Well, my sarcasm meter has embedded itself in the red. The crimes against humanity out there in the world are echoed in the small crimes committed by those who “should” know better. Take my job, for example. Take my job, please.

I know the paradigm shift is the background against which all this is being played out. I know I am divinely protected & fulfilled on the broadest measures even as others suffer madly at the supposed randomness of weather & money fluctuations. Governments can’t help in this suffering. They cannot render justice to balance any scales – to expect them to do so is just plain silly. Besides, by the time they’re involved/invoked, the suffering has been maxed.

Human nature is indefatigable. We rise. And still we rise. For many who are beaten down, there are more waiting to take an upper arm & lift them back to their feet. The stories I can tell have all been told in Greek, in Latin, in Aramaic, in all languages & time perpetuations. The emotions fit a spectrum fading off into the ultra on either side – all the way from & to the zones beyond our hearing & sight. The repercussions echo faintly from the hidden places above, below & to either side. Where does this leave the regular humans? Smack dab in the middle of each individual strand: in joy, in sorrow, in the “meh” factor, cuz we are burnt out or in, burnt up or down.

I hear so much – a symphony of lives playing out the background. My cynicism enlarges as does my laughter as, overall, this is so far from where we should be, it’s laughable. I am not the most balanced individual – had two bowls of ice cream for dinner last night. But I’m not the most un/imbalanced measure on the cosmic scales either. Ever note that cosmic minus one letter = comic?

What is happening at my job is not to be believed if you count upon sanity as a rule. It is based so totally on emotion, on perception, on cosmetics that there’s no recognition of what will happen when the truth is gold (a telling typo made twice there.)

This song struck me years ago & has just resurfaced in my life with deeper resonance. What do we expect outwardly in the world when our inner realms are so out of true?

As to my work, it’s Local Gossip. Our former minister – I work at a church – mentioned the property is built on a native cemetery. Now that’s a mentionable cliche, yeh? But let me tell you, Sons of the Pioneers, the inexplicable & illogical & irredeemable happens there every day. The caretakers dither in the wings as the main production tanks. Afraid of nay-saying themselves, they propose a no comment policy which will ultimately unbalance the entire effort: buildings, grounds, Sunday population, current staff. All will suffer – but only if they choose to accept it as suffering. Is this the big-school lesson always talked about? That Earth-Is-A-School Meme carried to fruition? Or is it just a series of egregious errors compounded by the Board & exaggerated by their choice of ministerial leadership?

Aw, hell. I’m skewed on it. I work there. But only til the 30th. By Samhain, I’m into the New & the void looks mighty attractive at this point. I’ll be someplace else soon with a laundry list of the same things but a chance of doing them with a measure of fun & fulfillment, not negation & nihility. I put in to remove my name from the website as of that date & the webmaster (who is purportedly taking over my job) has already erased me. Did I say I work at a church? She’ll fit right in!

Am I upset? Nah. Surprised? Yeh. Some propriety needs to be kept, I feel. It’s probably an honest mistake of not reading the end of the sentence, the part that says as of 10/30, after the remove me from the website. And this isn’t about that particular item, in fact (fact=truth?) Is jumping the gun the same as jumping the shark? I always say when the series runs out of good story-telling, they bring in the dinosaur threat. There’s a velociraptor in the back ministry office & a t-rex in Fellowship Hall. Truth be told. But truth is way subjective & develops a quick rime of mold when exposed to the air.

The fun part will balance the heavies here (one letter short of ‘heaves’) & do so soon. I can’t stay down that long & it’ll take a longer time to assert balance here than I have time for.

I might be a Cassandra, “cursed” with foreknowledge only to be expressed in cynicism. But as Mammy Yokum always said: “Ah has spoken!”

good morning, Muse.

Stopping by before the storm?

paying a visit?

slapping down your hand on the table asking for some of that cooked-ahead-of-time flounder, and burger, and panko-zucchini, that tuna steak chunk…that beef fajitas strip-meat?

you love the fried food as I do & we grin, cleaning up the kitchen together.

will you help me pack the bugout bag?

will you watch the videos of North Carolina over my shoulder with me?

