old man sutton

The adventures through life and spirit of a single father, lover and man.

Today has been a good day so far, and it’s only 3:30pm.  I’ve managed to do a whole bunch of things today, things that I have been putting off for far too long.  It’s amazing how many things have stacked up for me.  But then again, I’ve kinda been avoiding dealing with my life for a while.  That’s pretty hard to admit.  Obvious maybe, but still hard to admit.

One of the things I have managed to do today, is CLEAN.  I’m talking, CLEAN.  Spring style.  The house hasn’t looked this good in… well, since before I moved back in.   I am l-o-o-o-v-i-n-g it.  It’s like a huge weight off my shoulders.  *deeeeep inhale*  Ahhhhh…. *pats himself on the back*

I haven’t really been right since she moved back down there.  I’ve been scared, and I’ve been lonely, and I’ve been avoiding dealing with my life.  I do miss her so much… all the Gods and Goddesses I miss her so much.  She was and is the brightest thing I have ever seen in my life, and I have cherished every single second of being close with her.  I miss that feeling in my life, I miss it so much.  And even though I believe in the strength of it, and I believe that it’s still there for both of us, I’m still scared like, maybe that’s not going to be good enough for her, and .. maybe I will lose that.  The most amazing thing I have ever seen or believed in in my entire life.  The strength of it.  The sheer holy fucking joy of it.  Her.  The most beautiful person inside and out I have ever met.

I’ve been afraid because … I have no job.  I have no prospects.  I have no money.  I have debt stacking up against me.  I’m pretty terrified on this front.  I have had some bright blessings, but I am far from out of the woods.

… but now …

I’ve been trying to live my life more.  I’ve been taking more time for myself.  I’ve been getting myself out of the house.  I’ve been taking time to have fun by myself.  Having time where I am by myself.  Time to cry.  And believe me, I cry.

And as always, life goes on.  It’s so rare to ever find anything that DOES happen at an ideal time.  But things always tend to happen … NOW.  They happen in the present.  And part of living in the present, is dealing with them in the present.  Take the bad for now I guess, and appreciate the high points that much more … whenever.  There’ll be more high points in my life …. some day.  For now, there is today.  And I’m going to enjoy the high points in today.  And not just the high points, but the low points too.  And the shit that I have been putting off for far too long, like cleaning this house.  And I’m going to be thankful for all of it.  While my life would be the happiest I could picture it with her, I won’t be miserable without her.  I refuse to be.  But for now, yes, damnit I’m going to hurt.  Right now I have time to feel.  I have time to live the highs, and I have time to live the lows.

It’s a pretty rollercoastery day.  I’ve flip flopped back and forth quite a bit.

I’m pretty much just writing straight everything I’m thinking down.

I hope this isn’t too hard on anybody.

… it’s pretty hard on me …

but even so…

it’s a good day.

=)

*big hugs to you all*

Ok, so I’ve been seeing a sentiment crop up more and more lately, that has really been setting my teeth on edge.  The sentiment goes as such:  ”The passion and fire in a relationship, that IN-LOVE feeling is something that will always fade the longer you are in the relationship.  This is just something that we can make ourselves feel for anyone.  What’s more important is just having love, and not being able to picture being apart.”

Ok, I’ll agree that love itself is very important to a relationship.  But being afraid to be apart?  That’s not healthy.  Wanting to be close is fine, but being afraid to be apart is not.  It’s more than possible to be and STAY in love with somebody even over a distance or time.  And I am absolutely livid about this sentiment towards BEING IN LOVE being something that will always fade over time.  There are many couples out there, who even 50 years later, are still looking at each other with such a fire and passion as to make one want to look away out of respect.  The statement that it DOESN’T exist says to somebody, “I can’t possibly be expected to be passionate and in love with you for the long haul.  You’re not THAT great.  But look, I can pretend to be, and that’s just as good!”

What the fuck is that?  This sentiment seems to be used by people who DON’T have that passion for somebody, but are too scared to acknowledge what that really means about their relationship.  Yes, RELATIONSHIPS take work.  The only time being IN LOVE takes work, is when that passion isn’t there.  Without passion, what do you have left besides a comfort-zone and a co-dependent attachment?  If you really believe that, what does that say about the person you are in a relationship with?  If you aren’t that passionate about someone, why even bother?  And how dare you say that to someone you love.  Look what you’re telling them.  ”You aren’t something I can stay passionate about.”  You’re effectively tearing that person down, and that is NOT an act of love.

What does that do to their sense of self worth?  What does it to do yours when directed at you?

What is it besides your own projected fear that you’re not good enough to ever find it for yourself, or that you don’t even possibly deserve it.

I think it’s a sentiment that’s thrown around by people who have never found somebody they ARE that passionate about, and are scared they never will.  And that’s just sad.

What you’re left with, without that flame, without that passion, is nothing more than an unhealthy attachment.  There may still be love there.  There probably will be.  The human capacity for love can extend to ALL people.  This is the danger of attachment.  Love and attachment to a person are a recipe for misery.  But what then, is being IN-LOVE, if not another form of attachment?  I hold that there are healthy, and unhealthy forms of attachment.  Being attached to something that fills your being, fans the flames, stirs your passion, makes you smile, puts a spring in your step, what have you … these are positive frames of mind, a state of being present, of being nurturing to ourselves, and we should all strive to seek out and grab on to those things in our life that reflect that.  To hold on to the positive.  This is more about affirmation, than attachment.  Being attached to something because of fear, afraid to let go, because you don’t know what you would do otherwise…. this is unhealthy.  It’s fear, pure and simple.  And it’s an attachment that the sentiment above propagates.

It’s a sentiment that is used to prolong attachments to our fears.   When somebody tells us, “You’re not that good, maybe this is the best you can expect” … well, words do have power, especially if we’re already struggling with out sense of self-worth.  It’s a dangerous sentiment, because it is FAR more common to find people who our passion fades for, it’s far more common that we have a low sense of self-esteem to begin with, than it is to believe in ourselves or to find those rare ones who our passion grows for.  Who everytime we’re together we see and feel that bond and stand in amazement, unable to control the flow of positive emotions that demand we continue to grow that.  We should want to draw closer out of a sense of passion and celebration, not out of a fear of losing.  It’s dangerous, because it gives us an excuse to stay chained to fear and low sense of self-worth.

For me, I’ll hold out for, “I DO feel that passion for you, it grows every day, and we magnify that in each other.”

For me, that’s the kind of relationship that’s going to be worth having.  Mutually shared passion, that feeds and grows and magnifies each other.  I’ve tried the other kind.  It doesn’t keep me happy for long.  If I’m not somebody my mate can remain passionate about, then what does that say about how they view me?  And what does that do my own self-esteem?

If I should always believe in myself, if I should love myself, how can I settle for anything less than somebody who believes and loves me that deeply as well?

And if I found that with somebody, how can the sentiment of fear and attachment masquerading as “good enough” ever really be good enough?

That’s the way I see it anyways.  I like my way better.  It speaks more true to my heart.  Settle for nothing but the best.  I could be happy for a while without that, but it really wouldn’t be living to my full potential.

In other news, I took the kids to a play date at my friend’s house yesterday.  Her daughter and the kids played for several hours, and they all had a really good time.  I got to catch up with her, and just hang out and talk, and so I had a good time as well.  It’s nice to have some actual interaction with another adult from time to time.  I love my kids to pieces, but they only manage to fill part of what I need out of life.  Simple conversation with another adult is something they can’t pull off (yet).

Tonight we’re going to have dinner at my parents’ house.  They know how badly I’m hurting in the wallet right now, so my mom offered to pick us all up after she gets out of work, and help our diminished grocery bill by providing dinner tonight.  So that’ll be nice.  I do confess that I’m often kind of bored at their house, as there’s little for me to do over there, but on the other hand, it’s good to get out of THIS house every once in a while.  Something I’ve been doing a lot more lately.

Saturday at noon I’m going to my friend Tim’s house, and we’re going to do yoga.  That should be fun!

