Private Nook

The Oregon Country Fair beckons me every year and so again we made the trek down.  I usually over pack with many odds and ends that i may need but this year I left hastily, only bringing essentials with few accents.

I am living in a house numbered six which is supposed to induce one into soul searching  which is coincidently what I have been focused on since I moved in.  I have been reading/researching thoughts and ideas centered around spiritual enlightenment knowing that I feel a purpose here which needs more definition.

Upon arriving to the fair, we drove around in a circle three times to find the perfect camping area.  I spotted a couple who I was instantly drawn to but for whatever reason we ended up setting camp a little further down the road.  Within an hour of setting up camp we were surrounded by somewhat overbearing hippies and the husband of another couple nearby had a very bad faint or possibly a seizure.  We called for help and tried our best to assist…. but finally we moved our camp to join the couple I had spotted initially and the vibe improved instantaneously!

Our new friends were beautiful and fun if not just the perfect kind of crazy.  We had created in that moment a community that I intend to keep.  We looked out for and were ever-generous with each other.  It was exactly perfect.

We worked at our usual Blazing Salads booth during the day, wandered the fair, ate yummy food, watched funny skits, slept in a field filled with stilt-people and various entertainment and finally ended up back in our perfect little community which grew daily to encompass more and more amazing people.

I had set in mind a goal for the fair as I do every year.  The fair is a magical place where energy manifests into form.  I set an intention every year and this year I needed some answers.  I wanted to be shown my path.

On Saturday night I had a dream yet I was vividly awake.  I became very centered, very grounded and in firm words “I am shaman” was heard throughout my body.  And I was united with my purpose.  Erik was shown to me, eyes closed and smiling with a crown that was gold with silver, emanating light.  The gold symbolized the ability to heal and the silver the ability of insight.  Clarity engulfed me.

I got my wish and my dream…..and my purpose!

A storm sets in around me. Whirling around as I facilitate the buzzing, the action, the drama. Its like a juggle, a dance. The rush and cool composure while chaos reigns and I stand still, in the middle of it all. I am the director. My focus stays on one thing while I maintain the others and they are flying around me in a haze as my gaze is constant.

As previously stated, the intention, the place of focus is where you will go. And I keep staring there, focused on that one thing wondering if I will complete the cycle. I move closer and closer still. Mindfully, blissfully, mouth-opened stare at the thing that sits there in my site. Like a fly being led to the light. A beacon that hypnotizes. I am drawn. I am a snake that is dancing to the flute, unaware of the possible dangers that may come.

The cloud of everything else is tangled in my hair and I am left to comb it out as I stare dumbfounded at this thing that I want.

A murmur of energy congeals into a single unified thought.  A cloud forms with a rumble. “There are so many possibilities, they are endless, infinite” Rain starts to seep from empty nothingness.  The rain is pulled gravitationally in one direction.  A mirror appears from the collection of rain and creates the illusion of rain continuing endlessly forever through the reflection.  The mirror shatters into billions and billions of microscopic entities.  Each one with its own identity.  From the whole each entity separates and flows on its very own path.

I have been separated from the whole, on my very own path but aware that there are billions of paths that one bitty me can take.  An infinite number of different types of planets, species, particles, forms.  I am but one but still part of the whole.  I am one possibility in an endless sea.

When I look at the endlessness of possibilities I am overwhelmed with excitement and conflicting heaviness that I want to try, feel, touch it all.  And then I remember that there are others out there doing all the other things fulfilling their paths while I fulfill mine.  In the end all possibilities will be lived, dreamed and shared.  In the end we will return to the whole, unified once more as energy unified.

You cannot have life without death, light without dark, love without hate or hot without cold. Everyday we rythmically take in the breath of life and breath out death. The oxygen fills our lungs, exchanges with carbon dioxide which is then released. Sometimes I find it hard to breath, which means the same as I find life hard to take. I notice that my breathing is shallow and forcing air in is a challenge. Forcing life is a challenge.
I remember when I was very little that I was very, very shy. Since the shy time I have found ways to overcome my timidness yet, to do this I have squirreled away a bit of myself. I have pushed myself into a spotlight in order to find love, to be accepted, to find connections all at the expense of my shyness. Inside I hold my breath, hold my life not allowing the exchange of life and death to flow. I sit there waiting to be noticed. But I am not waiting to be noticed by someone outside of me, just to be noticed by myself.

