How to triumph like a Goddess

Remember who you are really, really.

Ride a tiger and know that a swan is always an option.

Shoot laser light beams out your eyes, blazing a trail through resistance and all evil. Fiery eyes always.

Make good use of your many arms and your elaborate weaponry, even though some of these tools, you have no idea how to use nor would you ever dream of wielding them in their fullest potential.  Holding them in your hands with fierce compassion in your heart is quite enough to banish the enemy and claim “justice for all.”

Allow your hair to be entwined with flowers and a little red kukum powder that actually looks like blood.  Brilliant red, definitely creating a “Don’t mess with me” vibe.

Continue to slowly circle your prey when you have the advantage, especially if that prey was once evil and is now cowering.

Would the Goddess within you truly want this?   Yes, once you turn on the power and wrath of the Goddess. well , she can’t just flip a switch and return to quiet passivity.

Impossible.

How to triumph like a Goddess? Make sure you spend many hours floating in, remembering that you swim in a sea of love.

That is all.

That is enough.

Embody her presence, sometimes unbalanced, and wavering, some may say unhinged, she doesn’t care about that.  She remembers,

I am That.

Bainbridge Island  April 26, 2023   Salt Water Writing

 

 

 

In spite of the fact

 

In spite of the fact that Kenden is in Paris walking on her treadmill with a guide who is hiking live in Chile with her on video, and every bit of this scenario sounds WAY more appealing than MY current state of affairs.

In spite of the fact that Wendy is selling her place, a place I love that is no longer her place.

In spite of the fact that my beloved is going off the deep end having a hard time holding on to reason.

I have to report that I am simply listening and breathing, sleeping and eating, mending and breaking, even though I know not where any of this is going.

In spite of the fact that the kittens, Doty and Ivy, seem to be endlessly entertained by each other and all our little home holds.

In spite of the fact that the winter holiday time is still months away.

In spite of the fact that all of me wants to be with all of you.

I have to report I am in secret Bliss today knowing that here, right now is all I really need.

In spite of the fact that all I feel sometimes is rage and sadness and hurt.

In spite of the fact that human beings for the most part are completely unpredictable and I being one of this species, exemplify the same qualities.

In spite of the fact that money is tight and emotions are frequently shredding my equipoise,

I have to report that, in this moment,  all , for the most part, is well.

Seattle, WA     September 11, 2023     Wild Writing with Laurie Wagner

 

List of Always

Always travel lighter than your heart.

Always engage in joyful meandering banter even though you simply want to walk alone and hide your desire too belong.

Always sing if the opportunity arises pausing everything to be part of a chorus of voices and listen.

Always remember Grace, invisible, working its way into the cracks and crevices of darkness where the creepy crawly multi-legged insects of your ego tend to live and drive you insane with worry.

Always say yes to invitations that involve moonlight sparkling on the water and the opportunity to lay down flat on your back and gaze into the night sky.

Always keep the list of your boundaries close at hand and read them often.

Always chocolate will be priority #1… especially on certain days when nothing else will do.

Sept 13, 2023.  Bainbridge Island.  Salt Water Writing

 

 

Bainbridge Island  September 13, 2023   Salt Water Writing   Packing for the Future Instructions, Lorna Krowsher

I hear a beginners song

 

I hear a beginners song, so quiet, so true, so very determined to love my precious life.  This song is like the first croaking of the spring frogs as they climb out of the mud to declare themselves present again in this muddy, messy bog.

I hear a beginners song, sad and determined as it turns the page, not yet sure of what, where or how, determined to  create something out of the mud.  A simple croak of declaration.  I am here.  I can’t stay asleep.  I know not anything else but the sound of my own voice.

I hear a beginners song, so loud that it will NOT let me sleep, agitating, shaking, the Divine sound of death and rebirth.

I hear a beginners song yet I am exhausted still by the journey here and the ending. The song, it brings me hope and springs forth from that very ending.

I hear a beginners song, patient and true, spirited and kind:  “Something will happen.”

Absolutely nothing occurring is impossible.

Absolute nothingness is where the creation will begin.

I hear a beginners song, singing forth from the space.  Let the particles remain chaotic and strewn.  The space holds far greater potential for creation, inspiration and love.

I hear a beginners song, dancing out from the space between us.

Bainbridge Island, March 22, 2023   Salt Water Writing

I know more or less how to live through my life now

I know more or less how to live through my life now.

I imagine it as a roller coaster which I ride blindfolded never knowing when the bottom of my car will drop 30 feet and then gradually climb, tick, tick, tick toward another stomach tightening fall.

I never wonder if this is unusual or special, or anything I can control or plan for.  I simply ride it out with dismay and then optimism.

I know more or less how to keep myself belted tightly in my seat, white knuckles grabbing the bar that sits across my waist, the  bar which I intellectually know will keep me safe.  And yet, I never seem to raise my arms in joy as I begin to plummet as one could attempt on such a  roller coaster.

I want to know how to live what is left in good company.  Those who delight in the adventure, knowing that the ride was NEVER designed to  be a smooth linear uphill trajectory.

I mostly want to know how to live what is left feeling a sense of belonging.  All the deep work understanding how to slow down, create connection, empathy and understanding that I conjure for others.  I want to know how to live what is left of my life offering all this to myself.

Perhaps on a sliver tray, adorned with a candle and single rose, worshiping the worthiness, the belonging, of the goddess I have discovered  I am.

 

 

I could be…but I am here

I could be singing and laughing, telling stories with damn near perfect comedic timing.

I could be watching television with my Mom, both of us in lazy boy recliners, trays of food on our laps, smiling, pointing, asking each other inane questions, petitioning the Gods for more time, sitting just like this.

I  could be brewing sun tea, slicing lemon and cracking open ice cube trays, ice flying everywhere, thinking about moving toward the hammock to  read, noticing the sparkle of sunlight on the waves as they crash on the sandy shore.

I could be frosting cupcakes.

But I am here…

Procrastinating the folding of my laundry thinking about which bill to pay and when my invoices will be paid.  I am here tracking the movement of dollars as they flow in and out of my bank  account, fast , swift, cascading into the world without any trace of identification.  ” I.D. sir? Nope, I’m flowing out.”

I could be settling into my life as it is, knowing I am fulfilling a purpose that often feels unconscious and circular.

But I am here…

Wondering when chocolate will find its  way into my  pocket, wrapped in foil, decorated with a tiny bear.

 

 

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Love of Place: Why it matters

The Methow Valley in Washington State

“We often talk about love of place, by which we mean our love for places, but seldom of how the places love us back, of what they give us.  They give us continuity, something to return to, and offer a familiarity that allows some portion of our own lives to remain connected and coherent.  They give us an expansive scale in which our troubles are set into context, in which the largeness of the world is a balm to loss, trouble, and ugliness.  And distant places give us refuge in territories where our own histories aren’t so deeply entrenched and we can imagine other stories, other selves, or just drink up quiet and respite.

The bigness of the world is redemption.  Despair compresses you into a small space, and a depression is literally a hollow in the ground.  To dig deeper into the self, to go underground, is sometimes necessary, but so is the other route of getting out of yourself, into the larger world, into the openness in which you need not clutch your story and your troubles so tightly to your chest.  Being able to travel both ways matters, and sometimes the way back into the heart of the question begins by going outward and beyond.  This is the expansiveness that sometimes comes literally in a landscape or that tugs you out of yourself in a story.”  –Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby pp 30-31

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