IMPERFECT Lady

Quilts....

Just some pictures I wanted on the blog of the quilts.  I am trying to do a new layout....and wanted to see how the pictures come out.

I added some yoga figures to this quilt....I think it shows her potential.

In Bikram's book, he has the "ultimate pose" and then the regular people pose....My lady is still with the regular folks.

Another shot of the latest quilt.

I added the yellow binding....it gives this a more folk art look.  I like it, but wonder if the yellow takes away....Oh well, this is part of art. 

I will Dance in Mine!

"I am often surprised and humbled by how quickly in my insecurity I can begin to assume responsibility for all the wrongs and sufferings I see around me.  When thrown off-center, when old patterns return, when feeling exhausted or depressed, I so quickly become the exaggerated cause of all that is not right with the world."  

"I know I am not alone in this.  Perhaps it is one of the laws of emotional weather; sudden lows result in isolated storms.  It has happened to me enough over the years that I have to acknowledge the power of Negative Self-Centeredness.  We typically think of the ego-centered as being conceited and self-inflated and quite selfish.  But this recurring struggle with exaggerated responsibility has made me realize that more often we are ego-centered with feeling deflated, when feeling shaken from our sense of oneness with things.  In that place of separation, we become darkly self-centered, blaming ourselves for not fixing things or making things right or for letting bad things happen. Underneath these self-recriminations is the grandiose assumption that we have the power, in the first place, to control events that are really beyond any human being's influence."

"Certainly, we affect each other, and often, but to assume that other people's inner moods hinge on my presence is an egocentric way to keep myself in a cycle of sacrifice and guilt.  Further, to assume that another's condition or way of being in the world hinges on my presence is the beginning of self-oppression and co-dependence.  In extreme moments of negative self-centeredness, we can assume magical proportions of burden, in which we feel acutely responsible for a loved one's illness or misfortune because we weren't good enough or perfect enough."  Mark Nepo

In the past few days, okay 53 years, I have experienced this negative self-centeredness.  It is truly an awful feeling...feeling responsible for others...I just had not thought of how incredibly "special" I was trying to make myself and then how "unspecial" the other feels...when I take on their responsibilities.

However I have been getting better at dropping the responsibility and letting others carry themselves.  Yet, there are moments when I do pick them up for a few days and carry them along. And it is true, I do see them as less while I carry them.

And at first glance, at least to me, it seems harsh to not pick them up...when with my limited knowledge it seems they "Need" me...(even if they have not asked...)

My body has bore the brunt of this negative self-centeredness and it responds quickly when my mind stirs up another's life...I get a sharp clutching knot in my neck...the strain of mentally being responsible in a life that isn't mine.

In yoga today, I had a mantra, that I released in different poses, to let go of the tightness of being in control, while clearly not capable of being..."I am responsible just for me!"....or "I am not responsible in other lives."

If I had to boil down my dysfunction to one pattern that I repeat time and time again, it is this one.  Negative Self Centeredness. 

Who knew that in jumping into lives I was pushing in ahead them and their God and Universe...wow.

Hard to justify the two...for at first glance it appears to be 'helpful'...caring even...when I was actually putting them down as I got in front of their God.

What I do love, is that at the end of the day, and the end of tossing around thoughts in my head, all I am responsible for is Me.

Today I pushed aside the cape of rescuing someone by being responsible, and focused instead on my Art. Thankfully I have a place I can go that will shove aside the voices urging me to don my cape and get involved. 

Here is what I did instead of playing God in someone's life today...

I love the Ladies dancing to their own beat...For each of us hears life and move in the way we feel best.

Dance to the feelings of your Life...and I will dance in mine!

 

 

By Our Own Free Will

"In the Reality of nonduality, there is neither privilege nor gain nor loss nor rank.  Just like a cork in the sea, each spirit rises or falls in the sea of consciousness of its own level by virtue of its own choices - not by any external force or favor. Some are attracted by the light and some seek the darkness, but it all occurs of its own nature by virtue of Divine freedom and equality."  David Hawkins

I love that each of us rise or fall in the sea of consciousness, and it isn't the fault of the sea or the Universe...but rather our spirits are attracted and seek certain levels.  We are all equal corks and one sea of consciousness...but our choices decide which part of the sea we float in.

Knowing this; my choices will either float my spirit into the areas of darkness or into places of light.  

It isn't by the hand of a wrathful God, but rather by our choices...that leads us to where we are.

And I have learned most by seeing the end game of different choices...I have learned to choose differently to gain a different outcome.

I love that the whole sea of consciousness is wide open...and we bob along in it by our own free will.

 

What I drive.

When you use a vehicle for work, it does have certain requirements to make the job easier to navigate and getting into the grove with a new car takes time.  I use the word "new" very loosely.

My "new" car and I had a bumpy start.

I had to first decide where I was going to sit, in the middle or all the way over in the passenger seat.  I tried both.  Neither had the comfortable feel of the Jeep I had gotten used to.  

So, I started out all the way over and the seat pushed up so far that my knees were touching the glove box.  It didn't feel too bad, but I thought perhaps I could make a few adjustments to make it easier to get a routine going.