Will you put your hand across my mouth when I shout my truth out loud …

that truth few seem to wanna hear?

you & I know I can’t keep it to myself.

come with me, let’s open the door

to the peace of the held-in breath

soon the world will crack open

with rain, with wind, with trees bending to the will of fury

ginned up by the ill will of darkness.

Grab a chair, Lady, let’s stare down the storm.

= = = =

this is a Florida morning, not a mountain in sight

insight

this is a day like no other

unique in a dawn promising way more to come in terms of

the adventure of life.

no idea how I got here

it was just an idea: this life

it was diving into the body that would (heh heh) expand with use

grow outward with caloric intake, enlarge even as my mind slims lean

simmering

with thinking about love, with leaning into Love.

i have sat at every table.

i have partaken only some of this & some of that.

sometimes dyspeptic but mostly dipping it into oil & frying it with spices

i can taste.

(seems an irony too big to bear to be unable to taste anymore)

but hell, I know what’s under the Masterpiece is a masterpiece of cellular

structure becoming part of me

exchanging Grace out loud before digging in!

= = = = =

Rescue me, retrieve me

i’ve seen the world from a wall of water before,

from the top of the wave

watching the ship go down

watching the once upon a time spear of the mast

sink below the blue surge

i’ve breathed the water

breathing out of my body

escaping the sluggish movement

of swimming limbs in cold/cold/colder

to fly over the sea

to find an island

to sit on a limb

to preen my feathers

my soul hitches a ride

to heaven’s before & after

i join hands with All That Is

as we laugh about everything that just happened

saying, “can you believe that?!?”

= = = = =

I’m no braver than you

my soul will never get this life together

like yours n yours n yours

my truth will not live to your standards

but even under this burden of perceiving disappointment

this little poem rises

a bubble in the swamp

a burst of iridescence

fragile as a baby’s laugh

fraught with joy wreaked from a poet’s life

seeing the seeking as the only truth

not the arrival but only the journey

pacing down the world

across the spheres

bending a knee to none

even the backpack slung under a tree

to travel free.

= = = = = =

The recklessness of love

choosing me as the object of its affection!

my voice scrapes across the spheres

to find a way to say how much love there is

in this world, to know only love to chant

under the breath of my mother

putting me to breast

to feel that love

as the warm palm of my father

patting my bottom: I sit upon his arm

giggling in the miracle of being held

the song rose then & stayed with me:

that one moment raised me into a heaven

too seldom experienced, yet known

somehow familiar

there was only that hallelujah of a moment

imprinted on a tender heart.

no matter a future of ashes & pain

no matter the darkness rising again

there’s always that music alive in me

vanquishing fear underfoot

my enemies are astounded

i can summon it up

breaking through their snarl

to live so alive & on & on & on…

= = = = =

skipping on the lightning

aiming for my feet

i laugh aloud at the wreckage

the detritus

i bless the mess

i’ve made; i see the next choice

coming up – i grab that golden ring,

holding it a moment to my chest

before flinging it to the crowd

the galloping carousel

will bring me here again

a grumble of machinery

the painted horses sing

i have only to reach

to have that golden ring!

= = = = =

I am free again –

have i said those words before?

have i died again to a life

of no nourishment

no breath?

yes, in deed, indeed

i walk away in an exaltation

of light, restored

to my self: to the greatness God intended me to be!

i bathe in the mercy of light

i move the mountain along with me

just to have a view.

= = = = =

Sitting in my Henry-chair at 2:33, eyes a bit crusty. Checking the storm predictions flowing on Twitter & the news – those chipper Jihadi weathermeisters & their Cats 3-4-5. Well, partner, my cats all had tails & whiskers. I’m a Jersey Girl. We grew up with nor’easters. I do recall this one, though:

Hurricane Agnes – Wikipedia

In both Pennsylvania and New Jersey combined, about 43,594 structures were either destroyed or significantly damaged. In Canada, a mobile home was toppled, …

A mobile home was toppled? 43.5K structures? Helene just sideswiped North Carolina & the bodies … the bodies … it must be a Civil War battlefield scene, era BBB: Before Body Bags.

No matter who does or does not come to “SAVE” us. We are already in our next lives, regardless of lingering in this one to the fullest extent possible.

