"But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ." – The Little Prince
I have spent most of my life trying to figure out how and what it means to be limitless. Despite hours and hours of hard work as a pre-teen and teenager, I made little progress in increasing my vertical jump, let alone dunking a basketball at the height of (almost) 5’4″. Actually, I most likely stunted my growth by using an eating disorder as a coping mechanism. Stil limited, I thought. Currently, I would like more than anything to run 20 miles in the mountains with my dog, yet that sounds both painful for my Achilles and a little more than Pacer would want to do. I have not learned how to magically heal my Achilles or prevent Pacer from getting physically older, despite doing my best to pretend otherwise.
Still limited, so I think. Helpless, so I feel.
What am I doing wrong? Are we not supposed to be able to do whatever we set our minds to?
“You’re not living up to your potential.”, fear says.
But what about when our minds are not aligned with our hearts?
No one told me as a kid that when I practiced basketball, I was doing it wrong… I was working instead of playing. Because if I’m playing and in joy, then the physical doesn’t really matter. The outcome, the achievement, the goal doesn’t really matter. If we withhold love from ourselves because of physical limitations, then we are bound by them. Yet when we allow joy to rise, we transcend them.
You see, the physical body and our physical reality may have limits, but the soul does not.
When we perceive physical limits as true limits and let ourselves become upset by them, we cage our soul and prevent ourselves from experiencing the bliss of the present moment.
What I have come to realize in my wanderings is that the energetic world is more real than the physical world that we, at some point, chose to temporarily come down to visit. Not only gravity but dense emotions weigh us down, while our soul always wants to rise. And while it is our emotions that point us to truth and give us this beautiful shared experience of this thing we call humanity, it is expressed emotions in the absence of mental stories that bring us into connection and frees our soul to move into higher states of peace and joy. This is the integration of the human and divine experience.
So, it is when our souls rise above physical limitations, when we choose to be happy despite the situation or circumstance and earthly reality, that we are no longer trapped by the wants of the mind and are truly free to experience the limitless of our true selves.
In summary, to transcend and become limitless is not to overcome physical barriers and the density of human emotions but to allow our energy to rise above it. To feel joy in the midst of failure, to love after loss. The body may be ruled by gravity but the soul is free to wander and expand. (You are not your body, you are not your mind.) All that matters is that you are enjoying the process, the journey- the adventure of the human experience.
It is only in that transcended state of joy that one may actualize potential, for it is when we understand the laws of energy that we can bend the rules of gravity.
I am the most brave when standing still. When I am writing reflections through tears under the fire of a lamp, or feeling the feels and weeping into my dog’s fur. I am the most brave when I ask for connection. When I share my feelings with a lover, knowing at any moment he could walk away. I am the most brave when I walk into my therapists office, making sure no secret is left hidden, no emotion left unfelt. I am the most brave when I shine my light within. When I witness my wounds and kneel before my heart.
****
Like Pacer, you can be brave and still be scared of thunderstorms. You can hide under the covers and paw your Mom for comfort.
Why?
Because bravery has little to do with external actions and everything to do with one’s ability to go within. To shine a light on the fear that drives them.
I could ski down a double black and still be a coward for giving into to my need to impress for the fear of not being enough.
Or, I could be brave and ride my mountain bike slowly down a green, even though I know my riding partner thinks I’m slow and scared.
Maybe I will give a speech to a room full of strangers, because my heart wants a microphone even though my conditioning tells me its safer to stay quiet.
Brave is the step I take- or don’t take- when following my heart.
Fear can be considered physical survival, but many psychotherapists now call that instinct.
What most of us think of as overcoming our fears is actually an ego-survival mechanism. If I do this, I am great. If I achieve this, I am successful. If I don’t do this, I am keeping my small-self identity in place.*
*This is very much a “know thyself” topic. Type A’s and Type C’s tend to be does and could find value in stillness. Type B’s can obviously find great value from going within, but may also need to take an actionable step.
Plus, as Dr. Ellen Langer writes in her book The Mindful Body we don’t often account for risk assessment when we label someone as brave. My bike riding friend, to me, appears to be fearless. And maybe he does care less about crashing then I do. But really, he’s a much more skilled rider, and what I often see as huge risk is a small obstacle to him.
As I’ve studied bravery over the past year, I think I’ve finally started to understand what it means to be safe, to be fearless. In a human body, there is always risk. Risk of being physically wounded, and the perhaps worse risk of being emotionally hurt. But it is the parts of ourselves that have learned to protect our human vulnerability that carries the fear.