Someone told me that I am my own oasis. Alone on my private island that no one can reach. Sometimes I feel alone and separated but this is only one perspective.The water laps onto my shore and I feel refreshed as my small lump of self is protruding out from the water bathing in the warmth and glow of the sun while the whole of me expands downward into the abyss of the ocean. It is glorious to find solice and peace in myself but isolation allows the ego to go unchecked. All alone in my head, bathing in my own sun I feel all powerful. I am strong. I am me. The creation of I am not weak and I am not you comes into being. And I know these things are not true. I am both strong and weak, for how could I be one without the other? I am at times not me and at times am more you. I take on your mannerisms, your language and sometimes even your things. I give you my mannerisms, my language and my things. All of the sudden I feel overwhelmed with the feeling that I am surrounded by you and you and you. I am not alone for you are there. I feel my awareness expand to the depths of the ocean floor and outward.
There are moments when I feel the whole of the world rushing into and out of me all at once. I am not separated but in appearance. I am united with all secretly under a blanket of water. Under the covers I can feel you unite with me. I fall to my knees at the power of oneness that surges through me as I feel all of you. I am overwhelmed by the beauty that occupies my soul as I look at you.

The water allows feelings to move fluidly between you and I. When you look at the water you can’t see them, but as you feel the water encompass your body you can feel them too. All the feelings are there. And they surge all at once at all times. This is love.
My oasis is a mirage for anyone who does not feel me. I reach out to you and you shrivel away. But you and I are one, united by the earth, united by energy, united. I am the oasis, I am the ocean floor, I am reaching outwardly, expansively toward you.

If I am an oasis, so then are you. And you don’t know that I’ve been playing footsie with you all along.

I just finished a wonderful book by Alice Walker, “Now is the time to open your heart”. In it she tells a quaint tale about a snake who is nearly frozen on a cold, dirt trail. A man hiking along the trail discovers the snake and muses over the sight since the cold had immobilized the body. The snake asks the man to help him by warming his body against the mans chest. The man, wanting to be good but leery of the snake asks why he should do such a thing when the snake could bite him at any moment. The snake assures the man that he would not bite because the man would have saved him and the snake would not wish to harm someone that is so good. So, the man takes the snake and tucks him in his chest pouch letting him warm against the mans body. The man feels proud that he could do such a good deed for such a creature and smiles to himself. Awhile down the trail the man feels a pinch and realizes the snake has bitten him. He asks the snake why since he had saved the poor, frozen body would the he bite him. The snake replies, “because it is my nature.” And the man falls to the trail and awaits death while the snake slithers away. Sadly, the snake will eventually find himself in the same predicament since it is still cold on the trail and may not be so fortunate as to find another man hiking along the path.

Since I was very little I have identified with the snake as an animal and am told is my totem animal. It is said that the snake is a powerful totem in that it is the symbol of transformation and healing. The energy of the snake is of wholeness, cosmic consciousness and the ability to experience anything willingly and without resistance. The snake on an emotional level encompasses ambition and dreams while on a mental level harnesses intellect, power, spiritual wisdom, understanding and wholeness. I, of course can identify with all of these good blessings as I feel I have something to share with this world. But i keep coming back to the story that Alice Walker wrote about the snake. That the true nature of the snake is reactive without thought to its future.
I sit here on my cold trail looking at the man who is willing to save me and wonder why I keep biting at him. While my bites don’t seem to immobilize him or kill our symbiotic relationship, they slow him down little by little, whittling away at the heart of his proud stature. I am not thinking of how cold the trail will be without him, I am simply reacting in my true nature. I am whole without the man, willing to experience anything openly and without resistance even my eventual death should I end up on the trail cold and alone without a warm body to save me.

