Mortality has its own pace & runs when we expect it to creep, creeps when we wish it would overtake & immortalize us in release. It begins early & continues late, we yearn for time to sleep & energy to avoid that. And life intrudes, interrupts, interferes with just every single thing we set out to do.

I am so good at blaming myself. Guilt is rarely comfortable & always unnecessary. I’m not a malicious person but I am territorial & almost scary in that. I have so much to be grateful about, yet find fault with myself for finding fault with others, especially when I don’t even know why.

Oh, I know all the answers to why but each cancels the other out. None of this world is my fault, but I made the construct. I live in my life as though it is mine, with no reality of a substantial nature. Each cell has its own intelligence & brain: I get involved in the discussion to rarely discover a conclusion.

I don’t even believe myself most of the time. I am not who I should be, but who I am. Scary thought, that. I am moving once again to another place with no assurance I will actually live there. Truly stepping into the unknown, with my bundle of sticks tied on my back in case I need fire.

Strength I pray for. Health I cherish. Love frightens me as I’ll likely not meet its conditions. I haven’t made it before but try I must & love isn’t easy but the simple way is not appealing if I can complicate, concatenate, camouflage the issues. Reality dreams a dream I do not share yet & my circumstances hold me under, yearning to burst free.

So one stroke at a time, I write my way to substance. Casting my life before me like a roll of dice searching the magic number, I walk on.

Love,

Carol

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It Only Takes a Moment

to make a memory

one visit & your voice seems printed on the walls

You face is in my mirror

Your breath upon my air

Your song lingers

in hearing

or were you always here

from when I said aloud,

“Once Upon A Time”

there is a tiny bird nested by my room

a very small sound coaxes me to listen

I read that mama birds sing to their eggs

all the time.

I am hearing it now.

in times of shouting

i can only do what is in front of me

i can only remember

what i have outgrown

with its many pockets

where i left a memory in each

again i try my bow against a target

once more i reach for a star

too bright to hold, but i grab it nonetheless

stuffing it down to nestle

between my breasts

where i keep the keys

when I work out.

again i trust the universe,

simply throwing my overnight case

at it, trusting in all the rest

not giving an inch on my faith

tho i test the tension on the line.

there can be no assuagement to my guilt

i have turned away from that I thought to love forever

i have set down my phone under your picture

in hopes you will speak to me.

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Doing Homework on the Boardwalk

I was editing a book this afternoon at my favorite Library branch, Fruitville. I commandeered a table with great light & plenty of room to move around the puzzle pieces of the job. I muttered & exclaimed & made faces at typos, verbs, dashes vs. hyphens. I followed the clear & emphatic almost engraved lead of a crazed editor who drew circles, lines, exclamation points, in red, blue & finally, invisible black in blazoning letters.

Most of the time I agreed & cleaned up after her suggestions. But I found an equal number of errors in tense, pronoun usage & the like to belie her expensive corrections for my homespun hyphenations. And Google made great suggestions, I’m not happy to say cuz I want to be the heroine here. No AI, just I.

The day was an amalgam of emotions & feelings. I sat mid-aisle; all around me women tiptoed, gazing down aisles to ascertain what could be good on these before crouching down to read the titles. I just took books from the return racks. Somebody thought it was good enough to take out & read. l’ll try it next. I found five books & a CD on Flat Earth.

Tomorrow it begins again, another week of traction & balance-finding. Riding a calendar & a desk chair to efficiency & follow-through. After Sunday’s frenetic activity, Mondays are a day off. One thing only to prepare & that may take all day of itself. I never know.

I am waiting for a different life to begin. I am waiting for “my own kitchen” where I can change up my diet from the exotica of whatever I want cuz I’m eating out again. I want different & steadier foods – the kind of stuff I’ve lived on in NM & know well how to prep. More rice, though, and more vegetables. I’ll be living with a Vegan. I want to learn.

