Do I Deserve Anything?

I called my mom yesterday and borrowed $175 from her so I could make my rent this month. At the age of 44 I sincerely thought the days of calling mom, possibly crying, for money to cover some emergency bill were long behind me. Instead after at least a good 15 years of being single and supporting myself in all areas of my life I am once again calling mom, and to her credit she did it without adding anything to the guilt trip I've already placed on myself.

I hate this place. I hated it when I was younger even though I knew if I called crying mom would find a way to bail me out. I did a lot of "borrowing" from her just like my older sisters - borrowing in quotes because it often never got paid back. I never liked how that felt and somehow managed to break the cycle. First paying her back for dollars I borrowed and then stopped asking to borrow at all. It feels weird being back here, borrowing and not really knowing I can pay her back; eating ramen noodles and hot dogs because it's cheap. I hate it here, probably more than I did then.

As a college student that's just how life worked, knowing that once you graduated and got that wonderful job you'd been working for for so long that you wouldn't be eating ramen noodles and whatever leftover munchies your roommate brought home from her job in the school cafeteria. Sacrifice now for a better life later. Except that now it is later and here I am, shockingly close to being unemployed, stretching $200 a month in food stamps to last the whole month and eating ramen and hot dogs, and whatever food my friends graciously send home saying they weren't going to eat it anyway. This fucking sucks.

I've been questioning it alot lately too. How I ended up here, again, so far from where I imagined I'd be by this point. Really if I think back I had no idea who I would be at 44 but assumed I'd have figured out the secret to a successful life long before now so that now would be easy, or at least easier. I gave up the corporate rate race 8 years ago and became self-employed with a house cleaning business I have thuroughly enjoyed. This most recent colapse happened when at the prodding on my Spirit I decided to move back to Tennessee; this meant moving the business which up to this point has never been that hard to do.

Business however slow it's been over the last several years has never been this bad. And I have no idea what is causing people not to call. I've gotten lots of speculation about it though; the economy, the heat, the government voting on a debt ceiling, people aren't going on vacations this summer and staying home instead, etc. I can see bits and pieces but nothing really makes any sense. The question that keeps coming up that I have been refusing to look at is this; as I keep hoping, having faith in that place in me that moved me to move in the first place, you're not really going to ask me to do something like that and then leave me with no way to support myself are you? no way to make this new life function? How do I stay awake and engaged and not drown in my own guilt for letting this happen again? How do I not be angry at my own Spirit for leading me here and then seemingly dropping me off to fend for myself? How do I not give up on myself?

Spiritually I've grown and expanded a thousand fold the last two months and for that I can not accurately express how grateful I am. Even as unhinged as I am right now I know I wouldn't be handling this situation as well as I am if it weren't for that. But there's always issues to work on. I realized last night after sitting with all this that my ugly issue of "I don't deserve it" was rearing it's head and I didn't even recognize it as it slinked its way in and started suffocating me. "I don't deserve it" has so many faces I stopped attempting to catalog them. It's sneaky too showing itself as an assistant, as what I think would most help me at any given moment, working it's way into my confidence and then once I relax it squeezes like a python until I will do absolutely anything just to be able to breathe again. And it wins getting me to make choices based on fear instead of love.

"I don't deserve it" requires me to sacrifice my happiness and self-love. And you can replace "it" with anything. For this example, I don't deserve to live the life of my dreams, so in order to inhabit this life I moved here to have I have to sacrifice my personal happiness to make it work. I don't deserve to have this life I was lead to The truth is my Spirit doesn't operate that way. She doesn't invite me to dream about things I cannot have. She doesn't tease me into making detrimental decisions out of boredom or cruelty.

And I have to have the faith that this is all leading me somewhere, to a place of strength in myself that I am unfortunately unaware of right now. Yet the other side to the story is I've made commitments to pay rent and utilities and feed my dog and cat and maintain my vehicle, none of which I can trade housecleaning for. I want to be that person who is responsible and meets their commitments head on. Right now I am absolutely sure I am failing.

Untitled Poem Inspired by The Sun Magazine

I received the August 2011 issue of The Sun yesterday and saw the attached picture on the contents page and simply could not let it pass. I also could not stop looking at the picture, feeling it stirring me. So I sat and wrote. This is what came out of that. No name yet, and I'm not at all sure it's finished, but it's done for now. Sometimes it's just more important to follow the thread than for it to make any kind of literal sense at all. Enjoy! Photo by Edis Jurcys (www.edisphoto.com)

(NOTE: the attached image quality is poor. my scanner is not working and i couldn't find it on the web anywhere so i took a photo with my phone and emailed it to myself. i suggest picking up a copy of the august 2011 issue of the sun to experience full impact of the photo.)



UNTITLED

The Winds let loose
their Mystery
as I watched threads of silvery light
dance tremulously with the mist.

I lay there
breath-full
parted lips soft with curiosity
as knowledge curls its way up,
prayers of visible breath.
The Winds turning us all toward Source.

Then the Moon spoke
voice ancient with illumination,
vibration palpitating my cheeks.
A breath in and I am cracked open,
exhale and I am something new.

The Earth shimmered
and became soft under my hips and heels,
caressing me with her feathery fingers.
They all moved as one
and I, along with them,
realized the moment,
the connection, the oneness.

StarShield is Dreaming of Jaguars

I had a dream recently, the symbols floating through like memories. Maybe it was really a memory of a life I've lived before, woken and brought into focus. It wasn't specific events, a story unfolding and pointing me to something, a journey, yet it was a specific place and moment. This was more a feeling, a feeling of who I am, being revealed a breath at a time, the images burned into the back of my eyelids. I'm a little afraid I made it all up, that if I blink too much they will vanish. I am changed by this I am sure if for nothing else I feel I now speak fluent Jaguar. I journaled for almost an hour when I woke, the words feeling wholly inadequate to the experience, yet a necessary movement, expression, of what I know. Here is a small exerpt from that journaling experience as its necessary to move it out into the world.