Still, with the recent rise in hanging out and spending time with others, ultimately the responsibility for getting out of the house and living my life beyond these walls lies with me, whether there is somebody to do that with or not.  This is why I have been spending so much more time going for walks in the woods.  I don’t NEED somebody else to be able to live my life.  I’m fully capable of doing it on my own.  Yes, it’s more fun to share that with friends, family, a lover, what have you.  But at the end of the day, the responsibility to do so ALWAYS lies with me.  It’s my responsibility to make those wonderful things in my life happen, and they WON’T if I’m too afraid to grab onto them.  It’s my responsibility to get out and take care of myself, to live my life.  It’s my responsibility to make friends to share it with.  It’s my responsibility to take the initiative to call them up.  I’ve always been one who will wait for others to ask me.  I’m learning to have the balls to take that responsibility on myself more.  It’s a two way street, and after neglecting my part in friendships for so long, it’s up to ME to bridge those gaps, and make those calls.  That’s the part of relationships that takes work.

So that’s how things are looking right now.  Over the past two years, now, or in the future, I haven’t been, and won’t accept anything but the REAL DEAL as far as love and in-love goes, I’m not going to be drawn into anything because somebody else doesn’t know what the real thing actually feels like.  I’m not going to stay somewhere because I’m afraid to jump.  I’m not going to accept that nobody could possibly breathe passion with me even after we’re familiar with each other.  I deserve better than that.  And if I’m in a relationship, the person I’m with deserves that as well.  I mean, that was the whole POINT of getting this divorce in the first place.  Jamie and I both deserved better.  If you don’t have that passion for someone, then you really aren’t going to be able to just “fake it ’til you make it.”  We all deserve the real deal.  Every single one of us.  And most of all I deserve to believe in myself enough to accept nothing less than that.  That held true when I left Jamie, and it holds just as true today.

Behind lie engines
gearing through their paces
busy people with busy lives
eyes straight ahead
focused on the day to day
hands on the wheel
foot hovering hesitantly
between brake and gas
and I turn my back on it
and face the water,
face the north
and watch the waves
slurping slowly at the sand
watching
the water come closer,
causing small seashells
to dance and flutter
lifelessly on the beach,
a cool air surrounding me
and a sun setting slowly to the left
no hands on the wheel
no control and no desire
to punch the gas
or stomp on the brakes
merely lean back and
let my hair stir listlessly
content for now to be
along for the ride.

Let me start off by saying that firstly, no, I did not get in a car accident.  Secondly, that this is a long rambling post, and I’ve been writing it for several hours, so if it gets too difficult to read, I do apologize.

I was going back over some poetry I had wrote at the end the year, and I ran across this.  It’s still pretty much in its raw form.  It’s definitely something for me to keep in mind right now.  I’m still getting panicky, I’m still afraid.  But I remember what this felt like, writing this poem, and it’s helping to calm me down.  Time apart isn’t so bad when you know you’ll be seeing each other again soon.  Still not quite close to “soon”, but … soon enough I suppose.  I really want to talk so bad.   And while most of that is a genuine desire to share company and conversation with her, there is part of that which  is also worry that in some way, the reality of who we are when we’re together will be forgotten about if we don’t talk for so long, and then, so too will I be forgotten.

I see the car moving, and my hands aren’t on the wheel.  That can be pretty effing scary.  I control every other aspect of my life, and have for a good … wow, almost 2 years now since I first separated and struck out on my own.  I have been living an independent lifestyle, living alone, making it all by myself for almost 2 years now.  I’ve worked, parented, struggled, fought, paid, loved, laughed, listened, shared, cried, and died several times over in that time-frame.  And some of those times were happy, and some of those times were sad.  And some of those times were the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life, and I can still remember those times.  I want to grab on to that part of my life that grew those happy times, not just the memories, but the reality of it that made it happen in the first place, to grab onto that and live it and live it hard.  I deserve to be that happy.  Everybody deserves to be that happy.  There’s no way I deserve it more than you or anybody else.

I accidentally stumbled on an old conversation this morning, and it made my heart melt and my tears flow with the tenderness, love, lust, connection, passion and sheer adoration in it.  And if there’s ever been anything that has stood in the way of that, it’s been fear.  It’s something I have no control over.  There’s no steering wheel on this car, the brakes have been cut, there’s a weight on the accelerator, and I’m in the passenger seat looking for the “oh shit” handle, scared to hell too.  I don’t need to park the car in the driveway or nothing, but it would be nice if it didn’t drive over the edge of a cliff too.  That’s the shit about having no control.  You just have no idea what is going to happen.

That’s the scary thing about starting anything new too, though.  It’s new.  It’s the unexpected.  It’s the unknown.  Every day we are handed more and more of these.  Every day is the start of something new.  Every day we are given the present, and there is no telling what will happen.  The best we can hope to do is to do the best we can with each day.  This is where I want to keep the car on the road.  This road fills my heart, and this road makes me feel alive.  Fuck fear.  How many times had her and I ever gotten together, scared what it was going to be like together after so long, and how many times were all those fears unnecessary.  Some things burn bright no matter how dark the horizon is.   And I think that the best I can do, is find those things, and to fan the flames.

That just happens to be one of them.

I’m fanning the flames of my kids, being the best dad I can be for them.

I’m striking furiously with steel and flint at a pile of dried grass where work is, but it’s something.  ;)

The thing is, as much as I talk about love, and this person I love… that’s just a part.  I’m already living the others parts of my life as best as I can, or working on it.  I am always trying to do better.  The love is the part that I’m missing terribly right now,  all the more so because of an added silence on top of it.  I’m not only missing my truest and most precious love, I’m missing my best friend.  I’m missing the most amazing person I have ever met on the face of this earth, and the loss of that weighs and tugs at me.  This is a person that not only do I feel all this for, but one who understands me deeper than anyone ever has, who I have bared my soul to, told my darkest and deepest secrets to, shared our fears and hopes with, shared the brightest times of my life with, magnified the best in me, and whom I helped do the same for, who suffered with me through a tragic loss,  who stood with me and looked to the future with a mutual hunger to grab onto that as hard as we could and never let go.  I fear the loss of all of that, because there is so much there.  There is everything I had always looked for, and more.   Is it any wonder I want to try to keep the car on the road?

So at the same time, if I try to control this car, the movements will become exaggerated, the car will veer sharply, and go plummeting off the cliff.  So here is where things come down to trust.  This is where it’s important to just be present in the moment.  To acknowledge, yes, I AM afraid of losing that, thank you very much.  I have never seen a more undeniably perfect couple as when we’re  together.  I’ve never met somebody I was more sure about wanting to share my love with, who stirred my passion so deeply.  To me, THAT is what’s really worth hanging on to.  I am very much afraid of losing that.  I am expending so much energy WORRYING about losing that, and trying to prevent it, that the focus of that energy is all on … losing that.

Woah, not cool man, I believe in that whole “mind over matter” thing.

Do I have it in me to acknowledge this fear, to know I’m afraid, to know that there IS no way to know, and just … let go of the wheel, lean back, and enjoy this ride, wherever it takes me?  Can I have enough trust in the Gods and in myself to know that I’ll be alright, that my past is not the culmination of my existence?  No matter what happens, good or ill, there’s always going to be a tomorrow, and I’m always going to try to live it the best I can.  Who knows.  I’m not going to give up if things don’t go the way I’d prefer.  Life doesn’t end.  The sun will still come up.  Etcetera, ad infinitum.

I believe.  I believe fear can be faced and acknowledged and dealt with rationally, that it can me redirected so that one can meet the best life ever.  I do truly believe that.  I’m trying to live that every day.  Because when it’s time for my hands to be on the wheel, when I am in the drivers’ seat, believe me, I’m driving the hell out of this car.  That’s the way I want to live my life.  To the absolute FULLEST, enjoying every bit of it.  Good company, community, passion, intellectual stimulation, family, romance, love, equality, my closest friend, a spiritual connection, independence, partnership and mind blowing sex.  2-3 times a day.  Minimum.  ;)

That’s worth seeing how useless it is to panic when my hands aren’t on the wheel right?  That’s worth acknowledging that fear of the unknown, and stepping forward intent on focusing on having the best life possible, to be the happiest I can be right?  No more worrying that things change.  No more fearing the unknown, but embracing the moment as a gift, and always, ALWAYS living it to the fullest.

