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It seems there are two realities.
One you can see and comment on. The other is less tangible, harder to explain, but in some ways more palpable. It's timeless, eternal, and always waiting. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's talk about the first one as it stands right now: He is dead. My beloved Appaloosa gelding is dead. He's lying in the pasture, stiff and bloating, under a bright blue tarp. And soon, Kenneth is coming with his backhoe and he'll be lying deep beneath a mound of packed red dirt. And I'll never again get to kiss him or hug him or hear his deep soft nicker trusting me to know what it meant and what he wanted, and when I look out the window I'll never again see his unique and beautiful body, standing below the shed, waiting for the rising sun to warm him, or see his glowing whiteness in the moonlight, while the others are cloaked in darkness and shadows. And I wonder how my life will be without him to share the seasons - the changing light and adjusting our chores due to all kinds of weather. He was my rock. And I was his. And of course there are feelings of all kinds: deep wailing sadness, shock, and anger and resistance to the way life is. But sometimes after, or within, or between the waves of grief and fits of resistance, something strange and wonderful happens that's hard to describe: It's a bit like falling. Like a cliff-dwelling bird who just lets go and falls into something vast and empty that was always waiting - a bright, white freedom, and in my case buoyed by love and Thank you, Thank you, Thank you's filling the air. Coming from Domino? Coming from me? Or from a band of heavenly horse angels who I've loved and cared for and had mercifully put down. But it doesn't matter really, because in this reality we're all the same. Standing at the edge of the road, waiting to flag down Kenneth, there's not much of Shelly here, and stories about me and mine and life and death seem more like a movie or a play than anything real, and I realize that "getting back to normal" is the last thing I want to do. Compared to this, even the highest highs of "normal" seem about half dead. And in the distance I hear the low ambling rumble of a diesel growing louder and more immediate, while I'm standing in the freedom of the Ultimate Reality.
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January happened
like a bitch who brought, not just snow and not even sleet, but ICE! Dreaded ice. And two days before I'm at the kitchen sink window, and see our beloved barn, the life-saving grace for our horses in such weather and it hit me - two to four inches of ice. Will the roof hold? Two inches? Maybe. Four inches? It will fail. And adrenaline rushed like the breach of a dam as repairs were made with extra supports and de-icing researched: What wasn't toxic to horses? For days it went like this - things to consider outside my experience, things that were my job to consider. And it should be no surprise that once the storm passed, my system kept scanning for how we weren't safe and what I could do about it. Weeks later I settled, but not without cost: I was tired. No, more than tired. And I recognized and tried to deny it at the same time - the familiar symptoms of an adrenal crash - muscle weakness, dizziness on standing, heart palpitations, and wanting to lie down and cry, or die, whichever came first: I didn't care. Too dramatic you say? Well juice is juice and when you don't have it everything in you says, "What's the point?" But like most maladies, this one has a gift, and the writing that follows is mine to you. It might not be "good," but it's genuine, and on the off chance it's helpful, here it is: my January/February Adrenal Fatigue Journal ~~~~~~~~~~~~ I'm a truck revved up with the parking brakes on and I can't stop the revving and I can't stop the braking. Analysis is fruitless and only makes it worse, and worry is what caused it in the first place. I love how I judge it and laugh at its absurdity - not the revving or the braking - but the belief that it should be, that I should be different. What made me think I should or could rise above physiology? Did I really think that if I became healed enough or enlightened enough I would somehow transcend human chemistry? What rubbish! And shame on any so-called healer or spiritual teacher who makes you feel that way. I mean, I understand. I've done it too - sometimes to others, but mostly to myself. This being human is a ride. Sometimes it's a tugboat, sometimes a jet, and sometimes a chemically-induced tilt-a-whirl. But chemistry is part of the fun. For how else would you know