IMPERFECT Lady

Valley of Evil

Reporting - is to tell about what happened: to give information about something that has happened, an account or statement describing in detail an event, situation, or the like, usually as the result of observation, inquiry, etc

How well do you report your life? What is your observation deck, is it the mind or can you step back and witness the whole scene and see your part in the mix of the whole?
Can you report from your inner view and share all the details, or do you gloss over the rough spots and expand on the lighter moments.

Are you an in depth reporter and can you speak your own truths, do you even know your own details? Do you dare become an investigating reporter in your own life?

It seems we are more comfortable in the valley between both truths, yours and mine.
A place where life is lived on the thin surface, where feelings are not shown and reported, where no hard questions are asked or expected, where details are of weather, dress and food…the space where life isn’t happening.

What I find so interesting is that the truths from both sides fly over this valley are heard but not believed, are seen but overlooked, are felt but quickly numbed, it is the place where truths are not held and they quickly are ignored.

No one expects you to hold on to reality in the valley, it will ruin many a pretend relationship if you do so.

The perceptions from here are very distorted and absent of truthful facts, a report that leaves out the most pertinent information for the goal of the valley is to be kind and loving…at all costs, even if means leaving reality behind.

At times it seems that I am living in a dual world, where people speak a totally different language than I and that I can see and hear what others blatantly overlook, it is like I am a reporter of reality and they are reporters from the valley’s floor where they don’t hold on to facts as being real.

My mother had said we have two perceptions and she was totally right, in her world truths were known but not held, they were looked at quickly but not dwelled upon, so life could return as quickly as possible back to ‘normal’.

My perception is much different, I report differently, I see things and hear things that I do not disregard.

The meaning of the word Perception.

Perceptions -perceiving: the process of using the senses to acquire information about the surrounding environment or situation result of perceiving: the result of the process of perception impression: an attitude or understanding based on what is observed or thought.

Interesting to know that perception comes from the process of using the senses.

Using your senses…but what happens if you are detached and disconnected from your feelings, then what? What will you then use to guide your peceptions or how right on can they be?

It is interesting to know that we all percieve the world based upon our connection to our own inner sense of self.

The further from your self you are, the further off base is your perception. And to me, the more you disregard your truths, the further from self you go and the more off base are your perceptions and more you out of line with reality you go and deeper into the valley of pretend.

I was a residence of this valley for 46 years while living in reality, I had no clue that my perceptions at that time were distorted, that they did not match reality, but instead fit perfectly with the image in my head.

When the image in my head exploded it left me standing in the valley of pretend but aware…aware of how off my perceptions had been.

I was aware of all the distortions, all the false images, it was like waking up in a nightmare, where all the good became evil and the evil good…where truths became my friends instead of my enemies.

All the things that were kept hidden were revealed, to see the old sins resurface unharmed, truth flooded into the valley in my mind, there was no place to hide.
I was flooded with awareness of how unaware I was.

The view of the valley of looks very different standing on mountains of truth, it looked like the valley of evil.

Who is really fooled?

“Fools make a mock at sin”, reads a sign along my mail route, jutting out of a snow bank like a preachers hand, disrupting the beauty of winter’s wild natural and it left me wondering who is really the fooled?

Live in life.

When I sort mail, I stand in a U shaped area (Case) with six rows of little slots, one slot for each mailbox all in order of my route.

An apartment complex of 10 was added to the beginning of my route and I had to make room for it by moving every slot about 10 or so inches to the right, starting with the last one.

It is surprising how small of a shift there was and how it threw my whole memorizing off, all my instincts of knowing are no more, I have to relearn it all again.

I wonder how long it will take for my mind to become comfortable with this new routine? What an incredible mind that it can relearn and toss out the old obsolete info that it will follow if you are determined.

My head actually hurt again from having to concentrate and do the hunt and search routine, and by the end of two and half hours it was already catching on.

The name would appear and I would know which way to turn, it remembered to remember there was a new place to go to.

The flexibility of the mind is similar to the body, it will follow your lead, and it is much more your desire to learn than its ability.

You can become comfortable in a new routine, all it take is time and the willingness to try.

In a week or so, I will be able to almost mindlessly toss mail, and it leads me to wonder, if you are not putting new things into your life, are you almost on Autopilot?