Everything just seemed off enough, that I was then off.

I then re-adjusted every thing and sat in the middle.  There, it seemed my gas foot was too cramped up...the rear view mirror on my forehead, and the mail tray falling head first off the seat. ( I usually had a lunch box (cooler) that would keep it from slipping off head first.)  Since I had the jeep, no need for that cooler, so I now had a nice lady type lunch bag....which is useless for holding up a mail tray.

So, back to re-adjusting...back where I started. 

We all forget the latest gagets that have allowed us all to operate a vehicle with ease and the cars are set to assume what our needs are.

Like cup holders for our drinks.  When lunch came around, there was no place to put my drink. There is a spot on the glovebox door, which you have to keep open, but not like a hole it can go in.  One sharp corner and the pop can would slide off....so, I had to use my legs.  And at first I didn't sit with my knees together, lady like...for I am used to sitting more manly.  Ugh.  It is the small things, that make our lives smooth.

Like having a button to pop the trunk.  Or power windows and mirror adjustments....to name a few.  And I would reach for my right hand drive steering wheel in front of me...only to realize it is now on the left.  It will take time and before long, I will be comfortable and not even notice where things are, they will be automatic.

I had to have duplicate keys made that would allow me not to have to shut the car off each time I needed a package or mail tray from the trunk....and I tried the keys out before heading up to Wal-mart.  They worked wonderfully....I now felt like I had gotten a leg up on the car.

As I was leaving the stop light, I noticed that my trunk was open.  Yep, I had driven a mile and a half with the trunk wide open...and I wasn't going to stop there, so I kept going.  Chuckling to myself, drove into the parking lot of Wal-Mart...feeling totally like an old lady in an old lady car.

It is amazing to me how you can take on and personify the vehicle you drive.

No more mud bogging big four wheel drive confident strong woman...now I drive around trunk up, all confused inside the 1994 Cutlass Sierra. 

AND, I had just been giving myself a 'self talk' that a car doesn't make the woman....only to be shown it certainly does.  

My daughter is looking to purchase a newer car...and her shopping wasn't about engines etc...but sounded more like buying an accessory.  Now I get it. What it looks like does make a difference in how you feel and I guess how you act while driving.

My self image is having trouble keeping up...who am I?  I guess it depends on what I drive!

Guess, I will have to buy an even older car to get back my coolness.  (This was at a car show in Hayward Wisconsin...)

The Body Awaits our Attention.

"A Spiritual Life is about becoming more at home in your own skin."  Parker J. Palmer

While doing yoga this morning, well it was actually after yoga, that it occurred to me, that by doing yoga I am taking care of the living breathing body that my awareness lives in.  I could see it as one would a plant...how it is alive.

That tending to my body is to nurture and care for a living thing.

In the past, the reasons were more removed from the actual living breathing body, they were about getting rid of a pain, or slimming down, but I truly don't believe I could see that I was caring for a magnificent living organism.

Being a good caretaker of the body, for me, means doing yoga.  I move better or the body does...it is more limber and stands taller with more muscle to support it.  The body awaits our attention.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good Bye Buddy

I had to say farewell to my little buddy today...I was surprised how sad this made me.  I have enjoyed my ride and view from this jeep.  It has brought me through muddy roads and stormy days.  It gave me great confidence to tackle all the roads on my route.

Due to the high miles (111,700), we decided it be best to sell it and find a newer replacement.  I have never gotten rid of a vehicle that I still loved.  Typically, our cars head to the junk yard when we are done, and by that time, we are so happy to see them go.  

I cleaned out my personal affects and just felt weepy...I can't believe that I will no longer drive it.  

I seen a few Jeeps on the way to town in my 'New' mail car and almost waved...and I remembered how surprised I had been when I first got the jeep and all other Jeep Wranglers waved to me.   No waves until the next Jeep finds its way to me.  And most likely I will wait till Fall to drive it.

For now, I will be delivering the mail in nondescript, Cutlass Sierra..Oldsmobile...1994 model, with just 78,000 miles.  It will take some getting used to once again.  Driving a Left hand drive vehicle from the right.

A little old lady owned it...

 I was not filled with eager anticipation as I cleaned and organized my mail stuff...Hard to say good-bye to a vehicle you still love.  It will be easier when it actually leaves the yard.  The woman I bought it from was sad too to see it go.  So, if you know of a mail person who would love a Mail Jeep, let me know!

Good-Bye Buddy!

Family Picture Together.

When your perceptions change, when your beliefs no longer stand, when your life is turned completely around, it leaves you standing awkwardly at times...backwards in your old life.

I realize that I am the only one who has changed...and I am not expecting the others to change, but it feels extremely awkward to me.

Lots of unspoken undertow swirling around...many agendas and expectations crashing into reality.  

In the past, when I met up with controlling energies, I would try and appease them.  Now, I feel the urge to back up and away.  It almost seemed like there was a play director, and we needed to act a certain way.  Our real selves were not to be put on display, but the 'social' ones.  Every now and again, a real self would poke out.

The strain of holiday and extended families is the 'getting along' for the Holidays, when the rest of the year our lives don't intersect.  A formal family.