*leans back, hair blowing in the wind, and tries to get comfortable in the passenger seat*

There are times in the lives of all of us that define us.  Times where we are forced to test what we are made of.  Times that push us beyond our limits, out of our comfort zones, where we must stand or fall.  To live in such times, brings us great fear.  We gnash our teeth, and question the fairness.  We wish that we would never have lived to see such times, we hope that they can’t happen in our lifetimes.  All of us who have ever had to experience this, question why.  While we often reach these times through paths of our own choosing, at the same time often there is no avoiding them.  It does no good to wonder why us, why now.  The times come, and it matters little why.  What matters is what we do with them.

When hope fades, when fear reigns, when pain becomes unbearable, when the odds are stacked against us, when everything seems impossible … these are indicators we have reached such times.  Our normal reaction is to cower, to hide, to give up.  We wish to deny the reality of such times.  We lose our hope, we lose our ways.  We slow down, take stock, and stop.  The fear of change, of overcoming the odds, of facing the darkness with our own meager light is powerful.  The longer we stand still and figure the odds, the harder it becomes to move again.  We begin to tell ourselves we are weak, that we can not possibly face these fears, that there is no way we can succeed.  Perhaps we approached such times from a place of strength, but as the time becomes more difficult, we succumb more and more to the fear, to the pain, and wish to retreat back to our comfort zones.

Facing adversity in such times is hard.  But we are made of sterner stuff, we who are human.  We have many stories and tales, both fictitious and founded in fact, where we overcome the odds.  Where armies who are outnumbered choose to fight, despite being outnumbered.  Where individuals with the world stacked against them soldier bravely onward.  Where one who has been knocked down repeatedly continues to get back up and try again.  We understand that perhaps we are destined to lose, but we get back up and face this with courage.  We stand, we fight.  We strive to overcome.  There is a light within us all that can not be extinguished, if we chose to see it.

Perhaps at times we still fail, but we fail knowing we have faced the situation to the best of our abilities.  We have faced our fears and proved our worth.  And yes, oftentimes we find we can overcome.  Our will is a powerful thing, and often has little to do with reality.  While we live and breathe, while our heart beats, while there is an ounce of blood in our veins or a breath left in our lungs, we can continue to push on, to strive to overcome, despite the fear, the sorrow, the pain.  We are unique, in that we can bend the odds around us, and charge through the odds, meeting success regardless.

Sometimes, when we look into the darkness, we can see no light through the other side, and so, struggle to remain in the light we know.  But the darkness stays there, lingering, beckoning, and waiting to be faced.  It spreads through time, growing darker, deeper.  We can not hide from it forever.  Truth must be faced, reality must be acknowledged.  Despite the odds against us.  Whether this is facing the reality of a relationship whose time is over, a love that is not enough and never will be, financial ruin, or even death itself.  Eventually, all things change, and all things must be acknowledged.  There is no life without risk or change.  There is no happiness without sorrow.  There is no light without the darkness.  There is no hope without adversity.  The only way to live, to find happiness, to realize hope, is to accept the road ahead of us.  We can not change these things, we can not run from them or hide from them forever.  They will catch up to us eventually.  It does not matter how we got here, for we are here.  It is NOW.  What matters now, is how we face them.

In my veins, I bear the blood of my ancestors.  I bear their memories.  I feel the times my people have faced the odds, have struggled, and have stood fast and true.  All things change, and often in ways we wish they wouldn’t.  There is no going back.  There is only ever forwards.  We can not mourn the past forever, we can not pick up the threads of a life that has ceased to be true.  Some truths are not strong enough to move forward with.  There is only honesty and acceptance, despite how scary this may be.  In a couple short years I have been forced to accept many of these.

Despite loving my ex-wife, despite our children, despite the vows I had made to her, despite the things we could have done to find more happiness … despite all this, I lacked a fire for her.   I had to face the unthinkable, and say goodbye to the life we had.  I had to accept us as who we truly were.  There was and always will be love between us, but it is a love that is without passion.  We had problems communicating, with intimacy, with honesty, and accepting each other for who we were.  These were the problems of our marriage, very real problems.  And all problems that could be addressed, had they but stood on their own.  But more than being problems, they were side effects.  They were not the cause, but the consequences of a deeper problem.  A love without passion, a love that despite both our desires and hopes that it could have been enough, never could be.  Always underneath was the knowledge that we would always desire more.  That our passions lie elsewhere than with each other.  Perhaps I did reach deep enough into the core of her to awake a passion for me.  Perhaps.  Through time though, she has come to see that she lacked that for me, despite her protestations in the face of losing me.  She was forced to face her fears, to face the darkness, and in doing so, found change and truth.  As did I.  The sorrow was unimaginable.  To give up all I had worked for, to give up all that I had hoped we could be.  To give up the family I had tried so hard to create, the love I tried so hard to tend … no matter my fears at losing that, the truth was … it wasn’t there.  Only by facing that truth, and accepting it, have I been able to progress beyond that fear, and stand ready to face the future.

And what a future it has been.  Looking back, I knew this would be hard, but I had no idea how hard it was going to be.  I knew I would likely struggle to make ends meet, but I had no idea it would be this hard.  I knew I would be heartbroken, but I had no idea how close my heart would come to being destroyed.  I knew my children would suffer, but I didn’t really think the aftereffects would be so far reaching.  I knew things would never be the same, but I had no idea how much they would change.  I had hoped we would be able to remain close, but even with how well we get along, there is a distance now that can not be bridged.  I closed the doors, I burned the bridge, I shed my tears, and despite the fact that things have been so much more difficult and tragic, more painful than I ever thought I could bear, I have beared it.   I have faced it.  I have come out on the otherside, and I have found hope.  I have found I am still alive, that life goes on, and there are still futures spread before me.  There is no going back.  There is only ever forward.

I find myself in financial ruin.  I am so far behind on all my bills that I see no hope.  I have income that barely provides groceries and gasoline, yet life goes on and every month the debt against me stacks and grows and builds.  I stand the risk of losing my house.  My water has been off for almost a week.  My phone is shut off.  My internet is shut off.  Soon, I’m sure my gas and electric will be disconnected.  I owe thousands in back taxes to the city.  I owe thousands to the utility company.  I owe tens of thousands to my mortgage company.  I don’t currently own auto insurance.  I sit here day after day, trying to find work and failing.  I see no hope.  I see only everything stacked against me.  I long to give up.  I am afraid to act, afraid to move, afraid to even answer the phone and listen to another harassing debt collector.  I am afraid of losing everything I own.  I am afraid of continuing forward.  But even more so, I am afraid of not doing so.  If I give up, if I turn my back on everything I have accepted, everything I have found to be true, I am afraid that I will cease to live and cease to have my opportunity to find the truth of why I set out on this path in the first place.  Some days it is SO TEMPTING to just call her up, and look to put the past behind us, to grab on to the love we still share, to pick that back up, and to have my comfort zone back.  It is a strong urge, that I fight.  It might work, we might find happiness even, but I know I would not be truly living.  The doorway to that path was opened by another.  And that’s been scary from the get go.

