Little Solider

What have I sacrificed, to put emotion into writing, meaning into form, my state into image and tangible moment? Would it have been better to leave well enough alone, or to have buried such outpourings in the folds of living, not to be seen? Most likely not, as the latter could be the end of me; pent up and wondering, brimming with passing feelings, unable to breathe or move for my constriction. So then, I face an almost interminable problem: that of being ashamed to be so needing in expression, while treading the tenuous balance between longing for acceptance of personal treasures and recognizing their seemingly insurmountable limitations.

Bravery, be with me; courage in a female heart, walking upright, clad in shining silver and paper white gauze. Humility, find safe refuge in my heart, for I am nothing without you, only a mass of unspeakable torments, fumbling without reason, hurting without growth, spending my talent as water spilled on concrete slabs.

Little solider, who ran away from the protection of her regiment, ill-equipped for the danger she encountered, her own cries of fear drowning out what helpful orders could have reached her. Now limps back to position, the armor provided her dinged and broken, blackened and missing the little touches of metallurgic beauty. It’ll be alright now, as you learn to relinquish the weapons you fashioned in frightened haste, learn to once again steer your horse into formation, straighten your back in assurance, and ride on in gallant company. Speak what words you discovered in stranger countries, and weave the ribbons of your experiencing into the cracks and fragments of your armor. Life will be painted in awkward colors, after all, until we learn, until we out grow our own ideas, and live simply. Leave fear in tattered phrases by the wayside, leave anger desperation and torment in muddied colors on a passing milestone. It was all meant for your development, it was yours; see yourself there finally, and move on.

Painting by myself

Prayer for Healing

Deep in my heart there lives a little hollow. The shape no larger than what can easily be hidden in circumstance. Like a little drift away, like a non-belonging, which I shepherd tenderly about from day to day. A seed of sadness, the brand of some forgotten sin, and in its hidden lumpiness the guilty suspicion that I have no right to exist. Though all about is peace and stillness, like this little farm with its fresh covering of snow, I bleed from this secret hollow, in drops down a murky drain.

But with each new cycle the dross is cleared away, and like tender skin revealed, I once again stand shivering and pink, raw, sore and unfamiliar to my surroundings. Remembering art this time, catching the end of lengthy sun-downs, and slowly igniting love and expression.

Wondering at how poignantly the little hollow wants for real femininity. Always chasing it or denying the fabled specter in turn, feeling more Valkyrie than missus; tempestuous, recklessly valiant, sacrificing. A fighter, indelicate. A wanderer, reclusive. Ablaze with my own passions, though longing to serve in utter surrender, to burn away ego in the fire of the front lines. Gladly I’d give my being for my cause, if only life could be as simple. But the more difficult battle is the one which preserves the fighter, heals her as she laughingly removes that which hinders her salvation, and sends her onwards whole. Preserved, rejuvenated, bettered, filled, complete, alive, free.

Would that I will freely join this fight, and in walking away from the pain I pin myself down to, find joy.

Mid-Winter

The Sun and Moon at equal sight across the valley deep in Winter. Leveling off, the balance about to be shifted; tentative. Bubbling through cloud cover, purpled by its descent, a Sun diminished by the day and visible now for it’s brightness. Galantly singing in tones too soft for day lit hours, a face beneath the veil of sinking afternoon rises as the Moon, defiant, cool and unrelenting.

Back home, nurturing a penchant for empty journals, clean notebooks, sketchbooks with hard stylized covers, packages of legal pads yellow with blue lines. As if with each new purchase, a new novel of being would erupt upon the blank pages, writing itself in clear, scattery italics, telling me in plain English the inner workings of a favorite heroine, myself. She’s like a willow-warrior, reckless and ephemeral. She’s tired, sad, beautiful, and alive, like rain on Spring mornings, like a break in Winter weather. Dodging all boulders, save those she sights with tightened eyes and swallows with the frail fluidity of her being. Like water through a rocky stream, which in it’s passing beautifies the obsticles, like a stargazer upon the lip of darkening clouds, she occupies the last impossible middle between hope and despair. Her speeches come in lengthy phrases; tumbling with long words over hills of changing seasons, circumventing lips only parted enough to let a whisper through, she’ll let a reverie pass for insight before turning to her God in all the awe she can muster, and be humbled once more to silence.

Mid-way; Winter about to turn, and a weakened heroine about to choose a new beginning. Under growing Light, myself, the season awaits the change.

Painting by myself

Unrelinquished

Tidied up the pile of empty wrappers, found a note I regretted forgetting and fished a wriggling ladybug from the paint-water. Wait a few minutes for the tea, relax an aching wrist and forearm. One of those lonely, dangerous days, when life is a shadow of what it could be, when eyes and teeth are extensions of a tattered state; biting and looking about, rimmed in dull red, impatient.

When ill, all life is a poignant exercise in experiencing - each littered moment a metaphor. As I struggle to allow myself to exist, life blares forth around me, clamoring into the foreground, numbing my effect upon it.