Last night I attended a Shamanic Meditation Journey with which I was too tired to raise up the energy needed to have it be more than it was to me. I worked a long week. I had just finished up at 5 when I wanted to be done by noon & then review. I ate more hyper food & sat in a hard chair for two hours after being upright for a week. It was too much for my tired body. I only hope I didn’t snore.

So I end today on the computer where I’ve mostly been. My new boss said don’t be sending emails about work at 3 a.m., if I have to be up, write my own stuff.

Love,

Carol

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Existence & Essence

My final days in T or C.

Existence & Essence

In a class recently, we circled the room with the question, “where is your safest space?” And as others answered, “with my grandmother,” or in my yard,” I murmured almost inaudibly as I realized it incoming: “in my car.”

They nodded & repeated it: they heard me.

It is two days since I said it, & I just now realize implications. I love to be alone. I love to be going someplace, and I love to be in control. What a trinity!

When I lived in T/C, a friend suggested I read Power & Force for myself. It seemed to him I was tilted into force for the sake of power. I kind of skimmed it & decided I like both. I pursed my lips & nodded. I even wrote a blog on it; you can search on-site here. 

I do feel in control more & more. This is happening as I continually let go. Those philosophers were right; I was just too young to know it.  Now I have emerged from the mirror. Here I am.

The more I embrace whatever & what-all I have, the more comes to me. This is the definition of Abundance. The best part is, of course, once you have become such a target, the less it matters if all things go South cuz whatever moved down & off the spiral is in the same moment entering & rising up.

I feel the chemistry changing. I was on my way to a Burlington Outlet & walked into Sprouts. Only I did not walk in there, I found myself looking at a row of soap bottlers. I always find stuff I really need in Sprouts, & today was the same. I won’t bore you with the parenthetical route, but I found just what I didn’t know I was looking for. +

Recently I heard a great talk on castor oil. I determined to get some for a sore spot. Well, Sprout’s is an ideal store to have this memory pop up, so I find a castor oil bottled like the old hair color bottles with those pointed nozzles. It’s castor oil for hair.

No way I can use this for my poofty, Jersey Girl/Mall hair! Castor oil is one of the heaviest & I’d have a grease-fried look. But no other product pulls my hand to it & I already dropped the bottle into the basket. Then I get the ‘real’ castor oil to use on my boo-boo spot.

I get home & try a bit on my hair – it says for scalp – so I rub it in & take my fingers into the hair I’m trying to weigh down – it looks like a pillow up there – & I get exactly the look I’m aiming for.

I love finding real solutions. Especially when they involve vanity. At least from the head up I will look “my look.”

Then I need to pay attention to the rest of me.

I walk past the fresh produce aisle – grabbing carrots, broccoli, greens. I stroll past the coconut oil & remember how good it tasted when I did Oil Pulling Therapy before (is it again time for this?) I grab a jar from the shelf. I am going to be pretty slippery soon, I think.

Is this a Spring need? To renew self & recover some moisture? How can I have dry skin in Florida more so than I had in New Mexico? The simultaneous thing is flaying sun, but out there I walked in it at will, never wore a hat, sat outside while no sweat poured from me; the air & I were that dry.

The salad will work the inners, the rest, this outer shell about which I care so much. I am ready for renewal & surely ‘tis the season!

I came home & slathered, found a cool spot to bliss & got that insight about being in control. I guess it’s still a fit, that Power I leisurely wielded. For years I have recited a twofold ambition: I want to be in a space where I have nothing left to lose and nothing left to prove.

I’m already there.

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It Matters Not

It matters not if we come late to wisdom

Have we come early to joy.

As children we are content with puzzles

Which may become a confusion

Of intemperance beyond their expiration date.

If we outlive our productivity, we can still

Rest in that glow; warming to remembrance,

Its fainting profusion

Now a single blossom

Become ash.

It is only that we have lived at some time

To capacity.

Our stillness is given to action

At levels now awash in Time’s changing tides.

Even when there are no pictures,

There are memories yet alive & aglow.

Our beaches laid bare in detritus

Still own the perfect shell

That one white pearl where we were treasured

Only for being who we are.