We will all die.
But Love will always be there.
And if we can do, or not do, and know that we will and are still love, we will always find safety within the shelters of our mortality.
My confirmation name is “Joan”, after Joan of Arc. At 13, I picked this saint because I saw her as tough, and Sebastian (the Parton Saint of Sports), was either not allowed or I didn’t like the name enough (I don’t remember). But 20+ years later, I believe her. Joan wasn’t being tough when she stated “I am not afraid. I was born to do this.” She was being brave. She knew who she wasn’t and who she was. She was brave in the face of both physical and ego death.
Brave is the step you take when following your heart, The only truly brave act is being completely oneself in a word of people who have forgotten who they truly are.
I am a protector of innocence. A warrior of Love. A guardian of beauty. A defender of Truth.
You’ll never see me touch a gun, but I will slay with my heart. My ability to see you through your fear, the only sword I need. My armor, the denial of hate.
I stand for what man tried to take from me, came close but failed. I was simply poisoned, and entered a deep slumber, awakened by my own sweet kiss.
I refuse to go to war, but I’ll throw my body over a child, protecting what is real from your lies. Kill me first, and as my body fades, you’ll remember too: Only love exists.
I am a protector of the innocent.
****I wrote this poem shortly after an experience I had where I did not defend myself, my own innocence and love. I played into the “bro culture” pretending I was being the “fancy” one for requiring vegan food. This, at least, is a step above my high school self trying to fit in. Now, these weren’t bad guys whatsoever…I simply, unconsciously, stepped into a role that I needed to see and ask myself “Where do I not protect my own heart?”
This also got me thinking about what I find sexiest in a man. Brute force, acting cool, big muscles, and guns…definitely do not. But I am highly attracted to men who are willing to use their intellect to protect their heart and the hearts of others, to see and feel their own innocence and be guardians of it, the divine masculine standing alongside the divine feminine (energies that are inside all of us).
I woke up from a dream, or perhaps nightmare is the more accurate word, slightly after 12 am on May 4th.
I was in a war zone. The building we were in was no longer a building, the grey bricks only a few feet high. Sparks, debris, and shrapnel flew freely in.
My mother tried to protect me. She laid her body over mine, a small and slender child. I knew we weren’t safe. That her body, hugging mine, would simply get hit first. It was likely that we would both die. Now or later, I wasn’t sure. At the same time, I felt her love inside the shelter of her body over mine. I felt her desperation, trying to protect her daughter, me. I could tell she knew it was probably hopeless too, but she held onto that sliver of hope. And somehow in that, in her love, I felt safe.
Soldiers walked in over the bricks and through the smoke. And, while I know this is simply how my brain put this together and most likely not how it actually works, they shot at cannons to make them fire off into the distance. They didn’t look at us. Their faces remained ambivalent and frozen. I couldn’t tell if they were trying to protect us, kill us, or just didn’t care. I didn’t know whose side they were on. But that’s kind of how protecter parts work…
*While I’ll use Internal Family Systems language, archetype, identities, etc. can often be interchanged.
It’s kind of hard to see what they’re protecting. Another protector, another defense mechanism, the cynic protecting the anger, the ego, or the exile, the inner child within? I think some, at least the soldiers in my head, just forget. They forget what side they’re on and they just do the job they’ve been programmed to do.
In therapy, we say there are no bad parts. They’ve all learned how to do their job to protect an innocent part when there was no caregiver to protect them or help them feel and experience their emotions, to help the child feel loved even though they were sad, angry, or simply in pain. Even the addictions, even the suicidal thoughts… they’re just trying to protect us from more pain, trying to. make us feel better when we don’t know any other way. Every shadow side has a light side. The inner critic, a cheerleader. The judge, a compassionate leader. On the spiritual side, some teachers and texts simply teach to notice but not attach to the (unhealthy) ego and all its voices of fear. We might not be able to stop the thoughts, but we don’t have to give them our energy (power). When we practice this long enough, the voices of shame, guilt, unworthiness, and hate get quieter, giving us a chance to notice the subtle but ever-present voice of Love.
