new post new post. i havent written for some time now...really its beena while i gotta say. i dont really know what to write. alot and i mean a lot has been going on recently with my job, living situation, people i know, etc. i mean dang yo dang. and i have stuff to do today. im debating whether i should go to a great yoga class or clean up the house...a friend mite be coming over and i dont know when that will be and my room is a disaster as well as what my life looks like from here...so im not sure...will i feel disappointed? sure but there is a nother class on monday i can take for sure. and i can maybe go to one or two tomorrow...and there is always bikram...i wonder if ill take the job in santa fe...im leaning away from it right now but the job im at well its kind of hard i dont feel quite safe emotionally and after working in the boys group, as a woman.

another 'easter' another day

hi. i was thinking about this time last year when i had an epiphany...about jesus and how we all have potential to be like him...and i mean literally with the same power of love and compassion. not in any religious sense but in a human sense of realizing our potential and tapping into it as human beings. i was full on in my addiction then. i am in recovery now. that feels good. however weak i may feel.

i just got a job doing wilderness therapy again this time in the woods of north carolina and south carolina instead of the desert of idaho. very different terrain. i was in the woods doing the prehire seminar with some cool cats, one woman and five guys for the weekdn...its amazing teh awesome people you meet in the woods in real places. i mean everything is real right but sometime when youar e with people that are more in tune with being in the rpesent moment it feels more real or maybe 'reality' is easier to access when the energy is already inviting you in? does that make sense?

so what is my intention and goal for this job? i was asked to write a 2 page handwritten paper on what my inteitiona nd dieser for doing self healing apprenticeship for four years would be...dont know yet if ill do it but i like writin or puttin purpose to things in my life. writing intetions and being clear becauseit is easier i think to be present in thanfkulness when you can be more specific about things. i have a problem being genuinely grateufl for things because it all seems so vague sometimes but getting the speicific and details is good.

strange times

starnge times when things change. i have parted ways with a beautiful man i have spent life with the past nine months and it is quite a different shift of energy. there is definitely energy moving all through my body yet feels heavy with sadness and wells of tears that im not quite sure where they lie and i feel a stormcoming on any time any day. free yourself i want to free myself to let it flo whenever it needs to. adnn falling back into weakness and old patterns...yesterday..mmph...it sucked but it is what it is right? i guess. and i felt it and feel it and am still here and willing.

yes. strange colors. up close and impersonal or maybe not...or maybe so. i dunno. im gonna go.

bikram and bellies

i just thot of those two words so i decided to put them in the title. i am reading a really cool book called "entering the circle" by olga kharitidi, m.d. i was just telling amanda that i like reading it because every time i read it i feel inspired. its a crazy way of looking at the world and it makes me feel like...hey i can have any perspective i want of the world and that is just fun. i feel like a kid when i think about it that way. there are infinite possibilities of perspective and realities. it makes me question everything ive thot of as concrete. this book mite not do this for other people but maybe its cuz of where im at right now that makes me wanna do it...question, ask, without expectation of an answer..i think thats the hardest thing to do. but just to put it out there and one day maybe an answer will come or maybe something else will just remind you of the question and you realize how thankful you are for the mind you have that can question and you think about where you've been and how you change and blahblahblah.