you are more than that? How else would you know that you are the one who rides above and below and between it all - the One who breathes with a smile while being revved up, with the brakes on? ~~~~~~~~~~~~ I hate this tiredness and what it won't let me do. It won't let me push like I've always done - engage my will and call on some backup chemical resources and ancestrally-programmed determination to mind-over-matter my way through life. And I want to say, Fuck it! Go ahead and kill me. I'm tired of fighting a battle I'll never win - trying to control what happens to me and to those I love. But chemical patterns and genetic tendencies die hard, and can only be breathed through - one episode at a time. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Resist nothing. Allow the pinch in your chest and your brace against it. Allow your concern about it and trying not to be concerned. Allow the fear and being afraid of the fear. Allow the trying to figure it out and trying to stop that too. Allow the worry and your judgment about the worry. Welcome it all and see what happens. It's like falling, falling, a white dissolving fall into nothing. But who is falling? No one. But falling is definitely happening, as a soft, loving lightness that says Yes to it all. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ There is a place in you, there is a place in me, that says Yes. And I can't tell you where it is or how to find it, but it's here, in you, in me, in each of us always. Your mind can't find it, so don't even try. It will contrive and effort, but this Yes is free of effort. It emerges softly after you've said No a thousand times, consciously, as a fully embodied, fit-pitching, tantrum-y child. She is brilliant, this child. Let her move and scream while you listen. If you don't she'll be running things anyway, behind the scenes, and your fear and rejection of her will only make you stiff and tired while you brace and pretend she's not there. No one needs to hear her except you. So close the door, turn down the lights, and stomp your No feet, pound your No fists, until you feel the pain of "It shouldn't be this way" or "I hate this" move through your body in a terrifying, tantrum-y dance. And then you'll be free. Because only when you've faced and exhausted the No, can you feel the holy Yes. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ NEW PROJECTIONS ONTO THE MOURNING DOVE I used to hear her plaintive song and believe what they said: she is sad, melancholy. But today I heard, for the first time ever, her quiet joy. She's not sad, she is soft. And her full, gray breast expands from her feet, not perched, but anchored on the old barked branch, her heavy, unhurried body not twittering like the others who fuss and flutter. She is weighted in the now and its inherent sweetness. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ I woke during the night and walked my drunken walk to the bathroom once again, and once again I imagined myself as a decrepit old woman, alone in my house, and falling, and no one knows how long I lie there, with no one to feed my horses, and every body dies a slow and painful death. Crazy. And I hear the funny grunt that Accuweather makes and my heart skips a beat and I see the tornado or wildfire flames racing toward my house and my horses and I'm scrambling in a panic - frantically helpless. Crazy. I'm exaggerating a little - the scenes aren't that specific and there's no narration, but the feeling is the same. These are my favorite scary movies. What are yours? And maybe your mind, like mine, gets defensive and says, "Well these things could actually happen. They do you know. And what makes you think you are special and would be spared of such a fate?" And so it goes, while in this moment there is nothing but the peace of your breath and the collapse of your self when you turn your attention fully to the now. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ All day long I watched the approach of moving light across the wide tan ground of the neighbor's pasture, and how fast it chased the shadows of clouds like ocean waves over and over again crashing toward my tiny house. And I stand amazed at how solid I seem with all that wind and all that crashing. And I wonder, Am I the ground or am I the space above the clouds - the Light that never changes? I am both it seems. And the wind and the waves, and the shadows and the crashing are just what happens when the Light and earth come together. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you haven't seen her gold-medal performance you should check it out on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCrFaRsezGo.