And so, to further our dream interpretation, I’ll provide a framework. I was taught dream interpretation as a graduate student at Naropa University by Katie Asmus, one of the leaders in the field of wilderness therapy and owner of the Somatic Nature Therapy Institute. She taught me and my cohort that in dreams, a part of us is represented in each person, animal, or even object that stands out. In this view, dreams are symbolic, offering us views into parts of ourselves that are often subconscious in everyday life. I also believe that in dreams, especially nightmares, our psyches are actually helping us play out and process fears so we don’t have to in waking hours. I will add that, even though it’s often hard for me to see, I’ve heard from multiple people that I am often guarded and protective. I rarely see how my fears play out (the voice of it can sound very rational) until after everything (ie, a relationship) has been destroyed.
During the dream, I felt most of my presence in the little girl. My innocence, my unbridled love and joy for the world and other people, was being threatened. And yet…
Stepping into the role of mother, I feel (moving into first person here) a deep, fierce love for the child curled under me. Yet I am also human, so I try to regulate my nervous system, hoping my child doesn’t feel my fear. I know she is a sensitive child, so even if she feels my fear, let her know that she is loved… A sacrificial love, willing to do anything to keep the innocent child alive. But even if we both die, she must know that she is loved. And that will be all that matters.
The soldiers I have, in part, already examined. Yet stepping into their shoes, I feel lifeless. I’m just doing what I’m told, having forgotten what I’m fighting for. I gently sense the presence of the mother and little girl, but I try not to see them. It might make me crack. So I fire bombs. Bombs at other men, who are most likely just like me. I am hopeless. I don’t care if I get hit anymore or die in this war. I’m tired. I just want the war to end.
The cannons and bombs, perhaps, represent my anger. The anger that I actually rarely feel, besides the shame and self-loathing I feel for myself. Maybe I should let it out a little more. Maybe I should defend the little girl. She doesn’t deserve to live in a gray world full of shadows. Blowing things up might not be the answer, but fighting for Love? I’m not sure exactly what that means. How do you fight for Love with Love? Without killing and without dying? But maybe, maybe there is a way…
Ah, I won’t let the darkness of the mind kill the light within.I will protect her from the voices of fear and attack thoughts in her head.This is the Mother’s role.
The almost non-existent building… God, I hope this is my mind. My ego. The structure I’ve created around myself is crumbling. It’s never really protected me anyway. It’s never kept the fear or sadness out. It’s really only made me hate myself and be scared of the world I walk in, the world I’ve made. The walls were always a false sense of protection anyway.
Now that I look back…
The mother and daughter…the fierce loving protector and the innocent child. They are covered in dust and ash. Yet they are otherwise left untouched. But maybe it doesn’t matter, because that little girl knew she was loved. And love is the ultimate protection. She rises.
To be honest, I don’t really get visions, and I am historically, frustratingly, terrible at envisioning anything I can not see (which I will perhaps call a limiting thought). Any time Obi-Wan leads me through a guided Reiki meditation, I’m with him through the field and down the path until he says something like “then follow the light”… … Which, I guess, is supposed to take me somewhere, but all I see is black.
*I wonder if this is because, as Dr. Joe Dispenza would say, I have an (overly) analytical mind that can often keep me stuck in past cycles that were developed between the ages of 6-9 (which is a period where there was a lot going on in my life).
I rarely have dreams, but my previous landlord has dreamed for me, about Pacer finding me and bringing me Home. A few months later, I dreamed about Pacer, Love, too, reminding me She is always with me. And I think my older sister may have left me a prophecy hidden in a poem she wrote. Once in a while, I get a felt-sense from a loved one or someone else’s loved one that has passed on. It doesn’t come in words but a drop in my awareness. Sometimes I can manage to write it or say it out loud but I’ll doubt the message as soon as the words leave my lips. What I am a little better at is channeled, or automatic writing. Despite the noise in my head being so loud, I can usually eek out a few sentences, sometimes a few paragraphs, from Something beyond me. How do I know? I will be the first to tell you I don’t, because doubting myself is a religious habit. Yet often the messages are of love and answer questions that I have been stuck on, which are absolutely not the voices in my head.
In this written format, I was gifted with a vision that I could almost visualize. It was of me, walking through a tunnel of darkness, while my angels and guides held up shields to protect the dark from touching me as I walked through. It was suggested that I don’t reach out to touch the darkness, not because it could hurt me, but because it could distract me. For once I felt confident I would make it through.