Down the street, a couple blocks from here is a tree that is quite peculiar. Out of this tree grows branches of beautiful cherry blossoms. The strange thing is that the flowers are not of uniform color, shape or smell. One set of flowers are white and sparse while the others are full and pink. The trunk is entirely one type of tree but it flowers as two separate entities. Both beautiful, both individual and both growing from the same trunk.

Dueling flowers are growing from my heart. One is blue and free while the other is dark and flat. I tried making a bouquet but the flowers ate each other. So I gather them separately and just appreciate their loveliness individually. I pet them and adore them. I water them and give them light. But they will not cooperate with each other being stubborn flowers and I become resentimental. I love them and hate them for making me choose.

Yes, they want me to choose. So I make my choice and become even more resentimental. Because I will miss the other as it grew from the same trunk, my heart. Like cutting off an arm. It bleeds.

Its something that you know to be true but cannot immediately grasp. You are searching for it but are not sure of what it really is. There is an issue that is blurred by the heart. It gnaws at you as you try to move. Slowly eating away at your inner peace until you are left standing there staring at it not understanding the vision that sits before you.

I went to the farmers market in Portland yesterday after having some much needed time with some amazing friends. We were there for hours perusing the vendors, eating elephant ears and warming our souls in the occasional sun break. I was nearly ready to head out but something felt unfinished. Some part of me was lingering waiting for resolution. I saw a palm reader off to the left and went to find some answers.

It was like some strange sci-fi movie. I sat down and asked the price for a reading. Those were my only words. Then she proceeded to read my soul. She was so exacting and meticulous. She saw into my heart. I was speechless and profoundly moved to tears. They were tears of sadness, yes but also relief that someone could see exactly me.

Water trickles toward zero entropy.  Glass is like water except exponentially slower in its movement.  Human movement however, is unlike liquid.  The dynamic life of human development is entropy.  Moving within the chaos humans create meaning from patterns that arise over time.  Moments are linked together by creative thinking and reflection.  If human development was liquid it would stall out eventually and very slowly come to a complete stop.

Moments that feel like stalling are in fact rest points for reflection.  Pause and look in the glass, watch the slow liquid match your energy.  Meditate on the quiet.  Feel how you squirm in your skin as you try to maintain the stillness.

Once the reflection period is over, you blast full force into your beloved entropy looking for the next moment which will fulfill your quest of allusions that will complete your story.

I was walking the tightrope of my mind watching both sides very carefully. Maybe too carefully. Constantly aware of each possibility as situations rose and flew by.

I recently spoke of a precipice knowing that I do not know how to climb but falling comes easy.. Flying, however is what I really wanted to try. A situation flew at me and I grabbed at it with all my might as it forced me off my tightrope, off my precipice. It moved me all the way to one side of the graph in an exponential pattern. Like someone put a magnet to my cathode ray. My electrons moved sharply to the left. I thought for a moment that I was flying but falling is what it was actually. I fell and fell but the ground never came. I kept waiting for the slap of the earth against my body but instead I was free falling with no consequence.

A rope appeared to me and I pushed at it not wanting to acknowledge. It danced around me as my hair whipped around my face in the wind of the free fall but I didn’t look at that rope. I wanted to fly on my own. I didn’t want a stupid rope. I wanted wings.

I’ve read emotions that make your soul sing are good and emotions that pull at you in a distorted fashion are bad. But what if they are both? My soul sang in union with my heart but I was exponentially pulled from my perfectly formed perch of balance.

After twirling in the wind, getting tossed around and around I got tangled up into the rope. I pulled at it as it twisted around me. I tried to shake it but it was now part of me. it embedded itself into me. it wrapped all around me in a strangely comfortable way. It offered strength and support. I found myself standing a slight distance off my precipice, just standing there with no real substance under me but held firmly in place.

I stand here between happy and sad, grief and relief, resentment and appreciation in a little place which is at coordinate (1, -1) not (0, 0).