What keeps you repeating the same things, being comfortable in the rote like life? How is it that we feel most at ease when we are mindlessly following our normal routine?

It seems so counterintuitive to living to be on remote, just repeating and repeating, it is like we are stuck in a grove in an old Record Album, ‘same life, same life, same life.’

Isn’t it odd that we call this living feeling the most comfortable with ‘No Change’.

And can you actually call it living if there is no growth or change?

Just as my mind was brought to the present with the slight changes in my case, I am sure that by doing new things in other areas of my life, my mind will awaken in the present and engage in a new way.

Just as I do yoga for my body, I will have to bring my mind to new places to give it exercise too…I am open to the new possibilities.

I guess it is up to us whether we coast along or look for new ways to live in life.

A field with no rules.

Rewrite, Rewrite, Rewrite were the last words spoken in our final writing class for the year, they echoed and bounced around in my head, unsure if this was encouragement or a reprimand.

We had just sat though an hour and a half of listening to the words the students had written. Words of emotion, of defeat, of growing up, of unique perspectives, of finding their way, and to me there was no need to rewrite a thing.

They had given me pieces of their lives told with feelings and said out loud in fear or with great bravado, with pride and with youthful expression, to me it seemed they were perfectly perfect fitting into their life experience.

Where they were in life fit perfectly in how they wrote. I am not sure rewriting is the answer, it seems that if you say, rewrite you are rejecting what they wrote.

Rewrite, redo, and reword it…

The juxtaposition between the enthusiastic teacher, her encouraging voice, and her caring eyes, and the words, Rewrite struck me with contradiction…like a smile with a slap.

I then wondered how often I had done this, ‘rejecting the project’ while trying to teach technique.

I began an Art Quilt group, and my intentions were to be with ladies who enjoy creating quilts without patterns, to let go of the ‘rules’ of quilting and just play with the fabrics and even mix metaphors and jumble up what those who came before us defined as perfect quilting.

Rebels, daring to not follow the well-trodden path.

When I began quilting, my Aunt told me that I could do anything I wanted, that I didn’t have to follow or adhere to any quilt rule or pattern, that quilting was making a sandwich, putting fabric batting fabric, and I was the creator.

She taught me without teaching me rules.

I wonder if you can do the same with writing, if you could just use the same writing instruments; words, paper, pencil and then allow writing to come what may.

Let the writer go free, allow the writer to follow what feels right for him, to not make him bend and twist into a forgone conclusion of what writing needs to be.

Whether it be writing, quilting or living life, we seem to neglect the person for the skill, toss out the personality, the Spirit, the essence in trying so hard to get to perfect.

Maybe it isn’t the writing or the quilt or life but it’s getting to Perfect.

Is there a way to teach without spoiling it with perfect?

I guess what we all fear in life is not being able to measure up to perfect.

I say, once again, kill perfect, declare it a swear word…

Imperfect has to replace it; it will free so many from the fear of failing. Whether you are writing or creating art, if you let go of perfect you will set free in wide-open fields with unlimited possibilities.

Lets all play in the field of pure potential as the wise masters say…a field with no rules.

New old natural way...

I am strong enough to become weak and vulnerable.

I am now open to receive instead of standing in defense, to look at life with an open chest instead of hunched over in protection.

As I did yoga today, in the postures that required me to have my arms wide open and breathing deeply opening my chest, I visualized me receiving.

Opening up like a flower bloom to welcome in the Sun.

Receiving is something that I have forgotten to do for me, yet inside I feel the urge to receive.

I am not sure what, for it is different than wanting or desiring, it is much easier… just being open and soft and welcoming.

My hardness was for self-protection and as I discovered my voice, spoke my feelings and set up boundaries, my hardness began to soften and become supple.

I was growing stronger and softer, exchanging old tired overworked defense muscles for the unused scrunched up receiving ones.

In yoga I notice you have to relax one muscle and tense up the other, it is letting go and pulling, that in order to go deeper you relax one set and flex the other.

Inside I feel strong enough to relax and grow soft, to weaken my hyper alertness for trouble and to heighten my awareness for joy and beauty, to be open to trust and love life in a new old natural way.