i talked to a dude who is running sort of a music school. not institutionalized or anything. has a big space with lotsa instruments and does classes for people i guess. anway i am hopefully gonna lead a yoga class and maybe meditation class there on sunday morning. he was talking about money and how he finally decided tath he doesnt want his world to run by the need for moeny. he wants to just trust that he will do what he loves and loves helping others and then the money will come when i t needs to. is that religious thinking? i dont think so. i think it is a optimistic way of looking at the worl d and a different perspective than a lot of people have. after him saying that and talking to a few other people i mite be rooming with soon about my life and them nailing me that im stuck right now because of lack of confidence to put myself out there,....which is true and afraid of commitment which is true...after hearing those things i felt much better about my life and not sooo down about fuck it man, im such a loser, i have no motivation, and ill never make any moeny. now i can be like...ok i can trust that money will come. stressing over it will not make it come faster. i am not a loser. i am recovering for a grand illness and doing really well right now and have a lot of talents that i can offer others. i have less confidence than i know i really have and can take a chance and put myself out there. why not?
whats to lose?
well i guess assumed or projected rejection because well those two seem to go hand in hand for me. i am afriad of rejection i think others have for me...even if they dont. i am afraid of what being tight and closed off does...of flipping
ya know what/ stop
i am beautiful. i am human. i have potential. unlimited potential just like everyone else. i am like everyone else and i am like no one. i am a jumble of particles bumping into each other that makes an image that others can interact with. thats interesting. yes we are all so interesting.
ok. im gonna read entering the circle now..

some thots from another of my blogs i pasted here for interest's sake

yeah that is a hard one for me. letting my belly be as it is and letting go of what i think it should be or the expectations i have taken from society and placed upon it. letting go of the expectations to have a thin frame and a thin face that shows my cheek bones very distinctly instead of having cheeks that are round. damn. thats gonna be hard, im talkin gin the future as if i cant be with what is right now. i think those are the two hardest things to be with in my physcial self…oh and my thighs…when i look down. i see a beautiful image in the mirror and looking down i see ugliness and well monster. i was reading a krishnamurti quote just now…

The beauty of listening . . .

The beauty of listening lies in being highly sensitive to everything about you: to the ugliness, to the dirt, to the squalor, to the poverty about you, and also to the dirt, to the disorder, to the poverty of one’s own being. When you are aware of both, then there is no effort, that is, when there is an awareness which is without choice, then there is no effort.

Collected Works, Vol. XV - 61

What a beautiful quote. Listening to the ugly and the dirt. I want to do that. Listening to my response to my bf wanting to separate and hearing the clingy ness that comes up and the dirt and the scum and the selfabsorbed needs as well as the understanding, the feeling that its mutual, etc. Admitting to both and letting it go as thots -that sounded cliche and not like me.

i want you to know that letting go was one of the hardest things ive had to do. let go of the fact that i couldnt do it myself. let go of the fact that i had to go into a TON of debt to take care of myself. and i want to let go into this moment of being here. i feel my belly large and in charge like A says and i love her for her humor. my therapist said or maybe i did i dunno that my belly is a place of powerful intuition and to acknowledge it is to acknowledge a part of me that hasnt been taken care of in a while.

again, i love you with a love i didnt create…a love that exists between us simply because it does and not because it is trying to be acquired or taken or even given. i guess i want to open to the reality that love exists even when we dont acknowledge it and opening to the moment by letting go and letting it be reveals that the love has always been there. let go and let be lyds. please. ok.

an unfortunate poem

i feel fat
it's the world that's not right
but that must not be true they say
so it's something wrong with me
im not quite sure what
im not quite sure why
but i feel it some where deep deep inside
and it doesnt wanna leave
the feeling so weird and feels so different
than everything around me
i have try and let others understand
they understand fat
so i must feel fat...

do you ever...?

do you ever feel like saying fuck u!! damn it! to someone you just can.t who youve paid for something adn do not like what you receieved...

do you ever feel flabbergasted by people's reasoning behind things they do?? i really cant write. im sorry . this sucks. i have to sleep on it or talk it out more. i mite regret it later but hey...i gotta go...
+

update needed?

yes i do believe it is time...can i just tell you what an awesome book is...
"angry little girls" by lela lee

we girls at the 'tapshack' watched Revolutionary Road today. it was uber depressing and uber real and good. a lot going on in that movie...probably a great book to read. alot of metaphors and a lot of cliches but said in ways and in the context where it could hit home and youd be like oh...yup...true.