Later in the week, I found myself on a snowy trail lined with Evergreens. While hiking, I periodically let out a sob or two, in both fear and grief that I wouldn’t make out of the darkness of my mind, that my thoughts would always haunt me. Then the vision came back to me, and I could almost see it. I could “hear” my older sister say “I’m right here with you Ray-Ray.” This time, too, the trees were clearing the air while my angels and loved ones cheered me on as I kept walking, again certain I would make it through. Sunshine (Pacer), of course, was leading the way.
It was also during this hike that the poem below started to come to me. The first version is a bit more personal, although I’m assuming a few other healers/empaths could relate. The second version feels universal.
*****
The Way (Personal Version)
My Love, Everyone is rooting for you. Through the darkness, the angels are calling your name. The trees are clearing the path, while Loved ones are walking you Home, and Sunshine guides the way.
My Love, You cannot fail! For this day has been scripted in the stars since the day that you were born. This is a fated day! It has always been known, not that Love would conquer, but Love’s rule would return to all. One more step, one more choice. My Love, you are not alone.
We’re sorry it felt so hard, so heavy. Yet we can see you remembering now. You came here to understand, So you could be a flame to other’s pain.
It’s happening, my Love. Your rise above the darkness. We are ALL cheering you on!
One more breath, One more turn away from fear, and toward your loving heart. Instead of hearing darkness, all you will see is Light. You will remember, my Love, You are already Home.
******
The Way (Public Version)
My Love, Everyone is rooting for you. Through the darkness, the angels are calling your name. The trees are clearing the path, while Loved ones are walking you Home and Sunshine guides the way.
My Love, You cannot fail! For this day has been scripted in the stars since the day that you were born. This is a fated day! In this moment, the choice is yours. Choose love or choose fear. Believe in your inherent Goodness, or in the separation that blinds. Meet your Destiny now, or wait. Either way, it is all the same, for you will see, you are already Home. And we are all here, ready to celebrate your remembrance.
I considered not sharing this one, as it is quite personal not only to me but my family. However, I wanted to give everyone reading this the opportunity to believe in signs, synchronicities, and magic. Mom and Sandi… I hope you are okay with me writing this openly, and if not, I hope that you can forgive me.
Not long ago, I finally went back. I went back to the spot off of Hwy 24 in Leadville where I got the news from my older sister that her time here on earth was limited, finite. I parked at the space where mine and Sandi’s bodies remembered they were much more water than skin and bones. Yet, when I parked at the Mineral Belt Trailhead, I didn’t have much time to process. The parking lot was busy, which I soon realized was because a local college or high school track was working out there, some of the team XC skiing while others ran loops on the groomed ski trail. Because Pacer and I are both quite sensitive and highly attuned to the energy around us, my main priority was to put my own skis on and get into the quiet of the woods as quickly as possible.
After a mile or so, we got into our groove and my mind started to quiet. Around two miles in, the pine trees started to close in around us and I thought, “This would be a great place to see Sasquatch.” Minutes later, Sasquatch appeared (maybe just a large black cut out, but let’s use our imaginations) and Pacer made a new friend. I laughed at my mind’s conjuration, and we skied on. While Sasquatch was cool, he (or maybe, she?) wasn’t our sign. Actually, I wasn’t expecting one, which is perhaps one of the best parts about magic… it’s always there, and it reveals itself more easily when your mind isn’t holding on to any particular expectation or trying to predict future events. At the same time, you should always expect magic. It was when we crossed the road, splitting the trail, that I saw it on the back of a sign (this is not the first sign I’ve gotten on a sign…I think it’s the Universe’s way of ironically chuckling and saying “here’s your signier sign!”)…a sticker of a crown.
But not just any crown. This one is gold, with three plain and slightly crooked points. This crown is the signature logo of the band “Train”, my older sister’s favorite band, perhaps a hair over Matchbox 20*. Think “Calling all Angels”, “Drops of Jupiter”, and “Hey, Soul Sister.” While the band Train is still well known, I can’t say its a super popular band in the mountains of Colorado, nor have I ever seen the sticker before (and at least in my area, people put stickers everywhere…the back of cars, on stop signs, bathroom stalls, on the signs naming ski slopes, etc.). It was almost as if my older sister was saying, with her own signature eye roll, “I’m right here! I’m literally always with you.” This was obviously not just for me, but my family as well.
