inevitable change, inevitable intimacy

I woke up this morning and knew I am going to write about my time in the cabin.

I trust I will meet all manner of critics on my way to the end of this assignment.

this is what I have to do next.

Easel painting has not been calling me the same way it used to. 

For over forty years it was my way to express my love, to be in love.

I was painting a sycamore from my window, last week, from life. 

It felt like we were letting go of one another, painting and me. 

I was saying thank you for how it has held me so long, it has given me a way to be. 

It may not be enough, I am growing.

I didn't want to grow like this, out of the familiar way of being myself.

when I write, someone is listening.

when I paint, it is just me seeing, listening.

It almost feels unbearable to paint right now, to feel this change in me. 

This was my experience painting the sycamore last week.

Maybe they are the same in the end, painting and writing, so intimate and communicative, too.

I don't know.

but I am called to write now, about intimacy.

I'm calling the proposed book, or will it be one long prose poem.... "time out."

The form it takes will definitely be new for me.

it is so weird, my camera takes a picture, I think it will upload and it disappears. 

Technology is helping me to let go.

It has something to do with the new settings…….

yes, Time Out.

as usual, I am fascinated by change.

and love.

near sighted

There is a benefit of being near sighted.
I stay close to home, even when I am traveling afar.
I need eye to eye contact,
and that in itself requires a certain physical distance.
I am leaning way into my nearsighted life these days.


more thoughts on this will take form
there are no mistakes.

breathing, it bears repeating

Life
gifts me with breath.
All I have to do is allow it in.
I have been holding my breath long enough,
afraid of life itself...

the pink castle

I wake up and keep my eyes closed

Trolling the space I have left behind in sleep

For dream fragments.

Sometimes I can only find one picture

And I feel the expectation I carry

that anything I find will 

be a key

To the question who am I?

What am I doing here?

The fragment for me is a link I think I need 

to a homeland I have forgotten.

In the past if I couldn’t find anything

It would be one of those days when I got up on the wrong side of the bed,

Disturbed.

I can see now that is a good set up for a “bad day.”

This morning

No clear piece came from dream land.

Though what surprised me was an image from the past.

Dream like, the image rose up 

A girl’s drawing of a pink castle 

I had found her drawing on a rainy walk in Freilassing.

I brought it back to my studio and saved it, laid it out to dry.

I could relate.

When the image came to me this morning my heart was heavy.

They say a man’s home is his castle

But I feel a woman’s home is so very often deeply connected to her life.

Is this true for you?

When life circumstances invite a woman to let that home go

Quite a journey begins.

This morning I am inspired to ponder letting go of my castle,

The land and home on Keyser Run.

Five acres of woods and hills and fields and gardens and paths.

The place a family grew up

The place I was carried through my own initiation as a mother

And wife.

I will take myself through the rooms of that castle in the next days

To find my way home, again.

I have lived in many houses. 

I begin to feel the threads of every home I created.

Whether it was the room of a girl created with the help of my mother's sewing skills 

or the house of a woman or the woodland Hütte of a wild woman on the brink of herself.

Did I ever let them go?

Was I told to let them go?

Do I need to let them go?

In one of the first moves of our Navy family, my Dad said he was proud that I could let go of a pet. He had chosen a career that called for moving, of course he would want this letting go to be learned at an early age. How could he know what else was always working in me if I could not show my feelings?

Now is the time for tears,

they are allowed when they rise. 

I understand them to be signs that something or someone has been loved,

even if it was "just a dream".

I have loved.

This is what matters more than anything, ever. 

In acknowledging these changes and the loss woven into them,

I can acknowledge a love of self and what I have created 

as the expression of home, 

in all the phases of my life. 

And in this silence I can find the key 

that opens the door 

to what lives always already before my ever changing sense of self, 

as girl or woman.

sharing the woods

I am sharing the woods with a hunter.

Taking my walk as the day came to its close

I noticed the path I have made was disturbed.

Seeing a tuft of deer fur in a tree to my left

I see another piece to my right.

they hung, stuck on small branches

by their once moist flesh.

I thought, 

what ?

It looks like a marker of sorts.

I peeled them off and tossed them into the woods.

Yes, this might annoy him,

and he is sure to explain their use.

(I have already unintentionally disturbed one shot.

Now I know the truck on the driveway means he is there.)

He has clomped through an otherwise quiet path.

We've meet and he is a careful and skilled man.

A hunter is sharing the woods with me.

eat pray love letter to Suzy

I am not sure that I did ever read the book !

I am now,

and I like it.

her spirituality did not come through to me through the actress.

or maybe I had just forgotten my own.

it all being a projection, this is likely.
I had definitely misplaced my sense of humor.

I wanted to stay in italy 

I wanted to stay in the ashram 

and I sure wanted to stay in that handsome man's arms..........

I watched the film when I was in Germany.

it was during the week when he was getting desperate to please me,

to acknowledge that he did want me to be there. 

so he took me out to a movie.

he was surprised that he enjoyed the film, too.

I remember that part.

today I begin the next steps of my journey with ALisa and Adyashanti.

I woke up this morning with a new sense of the silence in me 

in relation to the words and their power that I am able to feel when I write.

I feel relationship in a new way, there is a depth to the fact that I am writing to you right now and that I am taking the time to be as clear as I can about where I am.

my mother told me yesterday that she had read the poem I wrote about the path and the way. she always admired my writing since high school. and then, I could not receive her support, it did not mean anything at the time. and she said that my paintings were gorgeous yesterday, too.  I had never heard her say something like this either.  she is passing something on to me. I feel it. her speech is labored but she said it does not tire her to speak.. yesterday I could feel her love energy in her communication with me.  I am aware of something alive, that I was not able to be aware of before, when I was in so much pain.  maybe that is all that has happened, the pain of being so confused if I am good or bad has lessened...

what I see is  beautiful. I am not motivated to paint it like I used to . I am motivated to write about the fact that I can see this beauty and it is nearly indescribable. I sense that the paintings will come again on their own, that door is always open. the paint is always here when needed.

I am slowing down

and feeling potency in me.

the potency is in the silence

that every word can carry

and that I can trust it to carry

when I bring it forth.

I am returning somehow to my beginning

it is interesting to notice,

Rilke is by my side again, the paint colors are near by

and I have something to write with,

and of course, a cup of coffee.

I am motivated to communicate

to share living in every way that moves me

and to simply be this living. 

the leaves of the sycamore are flying in the wind

the sky is pure endless blue
the trees

have absorbed summer's sun

taking it deep inside

they will offer the most beautiful soft magenta hues 

in the dead of the winter

!

I am inspired by my own life again.

it's getting better all the time
wisps of cloud have joined the clear blue.

I woke me up to something beautiful this morning, Suzy.

my life.

my life was in relationship 

I did not have to name to what, 

to know to what.

in moments like this I know the Beloved is near.

it was good to talk with you yesterday.

to share our bafflement and wonder

at the ebb and flow of this creation,

making our lives new and ever more useful.

useful as in of service.

this is a joyful moment in my life.

I feel glad to share it with you.