I have forgotten to tell you my name
You may have seen me through the window
The shop windows after the shop has closed
dreaming of outside from where you’re looking in
the dreams of my childhood are kept in the back
behind a secret latch,
a secret doorway
Through which would I let wrong ones in and keep right ones out

There’s an old man playing a pedal steel to the sound of my tears
There’s a farmer growing the crops with the wetness of my tears
There’s a child painting the forest chasms of my green eyes with my tears
There’s a sleeping ancestor dreaming of waking in the caves dripping with my tears

I have forgotten to remember my name before I was me
You may have searched the stars for to understand my longing
Coming in from the cold, I wrap inside my soft sweater, stoke the fire within, and capture the memories of smoke in my hair

www.gofundme.com/anitalorrainemusic

Poem about the process and #SurrenderingtotheSacred continued from the last episode to catch yall up:

The Mystery Still

They used to call that old white lightning “moonshine” in these hills

How many lips of other those words or family ties it breaks and kills

Strawberry apple pie or dark cherry kinds

But I found a new flavor my fingers and heart longed to find

Paid heed to the unanswered questions I spent too much time tryin to answer

Somewhere down the line I met a spirit and she bade me to release her

She gave me the keys to an old wooden shed

Her hair was long and dark, she was only 3 and her granddad’s hair was red

She came from the deep, A dark despair trail of loneliness

She rows up from the ashes and held me through the hunger and distress

In that shed, she showed me the silver, the copper and the gold

She showed me the jewels inside me, once I thought I couldn’t hold

She said the way it worked was this,

“you fill it up here and it makes a little hiss,

What you put in it is who you’ve been

What comes out that mystery still is your destiny, my friend”

The mystery still, a belly full of unknown

Stands in that shed just waiting to be blown

Open side, all the ingredients are there

You

“You just gotta believe” she said, “in yourself, if you dare”

I’ll show you the way cause you couldn’t even see

No matter how hard you tried, that spirit… What will be will be

“and that’s the magic” she said to me

Of sacred mysteries that come from pain and grief

Do you know her name, down this path you must go

Of surrender and sorrow of joy you can know

This still don’t make moonshine, but the Moonglows here still

Upon deep waters, wet and a tear stained two dollar bill

The birds are all calling and cannot be boxed in

Your dreams are free and aloof just like the wind

Ask for them to come and to you they will find

Their way through the core, the ground, from the mines

The caves you dug a long time ago

We’re dug by the same shovel that now makes you grow

This girl she smiled, as I sat down in awe

Bowed my head in silence, in reverence; I had no flaws

Suddenly I was sacred when I drink from that still

I’d learn the hard way, then she screamed, her voice hard and shrill

“your mantle, your fireside, your magic, I live inside.

You must off and stoke the fire and feed me” she cried

You never are done, don’t think you’ve made it

Each day, remember to keep the right flame lit

Don’t let it go out, else you’ll have to start over

And axe to this still, and your spirit sinks lower

Out of reach, out of time, out of luck, out of rhymes

Just put back on your skates and roll outside all the lines

You’re still is your own,

Every seed you have soon

Weights and yearns for your return

Build another fire to burn

If you still don’t know what this still is about

Think of a soul, longing to get out

As in distill, intoxicate your beautiful self

With the mystery of what is, take it down off the shelf

You open a portal and let spirit in

You release your control over who it is you’ve been

That little girl who showed me the way

She’s a firestarter, pyromaniac it play

She can blow up some shit because she knows no better

But refined… She is genius and shakes her tail feather

The horizon cannot hold her, this child of God and Moore

She put in the time and said Grace for her store

This mystery still she’s found out how to use

Is a vertical prayer, open to gnosis and truth

I’m learning to use it, growing day by day

Excepting my feelings, no judgment, and a loving and kind away

As she hand me the keys and I return to make my shine

She lies back, relaxes and daydreams all the time

I long to filter out what I’ve been told versus what I know

My innermost yearnings, the balance, the flow

The gut, the tingles, the pangs and the blood is still warm

I’ll tell me the truth, like a pouring down storm

It’s like talking to God, From a sacred, me – shaped telephone booth

The mystery still takes me, shapes me, and provides me with the truth

I’m seething with caffeine, homemade coconut yogurt, and a shot of coconut water because I thought I was losing it.  Turns out, I’m just hungry.  Still having trouble remembering to eat breakfast BEFORE coffee, but this morning at least I got up and stretched! 😉

I’m compelled to write right now because I feel as if I’ve turned a corner.  Since last I wrote, I have continued with my EMDR and Cognitive-Behavioral therapy, successfully to the point that at times I feel that I’m seeing the other side of the tunnel and understanding how I got on this hamster wheel to begin with, and (most importantly) how to get off.  (ha. ha..)