The Mastery of Love, by Don Miguel Ruiz

"Truth"

When we look at our wounds with the eyes of truth, we can finally heal these wounds. YOu begin by practicing the truth with your self. When you are truthful with yourself, you start to see everything as it is, not the way you want to see it.

Don't believe all the lies you tell yourself - all those lies that you never chose to believe, but have been programmed to believe.

Don't believe yourself when you say you are not good enough, you are not strong enough, you are not intelligent enough. Don't believe you are not beautiful. Don't believe whatever makes you suffer.

You can chose how you want to live your life. And if you are honest with yourself, you will know you are always free to make new choices.

"Forgiveness"

There is no other way but forgiveness to clean emotional wounds. Forgive those who hurt you, even if whatever they did was unforgivable in your mind. You will forgive them not because they deserve to be forgiven, but because you don't want to suffer every time you remember what they did to you. When you can touch a wound and it doesn't hurt, then you know you have truly forgiven. Forgive others, and you will see miracles start to happen in your life.

Forgive yourself also - for everything you have done in your whole life. When you forgive yourself, self-acceptance begins and self-love grows. That is the supreme forgiveness - when you can finally forgive yourself.

"Self-Love"

Love is the medicine that accelerates the process of healing. There is no other medicine but unconditional love. There are millions of ways to express your happiness, but there is only one way to really be happy, and that is to love.

Will not change the Art.

Surely nothing has to listen to so many stupid remarks as a painting in a museum. ~Edmond & Jules de Goncourt

How interesting to look at Art museums from the point of view of the works of Art and how it is to stand around listening to various remarks…

Immediately I felt that we are all moving works of Art and the planet is the museum, and we all have our own commentary and perceptions of each other’s Art.

How interesting that the Art can be defined by the viewer and how it changes as new viewers arrive.

I also believe that we change as quickly each time we bump into new people and a new perspective.

I love that I now have this metaphor and I will see myself as a work of Art moving around the planet. But what I love even more is the understanding of how different we see Art and what some find brilliantly incredible, others will pass right by.

How cool that Art changes by the viewer… yet not at all.

The Art stands unchanged yet changed depending upon the perception.

I love that I am like Art, that some will understand and appreciate my contrasts and design, while others will make a cursory glance and walk on by.

But what I love the most, my integrity lies within and remains unchanged by those who view me.

Remarks, even stupid ones will not change the Art.

(Is Art imitating life or life imitating Art?)

Where we lead...

In the past two and a half months, my yoga practice has been very spotty, it has boiled down to two times a week, and I am now understanding the sentiment of caring for your self or more importantly what it feels like again, to not care.

Without care or interest, to be indifferent to the bodies needs. To feel myself almost going to sleep or in a daze and be too tired to begin.

What we fail to notice is that when we are too tired to do something, we are actually playing to indifference; we are feeding the lack of care.

It finally came to me what I have been doing, I have been leaving myself alone.

Leaving the care of my body, walking away from what it needs and just sitting down.

I could feel the waves of indifference, what I used to call being lazy, with no umph is actually the expression of indifference.

You become indifferent to what it needs for its optimum health.

What I find so intriguing is that when my daughter’s abuse came in and I experienced posttraumatic symptoms, I left my self-care.

It is strange that when our body needs us the most we are the farthest away.
It wasn’t that I was disconnected from the stress and wasn’t dealing with life, but what I failed to do was treat my body, to care for its needs.

As I did yoga yesterday I was surprised that my body still remembered the poses, that it did it’s best with stiff and sore muscles, and that it tried to keep up to what I was asking of it, and I felt its struggle for it wasn’t used to this routine.

The body’s forgiveness is pure nature; it simply follows where we lead.

(What I know for sure today, is that by not doing yoga I am feeding indifference. So when I sit and feel unable to get up and do my yoga, I know to whom I am dancing with, what music I am hearing, I am hearing the beating of the drum being led away from me.)

Who you are.

‎"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." Maya Angelou

What are the untold stories, what is it that we are too afraid to speak of, which part of our lives begs to be hidden, and who is asking this of us?

Where did the term, “airing your dirty laundry” come from and who finds comfort when we tuck away our imperfections, our unsightly wounds, the places where we lost ourselves… the roads that led to nowhere?

