Finally, the relentless wind; 
Became a lover and a friend,
And I enjoyed a deeply spiritual walk last eventide.
And now, my thoughts turn, unschooled, unbidden;
Toward newer ports of call and charts unknown;
My future, hidden.
Yet, serene, I bask, a smile lurks on my face;
As I pursue the turning round the nearing corner.
Cherry, 2010
I don’t mean: Do you want to stay alive forever?
My assumption is that we all will die sometime, hopefully when we are old and full of years.
Many search for the fountain of youth, to enjoy health and beauty and vigor; but few would want to live everlastingly, as did the frustrated humans in the movie, Tuck Everlasting.
So, I will ask again; Do you ever want to die? And once again, I clarify. I do not mean, “I just wanted to die, I was so embarrassed.” I do not mean the colorful, “die of mortification (which is rather redundant).”
I mean, do you ever feel like it would be nice to be dead already? Do you ever get so tired, so stressed, so overwhelmed, or burned out, that you just want to be dead? I don’t want to die violently. I don’t want the pain of dying by accident or disease. There are times, I confess, when I want to be dead already-without the bother or pain of getting there. At times like that it is important for me to take a long walk; take a mini hot-springs vacation in the bathtub; give myself the luxury of sleeping in or enjoying a savory meal; devour a good book, or have a philosophical talk with a life-long friend. How about you? What do you do to restore your energy and joie de vivre?
After much reflection on who I am and who I am meant to be, I have decided that I love to travel and see and learn and laugh. I want to spend my mornings writing, my afternoons reading, and my whole life making music. I love fine food, long walks, and conversations with witty intelligent people. I long to know and be known; love and be loved, know that my life is making a difference for others. I want to find my ambience and excel. I need plenty of time alone and plenty of time with friends and family. I want to discover, design and analyze. Please forward all salaried situations matching this description! I want to move on with my dreams.
Today I am trying to be gentle with ME. I’ve been beating myself up again. Beating myself up with black and white thinking. Here’s how it works: I catch myself in error. At first I deny my mistake on the grounds that I am conscientious. I strive to do what is right –always, so, since I was consciously trying to do the right thing, how could I have made a mistake? Still, the niggling thought that I might have been wrong persists. Then, the light goes on. A friend, an event, a thought, points out to me that I have made a grievous error. I say grievous because, regardless of the minisculetude or magnitude of the mistake, it will cause grief in my soul. I admit I was wrong. If necessary I make amends. I do all I can do to correct it. I am unable to leave it behind. I am now a failure. I begin to think and rethink my entire life. Maybe I have always been wrong.
It is a great thing to know when you are wrong and admit it. It is mental and emotional cancer to think that because you were wrong once, you can never be trusted. You were wrong always and forever. A moment on that black and white path will undo my confidence, my self-worth, my self-esteem. In a heartbeat, I have dropped into never ending despair. What will rescue me from my own black and white thinking? Oh for the wisdom to know and freely admit when I am wrong; the grace and confidence to move forward; the discernment to know when I am right; so to stand like a rock amid the tumult of naysayers. Oh for the love to be gentle with myself and therefore gentle with others; to have the grace to think and act in such a way that understands that they, too, may be wrong sometimes without me rejecting them as full blown tyrants.
The hard truth is; anyone is capable at any time of going off the deep end and becoming untrustworthy; disloyal. I have tried so hard to trust. I know I need to trust in order to enjoy friendship, or relationships of any sort, but something makes me skeptical, aloof. I isolate myself in order to insulate and protect. Then, I become desperate for relationships, and in my desperation, I deny, overlook, ignore the propensity for humans in general to commit serious glitches in dependability or trust. Blindly, I choose someone just to be close; to wrap a bandage, to suture up the loneliness-and it happens again. The foundation, the rug, is jerked from under me.
This is why I need a Higher Power, an all knowing, all perfect, all Love, being to trust. Communication with this Higher Power centers me, tunes me in to the rhythm of the Universe, shows me the highest in excellence and truth, and teaches me to trust myself so that I can weather the ups and downs of relationship with other humans. With trust in a Higher Power, and trust in myself, I can stand steady and confident rather than be jerked about by the opinions and infidelities of others.