The lessons learned in the past 6 months are jarring, inspiring, gratifying, and surprising.  I have felt my way around in the dark, feeling kinda crazy for a long time, when, as it turns out, I had a head-lamp on the whole time and just didn’t know it.  I was searching for how to find the light from outside me, “Where’s the fucking light switch man?!” When, over the course of a few years, some heartache, loss, and real-true lessons, I have activated Something inside me that is beaming light from within.  I hear Cat Stevens in my head right now “Trouble…. oh trouble please be kind…” then Harold drives his car off a cliff, realizing, and we’re all surprised in the end, that he’s abandoned his death-hearse-Jaguar and turned to the soothing memory of an old woman and his newfound banjo of life.

Here I am – some days are harder than others, but my turnaround time now has lessened into manageable chunks vs. hours of agony and remorse for something that I had no control over and was trying my damnedest to control.  Here’s a quote I was given two Decembers ago, as I was headed down deep South to spend a couple weeks on a Christmas Tree Lot, “If you are willing to look at a another person’s behavior towards you as a reflection of the state of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over a period of time, cease to react at all.”  – Yogi Bhajan.   Yesterday, I reacted, I got all torn apart, but here’s the victory: I climbed up out of the well,  fingernails still intact, breathed a sigh of relief when I reached the top and sat there, swinging my feet on the sides, deciding what path to take from there.  Six months ago I would have jumped back down into that deep, dark well and wondered why I hadn’t figured out how to swim yet; yesterday I stood up and walked away with my banjo. *deafening applause*

This is what steps to victory feel like.  This is what all the steps will be, with intention from now on.  This is not to say that I will not backslide from time to time, but I seriously am beginning to trust that there is a larger, more powerful force reckoning on a scale I can barely comprehend, and on my behalf.  On your behalf.  I cannot control it, but I can pay attention.  I can love myself for the flawed, passionate, driven, and capable person I am; I can take the reigns and let my tiny-Self know that I am not going to abandon her or let anyone ever do that again, as long as I’m in charge.  I get to choose whether or not someone can hurt me.  I get to choose how I respond, not how I react.  With that right-now-intention.  Right now, I choose NOT to respond, and that is my path.

For all the vague as hell shit in here, just know that mostly this blog is for me and trust that it is exactly what I need to say right now.  xoxo  Still learning, my pain is my teacher and my strength.  My pain is my teacher and my strength.  My pain is my teacher and my strength. (Write that 70 times on the blackboard.)

updated dream version student of life
(photo from Photo site – not related to my post but this picture literally looks exactly like a recurring dream I used to have except I was in a long white nightgown and about 7 years old. I was also running through a forest with a bunch of ravines, I was jumping, then sailing and flying over them running and running and running away. I love this picture.  Much more updated version of how I feel right now and goes swimmingly with my blackboard reference.)

 

Well, if you want to sing out, sing out
And if you want to be free, be free
‘Cause there’s a million things to be
You know that there are… – Cat Stevens

“I awoke today and found the frost perched on the town.”  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3EofN3Flag More than frost today Joni, SNOW is FALLING and I made sure the whole (nearby) neighborhood knew about it at 7:30 this Saturday morning.  Snow is so magical and beautiful, each snowflake actually IS a divine, unique thing…

Yesterday, watching an 8 year old and a 1.5 year old is a ton of fun.  I was sad to go home, but I had to get some work done, and that can’t happen with, “NiNi! What would you like to order from the Kevi Kitchen?!” coming in every 5 minutes. 🙂  There’s something about writing this journal that makes me feel really good and I haven’t been, up to this point, in the last couple of years, been able to sustain a journal or diary.. all the while killing myself with guilt that I didn’t have any follow through.

My inner voice is a mean one.  I talk to myself in a more stern, mean, impatient, and unaccepting way than I would talk to anyone (much less people I love!) and I’ve decided that this has to change.  I’m trying to make this change, understanding that it’s a process, not a destination.  Isn’t that the lesson of life anyway, to enjoy the process because there IS no destination or final resting point?  That’s not the way energy works.

Ponder this.

Along that vein, in this day in history in 1932, the 1st patent issued for a tree, went to James Markham for a peach tree.  That whole process is now being fought by another process.  I don’t believe in purity or pristine anything to do with human creation, divine creation or an original thought. Everything at this point has been touched or manipulated by human existence on this earth, and everything we’ve done or experienced up to this point leads us to the thoughts we come up with.  This leads me to 2 points: 1. nothing should be owned, personal ownership leads to greed…therefore I don’t believe in borders  and 2. Seeds and the natural world should not be patented or owned… the race to the top for money and material wealth is destroying this planet and us as a collective species – and THERE IS NO END POINT!  The process that I am finding joy in now, is the reclaiming of this mentality, the community, the rights of workers, the love of the planet and the genuine love of all beings.  I AM all beings, I am finding the courage to say so and act on it.  Happy February 16th, the first day of the rest of your life.  What are you FOR?