can i be philosophical rigth now? well someone might read this. its late. i found in the past few days that going deep into my rebellious teenage side and facing the darkness i felt as a child and letting it come out in a rather safe place even tho simultaneously being completely misunderstood and as a child feeling invalidated well...somehow going to that place and letting it lead me to one of the darkest places i have been in well a long long time...changed something. maybe not big. but it was not like a huge light bulb or something but i felt like its an alternative way to see what you need to see. it was a way of surrendering to the fighting and resisting child within against those who wanted control, obviously out of caring intention but from a place of not understanding or willing to understand because of the irrationality of my following of my enigmatic coping mechanisms that are not foreign to any child i would assume that lives in a place that confuese their deep intuition and pressures them to thinking its NOT the safe place to go or listen to...what was i saying?? oh yeah in surrendering to the child and letting myself be the child i could see something i hadnt seen before. and ironcially i dont exactly know what that is except that i know more of what i want now. and dont want. i know that going back to that child was a necessary part of realizing me and fighting for me and my own self without the need for being understood or validated.
in fighting for me i was fighting for you.
a wise mentor once told me when i asked...what the hell can i do about all the suffereing adn death and war in the world? and he said something like, well what we see is reflections of us so why not figure out how to stop the wars and suffereing and death in yourself and teh answers to the world? i forget now...shut up.

blah blah blah. esoteric -ness smish...

some interesting krishnamurti quotes

We have broken up action

Questioner: In a little village there is a poisonous snake, and there is a woman crying her heart out because the snake has bitten her baby and the baby is dead. I can kill the snake or I can leave it alone. What am I to do?

Krishnamurti: What do you do? Do you wait until you come to this tent to be told what to do? Or do you do something there? You act! If you are callous, indifferent, you don't do anything; if you are moved, you actually, immediately, do something. Sir, all our activity is based on the idea that we must help, that we must be good, that this is right, and that is wrong. All action is conditioned by an idea, by our country, by our culture, by the food we eat. All that conditions our actions because they are based on an idea. When we see that action is approximating itself to an idea and therefore it is not an action, then we will put away all idea and know what action is. It is very interesting to observe how we have broken up action: righteous, immoral, right, true, noble, ignoble, national action, action according to the church. If we understand the worthlessness of such action, then we act. We do not ask how to act, what to do; we act and that act is the most beautiful act at
that moment.

Collected Works, Vol. XVI - 241

Love the moment. Flowers grow out of dark moments. Therefore, each moment is vital. It affects the whole. Life is a succession of such moments and to live each, is to succeed...

a desolate winter amongst colors i can not see...

