Am I in love with me? Have I taken the gift of this life in and treasured it? I was reflecting on the ways I show love to my son, who is currently sharing space with me. How tender is my love, how it wants to place a soft blanket of protection and care about him. Do I treat myself with that same tenderness? What if I see myself as the very dearest person to me? How would that change things? Instantly I saw that our world would be born anew if all people did this. I saw energy fields expand in a flash and love explode its golden pink light across the earth.

I am the very dearest person to me. I am my own beloved. Oh, do you notice the shadow of old programming raise its spectral head at that statement?  I do! I have been sitting with all that this brings up. It is quite a lot.

The ways that I have not loved my body…my back has been keeping my movements limited and I have watched my reactions, my frustration. Our bodies are these warm blooded elemental beings, dedicated to us, to our growth and mastery. They are so deserving of our love. Can I look upon my own body the way I look upon a newborn? Precious, delightful, a magical creature of soft hills and planes. My body has its own tender terrain, pathways plowed across my face by sunlight and strain, veins popped to the surface in answer to some need, weight sagging off the pole of my spine, spots, moles, bumps and scars telling a story of use and more than a little neglect as I used it as a tool. She birthed and suckled children, she was a shovel to a landscape, an open chasm to a lover, a cushion to a tiny head.  She is my trusted friend.  In her greater wisdom, she paces me. She allows the ebb and flow that is perfect for my growth. She has assisted me to leave toxic situations that my mind and will would not allow. She did the dirty work, took the brunt of the energy in order to say no more. I recall the endless well of tears that flowed that finally carried me from a job that was consuming me. I had no control over them, they streamed unbidden whether I was at my desk or in a meeting. Leaving the job allowed the space to look at the marriage that required leaving also. I was numb but this body carried on.

Now, I am guided to make a move to a new state, a new life that I know nothing about. My body has decided to relieve me off any decision making as to when this will happen. She is fully in charge and I am learning to honor her wisdom and guidance. She is teaching me to be gentle with her. To care for her with ice packs and walks. To lie down and watch the clouds drift by, allowing the inner spaces to be filled.

The darkness invites me in.

I am my beloved. The inner landscape, is it a battlefield or a peaceful plane? I have just finished reading, Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes.  It is a novel of a soldier’s experience in the Vietnam War. It took me deep inside the horrors, the exhaustion, the pain, the mind numbing fear, the senselessness, the death and destruction. Not my usual novel of choice yet I am glad my elder son recommended I read it. The young men face themselves in all their shadow and light. If they were fortunate to walk out alive, they left the jungle with weighter burdens than their one hundred pound packs. Shame and guilt sloped their shoulders, along with all those they were trained to hate and kill,  and those they loved and watched die. That they stood at all, speaks of the courage of the human heart.

What am I carrying in my inner spaces? I look around to see the holes that have not been filled with love. I see all the spaces where I thought I did it wrong, I was not good enough, I did not deserve joy. I have been here, many a time, clearing out the overgrown brush, hacking away with a machete. I have learned to drop the machete, to take up streams of liquidlovelight, flowing it from my heart in a steady thread. I have closed many a gap, created a soft clearing to rest within. A peaceful abode where I sink into pink cushions of love. My spirit asks now for more room, a palatial expanse. This novel assisted me to go within to the remaining jungle and stare death in the face. To look upon the part in me that would kill and enjoy it. The ego that would sacrifice others to keep its shining visage. It is not as stark as these young men faced, yet their story is mine. In the end, we all have to stand on that battleground and make the choice to embrace our enemies with love. To drop the self imposed burdens that we have taken on over the years. To forgive everyone, and hardest of all,  to forgive ourselves.

The love flame must be built to a mighty blaze to burn away the ropes with which we secured our burdens, hugging them close to our chests. To stand in this flame, to offer ourselves, in full view of ourselves and watch it all go up in flames. We cannot know what, if anything,  will remain. One must wait until the smoke has cleared to see oneself. With the burning away of judgment of self, we are set free. A friend wrote on this, that the day of judgment that the Bible speaks of is not administered by some bearded god on a throne, rather it is our own selves who decide the timing of the day and whether we enter heaven or hell. We are our own judge and jury. We choose to walk in freedom or remain in chains of bondage.

In truth, only when our inner landscape is one of peace, will we witness peace in the world. It is time to witness all that is in the world as love. To take in the horrors and love it all without being plunged into a story of suffering. To trust in ourselves as creator gods who have had enough of the warring and death, separation and exile. Who seek peace with a full heart, knowing that cracking the whip on ourselves, brings it down on our brother’s back. Can I be the tender lover, whispering endearments to the raised voices of judgment and doom?

I am my beloved. I befriend every harsh thought with an embrace and show them room. There is space for all within me. The hidden mines are sought out and deactivated. The sunlight streams through as I grow in courage to step into the darkness that lies in wait. All aspects of my being are honored for their part. Everything in this world craves love, craves to be seen, to be acknowledged and valued. The darkest shadow seeks love’s caress.  Can I offer this? Can I love my pettiness, my anger, my blackened rage? Can I sit with sorrow and grief, offering my presence without words? The lovelight seeks the trembling terrors to cloak them in its flame. Come, come, step into this transfiguring flame of love as I honor each for a part well played.

The wisdom of my body has allowed this opening. This space of stillness has invited me in, the shadowlands asking full exposure, to share the mountain tops’ glory.

This day, I take myself, Linda Marie, as my beloved, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health, till death us do part. I will love, honor and cherish you, all the days of my life.

Perhaps we were not meant to pledge ourselves to another forever. Truly, that pledge belongs to us alone. Today I open myself to cradle the newborn of my being. As I cradle me, I cradle thee. All One. All love.

A few bright leaves on this dormant maple, the rebirthing within the dying.