These moments sustain & re-root.

A new leaf on a seemingly dead stalk

Is still vital & attractive.

We still contribute to life’s ledgers

For the sake of the positive.

We underline life with a curve of laughter

A smile at rain, a thrill of wind

A moment alone later shared in hive-mind.

If I have had one thought others may learn from:

One idea which, drawn across the match cover of here & now

Sparks a candle or a forest fire.

I thank you, Life, for choosing your manifestation

In me, of me, around me, about me, even in lieu of me.

Where would I be had I not chosen to be here?

Carol B

2/23/23

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Perhaps An Original Thought Will Serve?

Thinking of you this morning…wanted to write before you start the majority of your day.

I am being amazed by how the yin/yang of continuity & new just rolls along & we never know which one will be on top & it doesn’t really matter, does it? Just the pleasure in the moment matters & the ability to balance whatever does roll into attention mode at any moment. I was going to get off early today – it’s my early day – but I am pretty sure moving our staff meeting will kibosh that; so I canceled an appointment I had. It is coming clear to me to have my poetry workshop at Unity rather than where I was planning, so not a big deal. 

I am watching Joan Didion’s quote “the center will not hold” come into play yet again. Tho I say it’s a circle, I think life has become more of a kaleidoscope with flashing patterns changing on a constant basis, refitting themselves together in varied & captivating patterns. I cannot look away.

Ideas keep expanding & diminishing. I look forward to sitting on the front porch of heaven, rocking & listening to the birds, but I know that’s not the way of it… I’ll get a few minutes there now & again. Just enough to catch the Divine Breath & plunge back into it once more. You know, once the fear of transition leaves, there’s nothing to be afraid of. We are in the midst of such a world change, nothing left to do but marvel, hold onto your hat & take no note if it flies off into the winds of change! Laughter is so important & provident – we are such ridiculous beings to be so serious! Our milestones are but pebbles in the paths of others & this is rightful indeed.

I am noticing my bids for sympathy & knowing I must give them up; I must simply deal with what is happening as honestly as I can & if it happens, not use it for a bidding whine, but a strengthening. At times, I like the whine cuz it gets me that sympathy… I’ve been isolate enough to get comfortable here. Letting go is an art to perfect in a world where holding on seems the right action, yeh?

I dreamed of walking through a walkway where people lived off it in rooms & if their doors were open, I walked into their rooms, begging pardon for not watching my way. People wanted to hear but refused to listen, pushing their problems & observations in front of mine. But of course what belonged to them would be more important! 

I find myself saying, “Where’s my head?” I think Mom used to say that – or maybe it was (& more likely), “Where’s your head?” It has become a more layered saying since the 60’s & the recreational drug levels increasing. 

This body keeps wanting to succumb to inertia & entropy. I wage a steady campaign against these, however, pushing hard when I must to keep from pulling a pillow over my head & shutting it out. I face it every time I walk out my bedroom door, come to think of it. 

So for today, think about where’s your head? Let’s put it in line with our heart & allow it a catbird seat to see how it’s done.

Love,

C

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More Stuff from Work

A MEMORY

We write our signatures on air

On air money

I remember when the sound of

Change

Jingling in a pocket

Meant a Grade A or a Red Hot

Do you remember?

Did you ever walk into a candy store?

Where a big glass cabinet

Housed a reflexive kiss for

Everything within

An involuntary tightening

Of orbicularis oris,

A pucker.

(Candy was the closest thing to love I knew.)

Years have passed, many counting themselves,

As I never kept track except the big ones,

Except in the most general ways

Others can tell you times to the tenth

But I barely know how I got here

Nor will I ever need to

This is all that matters: thisrightnow, thismeoment,

Thisthisthisthisthis… 

VISITS ASEA

Never have I lost your sounding waters

Stream of consciousness

I have missed the tiny whirlpools

But never the great Tides

Which swing my world so in & out of balance

I have learned only that balance is flexible

That it’s changeable, malleable,

Balance lifts us up into manageable.