This post is a ramble. The hour is not unusual anymore. By tomorrow night the Milton will be rattling the front door with rain bands. The boss wants me at work to “go over Sunday Service” today. I’ve got it done but forgot to send it to her before leaving, so I’ll head in. I’ll try to pick up ice if any is left in Sarasota & fill my roommate’s cooler in case of no electric. I’ll fill the bathtubs in the place. I’ll grab two extra gallons of her special filtered water at the Center.

We just fixed the floors & walls there from Tropical Storm Debby – truly ‘Little Debby’ in light of these Cat 5’s lining up.

Lots of speculation on my part – did they pick up enough quartz crystal on Siesta Key’s famed beach to fuel steering Helene? Will a bit of my friend’s floated-off trailer home churn the EV engine on the next Volt? And stop nattering about mobile homes – normally you don’t need much more in a tropical environment so standards were met. It’s another case of needing new conspiracy theories cuz all the old ones have come true.

Truth seems to be “they” are not through with Florida yet. Like the Conquistadores, they’re after the (now) indigenous population but I don’t think there’s lithium here for reward… maybe they need new alligator shoes.

In keeping with irony, yesterday I found an oldie by Richard Bach – a long-favorite author – called Running for Safety. HA! “Nowhere to run to, Baby, nowhere to hide” says the song.

I expect our apartment complex to weather this well. Debby did a good culling of branches but the piles are still on the grounds & a dead tree can be as lethal as a live one being stripped down in the moment. I have said I’m comfortable on both sides of the Veil & might get to experience the flip tomorrow night. But I’ll probably sit in Henry, listening to the wind & supposedly caring about Sunday Service.

I’m out of there soon, anyway. With how that building aged, there might not be anything there come Sunday! My time might be better spent cooking the flounder in the freezer.

There’s only so much I can take: being prodded at work, blogging at 3 a.m., checking on X for weather updates. The only “whether” I have going on is if my kid has enough info to get the little bit of money I have saved – she can donate it to the Florida Relief Go-Fund-Me, yeh?

Me? I’m always at the beginning of something. It’s what I’m best at.

Love,

C

Tossed madly from sleep’s sweet dreamlight

To pebbled shores where it hurts to walk

Returned in a heap, sodden with that ridiculous logic of

Slumber’s illogic

Stumbling sideways, a hard-shell crab tossed onto

Morning’s beach of dark-to-light

The home shore, the other life, the place where

The real is more puzzling than the dream.

Bringing faith with me, I lie, for a moment, stunned

With changing worlds. I draw myself up, blinking

In sudden sun flashed from sea

I believe in me once again, as separate

From all I rise to walk, not fly

To clothe self in this mad world,

More sodden than still, shivering with

Separation.

Superheroes only may apply

Themselves to this,

The saints all stay behind, whispering advice

On how to live when they don’t know the half of it.

= = = = =

We rub noses, dreams & me,

Wet & chilly, streaked with salts

Of life in saline blood, of electrical currents

Reassessing worth & width.

We run about, hiding behind each other

Knowing tomorrow is yesterday reconsidered.

We sneeze & move apart, foraging our quests

& questions while answers skip ahead, just beyond the pale.

= = = = =

HEALING ONE WOUND AT A TIME

Not quite ready for death’s respite

Not quite permitted full life in living color

But hedged about by quality & cause,

We lick what hurts most, long strokes of raspy tongue

The cleansing salt, softening edges of scar,

We straighten up, ignoring pain, mistrust,

We trust the loss & betrayal to bring us somehow to joy

To existential trust

In a system based on malfeasance alone.

Yes, we are crazy & crazed with the smells of life

That which causes us to grow beyond the worst of it.

= = = = =

SHE VISITS

Padding up from behind

I don’t always feel her coming.

She throws a casual arm around my shoulders

For a moment I nestle there

In that sweet hollow next her heart

So richly beating.

Some days she blends with me, we share  the cape of Knowledge

Ironed in understanding.

Some days she covers my eyes & takes me into her spaces

Crowded with life, with love, with pulsing ever-afters realized.

Some days she drags me into chaos, the crowd, the market of

Rotten decay, handing me money, urging me to street food.

Some days find soft meadows rimmed by trees.

These are my favorites.

The days she touches my forehead & pushes me into

Stark reality are harsh

I make my way alone, unwed & stumbling through

Tomorrows all starting again.