Felt different now for about a year. A year long voyage across the sea, the rough weather breaking only in intervals, while the bulk of the voyage progresses in one long tightening swell of remorse and despair. By shaking waves, but ebb and flow, I’ve undergone a sea change. Dinged and polished at once, in the refining yet wearing dance the ocean currents preform, tossed, uplifted and pulled down under the great weight of watery being. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to open all this up, reveal it and look plainly upon it, but I’m here now, and I feel like I have to regard it.

Taken aback by how much I still search for acceptance and recognition from others. This gnawing for recognition, for attention on my own terms, for praise I can understand, for qualities I myself choose to cultivate, for the person I have decided I am. Friendship I am just waking up to, compassion for myself a peaceful shrine to a pilgrim just beyond her door, and the blessing of help available at my fingertips if only frightened lips would dare part to ask for it. Usually, I feel all alone, and this along with many other limited perspectives that have become reality, must begin to fade. Everyday I choose again to allow myself to exist; let Love guide me, let me ever again decide to turn my face to It’s endless Justice, for I am allowed to remain here by It, and I must not give up on that which Love had not relinquished either.

Decide, and begin anew

Part of me assumes that one day, I’ll walk into the woods and lay my body, exhausted finally from the hurt and struggle, down into the leaves, and release myself from mortality. In ending, singing at last the song I’ve murmured through my life, releasing with life the best of myself. Able to escape at last, able to express itself in a final gasp, a secret melody liberated. And I, free from the need to work it out with my own two hands, free from the pressure of something burning inside. Something whose intricacy my fingers flail against and in myriad media, scratch out echos of what it could be, what it longs to be. Tired of all these, she lays her head upon the fallen leaves, each a whisper, each a piece of what could have been. Then she begins to dream. Wandering away from the noises of the past, and she finds the dying day beautiful beyond imagination, filling her eyes still she closes them, and a great Love travels straight to her heart. A few more paintings to go, a better dance step, an artful pile of unwashed dishes: life beckons once more with the softest of touches, lingering in the sensitive hollows of my body, holding me here, for as long as here lasts, like the fading sundown. Each cloud calling out in harmony to the beauty of living; a chorus of birthing yells, a giving of every effort in order to realize something new, something inexpressibly beautiful. Tired of all these, she sent her body to the forest to die, and instead, sent her heart back to the Creator, and chose to walk a while, while the light lasts, while the Sun lingers, while beauty and Grace still far outnumber her troubles.

Digital art "Surrender" by myself

A little fall down...

The bitterness of real cold begins to seep in, and with offended surprise we pile ourselves into sturdier attire. The days a play of peaking gold against steely cover of cloud; the nights all too swift in the coming, with a waxing moon to keep us company. Haul it all in, the work and growing of the year, and festively explode into good cheer and giving, until absorbed in good feelings, we forget the longest night ahead. I’m tenuous as the season; nerves humming in a new pitch, wanting to give yet hunkering down, remembering Light in a stormy dark in my own mind.

I see myself balancing between self destruction and pride; faults keeping tenuous equilibrium through a battered about world. When the one out weighs the other, watch out, for tidal wave of hurt, anger, loathing, fear and false pride hits a shallow shore of being. Self destruction seems to be at the heart of so many matters of my heart. What brought me to the Grail Message, what did I find there? I found the answer, which was, that I have to keep living. I have to keep living. I’m not off the hook despite my raging self-violence, I’m still a worthy piece of humanity somewhere, inside where that little piece refuses to die. Trying my best to wash away myself, I failed, and wondering why I was still alive, why I couldn’t forget that piece of me I still loved, I grabbed for the Grail Message. I’m alive, and I’m meant to be, and I have to carry on, I have to be a better human, and get out what’s inside me, for the good.

Recede

As the life recedes from bough and limb, the forest kindled down to the bare spaces in between, the hills return as dearest friends. Stretching this way and that, our view now clear, they embrace our little life upon their slope, and with delicate, dignified gaze, remind us of those forces unseen yet stronger than ourselves, those which surround and support us always, and of the great Love those forces harbor.

We enter, as Nature exits, the festive season. Throwing the Thanksgiving turkey into my car, I sidle a bottle of Japanese green tea and a bar of Austrian chocolate into one hand. I throw the keys into the ignition and a Celtic blast ignites the ride home. I’m jangling through a traffic of cars like a lightening bolt on my custom suspension, forking to the rhythm of elation and jive, speeding to the joy of my own existence. I’m an American; burdened with the duality of knowing what is means to struggle for the impossible and to be constantly catered to. Proud and lonely country, set against its own vastness, falling down in a beautiful sunset, waving in a stiff, unending breeze. Pride is a sin after all, and we have fallen for it. Against the backdrop of our spacious land, our wild forests and giant skies, our pettiness is in ever greater relief. At a standstill without anything to stand on, remembering a dream that we assumed was accomplished long ago, always trying to go back.

When life turns away from boundlessness, the quiet realization strikes that not every option is open to us, not every summit climbable. I remember now the deepest jewels in my treasury, those a little nicked but burning with an inner fire of their own. Rubies like lingering oak leaves, emeralds steadfast pine, and diamonds like the stars of ever-lengthening night. Look to the aspects that out-last a fading, and find hope.

Photo - Lonely Sky