What I had felt and envisioned is the child who didn't fit into the formal family play, where your life scripts didn't match the tone they wanted to portray.

I totally get now how the black sheep feels.  How my beliefs, my pathway and my life situation doesn't fit into the choreography of their expectations or ideals. How a family picture can eclipse real life.

I can see how a child would become scarce...how rebellion erupts...how it would be easier to be absent.

It is like reality doesn't fit into nice outfits and set table.

I dare not bring in anything to upset the stage laid out.

The strain of matching and withholding or doing social niceties leaves me drained.

When your life is brimming with real life and its awkward truths, it is very hard to return to social graces.  I can totally see how a child who has been abused has no place to set down there reality.  They must continue on pretending the family picture hasn't been torn.

It is no surprise to me that children leave and seldom return home in these homes.  I can see how awful it is to feel that your truth isn't to be brought up or spoken about.  How they simply keep you in your old mold even if all the insides have changed.

The main focus is to hold the family picture together.  

 

 

 

 

The Part of Us That Never Dies.

I have experienced two different viewpoints of Jesus, one where Jesus died to save me and one as an example of being one with God.  

I no longer believe he died to prevent me from hell, that he will carry my worst behavior and sins, so I could ride on his coat tails and enter into Heaven, sin free as he is loaded down with my sins.

I see Jesus's life much differently now.  I see him as an example of the highest level of consciousness, the ultimate in living as one with God.  I see him living his life totally connected to a higher power.

Easter feels more about his death...and how folks will gain by this loss.  It just seems odd to me.  I never liked that he had to die to save me, it never felt fair or right...and it left me powerless.  

My perceptions have certainly changed and as they changed, so did my holidays.

It is like they focus on his birth and his death, but in-between where he lived is not celebrated.  The focus isn't on the middle journey where he lived...

I am not a reader of the bible and now a self proclaimed no religion girl, but I do have a greater appreciation for Jesus and God now than I ever did.  I now have experienced first hand the miracles and oneness with God.  I get it.  It is personal, and you don't put any gods before Me.

I love that no one has to suffer for me to get to Heaven...no one needs to carry my bad behaviors and sins, that they are mine to work through and bear the consequences.  My life is between me and God...no one has to carry the dark parts of me.

And the dark parts are the places where I forgot who I was, where I became disconnected from the Source.  It was where I lost my way, but I was not lost...I just didn't see the Source.

I don't know what to do with Easter, but to be with this day as it is.  To do as I do any other day...be me.  Go with the flow.  This day is no more meaningful or less meaningful.  All days arrive brand new.

It is what you bring to each day that colors them for you.

We color Easter, we color Jesus, we color God; we color by how we feel inside...by how we see ourselves, that is how we see God.

I see all the colored Easter eggs as the many different viewpoints of God and Jesus.  How each of us get to have a personal relationship.

The difference between my old relationship of worthlessness and the one I have now is vast.  One is to be empty and the other full...one lost and one found...one separated and one connected.  One living in fear and one in love.

The two Easters on my journey...One with feelings of unworthiness and the other, a perfect child of God.  

Religions seem to vacillate between the two poles...in order to keep religion alive, there needs to be sin and a savior...a death and a resurrection. 

What if we live from the part of us that never dies...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A spiritual experience for me.

"We often underestimate the power of giving voice, but it is real and sustaining.  It is the basis of all song.  It is why prisoners break into song.  It is why the blues are sung, even when no one is listening.  It is at the heart of all hymns and mantras."

"And it works its healing not so much by being heard as by the fact that in giving voice to what lives within, even through the softest whisper, we allow the world of spirit to soften our pain.  In this way, the smallest moan is in itself a lullaby. In giving voice to what we feel, the darkest cry uttered with honesty can arrive as the holiest of songs."  Mark Nepo

I love, "the darkest cry uttered with honesty can arrive as the holiest of songs."  My honesty in writing about sexual abuse does feel very holy to me, even if the topic itself isn't.  And writing about my experiences with the FALC and how its applications kept dysfunction going, also feel more holy than anything I heard in church.

It isn't the topic that is written about, but the energy of honesty and integrity.

And to me, the greatest songs and words ever spoken are those whispered or cried in total honesty.  I felt at one with God the day I began walking my truth...giving voice to how I feel, even if what I had to say was not welcomed by many, it was a spiritual experience for me.

 

 

Live where I was Planted.

"In nature, we are quietly given countless models of how to give ourselves over to what appears dark and hopeless, but which ultimately is an awakening. This moving through the dark into blossom is the threshold of God."

"As a seed buried in the earth cannot imagine itself as an orchid or hyacinth, neither can a heart packed with hurt imagine itself loved or at peace.  The courage of the seed is that once cracking, it cracks all the way."  Mark Nepo

Nature truly is remarkable Grace.  

Nature is the only place I clung to when the rest of my world was falling apart. It demonstration time and time again as  how to live life.  

It is perfectly orchestrated and never resists...but flows in harmony.  Each part of nature stands as itself in its full glory.  It doesn't know how to be fake or pretend...it just is.

Watching nature helped me be me...to find peace and live where I was planted.

Photograph by Hannah Jukuri