Today is my birthday, 59 years of age. This year it feels significant as I am being asked to take a leap of faith. I have leaped, jumped and thrown myself forward many a time, but this feels different. There is a newness to the energy available. I sense that the magic is there, awaiting me to bring it to life. The frequency of our earth has risen to a point where we can begin to co-create with all that is.

There has been an inwardness, a desire to be with oneself that I have noticed in those about me and myself. Seeking that quiet place of stillness that has been emptied out. The Linda Marie that has been up to this point has dissolved. I no longer have a framework of identity to hang on or structure to move from. I know only that I know nothing. There is no form to inhabit. Only space and beingness. I appreciate the role that frustration has played in breaking down my ideas of self. I became so frustrated and tired of the life I have been living, the me that I have been, that there was only surrender. In that “giving up” was the opening I did not know, I had longed for. Offering it all up, the emptiness, the destruction, the shell.

Here I am, housed in an elemental physical being which I no longer have the energy, desire or will to animate. Take it, use it, house it…it is yours. I offered it to the Creator as there remained no “me” to direct it in any way.

The light illuminating the ferns, bringing out their rich greenness. Allowing myself to be illuminated or shadowed as the Sun of my being desires.

I have noticed this in many, the detachment, the moving inward, the dropping away from drama, from control, from desire, the waves of sadness as all falls away. So many tell me of staying up later than their partner, getting up earlier as they seek that solitary time. I have witnessed the space offered for life to unfold rather that the old push and pull. All part of the divine dance. This, a step I did not know existed except for the saints and mystics of the ages. Yet, it is here for us all. Within reach of our ordinary, pedestrian lives.

I awake and allow the Creator to do as She/He will. Animate the form, flow or not flow. I have no preference. I am done with that dance of duality.

There is body discomfort, so many with back pain, chest and head issues. Strange electrical shocks in an elbow, pressure in an ear, sore throat for an hour or two that morphs into side pain. I hear that we are recalibrating, rewiring, regenerating. My back has gone through cycles of pain. I had a few days free, felt the joy of  exercising, moving lightly. Then a spasm again and limited movement as the energy arose to move southwest. Hmmm, yes, I feel this leap to a new state, a new place to be here and yet my back is not able to sit comfortably. Packing and a twenty hour drive ahead did not seem to line up. Yet I felt only that all would work, not to be concerned. Allow. There is this softening that came in with the new year. A dream like buffer of sorts that keeps anything from being sharp or intense. “All is well” plays softly in the background throughout the day.

A zen garden offering its serenity.

I have moved out of the “flatlands” where the landscape was an unremitting gray. I find myself in a new space, each moment arising in freedom as I have no hands on the controls. I am observing all from a place of wonder and curiosity. What will present itself? I know only that this is the opening and I am moving through it. Expansion explodes on my inner vision as my true being flows in. I sense that we are all about to burst our former bonds, to fly free as the butterflies. This is the quantum leap that creates a new world.

I see each one’s light bursting forth like a star. I see the earth being covered by the light of you and you and me until there is not an inch of ground that is not bathed in this loving light. That is what it takes. To surrender and allow our truth, our glorious divine nature to shine through. One must be emptied to make enough room for the fullness to enter.

The dreamscape, softening this world. What is real, what is illusion?

Words cannot describe it. There is a wonder as I live it. Weaving rays of light so bright, I feel a new world begin to shimmer into form. There is a deep peace in this allowing, this being lived rather than living. Not my will, but thine be done. This has been the magic I sought for so long. I know now that the end of seeking is when the living truly begins. I am so grateful.

Lift off!

The house is quiet, the hearth flickers and sighs with its flames, offering heat against the freezing night. The Christmas tree keeps me company. It has been many years of solitary New Year’s Eve vigils. I had my celebration a couple of nights ago, when we helped a dear one celebrate his birthday with an outdoor fire. He cooked over the hot coals that blazed as we all tended to that fire inside. There were the hushed conversations that fires bring. Bodies huddled forward against the frigid night. Quiet laughter and firelight dancing in one another’s eyes. The stars were singing their brilliance, lit by the half moon floating high. We ended the night with a launch of fire balloons, an idea my daughter had brought back from a festival she attended in Thailand.  I found some eco- friendly ones online and ordered them for the holidays. We chose this night to be our New Year’s Eve. As we lit our balloons and held them to the sky until they tugged to fly free, we spoke our wishes in our hearts. It was magical and felt in keeping with the fluid nature of time to set our own timing for the new year. I felt such exuberant joy as our small group watched our balloons float straight up to the moon. They were then caught by a breeze that took them southward, and finally, one by one, disappeared from our sight. We were as children, filled with wonder. Exclamations of joy rang out as we followed the fiery sparks of light on their journey across the night sky.

I love the tug I felt as the balloon sought release. I wanted to float with it into that night sky.

It  was a night of harmony that felt new and alive. The birthday man had issued this invitation: ” It’s about winter and darkness and the fire we can build in it….” We all felt touched by it as we ate the celebratory cake. Their was a giddiness to the conversation, laughter at the collection of hats on our heads, dug out from the basket collected over the years. Our hearts felt innocent and free. This…this is what is opening for us all. This sense of joy, of play, innocent delight in the elements of fire, cold air, luminous paper, brilliant stars, warm hands. The coal burns yet in my heart, I have only to think of that night,to ignite its warmth once again.

My bed calls me to dream in the new day. I thank the Christmas tree with its lights and the fire in the hearth for their company. I step out to thank the stars that wink in the icy canopy of this last night of 2014. I bring in an armful of logs to stoke the hearth for this long night. Gratitude for all that has been, fills my heart. I send out my lovelight to all that is a part of this world. May we all be blessed. May joy and love and peace be made real for each one, by each one.