= = = = =

WALK ON

I do this all the time, my Warrior before, behind, below

Winking from the path

No longer slowing me down

With caution, no longer testing the air for enemies

Retracting her claws, allowing me safe passage

Through safer lands rendered still by her presence

Just within, shining from my skin.

Some days are all challenge while some are all belonging.

My step does not falter: I am the Journey

Both me & anti-me fumbling fabric for the water flask.

= = = = =

The faraway roads once beckoned

Now I wear out the path between here & there

In no seeming rush except for what is inside pulling,

With no outward drama, dreamed by softer beings

Who work with surface only

Not knowing the turmoil of an unsettled heart.

= = = = =

Love tapped me awake

Spirit woke instead,

Taking the proffered hand

We had our tickets punched at check-out

We grabbed some water

And headed out, grinning

= = = = =

Wherein I become my truest nature since it’s such a burden to hide, to lie, to obfuscate. But #1: keeping the wild woman tamed is unnatural, #2: it is also mostly impossible, and #3, it doesn’t pay well. What happens when a lie twists upon itself isn’t nearly the same as when the truth does. Truth leads to more of the same & holds together while deception instinctively loosens, aims for the loophole to escape. It makes the breakthrough shallower. The places where I do my best thinking aren’t always popular with the paparazzi.

I am more honest than I even want to be: everything shows on my face. Yes, I’m one of those. Perhaps I once was sly & put-upon. No more of that, fair kindred, no more. In no way can I keep up with deception. Rather than entertain it, I will leave the room. I will fight for others far more readily than for self – an oxymoron. God’s truth, I need fight no more. I am dizzy from the deepening breaths I need to pray & I ride that spiral to heaven. I see myself joyriding on faith propelled by all I cannot be & remain sane. I allow the sluice to open fully where I once dammed it up with whatever washed to shore.

If you build a house with driftwood you will always smell salt inside.

My heart decides its own rhythm, its own resurrection. It plays horseshoes with life where nearby can be enough for a point when the point is, what? To play the game? I keep water for just enough of one bath a day. I try to trust others but can barely do that being such a flawed beast I no longer trust at all. I stand in the crossroads looking both ways, called upon for a decision I shall not make today. Putting it off means another chance to change.

The light moves unexpectedly, dimming & brightening on a rhythm. Continuing along in the dark is only until my eyes adjust to the opening way. I hurry into the unknown just to see what is there. There is no danger in this, only initiative. Growing old is merely growing. I will stop when I do.

I have been robbed of what I no longer even want. Why recriminate? The rancor has drifted away, a bad smell passing. The anger is gone & the fear diminishes each passing day since there is nothing to hold it here. There is no regaining spent coin but there is pretending, imagination, forward movement, blessing.

Where I used to “ow” I now “Om.” I now Am. Tomorrow I will be beautiful. Today I am only me in the mirror looking over my shoulder.

My roommate dictated her message to Siri: “Thank Heaven you’re safe.” she said to a client in a low-lying area as Florida searches for the tub plug to let some of the water drain. Siri translated to: “Thank Kevin!”

Well, I was so happy to finally learn the name of God! After centuries of study & exploration, uncovering scrolls in the desert, digging through temple mounds. church basement files, of prayers racing upward begging, pleading…

Kevin.

Definitely not the name I would have thought to make an offering to. I would have thought something melodic, many-syllabled, maybe with lots of vowels a definitive consonant at the end, something to click the tongue on. (No offense to the Kevins of the world here, folks. Only talking about what’s in my head after all. And I will admit to some overcrowding there.)

I sent one up whilst speeding home yesterday, creating my own wake on Washington Street, surfing those of the other cars. I arrived home & sent up another one, but since I didn’t have the right name, God may not have heard me, yeh? I guess I never got the outgoing message: “Hi! This is Kevin. I’m not in right now but leave your offering & I’ll get right back to you. Ciao.” I’m sure I passed Noah on that ride, checking his GPS for a Cracker Barrel or a Waffle House where they served bacon with breakfast. I know I saw Moses, on the corner of 17th with his staff, waiting to part the waters to let a few cars through.

My friends are Fed-Exing oars & inflatable dinghies my way, texting me for the zip code. They say, “Stay safe!” but it’s not up to me. Kevin is on the job!

