I Choose Gratitude

     Affirmations are joyful, not always intentional and live long after they are spoken.

     "I no longer choose to donate my body to this life experience."

     That sounds like a non-affirmation.

     "It is."

     Why is it working?

     "Why do you think?"

     I spent a lot of time at the negative bar.

     In fact I probably have a drink or two named after my angst.

     Did Mind fuck with me?

     "Did it feel like Mind?"

     No, it felt like Spirit.  But Spirit isn't into negative.

     "Did it get your attention?"

     Well I dumped the Diet Coke, both figuratively and forever.

     I haven't even craved one.

     "Yes?"

     It got the ball rolling by using words I used to identify with.

     "And?"

     Power is attracted to like power.

     If I use the statement for action it will be about what I DON'T want.

     "And so?"

     I choose gratitude.

     "Yes."

     I choose gratitude for my body, my life, my mind, my spirit, for ALL.

     Peaceful silence.

     The Diet Coke really worked for awhile.

     "That's why you chose it in the first place.  It helped you breathe."

     Thank you coping mechanism.  

     I lived long enough to know I don't need you anymore.

     Ahhh.  Blessings in the most quirky of places.

      

A Green Giant Step

Photo by Dakota Lecos

     

     "I no longer choose to donate my body to this life experience."

     Who the fuck just said THAT?

     "I believe it was you."

     No Dude that's something YOU would say.

     "It wasn't me."

     Are you implying my spirit did an end run on me?

     "It wasn't me."

     Shit, fuck, Goddamn.  I hate when this happens.

     I just responded to a friend Brenda this unbelievably shocking statement.  On the outside I carried forth with follow up confusion, never relaying the verbal swordplay going on within.  We finished her session and I stood at the desk staring at one of my vices.  A large, cold Diet Coke.  Moisture glistened on the plastic and the sun pierced through the cup reflecting it to be more than half full.

     I bet that's a Super Size donation of an organ.  

     Probably a kidney or something important.

     I already gave up wheat, a significant volume of alcohol and have engaged a trainer.

     What the fuck?

     No little coping mechanisms are left to a former victim?

     Who chose this path?

     "You did."

     Thanks for the update Bud.

     "Are you in or out?"

     We're not talking a toe dip are we?

     "In or out dear Deb?"

Reaching for the extra large cup of crack I sighed with an addict's despair while watching it swirl down the drain.

     Fuck me.

     I guess I'm ALL IN.

A sunbeam shot through the window pane landing on my hand in a caress.  There was no sympathy behind the gesture, merely acknowledgement of my existence.  I am human, therefore I learn.  

     I am Deb, therefore I learn in baby steps and an occasional Green Giant swath.

     "I no longer choose to donate my body to this life experience."

     Amen.

Somewhere a Coke executive winced in pain.

The Spring and Winter of Self

Artwork by Sandy Giordano sgioart.com

     Here in the Midwest we are perched on the branch of spring.  Forward will lead to the lime green of birth.  Behind lies the reflection of Winter, a long one this year, the reminder we do not control the weather or anything else for that matter.  I have struggled of late with both sides of myself, the rapidly changing wide awake me and the remainder of what used to be.  A great battle has ensued.  I am tottering on the branch, forward momentum will carry the day, but the frigid grip on my heals continues, like the frost stubbornly clinging to the shady side of the lawn.

     Robins are an announcement that my Grandma has come for a visit.  She was a lovely woman who mired in her own bad decisions would not have been addressed as a great mother.  Perhaps noticing this as wrinkled skin overlapped her body, she became a magnificent grandmother.  At that time of her life, no longer worried about a bad marriage or whether there was enough food in the frig, she opened her home to the children of her children. 

     Ahhh.  Grandma's House.

I'd run through the yard and hear her cooing to vibrantly colored birds in an old chicken coop before spotting the beloved round shape.  Spanish sentences cascade all on their own, but when Grandma spoke to the winged ones her lilting voice became dreamy and otherworldly.  The sound was mesmerizing to my 7 year old ears.