Yet I claim it not, not fully, not without first

Looking around for railing, or a handhold

Balance was a for-granted

But it has gone the way of faith

The chair will be behind me when I sit…

A variable where only an inalterable ever existed.

But that doesn’t stop me.

I watched a baby walking, thumping along

After being put gently on the floor

Leaning into his future

Walking, forehead jutting ahead of his feet.

I walk like that sometimes now.

I don’t lean back, if I claimed my past it would

Claim me. I choose not to dwell there.

So much so I rush from it.

Somehow I have seen it all before

I am bored by the repeats

Bummed by the reruns

Interested in the growth & the new

In the place where I can claim some experience

The holy bath of experience

From which no one returns the same

The reruns are off, the endings

Jacked up. How could I have counted them ever?

But the not understanding is okay with me now

The wondering & the laying on of syllables

Like strips of bacon making grease in a heated brainpan

The smell will intoxicate me; I wonder if I’ll also have eggs..

I mean ideas, I mean ways to get out from myself & away from

Me awhile. There’s that place where it’s okay to sway.

I am there now.

REPTILES IN THE OFFICE

In my supposed comeuppance, your one-line flick of a forked tongue

At me, I watch you, woman.

I am a threat. You are right to watch me back,

to rattle a warning accusation of

A crime I know nothing about; One thing: I will not dance it again.

But you know all, having discovered we’re out of

Paper…the accusation precedes the announcement:

This from the woman who says have no fear,

Unity does not do fear!

But running out of paper is a hostage situation a 911 bristle, a threat

To the future of major proportions.

Staples being two miles away, n’all.

But there is a humidity of accusation cloying a measure of self-protection & I

Understand, as I was there, too, in the beginning.

Every Unity I know breaks apart, succumbs to Great Change

We are thinking it will be one thing

When it might be entirely another.

Now I have a measure of self-protection in place

This is just how it is; it’s nothing personal

It is how each explains herself to life

With a bang on the counter, a jarring of the bell

Heard in far reaches of outer space…

These women purport to ministry but live a self-crafted life

Involving much validation in finger-pointing

An air of mayhem-in-waiting

Of corrupted effort & diminishing returns

Saying one thing to another

Neither quite true or trusted.

Only demanded.

I can feel my armor dented in places

The shin-guards worn away

the covers over the ears newly heated

by accusation by disbelief by not “get it right, but you’re so

stupid you got it wrong.”

I think it’s because I feel it hit my Translator

& bounce awry instead of smoothly smoothing out.

I have no respect for the one & am rapidly losing

What I have for the two…histrionics accomplish zilch.

Something broke today when you harried me in front of John

Who was just waiting to speak to you

But seemed unmoved by what I perceived as a full-on Tantrum.

Like the ones 3-year olds throw on the toy aisle.

For many of the same reasons, a parent would say.

I’ll say, too, I can’t get there from here. I do not know how.

It is not my understanding of what you asked for two weeks ago

This is some wish you cobbled together in the fiery pit

Of I know  I asked her this!!

Nonesuch.

DEPARTURE, TAKEN PERSONAL

If this is how you feel, just go.

If it is coming to the point that you decide four weeks in front of leaving that we need to know every single solitary thing you know,

Only the God of Heaven can help us!

But we are not the women who ask for help

Before designing our own program

Buying our own uniforms

Building our own pillboxes

Designed beyond your getting in

Which is funny, because you built it

By how you treat me.

The irony of it all being you likely

Do. Not. Even. Know.

IN GENERAL

The tension in the room & the torsion in the air

Accelerate an already fast-moving iteration

Of Situation

Into international waters, traditions count out here

And One People do not mix With Another.

And don’t try to tell me these aren’t all over the planet

These whorls where someone made bad juju & no one ever

Redeemed it with a blessing.

Cuz I recognize them.

From before, some my own

You enter here at your peril

With the potential of  your sorrow

For I am only a battery

Only a mirror

I will up the energy of the situation

Since what I think if it is on my honest face.

Someday that face will look into your own

I amplify & reflect back.