If you watch with your whole body and not just your eyes, you'll see someone skate with imperturbability, with a light "whatever" quality that can't be manufactured with the will or with any familiar mind-ticks like affirmations or positive thinking. It's the kind of "hootlessness" that Lester Levinson, the man who inspired the Sedona Method, used to talk about. Once you let go, with whole-bodied letting go, of any feelings or attachment to what happens, you're free to let energy flow as it is. And that energy, born of the One energy, will work on your behalf and make art of Itself. I watched the other competitors, whose stories of overcoming and perseverance were applauded for their tenacity and courage. It's the American way after all - pushing through obstacles to achieve hard-won success. But maybe like Alyssa we're growing tired of this approach. I know I am. And what about a deeper courage? What about the courage it takes to feel your real feelings and tell yourself the truth about them? I think about Ilia Malinin, the quad God, who disappointed himself and everyone else, when his shoe-in consistency and reliable perfection, broke under pressure. And I imagine him asking Alyssa, "How do I let go like you did? How do I achieve the peace that you have?" And her answering, "You can't. You can't achieve it. Because it's not something you can get: it's just something that happens when you're tired and you stand on the ice at practice and sob, uncontrollable, unstoppable sobs because you just can't pretend anymore. You can't fight the resistance to being there and the secret dread. You're done with the pressure, constraints, and the expectations. And you walk away for what seems like for good. And you let it go. You just let go. And then maybe, from that letting go place, a seed will sprout - the one that was originally planted as your unique brilliance, your unique expression. And this time, when it grows, it does so without interference and blooms as the one joy, the one life, born as you." Maybe that's not Ilia's path. Maybe it's not yours. But it has certainly been mine - standing on the ice and sobbing in near-nervous-breakdown fashion, saying "I can't do it anymore," "I won't," "I'm done with trying - trying to be different, better, more appropriate, more enlightened." And in the life-giving relief that follows, there is a joy and a freedom as Life does what Life does, through me, as me. I've noticed that since the Olympics, interviewers still want her to bottle this hootlessness. They want a shortcut, a quick how-to explanation. But they won't understand, can't understand that it's not cheaply bought. Please don't cave Alyssa. Don't give them what they want. Because you and I both know that dying to our programming is hard and dying to the resistance to dying is hellsih. But once dying happens, we are born anew and when that happens, it's just like you've said: we're just happy to be here and share our art. Now, "That's what I'm fucking talking about." Thanks Alyssa! THE DARK BRIGHT SEASON
December came and went, and not as darkly as I'd hoped. I wanted to linger a little longer, in that special season where the light is brighter against her blackness, and the quiet is quieter - muffled by the night. But that's how it is when you've learned how to see in the dark, when the deep unformed is the friend who reflects the light that always was, and the sparkling gifts - unasked for surprises that dazzle and delight. CREATIVITY You who came as quite a surprise, the flurry of ideas sparkling through this unsuspecting ghost of Christmases past, whose welcome relief from expectations and should's and ought to's, made a space for a wilder Light to shine and manifest through foraging and crafting, and placing things, as if told by the things themselves where they most wanted to go, and how the season has ended, but the energy remains. What light-bright thing wants to be born from this darkness? What shining spark wants to see Itself seen, only to fade in a moment, lost as a memory, with millions of others, but made all the brighter because of Its briefness? LONELINESS Without the stories you are just a feeling like any other. So why of all the feelings do you sound the alarm, What's wrong? And why do you spark an immediate grasp for something or someone to soothe or distract? We are separate seas of contracted somethings and we know full-well that it's part of the plan - or game we might say, and yet we freak at the first sign of separate? I would like to suggest that we sit with the terror of our own respective aloneness. When I meet mine and you meet yours, we heal all manner of dysfunctional contracts and unspoken deals, and we wait in the truth: We are each alone by design, but eternally connected by shared experience. DECEMBER'S GIFT How could a month so dark be so bright? Is it the sparkling memories of childhood innocence, or the collective belief in a Savior's birth? I've tried both on but neither quite fits: neither explains the feeling that transcends memory or belief systems. It's the contrast isn't it? It's how bright the light appears against the dark and the quiet, the warmth that glows warmer amidst the cold, and a quiet recognition of the stillness in everything - a stillness that's missed in the bustle of brighter months. December is a month for loners who don't feel lonely. It calls forth a light that doesn't have to compete - a tiny lone star shining only for herself. WAITING IN WINTER January grows in her light, a little at a time, offering promise of a new year and new beginnings. Still cold, she suggests that we sleep a little longer, that we wait and let the light build all on her own, because we might be tempted to jump into action - the longer light prompting the cultural push. But the seed well nurtured creates the best bloom, resting