*As you’ll see throughout this post, my older sister often speaks to me through music and her favorite bands/artists: Train, Matchbox 20, Goo Goo Dolls- while born in the ’84 and ’88, we were 90s kids-, and Justin Timberlake (specifically, “Can’t Stop the feeling”, the song my mom played at her post funeral lunch), and Avril Lavigne (my mom played “Head Above Water” at the cemetery, which is when I sobbed and Ieft mascara stains on my dad’s shirt.)
My signy sign.Me wearing my Amanda’s hoody.
As I was saying before, the funny thing about magic is that magic is all around us and in us. We’ve just been trained to not see it. Even me, just last year, thought I didn’t have enough of it and went out in search for more. Yet when my mind starts to quiet it’s like my awareness opens up and I can “see” more, as in I can see how foolish it is to believe magic is sparse or needs any action on my part to come into fruition. (As Michael Singer likes to say, we’re on a planet spinning around the sun at just the perfect distance that life can grow and we can breathe without burning or freezing, and we think we need to control things?)This all led me to seeing…
Yep.
A white rabbit.
My Alice in Wonderland signs started happening a few weeks earlier. The white bunny came while skiing down another trail outside the town of Buena Vista. I caught only a glimpse, but I saw the magical creature. My mind instantly went two to things: 1) perhaps this was the reincarnation of the bunny I killed the previous year while mindlessly driving up the road below (this of course, led to intense feelings of guilt and many tears), and 2) the rabbit that led Alice down the hole into Wonderland, or Underland. (In Tim Burton’s rendition of the classic book and later Disney film, Alice referred to Underland as Wonderland when she first visited as a child.) Always the one looking for animal symbolism, I drove home with the intention of looking up the rabbit’s message, while, of course, Matchbox 20’s newest song came on the radio with the lyrics “I know you think I’m gone, but I’m all in. Don’t get me wrong.” (I believe when I looked at the time, it was 2:22, just to triple my signs for the day.)
My first Google search led me right to this site (the blogger’s name, of course, was Amanda- my older sister’s name): https://www.amandalinettemeder.com/blog/white-rabbit-spirit-animal-medicine-symbolism. Her post not only talked about Alice in Wonderland, but a white rabbit symbolizing the release of fears, play, and awakening intuition, or, the inner mystic. Exactly my journey of the past 7 or so months, and, what I believe, what I’m waking up to.
In the next few weeks, I received more signs: A scene from Alice in Wonderland paired with a Carl Jung quote in a random Instagram post, photos of white bunnies, and a client mentioning “not going down the rabbit hole”. Normally, I would have agreed with him…when we’re spinning in a rumination cycle, we’ve got to breathe and recenter. This time, though, I had the insight that maybe, instead of going just halfway down the rabbit hole, I needed to go ALL THE WAY DOWN, and follow my beliefs back to their root, and decide for myself what was real and what wasn’t.
I watched movie one, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, a day before my mind and old belief systems once again tried to take rule. As you may know, the book is full of good quotes, such as “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Yet, the line that Tim Burton added that struck my heart and raised emotion came from the Mad Hatter:
Mad Hatter (to Alice): I don’t like it in here. It’s terribly crowded.Have I gone mad?
As to which Alice replied: “I’m afraid so. You’re entirely bonkers. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”
The following week, as my mind tried to tell me more stories of how I screwed up and wasn’t enough, I pondered and pondered on what Alice meant. Eventually, I gave in to asking for guidance after Obi-Wan sent me a cryptic quote:
“To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world – in order to set up a shadow world of meanings.” – Susan Sontag
I replied back, “I feel like you’re trying to tell me something :,)”) before replying back with the Alice in Wonderland quote, speaking to my frustration. Obi-Wan’s reply was very Obi-Wan-ish, and perfect:
“Whoever has the ability to be aware of large amounts of stuff, if they can learn to use the awareness, will be on the cutting edge of changing others awareness’s.
This is how the dark becomes the light and light creates new darkness.”
My mind doesn’t have to bring me down if I can rise above it. And, if by simply reading my words, I can perhaps allow you to start questioning all the voices in your head (or parts, to be more therapeutically correct, in reference to Internal Family Systems), then we all have the opportunity to see things in a new way. Which, psychedelics, or not*, is the point of the movie. To question reality as we perceive it and then choose the world (the heaven or hell of our minds) we want to live in. Then, the unconscious becomes potential.