colors i cannot see or colors i well rather that i choose not to see i guess. we choose what to see and what not to see. these days i choose to see the desolate aspect of nonlife. of misery, a suffering that extends endlessly into boredom and crazy abysmal holes of self destruction and self distraction away from thinking or being with the confusion that is life in transition. in transition when nothing seems permanent or sensible, where every turn has a sign pointing to misery that others are part of or suffer in, signs that point this way to hell if you choose, this way to well nowhere to heaven. signs point nowhere to heaven. heaven is nowhere. does that make sense? can i say that in a nonfatalistic way? heaven is nowhere. or the cliche heaven is now here. here. here. what is? fuck questions man. fuck em all. questions without answers. those are the signs pointing to hell. i try and i try and i try endless amounts of each day to avoid how these questions without answers make me feel. i try to avoid the feelings, how my body responds. and i go down dusty paths that have no trees, only rocks craggy rocks with sharp points where cutting my foot upon would only yield a dull greyish blood from my foot, nothing that interesting, boring to look at really. so boring that color just doesnt seem to be there. ahh to let my fingers go on this typewriter well i wish it was an old typewriter. i set my eyes on one in a vintage thrift store the other day and was keen on buying it until my bank account told me i had $34. yes. please tell me life is more than stressing over that. so a mac will have to do for now. it has been so dead to me for so long i am thnakful that i can give some expression into its very methodically planned technology that has yielded both poison and hope to millions. well maybe not this mac in particular but pcs and such in general...anyway. hope. i heard yesterday someone say -you need to be courageous to give up hope. give up hope? are you fucking nuts dude? why yes. being nuts means going not just swimming in the other direction, against the flo, it means taking the river and blowing it away in the wind and breathing fresh air. no more clogged lungs filled with waters that confuse our minds and bodies and brains because we arent actually meant to swim in water for long extended periods of time. breathe fresh air. i rarely do. what is it in me that wants to sit inside and look at the beautiful weather instead of be in it/ its a safe haven to be in walls or something. to be comfy in my self induced misery rather than stepping out, even tho i dont know what the hell ill do and be courageous and give up hope. give up hope that change will come in teh future. give up hope that tomorrow will be better than today.
does anyone get that tomorrow doesnt exist yo? i mean, seriously why did we create taht word? i wonder about those cultures and languages where that word, that concept (future) doesnt exist. how are their lives different? are they less more complex? is everything relative when it comes to suffering? sometimes i want to blame all my suffering on linear time. if only i didnt think about the future and what will come next. ya know i was talking to dale the other day and realizing that a lot of my life to my continual dismay i have been bored. i have continued to look to the next moment to be what i want, what is missing. something has always been missing for me, even now...cannot get full enough, but then i get too full and literally want to just vomit it all fucking up...reading a book called dry today about a guy going to rehab for drinking...im at the part where he is being introduced to weirdos there...it was intriguing, dont know why i just wrote that..maybe because im bored writing right now and want to go read. i havent been much of a reader during my life. have you? i always felt like i wasnt getting enough from teh words on the page...and that there must be something more productive to be doing...and then ironically i go and sit and feel bored and try to avoid feeling bored or get mad at the boredrom or myself or something. does that happen to you? cuz even when i was little it happened. my mom said go read a book or every once and a while would suggest doing something and iwould just get angry like duh mom as if i havent thot of that and considrered whether it would be worth doing...and alas i come back to a state of life where there is desolation and boredom amidst a sea so brightly colored and swimming with so many unknown and undiscovered creatures to me (here i go back to water analogies again) that i can only sink to the bottom and stick my face in the sand and moan because i cant see anything. haha.
the humor of our chosen day to day mindsets. the absurdity of our brains to choose certain things over others. so many existential questions come up. esp these days when i question whterhe its worth working a job (after taxes) that comes out to about $5 an hour with no benefits and if the cold dark winter is where i would like to be for now. i can always leave right? but dont i always do that. right when im getting settled. oop, nope, nows the time to rattle everything up again and try and find routine even tho you were just about to melt into it so easily. routine i feel like is my answer to these existential crisis questions right now. but that doesnt seem to be enough. this entire piece feels like a rambling distraction from what is really going on in me that i want to get out. i want to get it OUT!!!! what? are you itnerested...i dont feel like thats true. the song in my head right now..amy winehouse...rehab. they wanna make me go to rehab but i say no, no no. what does rehab do? is rehab good? gives you a chance to be free well forced free from a habit that started before your choosing awareness of it. but what does a month or six weeks of forced absistence do when you know the questions that caused the addiction in the first place are not gonna be answerd in the place that supposedly cures people of their "diseases habits". what if disease whas all that existed. good health was so rare that tit was taboo. what then. or is that actually true. are we all so diesase that we cant not even imagine what health actually is so we simply associate health ith our curresntt state of being. these past two senteneced i have been right ing with my head resting against the illo of the couch closingmy eyes. can yu tell? im beat tired. i could write for another hour i bet. but alas. sleep is gently calling me to health. hah isnt that ironic. hopefully, nope not even gonna go there. what i am gonna do is to say that my head throbs a dullness that moves from one temple to the other. i have an ache in my lower belly that a relaxed cat is breathing into. i need water. im breathing. that is my reality and sensations some of them right now. goodnite. or whatever you are doing. here. here. here. up. here. yup. here.