To whose benefit is it that Reality’s clothesline be free of the so-called dirty stuff?

What do they consider dirty and what is so unsightly for the line?

Again I can see the two sides of airing, who is letting it out and who is seeing it.

Which person is the one stopping this and who decides clean from dirty?

What is dirty laundry, period?

Is dirty laundry only the things that go against a previous image? Are they things that will not make you ‘look’ better, but rather be cracks and crevices, lumps and bumps?

Do people actually make it off the planet without a crack?

Are there perfectly whole and unbroken people out there?

I would like to see us celebrate the imperfects in the world, where we are applauded for showing our cracks, and for the greatest person to be the one who has the most.

To be busted a million times and still want to live and reach for another tomorrow, another hope, another breath, to have the faith to go on…shattered.

Shattered and soiled were the untold stories of me, their truths lay hidden in the basket of dirty laundry, and it was I who had to rescue them and air them out.

Unfurling their truths and hang them up for the entire world to see… crumpled unsightly and smeared with my bloody childhood wounds, all unraveled and exposed… my history, my storyline.

Perhaps I would like to challenge Ms. Maya Angelou and say, there is a greater agony, it is having people turn away from you as you tell your untold story.

To have it fall on deaf ears, to have it challenged, to stand with all your dirty laundry and have them no longer interested in being with you, to be rejected for who you are, to feel their indifference again, hurt much more than the original wound.

To me the greater agony was not being believed of them not seeing me in all my broken spots…in being rejected for my truth.

I can understand why people don’t speak of the untold story and bear the agony of its silence, for it is worse to speak of it and hear only silence and feel the wrath of defense against you.

As I stood defending my clothesline and all my dirty underwear, I found it wasn’t shameful or something to hide, it didn’t weaken me or break me further, in did the opposite.

It made me stronger and deeper, more complex and introspective, my views broadened and my heart expanded with awareness and my indifferences melted. I learned how to become caring and loving towards myself.

I had to love and defend the darkest parts of me in order to know what love was.

I recall reading that the opposite of love isn’t hate, but indifference and I now believe that you become indifferent when you hide parts of you away.

You become careless with parts of yourself, and slowly you lose who you are.

I see me

“Tolerance is another word for indifference.” William Somerset Maugham

I am not sure you can have tolerance unless you are indifferent.

Indifferent - without care or interest: showing no care or concern for or interest in somebody or something.

I am looking at abuse and addictions from the point of the person who is on the receiving end.

Usually abuse is looked at from the point of the abuser or addictions from the point of the substance.

We forget to look closely at the person who is getting abused and why they have the tolerance or seem indifferent to the blows and words that are hitting them; it is because they are without care or interest for their self.

They are indifferent to their own life.

They show no care or concern for or interest in their own life.

My question is when did they become so careless?
When did they let them selves go?
What happened that they no longer care?

What I can know in my life is that I don’t even recall a self; I was too little to know I had a self to hang on to, to care about and to care for, and it was gone.

My self was gone before I even had a chance to know it and know that there was something to protect.

When a child is raised in an environment where the adults are indifferent to the child’s needs, we then become indifferent to them ourselves.

Imagine, parents who are indifferent, without care or interest: showing no care or concern for or interest in somebody or something…and that somebody is you.

We learn indifference.

How they treat us is how we treat ourselves.

We learn how to not care or show interest in our selves.

In fact in order to survive, it is best to not have a self.

For a self would feel their indifference and we don’t want to feel their indifference.

It is easier to be without a self, to live in a pretend space, making believe that they care and the only way you can believe that story is to be separated from your self.

To deny your body, deny your feelings, to not be connected to the self.

A self who is not there will not feel their indifference…but lke the old saying goes, “If a tree falls and no one is in the forest to hear it, does it still make a noise?”

In the same manner, if a child isn’t there to feel the indifference, does the indifference still happen?

If a self is unaware does the indifference still affect them?

When you are indifferent how can you know indifference?

I don’t know what was more shocking their indifferences or me not caring for me, for me to see the lack of interest in my own life and wellbeing.

I was indifferent to my whole life…and had to bring me back to my world, to undo the indifferences and learn how to care.

In caring I found me.

I am no longer indifferent... I see me.