deep in the dark she finds her own depth. A Collection Of PoemsNovember 11, 2025 A GRATITUDE LETTER TO FEAR I awoke this morning, without a thought or a care until you poked me, like you often do - sometimes with an image, sometimes with a thought, and sometimes with a subtle clench, somewhere in my body that I used to think was me. But when you nudged this morning, I smiled, and almost effortlessly rolled onto our sweet cousin - vulnerability. And there I rested, still smiling, in the truth: I am dying. No, I don't have a terminal disease, not as far as I know, but in a way I do: It's called being human. Even now, cells in my body are dying, old ideas that I thought defined me are falling away, and everything and everyone I've ever loved is changing - right before my eyes. Vulnerability lands me square in the truth, opening me to the inescapable fragility and temporary-ness of everything - which makes everything more precious, sharper, more immediate, more alive. So it strikes me that while vulnerability is true, you are just a contracted, grasping reaction to it. I'm not mad at you for being that way and for hanging around. In fact, you're becoming less like a problem and more like a friend. For where would I be without you poking me, nudging me, reminding me, Wake up! This is temporary! Wake up from your dream of imagined control. Wake up from your dream of endless seeking. This is it! This is all you know for sure. And isn't it extraordinary? November 12, 2025 THE PRODIGAL So hard to return home when you know it's gonna hurt. So easy to stay "out there" with all the distractions and things you think you can do something about. Going inside means greeting the vise-like grip at the base of your skull, or the quivery sensation in your chest, or the unnameable, uneasy sense of grasping for something solid. But returning home we must, for the deeper truth that lies beneath is the grounded, steadfast foundation on which it all appears. Every attempt to cross the threshold, every step inside, wears a clearer path between the spinning plates of searching, and the only reliable home the wandering human will ever know. November 17, 2025 DEATH When death walks beside you life becomes clearer. Shallow desires and ego-driven efforts all fall away, fading from view, while the potent immediacy of the moment becomes the vivid truth. Energized by a new yet ancient juice you see what really matters: the colors of the morning, the miracle of your body, and the interactions with others - be they tense or loving, pinched or open. Death cuts away the crap, the shitpile of stories, built upon other stories, all created year after year, through each phase of life, to keep you from seeing the terrifying void of nothingness, that walks beside you, always, and your fear of falling in. But falling eventually happens, maybe all at once or maybe a little over a lifetime, and when it does you see that death was not the enemy, but Life's illumination - the black eternal night on which stars shine their brightest. November 20, 2025 SURRENDER I awake this morning as I have most others with the great arms of the old pecan tree filling my bedroom window view. But this morning she is bare, almost black against the soft peach of a nearly risen sun. And there's a lightness in my chest - a soft and subtle joy caused by nothing in particular, although it feels hard-won. How many years and tears of letting go of bracing like a warrior against an unknown opponent - nameless, faceless, ghost-like projections of all the bad things that can happen to a person? But this morning I feel free. And I don't know how, except to say that at some point Life became less like something to pin down and conquer, and more like a benign and patient friend - a constant companion who doesn't try to fix and who doesn't have opinions. And this morning I awake with very few of my own - my arms splayed out and empty, against the rising light of the unknown. November 25, 2025 INCREASING TOLERANCE FOR THE UNKNOWN Tolerance grows from the seed of experience - how many feared things that didn't happen and how many surprising things that did, and how it all fell into place the moment I unclenched and dissolved into that invisible soup of nothing that is everything. I'm not sure how I did it because there's not a lot of me here anymore who does anything - she died a thousand deaths on the cross of trying to control. And now she is free, relieved and spent, and Life smiles her benevolent smile, meeting my soft, pliable tenderness with hers. November 27, 2025 A NEW BUT OLD HAPPY Is it fair that I should be so deliriously happy? Caution tells me otherwise - she tells me not to let down my guard because after all life is hard, life is mean. See the evidence all around you? See the pain? See the trauma? And yet she's fading now - dimmed by the brighter light of something older, less conditional. Of course I know well the unpredictability of this Life - the twists and turns and moving parts, and I've lived them, but moment by moment I've learned that happiness is not a feeling to chase, attain, or try to hang onto, it's an indwelling state that rides below the comings and goings of more transient feelings - reactions to things not going according to plan. Maybe it's gratitude, maybe it's self-love, but mostly it's a quiet joy that springs from an unknown depth -a bottom you hit when you've given up trying. November 29, 2025 IN CLOSING So grateful to live another November, with her deep long shadows and low amber light, and the soft way she settles, into winter's deeper stillness. We all resist this letting go, in whatever form that takes, but November shows us how. She is the letting go of the letting go - the peace that follows the fight, the bright dependable bridge between what was and what comes after. I am afraid of dying.