Despite how much that terrifies me, it terrifies me even more to ignore that.  And now… the one who DID open that door for me, the love of my life, she must face her own darkness.  To look through the broken pieces of her own self, and reclaim the truth that led to that breakage.  And while she does this, I still must stand and fight.  I can no more run from the truth of my own dark night than she can hers.  I have to stand and fight.  I have to remain strong.  While there is even a shred of hope left for me, while there is but a breath left in my body, I can not run.  I can not hide.  These are the times that define us, and while I am afraid to face this, I am more afraid of turning by back and giving up.  No more backwards.  No more standing still.  There is only forwards, and I am made of sterner stuff.  There is always hope, despite the harshness of the truth.  Despite how hopeless my life may seem, I will always stand and fight, to my dying breath.  There is no reward without risk, and for the stakes I’m playing for, there can be no greater rewards.  I am playing for the future, for LIFE, for TRUTH.  I will stand, and I face this, and I will fight.

I wish her the same steel and strength as she faces her own night, and pray that I can be as strong.  Change comes whether I want it to or not.  And I will be standing on the other side, even if I end up standing alone.  To do anything less would be to deny the truth of myself.  I am part of Deity, and I will continue to act as such.  So mote it be.

Good morning all! A very happy Wednesday to you. I’m currently adjusting to a new visitation schedule with the kids that will be in full effect next week. This week, there is a transition period. I have to admit I’m looking forward to this a LOT. I’ve had the kids every single weekend for the past year and a half, and I’m looking forward to having free weekends again! There was something relaxing about having weekdays as my weekends, but it’s not exactly conducive to having a social life. Everybody I know works, and so I’d spend my “days off” lonely and bored. Sure that’s fun and necessary once in a while, but I’m here to tell you that it drags on me. After a year and a half, I’m ready to have “adult” (not like that) time on the weekends again.

I’m also finding myself making a bit more effort on things that need to be happening internally in my own life. Tweaks here and there. I’m feeling a lot more positive lately as a result. Still have my emotional struggles in the day to day, but maintaining that positive outlook more and more regardless of that. Coming to greater understandings of some of the “why’s” in my personal relationships and circumstances. This week hasn’t been that kind to me so far, but that’s ok! I’m looking at life and saying, “OK! ENOUGH already, I get it, you can stop smacking me around.” Taking more time to listen. Spending some more time internally. It’s not really what I want right now, but if it’s necessary, then fighting it is just stupid. So that’s where I’m standing today.

You probably noticed by now that I’ve styled my blog a bit differently. It’s more personal and pleasing to me. I liked the old picture and colors, but these mean so much more to me. Also I see it as a way of honoring the coming spring and summer.

I’m thinking this morning, that I’d like to share some more about myself with you all. I’ve listed things I’m grateful for in the past. So today, I thought I’d share some confessions about myself instead. The good, the bad, and the hilarious.

I am a Gemini (sun sign), Aries (moon sign) and Virgo (ascending sign).

My father wanted to name me “Lunch Money”, and I’ve always thought that was the coolest thing ever, and I’m kind of disappointed he didn’t.

I am very stubborn and headstrong. I like to do things my OWN way. Ever since I was a child, I’ve been this way. The more somebody pushes me to do something, the more I fight. And when I make up my mind, it takes a lot to make me change it.

I still miss the good aspects of my old marriage from time to time. Some days the loss of that still make me cry. But I still believe I did the right thing, even if the cost was so high as to be nearly unbearable.

This morning while driving to pick up the kids, I burst into song in the car. I spontaneously made up and sang a song about how great it was to see the sun, and about dreams coming true. I sang it in a majestic baritone that surprised even myself, and it totally made my morning. I have to admit to being inspired by somebody close to me, and she figured largely into the lyrics. lol

I am still very much in love (you know who you are), and although the strength and depth of that emotion hasn’t faded with time (far from it), I’m understanding more how now isn’t the right time to jump into that. Not with so much work on self that still needs to be done, on both our parts. That was always and ever the point, and the strength of these emotions makes it hard to focus on that sometimes. Sure I’d still love to be able to embrace that from time to time and think that’d be ok, but I understand too how distracting and consuming that can become.

I do believe I found the right person for me, the one, even if we can’t have that right now.

I really want to learn how to blacksmith.

When I was in school, I played a musical instrument: the clarinet. I was mocked for this, playing a “girl’s instrument”, until years later the other guys suddenly realized that they were sitting segregated off in dude-land, while I was surrounded by women. Hehe, suckers.

I’m a hopeless, helpless romantic with the right person.

My water is currently shut off, and I took a shower this morning with two gallons of water in a jug. I’m looking at the positive of this, in that I’ve conserved water today.

I’m hopelessly in love with my kids, even if they do make me want to strangle them.

I love long car drives. I really miss driving down to Indiana, or home from Lansing early in the morning. It’s a long boring drive, but it’s exciting in its own way. Also, these are some of the only times I really have to blast my music at top volume and sing at the top of my lungs.

I’m a sucker for sunrises and sunsets. They’re so beautiful and romantic. The transition from day to night, and night to day, is a time full of such magical energy and potential.

I’m a total coffee snob. I live on strong coffee, love it, can’t get enough!

On the occasions I have to drink, I prefer red wine or Guinness. I normally limit myself to one or two.

My spiritual life has been rather un-extraordinary lately, and I really miss that.

I still like watching cartoons and playing with Legos. Having kids is like having a second childhood for myself, as I get to do these things all over again, lol!

There are certain spots in Richmond, Indiana, that are forever burned into my memory. Glenn Miller Park, and the Whitewater Gorge.

I’m a dork, and I’m ok with that.

I have three manifestations of the Divine that I specifically honor. I was chosen by Herne and Freyja, and I also chose Brighid.

I check myself out in the mirror, and I think I’m pretty hot. I’d hit that. LOL!

When I close my eyes there is only one person’s face there, and when I wake up in the mornings, one person who I always think of first.

I have a hard time accepting compliments, because I’m not used to them. I can be very hard on myself sometimes.

I believe in fairy tales, and that dreams can come true. I believe all we have to do to have those, is to grab onto them when we see them. And I believe we know when we see them.

I often walk barefoot in the snow.

My feet aren’t ticklish, unless I really really like you.

Despite how often I want to give up, I never really truly lose hope. Hope is what keeps me going.

I love nature. This one should be obvious, but. FOR REAL. I’m happiest when I’m outside.

I believe that while people change, there is a core person in all of us, our soul maybe, or what have you, that never changes, and this is the level we truly connect with people on.

Ever since last November, I have a very soft spot in my heart for elevators. Anytime I get in an elevator, I have the cheesiest grin on my face.

My last birthday was the best day of my entire life. Hands down. Waterfalls, love, nature in the upper peninsula. Camping, rivers, standing knee deep in a lake, hiking through hills, stands of lilacs. There’s no way I could ever express how beautiful that day and the preceding days were. But, that was honestly the BEST few days of my life, ever. I believe many more like that could be possible in the future.

I also confess that this post is getting incredibly long!

Wishing you all a wonderful Wednesday, much love to you all!

Good morning to you all, and a cold and snowy, yet surprisingly beautiful morning it is.  Today is both stressful and special in a way for me.  I’m finding myself with a loss of funds for the next two weeks, and so, of necessity, cigarettes are the first thing to go.  My love affair with smoking comes to an end starting today, whether I want it to or no.

Now, this is a good thing, and I realize this.  As much as I love smoking, I don’t want to continue to do so, seeing the way it ravages health and body.  Emphysema, lung cancer, heart failure, dementia, etc.  All of these can be attributed to smoking, and I for one do not want to go out like that.  I don’t.  I intend to live a long, healthy, and fruitful life.  Yet, the idea of being FORCED into this decision bridles.  When I feel forced into something, I tend to get all stubborn and fight, tooth and nail.  If I quit smoking, I want it to be my decision, MY choice, not something I’m forced into.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this this morning.  How to rectify having my decision forced on me, and making it a choice?

Recently, while researching some yoga poses, I came across a video that detailed a breathing method to aid in smoking cessation.  This video explained, that the greatest reason we smoked, was to combat stress.  Yes, nicotine addiction enters into it, that prompts the cravings, but the actual stress relief comes not from the nicotine, but from the way we breathe when we smoke.  This video then went on to give some breathing exercises that mimic that, and I have to say, I find that they’ve been working rather well.  What one does, is inhales through their nose for a count of four, and then holds the breath for a count of two.  After this, one exhales through their mouth, slowly, for a count of eight, and then holds for two.  Rinse, repeat.  I’ve been trying this, and I find that if I chain these breaths together two or three times in a row, I end up quite calm, and even get that kind of tingly feel good when I resume normal breathing.  And more importantly, it eases my cravings.

