Private Nook

Cold, wet and rainy with violent winds circling around the buildings, I hear the storm. The darkness stifles. I imagine the stars beyond the clouds and ask for messages, for guidance. Then I turn in and snuggle up to the warmth of my bed. Fitful sleep, dreams thick and confusing. One stands above the rest like a beacon for my attention. I awake knowing that I am the Hierophant.

The telephone rings and my eyelid creeks.  Destiny answers with a throaty hello.  With excitement, I drop everything and stand at attention albeit fully nude.  I am not feeling fully prepared just falling out of bed, foggy and slightly confused.  All of the things that have brought me comfort spill away from my reach and suddenly I feel lost and abandoned but I know inside that this is not the case… For once, I am fully bright and illuminating my own path.  All I have to do is put one foot in front of the other and trust the light that I shine.

We are never truly alone  with all this expandable energy flowing every which way… we are bombarded, caressed with it every quantum second but we have become numb.  Open your heart and feel the electrons pulsing within-without..they pet you with life.  and we are one.

Before there was isolation.  Before feeling alone.  There was a unified force which is ever present but cannot sometimes be felt because being in form separates.  This unity has been described by many to consist of pure love.

Being in form individuates, tears apart from the unity that once was.  This form is  a spectacular gift but it comes at a cost because there is no longer connection with the energy that gives so much sustenance except for very fleeting moments.

Humbled by this life and infinitely grateful to be in the world of forms.  Separated by skin.  The knowing that such love exists… we must celebrate.  And give thanks.

Is the word that stared me down, glaring at me while I listened to the Sweetest Thing. A song that embodies something between love within and love without. Love of the excitement, the freedom and most of all the spiritual. Between the moments of dark, cold wind and rain there is a warmth that breathes on my skin, a softness that caresses my belly as the swell of excitement pushes me to a new space. In my periphery there are sparkles and glimmers that keep my eyes darting about trying to take it all in. The music tastes different, the food sounds happy and the perfume feels thick. I feel I have taken the reigns of my purpose and pulled them up to my chin like a fat, cozy blanket. I am comforted while I take inventory of all the Roads that Present themselves as endless possibilities.

The birds have been talking to me. I am listening but am still unclear… as I stay open to their messages countless people from my past happen by at the most provocative times. Its as though spring is here within starting anew. My old friends have new messages as though the birds have hired them for their voices since the incessant chirping didn’t quite get through. They flit about me, circling me with their wisdom chattering on with little tidbits that clue me into myself. Everything I hear is exactly, precisely and perfectly what I need.

All I can say is Thank You, humbly.

When it started I was on shaky ground, not sure if I were flying or sinking.  The ground was soft at first and then abrupt, like coming upon a staggering cliff from the bottom not understanding how to get back up.  I just kept staring upward wondering how to make a path given the terrain was muddy, full of slate and looming over me like a protective parent.  For awhile I clawed at the wall until I was just too tired.  I gave up and sunk into the base of the cliff in the softest nook I could find.  It was almost comforting.  Dark and soft, damp.  It gathered me in its paw, and I let go.  But then there was a little inch.  A little flicker within.  It was a part of me that refused.  A little opposing magnet deep inside repelling against the dark, softness that surrounded.  As I sat there motionless, it started to grow.  Unbeknown to me that little inch started growing and attracting like-forces.  It grew from within and without.  Suddenly it jarred something loose, the dark, soft mud became cold and wet, suffocating.  My body stirred.  I opened my eyes.

Like waking to an alarm, I jolted out of my cave.  And slowly started building myself, because I figured that if I was bigger then the cliff would not loom so heavily over me.  I let that little inch magnify, thrust me into like energies which converged until I was a massive force.  So strong.  So big. I looked to the cliff and stared it in the eyes and presented MYSELF in all the TRUTH I could muster.  The cliff melted into a soft, round, glassy piece of sweetness and presented itself as a step for me to elevate my new SELF.

Today I celebrated my 33rd birthday! I had been searching for a meditation center and came across a fund raising event for a zen meditation center up in Northgate. The event was for members to donate their time to make Buddha out of clay. These Buddhas will be auctioned off to fund the meditation center. I thought there was really no better way to spend my birthday than making gods of peace for the world. So I invited a couple of my closest friends and my mother to the clay making festivities. I have some pix as show and tell:

Us working (from my perspective):

Amanda and her beautiful Buddha Creations:

Annie and her beautiful Buddha Creations:

My mom and her beautiful Buddha Creation:

and of course, My beautiful Buddha Creations:

Some Finished Buddhas from previous donators:

If you would like to make one of these beautiful Buddhas yours come to this event:

Sunday, December 9, The Buddah Project: Silent Auction, Seattle, 6:30 pm

Take home your own personal Buddha while helping to raise money for Blue Heron Zen Community. Clay Buddhas made by our sangha members and frieds will be on display at Blue Heron Zen Center from December 7th to 9th. Over the weekend we will hold a silent auction. You can bid on as many Buddhas as you like. Bidding will stop at 6:30 pm sharp, so if you want to take home your favorite Buddha or one you made youself, you’ll have to be the highest bidder.

As a little girl I was obsessed with magic both trickery and the untouchable. The metaphysical, although I didn’t call it that back then. I completely believed with every ounce of my soul. I listened to the flowers and the worms, I had an honorary burial of a cricket in a banana peal because I believed that this cricket needed to be sent off to the spirits properly. So it is no surprise that I continue to listen… I listen to anything that will talk to me. And I hear things. Things with meaning. Loaded with meaning. Dripping from the movement of the trees, flowing from the cloud arrangements. I hear the universe talk to me.