I clap endlessly one-handed

I walk the forest listening for downing trees

I cannot play that game of throwns any more

I want to belong to a vibrant community of like minds

Who do not throw away their own decisions, but do not force them either. What would it take to not be the problem but the problem-solver?

ALL EARS’

Could I be a Listener?

A listening device of analog proportions?

What would it take to be fluid of body once again,

To have a man, once, lift me to himself & cradle me

Set a seal upon that Seer Eye: awaken it with unexpected vision

There is a reason they slay the spirit there

But I seek not even the smallest of deaths

To bring it to the surface, to lead the light

To have a unicorn kind of magic: emergent,

Masculine, parting the very air

For in between the particles

I would go

To achieve the feminine.

It sees me to be: finally whole,

Not foresworn in the belly.

My spirit parts are strong, but invisible here

Jovial, they push other stuff out of the way to have theirs.

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We gotta go home –

Well, she will be gone from authority soon. Her influence has been positive, in the overall. I’m done, tho, with tantrums & repetitive commentary. If this is the seventh time telling me the story, at least make up a different ending, yeh?

Regular hours! Letting the air out of the shields I stay behind, working in a kinder, gentler place. I’m not going to invest emotion into many of the events I now do. It is time to let all of that go.

I want to build a vision of a church that works for all… What do I want my workplace to be? I want collegiality, companionability, the freedom to think my thoughts on my face rather than guard the game, hunching over the cards. I want to work in a safe place. I want to set a higher tone in my demeanor, comportment, attitude & tenor. I need to forgive foibles – they’ll catch up the the fools committing them soon & undo them.

My Mom was a screamer. She was a repeater. It wore me out as a child & I’m not going back there. I get buried in my work & time is the only resolution for accomplishment. I have no time for repetition when it can be spent on new & valuable solutions.

I’m not as powerful as some, but I do wield power. My boundaries surround me daily. I try not to settle if there’s a truer resolution to problems. I want to do my job to my personal best.

I want to stay alight in Zeal & stay resolute in accomplishment. I consciously let go of drama for the hot potato entertainment it is – immediate & irresponsible. I don’t need to magnify it with awareness.

One of our great tenets is “let go, let God.” I can bring my plaints to the altar but I need practice leaving them there. (“Them” & “there” are fence words, tall & inconvenient, restrictive & misleading if not clearly defined.)

So how may I improve, now knowing what I know?

Soften.

Be happier outwardly with all.

Relax about the non-contributors. They are not my problem.

I must become:

necessary, accomplishing, eager, helpful, forward-thinking, in motion even when in stillness, balanced, rooted, impervious, transparent, impetuous & amusing.

Mellowing out is a great way to level the playing field.

Figure it out & forgive it. Or just forgive.

I live a circumscribed life by choice. Happiness is mostly solitary. I bring my toys to the table & behold, they become treasures!

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No More Gurus

The time is here when we must find our own truths & what served (serves) others be laid gently down to rest back in their timeline. My recent foray into an event of teaching with a Lakota elder who uses the I-Ching for divination brings forth only that his own tradition offers no grounds for wisdom for him. Sad, I say, when your elements fail you so far.

The weekend is billed as one in which to find your way according to his runway lights, obviously more brilliant than yours might ever be.

However, when his “divination” led him to say he would be working with fear for the entire weekend, I shut down. Why would I ever want to do that? Why would I emphasize or allow reality to a teaching around that which has no pertinence for me? I have “worked” with – worked over – worked around – fear to the point where I trust my own divinity with lifting this from me.

For me, fear means I don’t trust Source. I do. My life is a tribute & reflection of the positivity brought into my life by a solid grip on faith which has towed me through many a swampy locale.

He said four times, he hoped he had not “scared us off.” Nope, sure didn’t do that for me! His “teaching” about overcoming fear while wearing a mask tugged down around his own neck is a sadly “oxymoronic.” He’s bought into a system of fear for its own sake, based neither on logic nor “science” but on a common wield that a cyclone fence will stop a mosquito attack.