If I look at the cause of my addiction as being addicted to the stress relief that smoking provides, and the stress relief I get from smoking as the BREATHING, rather than the nicotine, well.  It’s a pretty damn easy decision for me to consciously make.  It actually makes quite a bit of sense to me.  Nicotine is actually a stimulant, and as such, I don’t see how it really provides much stress relief at all.  I think this is why nicotine gum, patches, chewing tobacco, etc, has never really been able to take the place of my craving for cigarettes.  I still get nicotine, but I still end up being wound way too tight.  So for me, the idea that the way smoking forces us to breathe is what calms us, makes far too much sense to ignore.  I don’t really care about the science behind it at this point, if it’s actually true or not.  It feels true to ME, and that’s what really matters.

This in fact, is my long rambly intro to what I really want to talk about this morning.  When starting out in the ways of magic, affirmations, prayer, mind over matter, positive thought, quantum mechanics, whatever you want to call it, I got really hung up on, “HOW?!”  I buy the idea of magic, that our intent and focus can alter the world around us in subtle ways, creating ripples on the surface that spread and rebound, echoing to change reality.  What really confused me at first however, was all the emphasis on props.  Athames and circles, candles and herbs, colors and numbers, words and motions.  HOW do you know you’ve cast a circle?  When can you tell that energy is being focused off the point of your athame?  Why does it really matter if your candle is green or blue, or if you use lavender rather than speedwell.  How does it actually WORK?  Where is the scientific truth behind it, why does it matter?

The answer is, it really doesn’t.  What matters is your intent, and the rest is symbolism.  A story if you will, that makes sense to you, that explains it enough for you to suspend your own disbelief, and move on enough to actually embrace the concept.  It doesn’t matter if I use an athame, a wand, a sword, a finger, or just sit here with my eyes closed to direct energy.  It doesn’t matter if I can see the energy, imagine it as a breeze, a glowing ball of light, sound waves, or a tingle on my skin.  What matters the most is the intent, and that whatever I do, makes sense to ME.

As humans, we need stories in our life, to make sense of the patterns and events around us.  We tell ourselves stories all the time, and we value them highly.  Be they movies, books, tales told to us as kids, nursery rhymes, etc.  What matters is we take the order and chaos of our world and try to explain them in terms that we can understand, that put them into perspective for ourselves.  This is how we find acceptance with the world around us, this is what we do so we don’t sit there slack-jawed, confused and running around in circles, overwhelmed and stagnant.

Symbolism.  I never really looked at it this way before today, but symbolism is another way we can tell ourselves a story, a way to make something unknown make sense.  If I can say that to me, the color green makes me feel sexy and prosperous, and the fire of a candle flame represents the burning desires of my heart, well…. then maybe to me this is the way that most makes sense to me to focus my intent and energy towards visualizing and creating a change in the world around me that will bring me closer to wealth and love.  *shrugs*  It’s a pleasant story that can help me place my intent and will on a path of moving closer to this reality.  Nothing more.  The candle, the color green, and the fire aren’t really necessary.  What matters is where I’m focusing my will and energy.  That I AM focusing my will and energy, and actually MOVING.  If it requires a story to do so, so be it.

This is true in magic, this is true with my smoking cessation.  Looking back, this was even key to being able to move past my own divorce.  I spent a lot of time trying to figure out every single nuance of what went wrong, what was right, what I could have done differently, yada yada yada.  I could have sat there for a lifetime, immersed in the chaotic flow of all the ordered decisions from birth to that point, that brought me there.  In the end, I needed a story, an answer to the question “WHY?” that would allow me to move on and pursue life again.  Why being such a nebulous question, I decided to give MYSELF and ultimatum.  ”Did I love her the way I needed to, to be happy the way I needed to be.”  A nice “yes/no” type question.  Despite all the gray areas of what I was feeling, despite all the reasons for me to stay, and all the reasons for me to go, it helped take all the patterns and chaos, and put it in terms that I could move on from.  Obviously, of course, the answer was “no.”  That didn’t explain everything, but it explained enough to answer the fundamental question that needed to be answered.  It made sense enough to me.  You could spend forever on the why’s and how’s of our relationship, what went wrong, and what I felt for her, but at the end of the day, it needed to be simple enough for me to understand and answer.  Simple enough that I could live with the answer.  Was it my fault or her fault that the answer was no?  Of course not, some things just are.  It was much easier to forgive her, forgive myself, and step past the guilt that way.  Which was of course, my intent.  To move on.  Not to move on in a specific direction, but to actually move IN a direction, with intent and purpose.

So today, I’m coming to realize more and more, that the how’s and why’s, while important, sometimes stand in the way of our intents and wishes.  Whether it be magic, smoking, divorce, .. any area of our life that requires a conscious decision.  It’s too easy to get bogged down with all the conflicting desires and emotions and facts in any decision, and end up doing nothing at all.  To me, this is the HEART AND CENTER of magic.  To move, to choose, to put our fingers on the scales of reality and tip them in a direction.  This is why we use symbolism, this is why we tell ourselves stories that put things into perspective.  So that we may move, and live, and hold our heads high as we do so.

I’m giving up smoking today, and I’ve found a story that leaves me feeling empowered enough, with the right tools to do that, and it feels like my choice.  I’m accepting this, and making it reality.  Wish me luck, but I don’t think I’m going to need it.  ;)

First off, my apologies all around, it’s been a good long while since I’ve bothered to update. More distressing is, it’s been a while since I’ve even bothered to read anybody else’s blog either. I’ve been more involved with things away from the computer lately, and what time I DO spend in front of the computer, has been for other purposes. I haven’t forgotten about any of you, but I really needed a break from the amount of time I spend in front of the computer. I’ve been very involved in deep cleaning my house in the hopes of finding something about it I can love. It’s functional right now, but that’s about all I can say positive about it. A roof, four walls, and I’m grateful to have it. I appreciate that. But… I NEED something more. My house just doesn’t feel like home. I said this morning to somebody, that home is where you are loved, and love back. Deeply, openly, and fully. I stand by that.

This place was home once, or at least, the closest thing to home I had known. Once upon a time I lived here, married, with children. It wasn’t really fully what I want home to be, but it was a damned sight closer than THIS. And one day, I decided to give that all up for the ideal. Out of a fuller and deeper understanding of what love is, and a realization that I didn’t feel that for my partner. Now here I am, in the between times, lonely and without a home. It’s hard some days to even get out of bed to face that.

Love. This is supposed to be about love. Valentine’s Day approaches, and my thoughts are turned to love this morning. What is love? There are many different kinds of love. The love inside a family, for ones brothers, sisters, parents, children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. There’s the love of extended family, those people in our lives that are closer than friends. There’s the love of friends. There’s the love of chocolate, of music, of things. There’s the love we have for our pets. There’s the love of Deity. The love of nature. There’s puppy love, and love given but not returned, and love that’s gotten but not felt in the same ways back. There’s lust, there’s romance, there’s holding someone’s hair back when they get sick. There’s changing poopy diapers, and assuming a mantle of responsibility. There’s the love of allowing someone else to care for you, and to care back. There’s types of loves that look more like friendship, love of convenience, and love of security. Love of comfort, and love of safety. There’s love of memories, and love of the future, and love of being present.