What is with me that I cannot seem to leave the guilt of a failed relationship until I have proved myself in the right? That’s exactly what BJ did. He proved to himself that he was in the right-that all the blame was mine-and therefore he can move on and I will shoulder the blame. What legalists we are. How judgmental. How full of shame and blame for others and ourselves. If we would just forgive ourselves; would that not do away with the necessity of finding others to blame?
(excerpt from the work in progress, Before I Went Crazy, Cherry Odelberg, 2010).
Today I am asking myself, “Does the element of blame have to be present to prove a point?” Is blame a necessary ingredient of debate? Is blame part of a grammatically correct sentence, a leg of logical debate, necessary to well phrased rhetoric? Why do I insist on either laying blame or accepting blame?
Elizabeth Gilbert, in a most excellent read titled; Eat, Pray, Love (Penguin 2006) says, “…the rules of transcendence insist that you will not advance even one inch closer to divinity as long as you cling to even one last seductive thread of blame.”
Apparently that’s why we need a savior, a redeemer, a sacrificial lamb, a scapegoat, and why we need to be reminded of this often. As Gilbert goes on to say, “This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don’t have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping (2006).”
So today, as the sunshine returns and we are on the edge of spring; I resolve to let go of blame; especially self-recrimination, and thus free myself of blaming others, too. Spring is a time of rebirth. Breathe deep! Take your first cry in a new world!
“I let go of my failure, I let go of success; I let go of perfection; I let go of this mess… Now its time to let go of my guilt; And I know its time to let go of regret; And I let go of frustration; And I forgive and forget; I release all control; and I hold nothing back…” Kevin Decker, from the Song, Hold On, by Hail the Sound, 2010 http://www.myspace.com/hailthesound
I have decided to throw myself on God’s Mercy and Grace, rather than to stand stubbornly in my own rags of self-righteousness, weathering the storm on my own strength by declaring that I will keep my word. What strength do I have? None. What strength does God have? The Universe!
This is one more application of the 12 Steps to Recovery provided by Alcoholics Anonymous. The steps I am thinking of today go something like this: I admit that I am powerless and my life unmanageable. I believe that a Higher Power can restore me to sanity. I am seeking to increase contact with that Higher Power through meditation and meditative walks.
If this sounds interesting to you, check out these links: http://hazelden.org/
http://www.recovery-man.com/coda/codependency.htm and be sure and read some of the books on my favorite books page!
My disappointment at the late start of my daily walk, was deepened by the frosty wind that stung my nose. The sun had dipped and the temperature was falling. Then I crested the nearest and tallest hill and saw the lights of the city spread out below me, beginning to twinkle. Turning to retrace my steps (it really was time to be getting home), I thoroughly enjoyed an unexpected pink sunset tucked between low clouds and the bastion of red rocks and canyons to the west. I love small joys, they keep me chipper.
And then…..
Walk at dusk,
Snowy owl;
Hooting toward the perch
of friend or mate,
Flew across my path
And lit on small gazebo
Making wide the silhouette of weather vane.
There it sat, cooing softly,
So sounding like a dove it made me look again
Ears feline atop plump body, avian
How did you wake up this morning? Elated? Deflated?
Most of us are mature and experienced enough to exercise caution when it comes to the holidays. We know the pitfalls – be they social and familial or social and ingestible – and we prep our minds, if not our bodies, for them. We know not to expect too much. We don’t want to be disappointed in the holidays; we just want to survive the holidays. It really came as no surprise to me that it took an extra two hours of dozing and subconscious working through of issues – both psychological and nutritional—Followed by the writing of five pages in my journal, to be ready to meet this day after Christmas. The big revelation, however, is that there exists a holiday backlash – be your holidays good or bad! It takes just as much emotional energy to process the good that exceeds our expectations, as it does to process disappointments. I am an old and cracked vessel and must be careful not to burst in the ferment of JOY and WONDER. I have had a good life, of late, and it is almost more than I can bear. Happy Day After Christmas to you!
A Heart Felt Merry Christmas from Me to You!
If you want this to be a sound card, press the play button. (never mind, I did not upgrade nor find an alternative way to send the music)
Three of my most favorite people in the world.
And, a Chapter of my newest book in print, The Pancake Cat https://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/search.aspx?q=The+Pancake+Cat&x=32&y=8