*As a psychosoul therapist, I am supportive of using psychedelics as a tool for healing. And, while I’ve had many people infer or tell me I should try psychedelics because of what I write about, I have not yet tried them. There are several reasons for this, but the one I’ll name now is that I’m interested in seeing how far I can get into the magical realms of energy by simply quieting my mind and believing what I know, for I often don’t believe what I know to be true.
It was shortly after this when my “rabbit hole” signs started shifting. To be precise, I pulled an Oracle card that read: “Slip down into the rabbit hole of enchantment and wonder.”
To be honest, I’m not sure what “enchantment and wonder” actually looks like for me anymore. I do know I had it as a kid. I loved to build forts, both inside and outside, and get carried away in games of imagination, be it “dress up”, playing with barbies and stuffed animals, or playing “cops and robbers” with my best friend across the street (Terry, I believe, actually did end up becoming a policeman). I remember the last lingering wafts of imagination clinging to my youth after I watched Bridge to Terabithia and then wandered around the trail-less woods under a cloudy Ohio sky. Somewhere soon after, it must have left me, although my love for wandering (and often getting lost) in the woods blessedly stayed.
My curiosity never completely went away either, and its only grown stronger the more I’ve let go of judgement and comparison. And so, it was my curiosity that led me to the second movie, Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass*.
*Again, I watched the Tim Burton edition, although I have fond but distant memory of watching a much older version with my older sister.
I won’t rehash the full movie for you (beside the fact that the Mad Hatter also endured the “not enough wound” for being a little different, as witnessed in scenes with his father) and instead tell you what thoughts the movie led me to, or maybe, reminded me:
1. What I cannot see, because I have forgotten how to look, is all the times in my past where I have been guided and protected. And, the times where I have chosen my own ego way, when I tried to control rather than (co)create, how my guides worked overtime to make sure I remained safe. I may have ignored the signs, rejected my emotions, and gone astray, but I was and never have been alone. Especially in the times I felt the most lost.
2. The one fundamental truth that I have come to fully believe in is that life is far more magical than we have been trained to see.
Which is kind of weird, but exactly the point. In order to see, we have to unsee. To make our own choice, we have to acknowledge all the choices that have been made for us. To see reality clearly, we have to see what we’ve been trained to believe and interpret. To get to know who we really are, we have to make friends with all the voices in our head, whom may or may not be real. Is the world good or bad? Or does it lie in the gray? Are you or I to be trusted? Or is it all the same? Does heaven or hell exist anymore than Wonderland or Underland exist?
Perhaps we have all gone mad. After all, all the best people have. For it is we who know the secret, that it all depends on how you choose to perceive it.
And, when we let go of judgement and what we think we want, life will bring us exactly what it is that our soul desires..the deepest, unimaginable, fairytales of the heart.
*There were actually way more signs and synchronicities than I could comprehensively include in this blog post without making it longer than you or I are willing to read off of a computer.
**A friend sent me this almost as soon as I finished the full draft of this post.
Does anyone else get confused when someone asks, “How do you do?”, or “How are you?”, “How was your day?”
To an on looker, it would appear that I freeze for a moment, a moment too long. It’s why most would say I’m quiet, while I pause, debating if I should say what’s on my mind or how I’ve been trained to respond, with an “I’m good” or “fine.”
What I really want to say…
No, maybe it’s too much…
But maybe not…
In my head I’m wondering…
Do I tell them about all the ideas running through my mind and about all the stories I want to write? Or maybe I should tell them about the white horse I watched running through the field from my window. And the cat! Oh, how I laughed, because it was not our field cat that I saw sneak out of the shed, not the one who’s food was inside. Maybe I say that? Or what about all the things I felt? The deep love I felt while watching Pacer nap. My delight in once again ending up at Brenda’s register at Natural Grocers and how, even though she can have a tough exterior, that I find so much joy in giving her the space to smile. Maybe how I felt it in my body when the sun moved behind the clouds? Or do I reveal the tears I cried watching Good Grief? …WhichI mainly viewed because I like Daniel Levy, and thinking that maybe because I knew the plot from the preview, I wouldn’t cry. Do I say how I teared up watching Alice in Wonderland too, because it made me understand myself and my purpose a little more? And the cows! How, as I rode my bike past, I wished my soulful friends a good day, pedaling away before they could sense the fear and sadness I felt about their futures. Is that too much? Ah! Maybe I talk about the snowflakes. How, in the reflection of the morning sun, I became mesmerized as I traversed up slopes of sparkles that took me Somewhere Else. Or the love… the love I felt, the love I released, and maybe the love I found. That reminds me of…can I say it? The guy I once dated, just a few precious times but felt our energies intertwine. How he told me I spoke too elusively, like I was keeping a secret, not understanding that ethereal is my native tongue? And maybe if he tried to, we wouldn’t have grown so far apart?