Love comes in many shapes and sizes, and every love is different. Even hatred, is itself, a form of love. So what do we mean by love? When I spoke of home, and it being a place to love and be loved in fully, openly, and deeply, what do I mean? I’m here, my children are here, and I love them, and they love me, but still it’s not quite enough for me. The home I had wasn’t enough for me. I didn’t have the kind of love I needed to be truly alive and happy. I spent more time running from the illusion of love I was under, confusing the type of love I DID (and still do) feel for my ex-wife, as the kind I really needed and craved with every ounce of being. I spent a lot of time trying to convince myself it was the right kind, that I just needed to try harder to see it. But, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, is that while there are many kinds of love, not all of them are going to be right for certain things. And while love is compassionate enough not to want to hurt somebody, it should also be honest enough to not hold back the truth either. The love I have for a friend is never going to be enough for a romantic partner, and I’ll never look at a romantic partner as a parent, and I’d never try to make a parent a pet. LOL!

Love. How rare is it to find embodied in one person all the qualities of love that we truly crave and desire? To find not only the friend, the closer than friend, the family, but to find all the aspects of love and romance and lust and … just… all of it. How rare? How many of us have found ourselves in relationships where we’ve had part of what we want, but not all. How many of us have settled on that, and turned around months or years later, shaking our heads that we thought that would be enough? And how many of us made the exact same mistakes the next time. What is it about love that causes us to try to make it into more than what it is? We crave love, thrive on it, need it, but we also are willing to put what we need from it on the back burner to just have a taste of part of it.

Home and Love. I didn’t have the kind of love I needed to be happy long term in my home… for it to feel like home. For it to really even feel like love. I found the rarity, and understood love for the first time, the kind of understanding of love that we dream about, but give up on as time goes by and we’re disappointed over and over and over and over and over again. We keep trying because we crave it, we NEED it, it’s built into us. But it’s so rare to find the real deal. The kind that you not only feel for someone, but they feel back. The all encompassing kind, the kind that reaches deep and hugs your soul, that goes beyond that spark and becomes a consuming flame. The kind where spirit, lust, love, friendship, respect and longing are all wrapped into one tight, indivisible package. Maybe sometimes we fight this kind too, maybe sometimes we run from it. But does that mean we don’t feel it? Does that mean it doesn’t speak to us and call out, that it isn’t real?

Sometimes, it’s once in a lifetime, to find somebody that has all that. If you’ve found that, you’re so very blessed. I applaud anybody who has, whose ever found that person of their dreams, the one who there are no doubts about your feelings for. If it didn’t happen, if it wasn’t real, despite feeling it for myself, I wouldn’t have hope. But it’s real, it happens, and it can and should be that way. And I don’t need any Valentine’s Day to tell me that or remind me of that. This is something I live every day. Between times or no. It’s there.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all tomorrow.

I’ve been hearing a lot about the topic of readiness lately in my travels through life, specifically, about the lack of readiness. I’ve been hearing it from a lot of people, about a lot of situations. It seems I can’t turn around any more without hearing somebody say, “I’m just not ready yet” or “I really wasn’t ready at the time”. I know I’ve uttered those same sentiments more times than I could possibly even begin to count. You hear people say, “I was BORN ready!”… well … not me. I was born always looking for the most opportune time to act, wanting to BE ready, but never quite managing. Despite that, that sure hasn’t stopped the wheel from turning out surprises for me, ready or not.

One of the scariest things to face, in terms of readiness, is the prospect of children. I don’t know that ANYBODY is ever truly ready to become a parent. There is really no way one can determine the readiness for this monumental step in life, as there is really nothing else that can come close to this situation in terms of prior experience. I don’t care if you were a day care provider, foster parent, or raised your brothers and sisters almost singlehandedly due to some tragedy or neglect on the part of your own parents. Nothing can ever truly prepare you for what it’s like to help create a life, and then be responsible for caring, nurturing and loving that life. There is no prior experience that is going to match that.

I knew that I always wanted to have kids. Whether it was because of the masculine urge to further my bloodline, or my nesting urge to be part of a family of my own, or what, I just knew that someday, I’d like to have kids. I wasn’t ready for my first one. In fact, at the time, I was looking for a way out of my marriage. I knew I wasn’t happy, I knew it was over, and I had decided to ask for a divorce. On the day I decided that, I went home to do the hard thing and admit it. My wife had big news too. She was pregnant. Wow. Timing. We could make it work though, and having a kid would help. *rolls eyes* I won’t get into all of that. The point is, for that point in my life, I was definitely not ready to have kids.

Fast forward two more years. Wife and I were still together, we had somehow managed to raise our son to the ripe old age of 2 and a half. Things were looking up. We were getting along a bit better, getting comfortable in our roles as parents. There was a lot wrong there, that again I’m not going to get into, as it’s not relevant to this topic. But. It was Christmas. We knew something was up. Pregnancy test. Pregnant. Merry Christmas! This time, we approached the news with a lot more joy and cheer. We hadn’t been planning a child, we really weren’t ready. But here one was coming, and we were happy to be blessed with one. Wouldn’t say we were READY though.

See, both times I’d been greeted with the news from her, both were times in our life of some of the greatest suffering. I would lose my job after the news of an impending child, about 2 months afterwards. She would then lose her job, or be unable to continue working. We would be sitting there with no income, no health insurance, barely managing to scrape bills together, personal issues between us still growing and whatnot (though that wasn’t as clear at the time), and … here we were, about to bring CHILDREN into that. We weren’t ready.

Would I go back and change all that? I really don’t think so. Despite not being ready for either of my children, since they’ve been in my life, I wouldn’t really trade them for anything. To this day, I still don’t feel like I’m ready to be a father, at least not a good one. But, it didn’t matter if I was ready, or not. It happened, and I was thrust into it. So I try to be the best damn father I CAN be, and am always trying to be better, because… ready or not, I’m living it.

The same holds true with when my wife and I finally did split. I wasn’t ready or even really looking that hard to get out, though I understand now to a degree I was. I was still involved in actively trying to hold us together. I knew I was unhappy, I knew I would have rather been alone, but … we had kids together, we were married, we took vows, and I wasn’t ready to face the cold hard reality that we were done. Had been for quite some time. I wasn’t ready to put the work into saying goodbye, and walking away. And I sure as hell wasn’t ready for somebody new to enter my life, somebody that would turn out to be my truest soulmate in every sense of the word, and the woman I had always been searching for. Not ready at all. Timing. Ugh. When I realized that’s exactly what had happened though, I panicked. HARD. I had a complete and utter breakdown on the spot, and I wasn’t quite right for a long time afterwards. Some days I still feel the ripples of that day.

I think we can spend a lot of time in our lives helping ourselves out by becoming more ready to face the challenges in front of us. I think that’s a good, and responsible attitude. If somebody doesn’t WANT children, for example, then there are options available to avoid conception in the first place. And there are options available that I may or may not agree with in all cases, to end an unexpected one. But despite that, sometimes, the Gods don’t give a SHIT whether we’re ready or not, don’t care about the precautions we take, and things happen anyways. I take some small comfort in that. I may not feel ready for whatever life throws my way, but the Gods have enough faith in me to decide I AM ready, or they wouldn’t throw things my way in the first place. Sometimes they decide that I’m ready, despite all the evidence to the contrary. It’s like a giant game of hide and seek. Ready or not, here it comes.

I don’t think that life works in such a way that we’re only able to tackle things when we’re ready. Without a prior experience, you’ll never know if you are truly ready or not. How can one EVER be ready for the unknown? Being ready is all about preparing, of making sure that all your bases are covered, dotting all your i’s and crossing all you t’s, revising, rough draft/final draft, and all that. But when dealing with an unknown, you can’t be. Readiness is reading the strategy guide cover to cover, memorizing the instructions, and maybe even picking up a couple of cheat codes, before playing the game. Life is being thrown into the game with no strategy guide, no instruction manual, one life, and no save points.