unsatisfactorily satisfied

am i doing something wrong? does everyone go through periods like this? literally actually...women. im not sure how serious to take myself or my thoughts. yes they are projections on the future BUT the future is a big change coming up and well nows the itme to look at other possibilities right. i guess so. what am dissatisified about in this moment? i think its myself. i can be awesome anywhere. anywhere can be awesome for me? well i guess so. its all perspective right? i start to imagine how i was before in a certain place and project that itll be the same and that scares me, makes me unsatisfied. yet when i breathe and sit and think about this moment i am listening to jazz in a cute little coffee with a full cup of nasty drip i have only sipped on cuz it curdles my stomach, no prob bob, just a couple bucks and the weather outside is well amazing really. amazing. a walk? yes a walk seems nice. a walk to old town and then some yummy dindin. what is real in my worries and what isnt. are my thots legit to consider or should i just throw them in the trash can or rather in the fire. i dont want the trash stinking up my house. i have questions and questions. i have worries. what to do what to do. for now, well breathe. smile. smile some more. walk home, hold hands, smile, take a few pictures perhaps, some yoga would be nice and a kiss or two. enjoy the moment enjoy now. the future doesnt exist. nope. trust yourself. trust yourself now and itll be ok then. it is ok now. yes. self talk or rather self writing is good. beautiful time of day it is. beautiful. time of year. beautiful. let it be. k. i trust myself to express what needs to be expressed later. for now, just remember this too shall pass. and nothing is permanent.

swings

erin, you are beautiful. i luv how i can see your beauty through this photograph you took or where we both at one time lived and worked in harmony, in confusion, in figuring life out together. i luv you my dear friend who i look up to...i luv sharing with you, fine wine, dances in a grand pavilion overlooking a massive ocean, drinks and pool around a large tree taking root and permeating the space of a sandbar, talks over chat or long conversations about life and its processing out of the analytical mind and the intuitive feeling of time and space and nothingness, i luv sharing silence with you, the space in between you and me in you and me, i luv sharing the love of music as you express yourself and i take in your soul listening to you your voice your beauty of loving life. you are beautiful. you are creative. you are expression. a dance i luv to join. i luv sharing pains and hurt...the good the bad the ugly...yes...i luv that life is confusin and a puzzle and everything all at once simultaneously being absolutely nothing and meaningless. it is what it is. and that is enough. i think right? you. you have brightened my life. you brighten my experience of time and space. you are a clear mirror of love and joy sprinkled with sunshine and tear droplets of sadness that so beautifully splashes making designs of emotion on the glass. its so nice that we can hold up mirrors to each other, look into them and be like, oh. yeah i get it. yeah you too? cool. or oh my goodness i so dont get it. but oh well. lets go have a drink and dance the nite away. sweet. sweet silver lining crazily spinning and radiating through the boundless moments of you and me. i luv you. thank you.