The frogs outside in our new Drain Lake are singing to High Kevin, having fun with all this, contemplating world takeover, singing hopping songs.

I dreamed of a blue cat with a tan kitten named ‘Clown’. I dreamed of joining my neighbors in song outside between the houses. This had to be divine messaging as my friends just say “Be dry!” — as if I have a choice when the 40′ wave rolls in from the coast driven by 100 mph winds. Which may not be of import since the east wall of the apartment is already so waterlogged, it’s seeping thru the carpet. Fortunately the kitchen is on the west side and I have lots of food in-house. The good stuff one gets for possible camp-outs, not quite beef jerky, but flatbread pizza galore since the toaster oven works.

Well, time to light a candle & om my way into Kevin’s good graces, to pray the water follows the ditch path & not puddles the parking lot. Time to say thank you for all the grace in my life. Time to look at photos of national parks with entry signs saying “11,640′ above sea level.” But then it might be something else I’d have to watch out for, like diving UFO’s, teen pilots playing chicken through the gorges.

Sufficient to the day the plaints thereof. Oh, and thank Kevin for that!

I am changing my ordinary life, exchanging it for more satisfaction on different levels. In the parlance of the day, I am shifting timelines.

I am deciding this ordinary life isn’t enough; it must become extraordinary. I’m bored. I have a boss who says “think positive” but is full of phrases like, “You made a mistake here (pointing an index finger at something I did & then at my nose) Why did you do that?”

Sadly she is right. Why indeed? It’s because I have a kind of innate, well, contempt is too strong word but if you can lever two degrees off it — disrespect? And why that? Because my inner child (think your own description here, but I was a weird kid from inception) is on a pout. As soon as I see the raised finger – traumatized remains of the nuns, the priests, the neighbors, Mom & so many more that I am… I blend in my own catholic guilt, feeling so inadequate that I did not get it right. A mistake is bad enough but being made to examine the reasons I made it can be intolerable in the moment.

Little Carol yearns for that smile that says, “you did this right” at the same time she fiercely resents it because she no longer trusts it. (Not that the boss is going to go there anytime soon anyway. Praise is not in her vocabulary, thank you running a close second to invisible.)

Where am I left? Why am I bereft? I am so much older, wiser than that inner child. But there’s this scriptural advice of achieving the mindset of a child to pass into the kingdom – a word which a child loves best. Until I do ‘perfect’, it isn’t done. This must happen a lot more.

I can do better than I do. It’s an unconscious choice somehow, to choose the road that lands me in emo-pain. What sympathy/empathy exists for me I don’t lay a claim to anyway. I do what I do & it’s obvious. I don’t expect commentary. I can’t handle criticism either tho. Critical commentary curdles my brain.

Having shared all this, I move on. It seems daily I shed one thing or another, wittingly or no.

I have made a bold decision this morning. I’m reading a book about a woman warrior whose specialty is ridding the world of gods, traveling with a young girl who hosts a god. Of course they are forced into unhappy alliance: this works out the best plot. So goes my life.

I’m all the characters at once. I often speak of carrying a sword (a damned nuisance). I know I carry my own gods inside & out, privy to strange divinity & ordinary whims; I am a god of my own nature which is what it is to be human. I am the noble’s child, forced to commonality by circumstance & intrigue.

I have had my bites of adventure. I’ve driven into the dawn on journeys spanning the tamed remains of wilderness. I’ve made strangers laugh. I’ve experienced & practice kindness. None of this is over & some of it must be re-adapted to current circumstances. Well, all of it.

I have decided to be a swashbuckler. I have decided to dive into every day as though I make the biggest difference possible. I will do my job as well as I can do it & stop letting details roll off the table. Even if it fans this tinny spark (sic) of separation I seem to cultivate when wanting the most closeness. (I am too short to hug.) I find other ways. I advance my individuality with a lick of the surly which (must?) be eliminated. I no longer have the energy to sustain accusation. I’ll take off into every day like I’m boarding the ship for a continent of legend. I will learn to look at even more than I see by widening horizons of perception & paying more attention. My experience carries me only so far – after which it becomes effort.

I appreciate the clarity. I will to refine my focus. Defusing means decelerating, going for the universe in every moment, treating every encounter as it it’s my favorite one ever.

May the good Lord mercy me, I walk on by the grace of God.