I am afraid of living. I am afraid of all the terrible things that could happen - things of which I have no control - terrible things that would take away, forever, those beloved people and things that make my life bearable, worth living. There. I've said it. And not only have I said it, but I've allowed myself to quake while I've said it. I've allowed myself to feel the subtle trembling beneath the layers of competent, gathered-up, you've-got-this self-programming. The fact is, we don't got this: This scary, unpredictable life will always have its way with us, and our illusions of control only serve to add layers of gathered-up bracing to an already braced and frightened organism. But fear is not a problem to be solved. Instead, it is an energy to be lived - an energy that is as natural to the human condition as the erratic, tail-flicking scurrying of a squirrel, or the timid wariness of a deer in an open field in autumn. We are nature, with a natural dilemma: How do we thrive in a world where anything can happen? Here's how: Face your fear. Now I don't mean to buck up and look at it as if you're about to go into battle with an unknown opponent. No, I mean settle into your body and feel how it vibrates. Allow scary images, thoughts, and beliefs to arise. Breathe, and feel yourself in your body as the stories swirl and circulate and agitate, until they settle down into the one and only true terror - your own annihilation - falling apart, going crazy, or actually dying. And when you hit this bottom, or maybe even before that, you might notice a quivering sadness. It's the chin-quivering sadness of a little child - your little childness. Breathe, and wait with this vulnerable tenderness. She is a miracle. She is your salvation. She will open you to yourself and the bands of practiced protection will release from your heart and through her eyes you will see the vivid perfection of this delicate, fragile thing we call life. Colors will be brighter. Smiles will be sweeter. And you will know that you are not separate from any of it. And while all the Its that you used to be afraid of may indeed still happen, you realize that this isn't the point and that trying to prevent or outsmart them was not really living, but blocking you from the deeper truth of yourself - as openness, as compassion, so good and so tender that it can survive anything - even death.  I only want to understand her and for her to understand me, and for us to feel ourselves as one - one mind, one heart, one love. But she's not easy - my little mare Secret. She never was. She was born in the middle of the night to a struggling Mama as her first and only surviving baby. And Mama died, only eight weeks later, from intestinal impaction, leaving a confident, opinionated, red-headed child, with an easygoing "Aunt" and "Uncle" who couldn't teach her the way that Mama could: It takes a strong woman to raise one. So Secret grew up a strange combination of sensitivity and rebelliousness, sweetness and sassiness, keenly intuitive, yet ready to blow you off at a moment's notice if you don't keep up. She has taught me more than any horse I've ever known. She can't be tamed with dominance, nor can she be coaxed with kindness. "Natural" horsemanship methods almost ruined her. Like a candle she flickers from pissy to shut down, from bitchy to dejected. If you miss the worry in a barely arched brow or the tension in her soft upper lip, she will pin her ears and walk away, Clueless human. You missed it. Too late. And so I'm done with the goals like flying lead changes and bareback gallops through the neighbor's pasture. I only want her respect. And love. And her trust - one moment at a time. Because in her eyes I see my reflection - a sensitive child with shifting moods - made shiftier still because no one noticed the wrinkled brow, or the far-away eyes, or the shut-down resignation of good-girl compliance. This morning I am thinking about shame, or more accurately, shame is thinking me. For in truth, there is no thinker here, but thinking does indeed happen. And last night a friend was talking about how desperately she wanted to be seen by her father. And as she grew, she made herself into a tomboy so that she could be the "son he never had." Later, she used her body and sexual energy as a way to be seen by men. Later still, she experienced a lot of shame about sex and using it to heal this daughter-daddy wound.