i wanna be that happy azz dog not the cynic

i do i really do. im nervous. im scared. why? cuz i can be i guess and drama makes life interesting and is so seductively addictive. why do we choose suffereing over just plain old being simply happy and content. accepting what is and accepting what isnt knowing that now is enough and whatever is missing isnt really what we need but a desire a want that can never be filled anyway so why go on that search. a void maybe? endless? abyssmal? empty? like a vacuum? that can be filled? by what. silence. stillness. silence. stillness. what do those words mean. why have they become so important to me recently. is it because i feel like the antithesis of them? impatient, restless unrelenting in my desire to fight the stillnes and silence. to make noise to make movement my constant. my everyday goings on. to keep from boredom or to wallow in it rather than feel it like a scientist feels a soft caterpilar on a rainy day. do they? i dont know. maybe they just peer at them under a microscope. i want to feel realy feeeeelll. what do i feel right now. my leg bouncing waiting for me to go to the bathroom. a stomach wanting to be emptied. i feel pain coming from my heart -pain that doesnt feel like anything but empty crazy space that make sme feel insane in the membrane! insane in the brain. yep. you. you. you who are you to me. who are we to you. me to you. you to me. self absorption is what i indulge in. self indulgent. like most humans are at points. why do i feel like the only one? do i want to feel special? like im the only sufferer of nonsensical irrational addictive thots. pleez. everyone is in the same boat with blind eyes to the fact that they sit next to a bunch of blind people al feeling like they are the only ones stranded at sea because they are too afraid to reach out their empty hands to feel what is in and around them. that we are all in this together. and that the sky is actually shining bright blue with a crystal diamond of light in the sky peering and smiling as the waves dance before us and the creatures of the beautiful sea perform endless songs of delectable and joyful i dont know. we choose to stay blind even tho we are just closing our eyes. we can open them to the light of day or night to see the glorious sunshine or soothing moonlite. to see all the beautiful people sitting next to us in the boat all waiting for each other to open our eyes and sing as we float about in an ocean of curiosity. i want to be curious. i want to open my eyes and see you sitting here with me. opening your eyes as we smile at each other creating wrinkle lines around our eyes from squinting in contentment at what we are and what we are living. what are we living? simplicity that we complicate by closing our eyes and seeing what isnt there. complications suffereing wanting the world around us to be different. when in fact its quite different than we imagine. it actually IS. and we think it WAS or WILL BE> open your eyes. im opening my eyes. to this moment. of struggle yes. of mistakes. yes many. of wanting things to be different? well why? it is what it is yo. my new mantra of these past few months. it is what it is. and i need to take care of myself. head to the bathroom and then head to bed to wake up and meet the sun once again. let the night drift me off to dreams of nonsense and sorting like my mind does all day. i want to consider my mind like my dreams. there but nothing to take too seriously. because its not real. what is real is that i am using this crazy little fingers of mine to type type away at a mysterious machine that puts words in front of me that i just thot-like magic you might say. magic that exists because of science and reason and well the mind. when teh mind is put in its place and we consider the ehart and how our sensations in our bodies are right now. how does your belly feel. how do you legs feel. your eyes. are they droopy? wide awake and alert? how are you breathing in this moment? im breathing short shallow breaths cuz i dont want to feel my stomach. i want to keep judgement locked away instead of letting it flow through me. it comes and goes like the wind and rain and sun. its inevitable that it wil continue to come and go. why hold onto it. why consider it the only thing. why consider happiness the only thing. that comes and goes too. the rain falls and then the sun peaks out. unti lthe winds pick up the temps drop and snow falls or hail. cloudy skies roll in with the thunder claps and lightning strikes. the moon shines its fullness and diamonds peek out not caring or wondering what our eyes gaze at night after night through telescopes trying to discover. they just blink at us. blinking away as we run around muddled and confused and stop. breathe deep. deep into your stomach. where does that take you? it takes me to this moment right now. it takes me to you. to me. to here. i luv you. i luv this struggle. i luv the process of learning. i luv that i hate things. i want to accept change. i want to let go of holding on to nothing i have made my everything. with empty hands i see you open eyes i sit next to you and together we can wave at the waves as they dance for the sun the moon the stars and everything else. cheesy cheesy cheesy. i like cheese sometimes. right now. mmm. yeah i think ill stop writing. goodnite. ill thin kof you in the enxt now perhaps or maybe youll think of me. no matter. thats how it is.

