bugs. She knows we're organic. Two weeks later she was out there telling her husband they need to spray the dandelions. (inconsistencies).

she told me about her twenty children - not sure what's up with that. i think she was a foster mother? she told me about how her son molested her daughter. (that was the day she came over here last year to "set me straight". "One day I caught him with his hand down my daughter's shirt!!!" she said. I didn't know what the hell she was trying to tell me, so i skipped over it. Now I think she was trying to tell me that if my chldren run around in their nothin's they will be come sex offenders. Which is so ridiculous that I won't even respond to it.

When she came to my home last summer - remember, when I cried for several days over the dcfs thing, when she said the people that were going to buy the house next door told her they saw our children naked, and it was going to "be a problem"? and she came over here to tell me "they seem the type to call dcfs, and they'll take your children away." to which i said "No they won't, they can't just because you're babies are naked!" and she said "Oh yes they will..."blahblahblah - turns out SHE had called them. and they didn't show up until 9 months later - which i was sorta relieved by, they took that long to make a visit. and sent someone about 19 years old, and very unofficial. tells me they didn't take it very seriously.

anyway.

had a dream last night that the neighbor on the other side of her died and his house was up for sale.
I was trying to figure out what to do to stop her from turning them against us.

Probably doesn't help that i watch the news every damned day and i see the Texas polygamist trial every damned day.
Heard the other day "one week old baby is away from its mother...." evidently she had a child while in custody, and they took the newborn away? What?

See? Complicated.

I told you that i've put bushes, berries and vines on my front fence, right? Solely for the purpose of keeping Gladys' eyes out of my front yard.

i really need to get to a place of peace (probably another instigator, haven't taken the time to meditate and walk) so i can separate my mind from the crap.

it terrifies me that i might be adding to any future or present trouble by being so focused on it. Several times a day I wonder if dcfs is coming to my door.

i would like to clear it out, and to come up with the best solution.

i partly think "just send her love". send her understanding, send her love, send her support. Not outwardly - outwardly i think it's best to wave or say hello, and that's it. no conversations at all.

but part of me is also very afraid to send her love and well wishes.
not really sure why.
maybe because i'm afraid i'll make her more powerful.

need to get to the bottom of all this mess in my head.