Of course, like many little girls, I resonate with the invisible-girl-child syndrome - never feeling like I was doing enough, or doing something good enough. It created a louder, more expressive, performance-oriented version of Shelly. As a young girl, I took on the character of confidence and bravado. It got me lots of smiles and chuckles of approval from my Dad; I guess because he was a bit of a narcissist, he liked it when I acted like him. And perhaps it was a character, an energy, that he adopted as a way to overcome profound insecurity. I cannot know. From this, his daughter's perspective, it still seems that he was simply kind of a jerk. In any case, being more like him or adopting this character strategy, felt better than being frowned upon or ignored. As I grew into adulthood, like my friend, I began to feel ashamed of this bolstered character, this trying-to-get-Daddy's-approval strategy. Personal-Growth-Shelly was embarrassed that I was ever inauthentic and had succumbed to adopting such a gross and almost cartoon-like character. Spiritual-Seeking-Shelly was mortified that I ever "put on airs." Wasn't humility a necessary ingredient to being or becoming enlightened? And here's where it hit me this morning. I was feeling the urge to write or speak - to share. And I dove deeper into the wanting-to-share energy, suspicious, as I typically am, of what was driving it. Was I wanting to get my ego stroked? Was I wanting to bolster my sense of self by taking on the role of "teacher?" Was I simply bored and needed to fill a hole? Was I trying to use "sharing" as a way to feel connected to other people? Was I wanting to contribute something as a way to establish my worth? Was I being egotistical, as my partner once suggested? And somewhere, in the background, shame was tucked carefully within the character of Good-Person-Shelly, who thought, This is healthy - this questioning, this examining. This way I don't hurt anybody. This way I'm not using other people to get my needs met. And then I caught it, this sneaky shame energy: Wait a minute. Can shame actually be good? And once I got a glimpse of this layer, a deeper, less-acknowledged shame layer arose that said, It's good to always question myself because that way I'm less likely to behave in such a way that other people won't like me. And then I remembered an eleven-year-old girls' slumber party. One of the girls had organized a kangaroo court. Each of us was brought up on "charges," except her of course: She was the judge. (This friend-group tyrant grew up to be a therapist, which I think is kinda fun). We were given two choices as to how to atone for our crimes. I was accused of "bragging" about my mini-bike. I had gotten a mini-bike when I was ten and absolutely loved it. I rode all over the neighborhood on that thing and I guess, like horses, it gave me a sense of freedom. It could take me places faster and farther than I could go on my own two feet and its power became my power, which also felt great. I was absolutely blind-sided by this accusation. Had I really been bragging? I was so confused. Still, to this day, I can't remember bragging, but at some point I decided that it must be true and that there was something wrong with my enthusiasm, something wrong with how I "shared" my joy, something maybe about the intensity of it that was perceived as bragging. And of course I was somehow wrong or less-than for not being able to see it. Maybe I was stupid, maybe I was selfish. I wasn't sure. But clearly there was something screwed up about me or this wouldn't have happened. With shame, it seems, there's no way out. You're fucked if you do and you're fucked if you don't. If you don't express yourself, then you don't get seen or heard. If you do, you run the risk of being seen as egotistical or bad. This morning I'm aware of how shame checks me: Why am I doing this? What's driving my desire to share? To write? And underneath it, I don't want to be being bad and somehow not know that I'm being bad because that would be bad. I'll have to say that sharing in hopes to be seen or heard, never satisfies - not for long anyway. And this I've learned the hard way. But did I need shame to teach me that? Actually, I simply needed awareness - awareness of energy and how it feels in my body. When the impulse to share arises, it feels free and light - natural - kinda like riding my mini-bike, like something bigger than me is powering me, carrying me. But then what happens? Does my bodymind contract with doubt before I even get started? Sit on your hands and say, 'I hate my mini-bike' ten times, was my punishment for the crime of sharing my joy, my full-tilt