Or, maybe I talk about the fear I felt before I could catch the thought that caused it. Then I can describe, to help shift their energy as well as mine, how all my fears became forgotten, how they just melted away, like Frosty on a sunny day returning Home, while watching another sunset. How I once again got lost in the beauty of it all, and in the lostness was my expanse. Or do I talk about the deer, who greeted me and Pacer soon after the sun said goodnight? How I know they are my spirit animals, always protecting me and turning me towards my own spiritual self. Maybe, maybe, I just say “It was a magical day.”
But by then, just a few seconds after processing this all, all I see is a shoulder and the back of head. My time has passed. The stranger is still a stranger. I say a quick “I’m good”, as we both continue down our different paths.
Yet now, now at 35 and years of inner work, I still feel okay rather than overlooked. I’m grateful for my courage to diverge from the normal way. I know there are others like me, who crave depth and run from superficiality. At heart, I actually think that’s what we all want, the neurodivergent and those who are not. We aren’t meant to all be strangers. We are meant to connect. To see ourselves in one another, a soul behind a face. And no, it doesn’t mean I have to leave my solo nature and animal time behind. I can still be an introvert and wish for depth that can be shared, harmonizing the two.
I’m still a little awkward at it, being me. But I am freer than I ever was.
Beauty Pain: Waking up to the knowledge that life is both beautiful and fragile. It’s seeing the hate and fear, but realizing there is even greater love. It’s the awe and the tears encompassed in the breaths, the limited breaths that mark our beginning and our end, while watching a golden-pink sunset. It’s what you feel both in watching a new life enter the world and a life surrender to death. It’s the lifespan of a dog. It’s the bittersweet feeling of a holiday party full of loved ones- full of love-comes to an end. Its the overwhelming gratitude when a once met friend pays me 8x the amount my book is worth. It’s my sobs seeing god in everyone and everything, even when others do not, and the most innocent being killed. It’s forgotten love. It is the acknowledgement of feeling. It is the acceptance of being human.
So many of us spend so much time rushing and worrying that we miss the beauty of what surrounds us, be it the people, animals, or nature, only to later realize that our time on Mother Earth is limited…which makes life all the more beautiful.
It’s hard to use words to define the term “beauty pain.” Perhaps I described it better in past posts that more so provoked the feeling rather than tried to define it:
Still, I think my older sister said it best in her journal, the few words she wrote in her dying year: “Life is beautiful…even when it’s not.”
Each time I come back to this term, I come to understand what it means to be alive a little more. I come to more deeply know myself.
“What if your ability to feel pain is the most beautiful thing about you?” I scribbled in my journal.
What if?
What if my biggest weakness is actually by biggest strength… my capacity to love? It is in my heightened senses, the depth of my emotions, that makes me so human and so alive. And yet, I feel and have felt so deeply that I have tried to numb my pain and attempted to reject my humanness, claiming my want to leave this planet, with doG (Pacer) always grounding me back.
Maybe it’s because I grew up in the midwest to baby boomer parents, loving but mostly unemotional (outwardly), that I learned to deny pain, thereby rejecting myself. Showing emotions wasn’t really accepted in my family. My mom got laughed at (with me as one of the perpetrators) for crying during a movie. No one was there to tell me that my depth was my power.
Eventually, I learned to carry and hide so much that I learned to fear it, to fear my pain. Honestly, I thought it might kill me if I let myself feel it all.
Yet, maybe…
Maybe I don’t have to fear pain, because pain is just love. Maybe it’s sometimes wrapped in a cloak of fear or tinged with sadness, but it is still love. And maybe my pain, my love, is my gift to the world, because my pain carries my light. In fact, pain is a big part of the reason I chose to practice psychotherapy (what I know call “psychosoul therapy). I didn’t want others to have to feel what I felt. Now I know they both do and they don’t… They just have to accept their pain, because their pain is love and shines a light on “wrongness”, the wrongdoings created from darkness. The worst part of pain is actually resisting feeling it.