Yesterday I went for a reading, yes, another reading. Her spirit guides were talking through her as she drew cards for me. They spoke TRUTH. I felt silly for having gone, since I already knew what they were telling me. Then I went home and attempted to speak with them myself… moments fleeting with feelings and pictures engulfed me. After 45 minutes I was more alert and clear full of love and life. I asked for an animal guide, not out loud but a soft wish within. Today above my parents home was a teenage hawk preening out his old baby feathers all over me, raining on me like a ritualistic cleanse. So, of course…. I have to look up the meaning of this animal.

I hear from this hawk that I must rip out the threads of self created illusions, to surrender anything that does not align with or honor the integrity of all life. But of course, like the reading… I feel silly for asking. Because I already feel this happening within…. since I am always listening.

These words haunt me lately as I stab around in my head for answers. I am the tinman searching for my heart thinking someone has stolen it… but alas, it has been with me here the entire time. I was just not listening.

Now, between the sine waves of noise I can see glimpses of it… I am sneaking ever so slowly up on it and when I grab hold I promise never to let go. Shhhhhh…. don’t tell. I’m onto it. The everyday coincidences are leading me inside, showing me the way to my own personal labyrinth. As I walk the maze a calm settles over, the goose bumps fade and the beating of my pulse slows.

There is a small bead of light just around the corner, right now I can feel its warmth and a sweet song off in the distance. The smell of fresh sweet bread is filling my soul as I edge closer and closer to my home.

I am finally ready to take the plunge. Just sit there and watch me.

As a child I loved to play near the water, teetering on rocks and logs while dancing around, flirting with the wetness.  I would jump fully clothed, in the winter from rock to rock while the cold water of the river beckoned me.  Occasionally I would slip a little but never so much as to require new clothing.  This pattern of stone stepping evolved into a way of living.  As I grew, I made my way through the currents of life by skipping stones.

I feel the need to keep moving from rock to rock to see where the river leads.  I step toward the next rock, unwilling to leave the last one until my footing is assured.  I don’t seem to run out of path, the rocks are laid specifically for me.  You could say they were put there as breadcrumbs to follow.

Without ever turning around, I keep stepping from rock to rock staying my course to follow my river.  And yet sometimes there are rocks left too hastily.  Without enough thought.  They weigh on my mind at times and even in my dreams.

I had a recurring dream, not the same dream exactly but one whose lesson keeps repeating itself… Like a message from outside myself telling me to remedy the issue.  It was about an old friend, we were reunited and held eachother crying with sorrow, relief and joy.  In actuality I don’t see this as possible but after years of the recurring dream, I sent my friend a note.  No surprise that I never heard back but the other night my friend came to me in my dreams for clarification, for a clearer explanation as to what I wanted.  I want for nothing but for peace and love between us.  Even if the physical distance between us is greater than this earth, I want happiness to envelop both us.

There are miles of rocks that lay between us now and I know that I have never left my true path yet I reflect on my journey to find some unresolved grief and previously unacknowledged love.

Enveloped in a cloud, surrounded by sweet softness.  I hear a song escaping my heart in a long exhale.  It is about a girl lost in the wind. She is twisted up, confused but keeps her eyes open to take it all in.  In the end, with a whisper she fuses with the ether and becomes wind in form flowing, tickling all matter.  Upon the crescendo there are lights flickering, twinkling in my peripheral.  I am dizzy and feel faint, my breathing shallow and light. I don’t want to move out of fear that the disruption would stop the song that my heart so wants to sing.  The words fade but the feeling persists.

I was given a gift once by someone who pushed and prodded at me, forcing the gift at me while I pondered the package.  I finally took it, hastily opening and not quite understanding exactly what I was looking at after the last of the wrapping was gone.  I knew it was given with love and at the time it was something I needed, but I am still unsure of what it was that captured me so completely.

The song that I feel emanating makes my body ache because in truth I may have taken something that i wasn’t willing to give.  Or I gave something that I wasn’t willing to take.  Either way the gift is sitting on my heart blocking the way of my song.

Now it is my turn to push and prod at myself, without direction or sense of righteousness i am left to decipher my own clues… breadcrumbs that I leave for myself unknowingly so that I may clear the way to my own heart and let the wind breath life and regenerate me.

Shiny scales with cold eyes, slippery and wet.  So pretty, the little fishy. Distracted, I tripped over a math book and fell into the dark, rich water. Enveloped within.  I closed my eyes, ears and stopped breathing so that I could stay there for awhile and just feel the softness.  Hypnotized in the darkness by the heavenly water, the fish flitted by and the waves of energy hit my body.  I opened my eyes and saw the shimmer.  I followed for a long time and finally reached out to touch a scale.  The fish turned abruptly and stared right at me.  I thought for sure I had frightened it but after a long moment we started swimming together in unison.  I felt so lucky to be swimming with such an animal, so swift and quiet.  And then in a flash the shimmer flitted away.  I was abruptly startled by the aloneness and stood up in the shallow pond.

Something caught my eye the other day, I could swear it was that very same fish.  The dream that followed the sighting suggested that I missed the lesson that the fish had for me.  I am left here wondering, searching, fantasizing about what it was I missed exactly.

This is what the Fish is to some:

The Fish can teach us to adapt to all environments, to streamline our lives, give us protection when we need it and connect us to creative element of life: water.  The Fish reveals the strength of the currents in our lives and shows us clarity in the murky waters of the future.  When a Fish enters your life, it will signal the senses being awakened: visions, prophetic dreams, greater contact with the spiritual realm and even clauraudience.