exuberance. And so still, I sit on my hands, not hating my mini-bike, but hating myself or parts of myself - hating or at least being suspicious of energies we might call excitement, pride, expressiveness, celebration, intensity, and even joy and happiness. Shame tells us that these energies are bad or might be. But how can they be bad? Like my friend who realized that sexual energy wasn't any more "bad" than hunger energy or tired energy, I'm reminded that none of the energies that make us human, including shame, are bad. They are simply energy forms, whose quality of contraction is the only thing that distinguishes one from the other. Shame energy is getting special attention today, because I'm realizing more clearly that it's an energy that follows most of the others - like an obedient dog it says, Whatever feeling you feel, I'm gonna follow, adding another layer of contracted energy to the contracted energies you're already feeling, so that you feel so weighed down that you can't ride that mini-bike or write this piece or share it anywhere - in case you're seen, in case you're not. So sweet shame, it seems you are with me. But I see you more clearly: You are not me, just what's happening. I write today with much less bodily tension than I would have a year ago. I write today with much less second guessing than I would have last week. And this we call growth and say that it's good. But maybe what happened before wasn't bad: It was just different, different energies happening - in the form of memories, in the form of bodily tension, in the form of emotions - and how fun it is to notice, to ride these energies freely, to be ridden by them freely, and to share the joy of mini-bike-freedom, with you. They'd been married for 36 years. They each had successful careers and had raised and launched two children. But she came to see me in tears. She'd tried and tried to get him to understand, tried and tried to say things the right way, with the right tone of voice, at the right time, so that it wouldn't turn into an argument - the same one they'd had over and over again for years. The specifics might be different, the context might vary, but the pattern was the same. He would comment about something she was doing or the way she was doing it, she would get defensive, he would resist her defensiveness by getting defensive himself, she would get angry, he would get angrier, and then she would shut down and become very small.
Then one day, in the heat of one of these arguments, he asked her, Why do you get so upset? You act like I'm doing something horrible to you? . . . "It's because my father beat me," she said, simply and softly. Thump. Stunned silence. And then, What? and he stepped to her and held her, I'm sorry. I didn't know. What is it about the raw, unfiltered, non-blaming, organic truth, when it comes from the deep dark recesses of forgetting, that cuts through the layers of defensiveness, and opens us to compassion? The thing is, on some level, he felt it, knew all along there was something there. We are feeling, sensing beings, and even the most unaware of us, can sense energies we don't understand or don't necessarily stop and take the time to pay any attention to: There's so much busyness, so much mind-clutter that gets our front-and-center attention. But in the space of feeling, when talking and feeling go hand in hand, when the what's-happening-now is all that's here, something beyond our mind-made preconceived notions and perceptions can arise. And I think of Rumi's poem, Ali In Battle. Just before he's about to fatally slay his opponent, Ali's opponent spits in his face, and Ali, the great wise warrior, steps back and withdraws his sword. His opponent is shocked and asks why he has spared him. Ali explains it this way: "Your impudence was better than any reverence, because in this moment I am you and you are me." Rumi suggests that like Ali, we learn how to fight without our egos participating. As "God's lion" Ali "did nothing that did not originate from his deep center." We are all One energy. One Life. When the unarguable, fully-embodied truth is spoken, it resonates with the listener and the listener recognizes it as truth. It's not the mind-fabricated truth of opinion. It's not the truth of projection. It's the truth of life as energy, expressing through one, and felt, as energy, by the other. But how can an energy really belong to one, if it can also be intuitively felt by another? Doesn't the other carry the same energy? Wouldn't he have to in order to recognize it? It is this we-are-one-energy recognition that heals and transforms - not as a spiritual concept, but as a felt experience. When