For me, this seems an exercise & an emphasis I find of no value. Too many times have I brought fear up close, sniffed its sour smell & rejected it for the open air of discovery & freedom of living without it.

I am in service to this event, this workshop so poorly organized as to offer little wisdom or knowledge but an opportunity for hero worship alone & tossing money to an old man billed as a be-all font of knowledge simply because he is a tribal elder whose understanding – no matter how poorly conveyed – will serve the dabbler from another culture entirely.

Today I’ll be there for the beginning, middle & end since I need to open & close the doors. I’ll bring a novel to read which is wrapped in an excellent tale excellently told & one which I reserved months ago.

I have a solid basis of my own ideas around how I interact with my fear, how I wrestle that particular angel down to refuse it tender at my table.

To you, it may seem as if I’m in denial – but I’m not your guru either, so think what you wish. I’m the one putting my words into the public ear & I speak clearly for all to grasp what I say.

Go forth & cast about in your own wilderness, Mr. Guru. Hope you remember your brown bag lunch!

2

Welcome, It’s Another Year

Time for another wander in my mind? For some while now focused elsewhere, I invite the Muse to revisit & stir the stilled waters. I invite a new year in & escort the old one out, but politely, cuz you never know when a year might come in handy to revisit. Hey, I’ll only save the best to savor from it, though.

The best: driving cross-country after years of in-place life. Finding a companion to sleep on my cane-back chair in T or C. Eating what I will, working when I will, sharing everything but living like a hermit crab with no surface from the shell. Friends I know well, each one a show-&-tell. Being a leader in a small community where the born-there did not welcome “immigrants” but we were the ones pushing movement onward, holding committees. Having a lover for awhile before removing myself from even that since love is not enough if it isn’t what’s expected & the habits of being alone overwhelm it.

Of course there was so much more! But I usher it out because there is so much new & more lively to replace it & I’ve barely touched the surface here yet. There are museums & beaches & new unmet friends & fulfillment of so many other needs. But I nibble at a smorgasbord, yeh?

I keep my split-shift life, awake at odd hours but now I work during these, writing notes I’ve taken on the job, checking emails for to-do lists, keeping in touch with many via cards & letters. I am less alone & reveling in that. I serve others with my work & this feels so worthwhile I tend to snuggle up close to that & experience less outward living online.

But I’ve been & gone before here.

I write of what disturbs me, of what moves me, of crazed-funny things that happen. I am more reserved about it now since I’m living it out loud, not testing it in the sound chamber here. I know there is so much more for me to do, to have, to be & I anticipate it all on this Christmas Day as I watch 2023 loom. My calendars are bought & on the desks getting marked up as I annotate my future.

Thank heaven the tinny Hallmark carols will stop & the simplistic plots morph to other characters who might have some reality-based story, tho my wishes on this may not come true. It would be far worse to have to overhear CNN all day.

Thank heavens I can live more fully as my body reaches a slow-down time & I push harder despite that every day. Thank all I can work out my mini-gym routines & eat fresh salmon & soon visit the beach & haunt the library & look for a place of my own come Spring. I tried the roommate bit & found I’m still not all there with it & I do better closed up in one room alone.

I’ve ordered new pens. I have a plethora of paper left over from overproduction of all kinds. I am still mostly focused on finding the humor in it all & have a March invitation to do stand-up where I work. I’m re-learning web design in a major way. I’m no longer hungry for stuff tho I love yard sales, garage sales, flea markets…but now I collect only some few items if anything at all. A blouse that doesn’t fit, a book I donate right off elsewhere. I’ve learned it’s not about possessions for me & sparsity works best.

I look forward to this new life in different-from-ever-before surroundings.

My split shift ends: time for what my dear friend calls “second sleep.” It’s Christmas Day 2022, 1:51 a.m. o’the clock. The heater blows strangely cool-feeling air & my eyes want to see what dreams live behind them when closed.

Good night, good morning, good God. Amen 2022. The blessings of the New Year attend.

Love,

Carol

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