     "Hola mis bellas, pajaro cantante.  Cheep, cheep, cheep little birds."

Today, I hear her again when the first Robin of the year lands in the yard.  This is an annual tradition, one which began shortly after embarking on the Wide Awake Journey.  I'm not sure when I noticed the sight of this bird meant Grandma waved hello, but her voice coos in my ear when they are present.

     "Hola mi nina."

     Hi Grandma.

     The week has been a grumbling back and forth between self and self.  One moment a breath finds me and peace becomes my status, a flash later an angry gasp threatens to overwhelm my life fabric.

     Bleghhhhh.

     What the fuck?

Exiting the office a tear  hovers at the edge of a deep sobbing abyss.  It is late dusk, dark enough to leave deep shadows outside of an exterior light.  To the left something is scuffling in the dirt, while angry chirps come from the dusty violent tangle.  I'm not frightened, but curious enough to forget about crying.  My 52 year old eyes struggle to discern the shapes, though they are close enough to touch.  Eventually I pick out two Robins.  Without thought I react.

     "Hey you two, knock it off."

Hilariously they stop winging and pecking and squawking to stare at where the voice came from.  Two seconds, three, four, they gaze at me.  In the silence flashes of my two dogs and the once young twins eyes remind me I've said these words many times before.  Arriving at the realization I am not their mother and have no real authority, the birds fly to the other side of a fence and roll around in the dirt some more.  But only for a moment or two.  One flies to perch on the fence looking thoughtfully at me again.  The other alights on a nearby branch chirping in my direction.  I bow to them acknowledging their existence.  This moment is enough to remind me of the magic and humor behind all things.  

     Goodnight Grandma.

   

Is our Glass Half Full or Overflowing?

 

 

The reason I believe we arrive with the full package is because nature reflects our human experience.  Animals, trees, pond scum are "birthed" free of man made clutter.  Life arrives unencumbered by societal data.   The only hierarchies are based on survival, mating and the ability to harness food.  This is easily seen in wolf tribes, but more difficult to discern in a copse of trees, though it is still present in the reach towards sunlight, the root growth for water and the endless stream of nuts to give the DNA opportunity to go on. 

 

Why is this important?

 

Because the rules and hierarchies humans create are for the same reasons, though for us it is further compounded by the creation of Ego.  Survival is DNA and fear based. 

 

Which is necessary?

 

DNA based survival is innate and fear is created by society to preserve individuals and collectives.  From this secondary survival mechanism restrictive rules have been and continue to be created which limit the ability to hear our own spirit, think clear of clutter, breathe unimpeded by governance and see this experience for what it is...an exploration neither good nor bad, but very interesting.

 

As a new acquaintance Bernie noted, we can be stripped of what has been indoctrinated in a tsunami wave of difficulty, freeing the ability to remember who, what and why we are.  It is not necessary to learn this, I have found it isn't even necessary to believe this.  I didn't believe it, but in my investigation I approached it under the hypothesis that history has claimed it for the chosen, i.e., Jesus, Buddha, the Dalai Lama. 

 

If these examples are accepted as true, which I carried healthy skepticism, what purpose do the stories have?

 

To create hierarchies?

 

To create subservience?

 

To dangle the unattainable carrot?

 

These were my questions as well as one more.

 

If it was possible for them, then why not me?

 

In each of their stories, they state one thing consistently.

 

"This is for you as well."

 

"You" meaning US.  That we each had this ability according to men from long ago and today means what exactly?

 

From my exploration which included shit storms and multiples smacks of hoo-ha, I have come to find I was born with the innate ability to know the who, what and why of me and this experience.  The only person in the way of gathering the information or ability to gather ALL is me.

 

Each day I encounter rules, have to's and limiting ideas.  It is with acknowledgement to my fully formed self, which I misplace from time to time, that I stop, breathe and listen. 

 

The answers are always there.