why?

I am tired of feeling lonely and isolated from the world. I am tired of feeling like a victim to my circumstance and that no one wants to hear what I have to say. So ... I start blogging.

And I have lots to say but when I sit in front of the computer the words seem to get stuck in the boggy place that is my mind saying they need to be meaningful. Pah! What is meaningful??

Meaningful (in this instance) is another word for fear - fear of what?? Fear of being laughed at, thought trivial or stupid or boring, or worse yet - irrelevant. The little judge and jury hanging out in my head seem biased toward the prosecutor who makes up all kinds of stories about what is 'meaningful'. This prosecutor is inconsistant, manipulative and completely irrational, but his stories are convincing, and the poor defense guy, who's basic premise is that no life is irrelevant and that everyone has the right to choose what is meaningful to them for themselves, has no fancy moves but only his deep faith in these truths. (Meaningful in this context is 'of value')

Okay, I am going beyond that now...

I have been listening to Eckhert Tolle's "A New Life" on cd while I work in the pear orchard. (This is in part an effort to strengthen the case for the defense) And he tells a story about two monks that sticks with me: (paraphrasing here)

Two Buddhist monks were walking to their next monastery. In the morning they came to a stream, swollen and muddy with rain. Beside the stream was a woman in a beautiful dress. It was obvious she could not cross without getting her dress muddy so one of the monks picked her up and carried her across. The monks continued on their journey in silence. In the evening as they approached the monastery the one monk asks "Why did you pick that woman up and carry her across the stream? You know we monks are not supposed to do that" And the other monk replies, "I set her down on the other side of the stream, you have been carrying her all day"

Okay, I feel better now, set down that meaningful stuff and moving on ... But I did not say in this post the 'why' that I originally intended about why start this blog. That I shall try again for on a braver day.

Messages

This morning I looked at an old oak tree in the middle of the yard and felt such affinity with it I think I must have been a tree once. Then instead of making the graceful transition to a new life my evolution got stuck on a craggy, gray plateau which is neither here nor there. This plateau is bloody uncomfortable, and yet I'm not convinced which path to take off it. There is a vague feeling that I should be striving to be that 'something' I'm meant to be as a human, and then there is the tree I was calling me back into the patterns of the seasons, without emotion, without judgement, without having to DO any frigging anything except be a tree.

Faith, the cat, has just dived into the day lilies, probably the safest spot for some innocent creature they are so dense. Oh to be a cat and not have to think before you jump. I mean if only what I am meant to do would be the desire that would overpower all the others tumbling in my head what life that would be.

Two days ago I looked past my computer screen into the garden and there was a little man there. I mean it looked like a statue of an emaciated, grey brown man who definitely wasn't there the day before was looking in at me. Not just looking either, his expression, whole attitude was saying he'd been neglected, forgotten, needed attention before its too late. It took quite a while for me to realize he had materialized from a the remnants of a spectacular pale pink iris and was not some wooden voodoo figure or a pixie playing tricks. (Bizarre huh? I did feel a twinge of a vague fear until I came up with the explanation)

Yesterday morning I woke up crying from a dream. My mother was alive and it was Christmas. All of us kids were there, our present ages (40 somethings), but none of our families. And the Christmas tree was beautiful and everyone was opening presents and I kept waiting and looking for mine but there was nothing with my name on it. And nobody was talking to me, like I didn't exist for them, even though I was there and talking to them. I was trying not to feel left out and telling myself how pathetic it was to be disappointed about not getting a gift, telling myself Christmas is about love, and that real love is a gift that does not expect anything in return. But I was so sad, and I woke up crying.

And I was thinking about messages, like these thoughts that tumble through my head occasionally stop enough to let in a little space and a message pops up (think bingo). That is a blessing, a miracle, ... and a problem. I mean I don't want to miss what they are telling me, but trying to analyze these messages to find out what I should do sucks, and it takes up even more space.

I think I want to be a cat now - see message "chipmunk running into lilies" follow instinct - dive after it. Result: sometimes I get a treat, sometimes I don't, but I always get to enjoy the chase.

naked in my garden

I’m sweating buckets, pulling weeds and digging plants. Its early in the season and I am still visualizing dense, colour splashed borders and weed free pathways lit by torches and a fire in the rock pit and stars overhead and someone with me drinking wine while the heady scents wafting in the breeze overtake us and passion swallows us. That is what I sweat for. Reality is I reach down and yank a handful of debris to toss in the wheelbarrow and a snake, just as startled as I, jerks in my hand and I fling him, glove and all as far as I can and he lands slithering and for the rest of the summer I stomp loudly through my garden, and sing like a crazy lady. Day after day goes by, and I work hard, and more and more I am drawn to my dream and I sweat dreaming and thinking this is the year. I drink a lot of wine. I order topsoil and mulch and sweat and swear and dirt gets in my pores and I drink more wine and wear less clothes. I think to hell with skin cancer I need to feel the sun, and then if I’m going to get skin cancer I might as well smoke, so I buy a pack and with the wine it tastes good, and then one night in the hot tub my dream disappears in the stars and I know that this summer it is not going to happen, and I cry to the stars, then I sing I’m alive, lonely is living, and I twirl on the grass and run naked in my garden, and dance myself to sleep.