we meet each other naked, on the open clear battlefield of energies, and bring those energies forth as divine expression, we level the playing field: Neither of us is better than the other, we are the same - both feeling energy beings, recognizing ourselves in the other. First it came from my gallbladder - a bitter resentment and anger, a sour taste from the past that left me queasy and worried enough to call the doctor. Then blood tests revealed glucose gone crazy - levels off the charts. Glucose, gleukos, the "sweet delightful wine," the sweet fuel of life was running rampant in my body with no place to go. The systems designed to receive it, to take it in for fuel and nourishment, wanted no part of it. They were rejecting it in stubborn defiance. Conversations with my partner (using the couples dialogue, designed to allow hurt feelings to flow without shredding the other), revealed, I'm so angry. And the not voiced, less responsible version: You say you're there for me but you're really not. It's always been this way. And a 20-years-behind-us, Why didn't you marry me like you said you would and now here I am, alone, with little or no support when something like this happens? And feeling a hurt and an anger that I had not allowed myself to feel, turning away instead in stubborn I-don't-need-you independence. And I remember the first time it happened - the prized pinto pony delivered to our house on my ninth birthday and a little girl's resistance to hugging her father. The details are foggy but the felt-sense is clear: I don't want to hug you because I'm mad. I'm mad at you. I don't like you. This doesn't fix everything. You're mean. I don't like you and I'll never, ever forgive you. Leave me alone. So the shell of defiant protection was already in place and I shunted my hurt and my love to my pony and all the other horses who came after. They were my safe place - a safe place to put my longing - for connection, for merger, for love and mutual respect. I know, I know, classic horsegirl story - horses good, men bad. Why didn't I see it before now, you might ask. Lots of reasons really. But the more insidious one is that lovely phenomenon we call spiritual bypassing. Post awakening experience(s), I still tend to reject, unconsciously, usually so quickly that I don't even notice, anything that smells like needing anything or anyone to make me feel happy and fulfilled. So when the surface level energy of I need love arises, I probably, still, tend to retract back into myself, without taking the time to listen and feel it. Old patterns die hard, like the grooves on an old record album entrenched with wear - even after you've "seen the light." So the longing for love remains, encased in an encrusted shell of denial and protection. But I awoke this morning remembering a dream: My partner was in bed behind me, spooning me. He literally had my back. And in my less defended, still-dreamy state, I let myself feel it, let myself surrender to it, and let it soak in. And then my heart opened. The crusty encasement of hurt was gone and the power and beauty of my longing flowed through my body and my limbs and tissues and organs who said, Yes. Welcome home. Whiney, resisting-the-way-it-is, heart-detoured, head longing, is a trap. Full-bodied love longing is your true inheritance. You, we, long for love because love is who we are. And once the longing is set free, it doesn't need the right conditions or someone special to love, because it transcends personal love. And when it flows as Itself, It blesses everyone in Its path. But mostly It blesses the lover, who knows herself as the One love - lover and beloved. I am not symptom free. There are more tests scheduled and the bitter taste of anger and hate still hangs in the background, somewhat relieved but still twinging. But this morning I am open, open as love, open as longing, while writing the poem below. Thank you gallbladder, thank you insulin resistance, for the wake-up call, for the much-needed nudge. Thank you Life, for trying to heal me. Longing recognized, is sweet. Whole-body longing for love and connection aligns you with your inescapable humanness. No matter where you go, no matter what you do, this longing follows you like an obedient dog. If you ignore it, if, in your hurt you turn away its shadow will drag you into itself until you become a calcified shell dragging resentment around as your only friend. But if you can claim your longing, allowing the pain of encasement to break, your body will open your heart, pouring its Light, as a blessing, releasing the Love that you are to fulfill Its Self. |
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