When the Gods give me something I don’t feel I am ready for, my first instinct is to fight. Fight the situation, fight the Gods, fight to stand stock-stubborn still and wait until I AM ready. The thing is though, there are times when I don’t know that I’ll EVER be ready for what is being thrown my way. And through time, I’ve learned to fight less, and go with the flow more. So what if I’m not ready? It’s HERE, it’s NOW. It’s happening, and there’s no stopping it. It’s been decided that I have something in my life to face, ready or not. The only thing I can do at that point is soldier bravely on, and do my best. Maybe that means sucking it up and being the best dad I can be, no matter how much I’d rather be trotting across the globe, waking up in strange and exotic ports every day, or partying with the guys. Maybe it means having to face some of the hardest and most painful things I’ve ever had to do, not just to others, but for myself included. Maybe it means opening myself up to somebody else, before I’ve fully let go of who was there before. To me, it means acknowledging what is in my path, and accepting it for what it is. Ready or not, it’s here, and I’m at least ready to give it all my full self.

I see life like this, and to me, it goes hand in hand with what I’ve been led to understand is one of the keys of Paganism. We talk of turning the wheel. Of being TRUE witches. Of not only taking the time to mark the sabbats, working intent when needed. But also, of doing the hard parts. The daily chores. The parts that are less than savory, less than glamorous, the cold, hard, thankless parts that hurt us and take their toll. To quote a favorite series of mine, The wheel weaves as the wheel wills. Pagan life doesn’t only happen on a full moon, or a sabbat, or when we’re looking for it, or those rare numinous times where Deity directly touches us. It happens every day, in a thousand little ways. The wheel turns, with or without us, and it’s up to us to at least be ready to DEAL with what the wheel spits out at us, even if we’re not ready for whatever that may be. To me, Paganism has spoke to me so strongly, because we stand ready to deal with whatever that is, come what may, with strength, conviction, and willing to give the best of ourselves to that. Paganism is not a path of excuses, of doubt, of hiding or running. Paganism is a path of action, empathy, and choices. Of making choices, decisions, and dealing with the consequences. Ready or not. And always giving our BEST.

Are you ready?

This has not been an easy week for me, as most weeks where I have to deal with certain situations rarely, if ever, are. This week has been filled with a veritable plethora of difficult situations. This time however, I’ve been managing to make a lot of positive headway on how I handle myself in these situations, and I think it would be fair to say, I’m seeing a lot of positive results because of this. As somebody recently said, when I wear confidence and tilt my chin and move forward, it looks real good on me. I couldn’t agree more. It FEELS real good on me.

Last night, I received two books in the mail. One, is a book I’ve been DYING to read for quite some time: “Celtic Tree Mysteries: Secrets of the Ogham” by Steve Blamires. The other was a gift from a friend of mine, and is the next book in a series I’m reading. The book is “The Singing Sword” by Jack Whyte. I’m really excited to have new books to read! I’m a voracious reader, and though I love all the books in my library, it wears a bit after the second or third thousandth time through them all.

In my last post, “The Numinous and Worship“, I mentioned a passage from the book “Contact”, by Carl Sagan, that dealt with the main character falling in love. I’d like to share that, directly below.

“Their conversations were a joy, with ideas flying back and forth like shuttlecocks. Sometimes they responded to each other’s uncompleted thoughts with almost perfect foreknowledge. He was a considerate and inventive lover. And anyways, she liked his pheromones.

She was comfortable describing to him her reveries, snatches of memories, childhood embarrassments. And he was not merely interested, but fascinated. He would question her for hours about her childhood. His questions were always direct, sometimes probing, but without exception gentle. She began to understand why lovers talk baby talk to one another. Ther was no other socially acceptable circumstance in which the children inside her were permitted to come out. If the one-year-old, the five-year-old, the twelve-year-old, and the twenty-year-old all find compatible personalities in the beloved, there is a real chance to keep all of these sub-personas happy. Love ends their long loneliness. Perhaps the depth of love can be calibrated by the number of different selves that are actively involved in a given relationship. With her previous partners, it seemed, at most one of these selves was able to find a compatible opposite number; the other persona were grumpy hangers-on.”

As I had mentioned earlier, this had struck a chord for me, having found that within these past couple years ith someone, after a lifetime of searching, and eventually giving up. Man, but the Gods can be cruel when they finally give us what we most desire. Along with the joy of the finding, came a terrible fear and despair of ever being able to grab onto that, and guilt for having to extricate myself from the committed relationship I was already in to realize it fully. I guarantee you, I spent quite a long time hoping to find it with the woman I was already with, out of the love I still shared with her, and the love she still felt for me.

Why do we fight so hard, to force ourselves to go against what is obvious? What was awakened in me, was awakened by this new person, but I hoped maybe it could be transferred to my now ex-wife. She would tell me how much she was in love ith me, would tell me how much she ould change for me, even made certain changes. It was hard facing that, because the more she changed, the more she opened up her lines of communication, the more in her I saw the person I had initially fallen in love with, and the more compatible she became to what I was looking for out of life. Throw in the fact that she was and is the mother of my two children, and the difficulties in walking away from her were increased exponentially. How could I do this to somebody who loved and needed me that much? Did I not OWE it to her, to find the same feelings for her? And let me tell you, I came close to finding it. REAL close. Maybe we COULD “make it work”. Despite all that, I couldn’t seem to do it. Through time, I came to realize, that the feelings I felt, that I were awakened to, were not because of her, and aren’t transferable. And even though I could find almost everything else for her, I couldn’t find that one part that said, “Yes.”

Why do we fight so hard to force ourselves to fill those roles that others hope for us? We show amazing compassion for others, and yet, we show very little compassion to ourselves. For me, the reason I could not tell my ex-wife “yes”, was because she was not the person that that part of my heart was saying “yes” for.. the same one that awakened those emotions in me for in the first place. It wasn’t her face I saw in those moments with her. The Gods are cruel. But, they also are kind, because I DID feel that for someone, in all those ways, even if it didn’t lessen the hurt or acceptance I still had to find. And they were kind, because they allowed my ex-wife to see that was what was real in MY heart, that while I loved her, I couldn’t love her in that way, not after being made aware of it more fully with somebody that TRULY awakened it in me. And my ex-wife, I loved her more than ever for allowing me to have that, for loving me enough to let me find that true happiness, even if it wasn’t with her. And you know, it hasn’t been easy, because when I see her with the man she is with now, she reminds me more and more of what I hoped she and I could have. But I’ve been chasing the future that is real in my heart now, the one that speaks to all those parts of me, and dealing with the pain that comes from walking away from my past as it comes. The pain lessens with time, the healing begins, when there is acceptance of the truth. Yes I love her, yes I see so much good in her, and yes, we could probably have made a better go at things, but no…. that is not where my heart was pointing me. Only after I acknowledged that direction, and she acknowledged my direction as well, was I able to truly move on. She made it easy for me, and I’m grateful. She probably could have sat there every single day from then until now, begging me to stay, and I would have not had an easy time at all walking away. To say the least.

Compassion is a good thing, but there comes a time when one has to let others deal with the reality on their own terms, without standing in the way of that. And here, the compassionate thing is to let them figure that out for themselves, without you trying to hold their hand through it, and without sharing your fears back and forth beteen each other. Feedback loops are powerfull, patterned, and cyclical. Just as there can be a loop and regress of love beteen true lovers, there can also be loops of fear that never move anybody forward. So sometimes, compassion in a situation means having the compassion to walk away, to be quiet, and to let the other person see the truth for themselves. It can mean having the compassion to put your own hopes to the side, and acknowledging that in reality, they’re not returned. Sometimes compassion is having to do the hard things, that hurt the most now, instead of the easy things, that hurt more and more in the long run.

Deep stuff, and stuff I’ve been working on in myself. Having the compassion to let others see the truth for themselves, and having trust that the Gods will bring me beauty, whatever the outcome. It’s hard, but I’m following an ecstatic path… with the ecstasy, comes the hard work. And though it’s hard, I can honestly say that I am truly living my life now, and not waiting on the world to make things happen for me. I’m taking control of my life, and it feels amazing.

ON TO THE RANDOMNESS!

My “W” key is on the fritz, and I never really realized how often that letter is used!

I hate Wordpress’s textbox for typing posts, as it is constantly scrolling back to the top of the post, and typing in it it seems to be about one character a second hitting the screen.