(However, I can lessen my pain. Here I realize I’ve used the word “pain” in different ways in my blog – thank you for giving me the space and grace to process and shift. Sometimes, what I mean is really “distress” or “suffering”. What has helped me a great deal is learning to check in with myself when my emotions feel heavy and then bring awareness to the thought I’m thinking. Usually, my thought is far, far away from love. Additionally, I’ve learned to “tap in, tap out”, a great skill for any empath. It’s an amazing gift to tap into someone else’s shoes, but it is neither helpful for the empath or the other person to get stuck in the other person’s energy field. Switching to compassion helps me help others.)
It is my pain that makes me mortal and it has been my fear of pain, my resistance to it, that has kept me from Love. It is Love that makes me immortal. When I resist pain, I resist both my humanity and my divinity. When I accept my pain, when I accept my beauty pain, I accept my humanity and my divinity.
This doesn’t mean we will all start hearing the voices of our angels or guides*, because when we’re in joy, we don’t need to. There aren’t any problems to ask about or find our way out of. We’re simply matching the vibration of higher realms, and that’s enough. It is the energy that speaks.
*Some of us may, but more likely, you’ll feel closer to deceased loved ones.
The days I get to spend out in nature, moving my body, with Pacer and family are the joy triple whammies for me. My worries go away. I truly feel like I have everything I need. Nothing more could make me happier. I both feel loved and I feel great love for others, be it humans, animals, or trees. Joy is the magic that brings me to that place…the place inside myself where I am fulfilled and at peace.
It doesn’t make me ignorant or blind to the pain of the world (I am an empath, afterall), but I can see it without my energy getting drawn in, or rather, down. Which ultimately, is a much better space to think and create from.
And in my heart, I know everything is going to be alright. That I am alright. That we are alright.
Joy comes from our inner being. It’s when the heart feels expanded and the mind quiets. It grows in play, connection, creative endeavors, and exploration. (If you’re like me and have an “inner Josh, or “inner gaslighter”, do be a little careful of doing things that you feel “should” bring you joy). There’s definitely no fear involved in joy. Joy and love aren’t exactly the same, but doing things that bring forth your joy definitely leads you to love.
So, if we “do” anything, we “should do” what brings us joy. In a world still partially cloaked in darkness and in dire need of more light, it is of the utmost importance, to our inner selves and the lives of everyone on this planet.
Trees will talk…trees want to talk and share their ancient wisdom… to those who are willing to listen.
There is this quote by Jesus that appears several times in the gnostic text, The Gospel of Mary that goes: “Anyone with two ears capable of hearing should listen.” If I may be so bold, I can’t help but wonder if line was slightly misinterpreted, or misunderstood by the reader (me)*. My interpretation is “Anyone with a heart has the ability to hear the truth.”
If you want to speak to trees, plants, or animals, you have to know how to speak and understand the language of the heart. The heart speaks and listens through sensations, felt-senses, love, contraction and expansion. The messages are only subtle because our minds are so full of chatter. Yet the language of the heart is the only one we were born with…all other languages we were constructed and taught. Some languages bloomed from the heart, and some were created as distractions from it.
How do we get back to our native heart language? Obviously, we must learn how to detach from our mind and meditation is a practice great for this. Another practice that you can apply, perhaps at a holiday meal, that was taught to me by Obi-wan (my teacher), is to track the energy of a conversation over the words. Is your uncle talking from a place of love or fear? If he is speaking from fear, can you find compassion and empathy?…because my guess is you’ve been there too. And if the energy is too negative, can you give yourself the grace to walk away and go sit by a tree? Close your eyes, breathe into your heart, and listen to the heart teachings of the Tree.
***
I think a lot of people are familiar with Simard’s Ted Talk, but if not, I highly recommend it to learn how tree’s literally talk to eachother (I’d compare this to spoken language): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=breDQqrkikM
However, what I’m even more fascinated with now on my journey is the electromagnetic wavelengths and energies of Nature and our brains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zJRdQGlZzI (I’m also a big Lisa Miller fan)
*There are actually a few passages in The Gospel of Mary that I would have misunderstood without translation and understanding of what was meant. For example, when “the mind” is talked about, Jesus nor Mary are talking about the ego mind, but the Higher Mind. I found @megganwatterson‘s book Mary Magdalene Revealed extremely helpful for this.
**The pictured Cottonwood is nearly 120 years wise.
A Dog and Her Girl 