iz how i feelz sometimez

like im about to reach it -sooo close
reach what? what we are all looking for. nothing. everything. emptiness thats full and satisfying. happiness that lasts in sorrow and anger. peace that makes us feel safe and understood, like we belong, like we are something. do you understand? no one does andyet everyone would agree if they knew that. knew what? if they realized, if we realized we know nothing...and that is beautiful. we are curious little creatures in this great big universe...curious and yet so obnoxiously arrogant and self centered judgemental. well that is a normal aspect of humanity what is normal? what is normal? why does the word normal exist? so that people could group together and exclude those they didnt feel like trying to understand. those they felt like using as a scapegoat to blame all their own problems on...gang up on because there was nothing better to do with the empty space that surrounds us all waiting for us to dive into it and feel soo close and know that that is enough. is that enough? is this enough? this feeling that im so close to healing completely>? im healing. isnt that all that matters? who is this anonymous writer that met me once and i dont know. do i? do i know you strangers? friends? people i would love to meet and chat with. who i chatted with yesterday in a great big field with a pointer dog leaping through the fields like a deer boundingin ecstasy for no reason except energy running through its being while you talk about your search for big foot and how you saw it through your thermal locator while thots of aliens were running through my mind as i accepted your experience as completely real and yours wondering what my experience was of you loving you loving your dog loving strangers loving people loving well nothing and everything simultaneously. there was a deer that was directly in front of me you told me when iwas running and i didnt even see it. iwas thinking and not paying attention to the field to the sky the trees the deer. it is what it is. i feel like i could stay up all nite and do this. write and read and think and ponder. feel inspiration feel loneliness feel drowning. feel you stranger. its good to knowyou are out there reading. not reading. thinking. meditating. not giving a shit about life. knowing love is all there is. or whatever you are thinking feeling being right now. thaz cool yo. thaz cool.

woa can this be possible

most beautiful and most dangerous looking creature of the arachnid family. crazy beautiful spider living smaller than the size of a pinky in the palm tree of a villa in abidjan cote divoire. luv is all around. it is. thankful for color and yellow, my favorite.

the morning dawn as an alnighter ends calmly after peace and agony conversed

goodmorning sunshine. i luv you. simply. here is another poem. (makes my heart smile)
The Dance
Oriah Mountain Dreamer


I have sent you my invitation,
the note inscribed on the palm of my hand by the fire of living.
Don't jump up and shout, "Yes, this is what I want! Let's do it!"
Just stand up quietly and dance with me.

Show me how you follow your deepest desires,
spiralling down into the ache within the ache.
And I will show you how I reach inward and open outward
to feel the kiss of the Mystery, sweet lips on my own, everyday.

Don't tell me you want to hold the whole world in your heart.
Show me how you turn away from making another wrong without abandoning yourself when you are hurt and afraid of being unloved.

Tell me a story of who you are,
And see who I am in the stories I am living.
And together we will remember that each of us always has a choice.

Don't tell me how wonderful things will be . . . some day.
Show me you can risk being completely at peace,
truly OK with the way things are right now in this moment,
and again in the next and the next and the next. . .

I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring.
Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall,
the place you cannot go beyond by the strength of your own will.
What carries you to the other side of that wall,
to the fragile beauty of your own humanness?

And after we have shown each other how we have set and kept the clear, healthy boundaries that help us live side by side with each other, let us risk remembering that we never stop silently loving those we once loved out loud.

Take me to the places on the earth that teach you how to dance, the places where you can risk letting the world break your heart.
And I will take you to the places where the earth beneath my feet and the stars overhead make my heart whole again and again.

Show me how you take care of business
without letting business determine who you are.
When the children are fed but still the voices within and around us shout that soul's desires have too high a price,
let us remind each other that it is never about the money.

Show me how you offer to your people and the world
the stories and the songs you want our children's children to remember, and I will show you how I struggle
not to change the world, but to love it.

Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude,
knowing both our absolute aloneness and our undeniable belonging. Dance with me in the silence and in the sound of small daily words, holding neither against me at the end of the day.

And when the sound of all the declarations of our sincerest
intentions has died away on the wind, dance with me in the infinite pause before the next great inhale of the breath that is breathing us all into being, not filling the emptiness from the outside or from within.

Don't say, "Yes!"
Just take my hand and dance with me (Patrick).