I’m considering removing email notifications of new posts, as I often think it keeps people from wanting to come and comment.

I’m trying to integrate Google Friend Connect, to make it EASIER for people to come and comment.

I like comments.

I’m thinking of creating a new blog to dedicate my posts about my relationship to Herne with.

I really like watching The Office, Bones, and Heroes.

Happy Thursday all.

Good afternoon, and welcome to … Tuesday. For me, today, it’s not a particularly good Tuesday. It is, however, *A* Tuesday, and I suppose in some very small ways, I’m glad to be here for it. The temperature outside has raised significantly from the weekend’s deep freeze, and the snow was falling quite prettily in the pre-dawn light, as the world around me stretched and yawned, awakening from fitful slumber to greet the day. After dropping my kids off at daycare and the bus stop for school – and for their parenting time with their mother – I returned home and briefly enjoyed the smell of sausages cooking on the stove to break my fast with. Another fine double homemade breakfast burrito meal, if I do say so myself. Give me chorizo, and I’ll have it perfected. =) After having fed my belly, and making an attempt at waking my mind with strong, french-press brewed coffee, I sank into my chair and allowed myself to sink fully into the deep and miserable funk I have been in for the past couple of days. Ahhh, depression, a scratchy wool blanket to insulate myself in on these cold winter days, both comfortable and irritating. Life, despite my best efforts, still continues to be at the lowest I have seen it in terms of “things going my way.” You think I’d be used to that by now, but every successive soul crushing disappointment still manages to take me surprise. lol Somehow I keep managing to get back up. It’s surprising at times, but I do.

Among certain things I have been feeling pretty low about, is the lack of spirit and the divine making itself known to me in my life lately. After an almost overload of amazement when I started this path, I am in a definite lull, and missing it pretty hard. There are other reasons, but I won’t get into that here. After pouring out to a friend this morning, and subsiding into trembling sobs on the sofa, I determined to distract myself with a book I’ve recently started reading: “Contact” by Carl Sagan.

One of the things I’ve noticed as more time has gone on, following a path of greater spiritual awareness, is how the Divine seeks to gain my attention. And one of the most thought provoking of these ways is through synchronicity. Some little quirks here or there crop up almost daily, but from time to time I get bashed over the head with it seemingly everywhere I turn. While reading this book, I was bludgeoned most unmercilessly yet again, as I have been for almost a solid week now. I’d been waiting for some of the other sources who were providing me with this synchronatic subject matter to speak up, as they had all mentioned an interest in wanting to write about it, but so far none have… and upon getting hit with it again this morning, I realized, “Oh. Maybe *I* should write about it.” Subtlety, though used, and to a degree, understood by me, is not my strong point, and sometimes one just needs that directly literal instruction or information, to keep getting smacked upside the head with the obvious. So here I am, albeit in a very roundabout manner, to talk about ecstatic experiences and worship.

Lyon, at The Wandering Hearth, recently wrote an article about scripts and spontaniety in worship. In this article (which was excellent by the way, and I’d encourage you to read it), she mentioned wanting to write further about escstatic experiences in worship, which really got my gears going. I decided to just sit on my musings, as I hadn’t formed anything really concrete, though I had the ticklings of some ideas. A few days later, while chatting with another blogger, Treesong, of Treesong.org, the subject of ecstatic experience came up again, out of the blue. We shared some ideas on this topic, which left me considering it even more, really taking the time to think about it. He also expressed an interest of writing about the topic, and again, I decided to wait what somebody else had to say, though I was more excited now because I could feel some things beginning to click into place for myself. So that lead me up to today, the couch, and Contact. There’s a part in the book, where the main character finds herself falling in love, truly, for the very first time, which really struck a chord with me, it was if somebody was writing about how I felt, and it had my attention, I must admit. I’m a romantic, what can I say. And then BAM, like a thunderbolt from the pages, leaps a discussion on a discussion on the “numinous” and everything really clicked into place for me.

Now, the term “numinous” was first used by Rudolph Otto in a book called, “The Idea of the Holy,” back in 1923, and is used to describe the power or presense of Divinity. He thought of the numinous as thing the human response to is “absolute astonishment,” and the numinous experience is made up of two parts: mysterium tremendum, which is the tendency to invoke fear and trembling; and mysterium fascinans, the tendency to attract, fascinate and compel. The numinous experience also has a personal quality to it, in that the person feels to be in communion with a wholly other. The numinous experience can lead in different cases to belief in deities, the supernatural, the sacred, the holy, and the transcendent, basically, the parts of Divinity perceived to be of the most value. This ties in exactly with where I had been going in my thoughts of ecstatic experiences.

When I first … REALLY … began to seriously consider this path, I was met with many ecstatic experiences, a full helping of mysterium fascinans if you will. And I also learned, upon meeting Herne, that there was the other side as well. The mysterium tremendum is the part that always makes it hard to stay and face him. With the presage of his arrival, there often comes a galloping sense of panic and terror, though not aimed at myself personally. In the presense of the Divine, the soul trembles and quakes, and one can feel utterly insignificant. It is a feeling both of awe, fear, and respect, and it is difficult to face. But if one pulls down deep, and masters that feeling, one is able to experiences the mysterium fascinans that goes with it. And those are the experiences, that I cherish the most from this whole path, the ones that make it all worth while, when I am locked into that feeling. It’s a good one to chase, but it’s rare. Some days, the world is just business as usual, full of highs and lows, good and bad, even manic and depressive. But those rare moments… man do they really make the rest seem so much more … bearable. Even that brief glimpse, snatch of conversation, or emotion brought on from the numinous is enough to change you. I remember being told that when starting out. You can choose to touch that, to become that aware, but if you do, it’ll change you forever. And that was true. I’ve changed, forever, and I want to devote my life to emulating that feeling as closely as possible. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world, and I can think no better way to worship that, than by seeking it out, and/or being enough to accept it when I’m priveleged enough to be gifted with it.

Treesong and I, had been discussing the feelings of being “swept up” in things in our lives, things we had found to be undeniable, the mysterium fascians (though I didn’t have a word for it at the time,) and he made the observation to me, that in those moments, he knew himself to be on the right track, as it was the Divine presense telling him “YES”, a feeling of blessing and amazement, that the joy was a gift of following where he needed to be. He also acknowledged that with that feeling, came a balance, in that it was almost always accompanied by a harder road ahead, intense amounts of fear and terror that went along with accepting that fully, that could be quite hard to master. Before the conversation drifted on, we both agreed however, that they were well worth sticking around for.

Herne has never been easy to accept, I’ve fought him a lot of the way, I’ve struggled and drawn back, panicked and ran, hid and pushed him away when he got close. At the same time though, I was always hoping to draw him more closely to me, the benefit of it… my how amazing. How do you explain the love for Deity? I fought against what was right in front of my face for a long time… I did. And the more I fought, the harder it was to deny, that I knew this was where I was devoted. This was where I most wanted to be. And yes, that hasn’t been easy. I don’t blame the mundane details of my life on it, though it may have contributed. It hasn’t necessarily made the rest of my life any clearer, or made my road any easier. But it has given me something amazing to embrace, and to see me through the rough times with, and to truly, honestly fully give my thanks and heart to, because it fills me up that much. It is that strong.

My worship, while not filled with the mysterium fascinans on a second by second basis, is still filled with the knowledge that it’s there, and I can touch it anytime I want, or need, because I have learned to see it behind the mysterium tremendum that comes with it, to accept that one is part of the other. It it is not always easy to open up to it in the face of that fear, but I gladly try and strive and bring myself closer to a place where I can do that, because that is what my worship is about. Giving thanks for that, and embracing it with all my heart. This is worship. This is life. This is why I believe, this is what I believe, and this is what I want. These are the sorts of moments that make life worth living for, and these are the moments I wish for the most. I give thanks, that I am here, that I am aware, and that I have been blessed enough to be given moments like this.

So mote it be.