I Have A Dream



I am on a mountain
thick with leafy trees
warm air, thick forest sounds.
I am teaching in a village
Jaguars abound.


I am happy
I am Loved
I am living my freedom.

I feel my relationship with the Earth.
I am expression of the Dream on Earth.
I am living my purpose here.

Jungle, villagers, dancing,
sweet smells, Joy.
I am at peace
I am at peace
I am at peace.

I am in a small dwelling
at the edge of a round clearing
I am with a man.
We trek, hike, explore, enjoy this place.
He supports my teaching,
my desire to share what I know.

I am teaching.
I am teaching children.
I am saying prayers where ancient people said prayers.
I live in sacred connection and relationship.
I am imprinting the grid with Love.
I am compassion.
I am at peace.

King of My Thing

I heard this song on the radio today and in the midst of a rowdy sing along decided it would be the perfect dedication to my obnoxious neighbors, lazy landlords and the situation that has been unraveling quickly and unpleasantly over the last 2 months.

I rent a small 1 bedroom "in-law" cottage and share the driveway and property with whomever is renting the main house. My front door faces and is at most 10 feet off the driveway. The girls that rented the house just before Thanksgiving are early 20's party girls with a constant rotation of cars and people into the wee hours of the morning. The landlords and police on different occasions have been called yet the drama continues and is escalating. I have had it out with the landlords twice and we have come to an impasse, their perspective being "there is nothing (they) can do." I am actively looking for another place to live.

I continue to move through a roller coaster of emotional issues surrounding this situation. Number one being it seems that no matter what I do it somehow turns out to be the wrong thing. All I really want is for someone to get it; I live here too, cars in and out/up and down the driveway at 2am wake me up, people standing in the driveway smoking and whooping it up wake me up, my car got broken into and wallet and iPod stolen from the glove box during one of their parties, I haven't slept through the night in almost 2 months, I no longer feel safe in my own home. And I get more frustrated and angry the more I feel I am ignored.

Through this experience I've found ways I don't stand up for myself and behavior patterns that leave me lashing out to get attention I think I ought to have. It's left me curled in a ball in my bed, teary eyed, wondering what the hell I did to deserve any of this. And it's demanded I stare my own deep insecurities in the face while telling me I don't have a right to do anything about any of them.

A couple days ago though I woke up very clear in myself that I was done and I was going to stop fighting for my side to be heard. I had a pinpoint moment of pure clarity showing me what I'd been doing was working really hard to get them to change and suddenly I knew this was a big part of my stress. I can't expect anyone to change so I can be happy. My only job is to take care of me, make choices for me instead of working to find middle ground with people that won't even stand in the same room with me. And this is a pattern for me, work to make room for everyone else and get frustrated because they won't acknowledge I'm waiting in the wings for my turn.

That moment of clarity, though still with me, has faded a bit as I return to this house every day after work and still have to work around the unpleasantness leaking out from next door. But hearing this song gave me a little boost and reminded me that really no one outside of me can tell me who I am and I'm giving the neighbors and the landlords way to much authority over my experience. It just doesn't matter that they don't see my side and they just don't get it...or me. So yea, who cares if they disagree, they are not me. And I am the master of my own experience.

Of course, while singing loudly in the car, asking them who died and made them the king of any part of my life I realized that if I'm dedicating it to them, I have to dedicate it to my own ego as well. That internal creator of personal chaos that is telling me they don't get it, how much I'm the victim in all this crazy and all the rest of the debilitating things it tells me to get me to react out of fear. I have to stop giving my ego any authority over how I operate, perceive or think.

This knowledge burst over me like a pop-up thunderstorm, quick and cleansing. Though by no means new information it moved through me on a very intentional course to my heart and made me laugh out loud. I have been wasting so much of my time and energy, I can be free now, I make all the decisions, especially the placement of my attention. I started getting excited about the prospect of being free from what other people think, or probably more accurately my own judgements of myself, and then realized that standing in that place the way I've put myself together up to that point no longer holds true. And here's the work....letting go of what's not working anymore, what's no longer true while learning to put myself together in a way that feels true but incredibly foreign.

Now I can say thank you to the neighbors and the landlords for their time and remember it's really not necessary to learn through pain, Love is also an amazing teacher. The world can tell me whatever it wants to tell me about who or what or how I should be and I can just smile knowing I don't have to be anything more than the king of my own thing.

The Vacuum Cleaner Chronicles

My vacuum cleaner died last night. And not a simple kind of death that it just stopped working, instead it came apart in fairly large pieces in my hands as I worked to replace the broken belt. I kept thinking as another piece dropped limply in my hand that I would be able to figure out how to put it back together but as the motor dropped with a deadly thud to the floor in a puff of dust that proved to be it's last breath, I realized I had to let it go.

It wasn't a new vacuum, an older model Hoover that required you to plug in the hose to use any of the 4 standard attachments. And it was a barter, I received it in exchange for helping a client move a couple years ago. It didn't look like much but worked great and was the perfect gift at a time when money was especially tight. And I knew it was dying for almost a year. I've been looking at vacuums for a while but either can't find one with all the features I want or find one that looks good and just don't want to spend over $100 for a new vacuum, especially when it lives in the trunk of my car.

But the process of watching this one come completely apart in my hands reflected back to me what I tend to do internally and clarified what was happening in my life at that moment. I continue patch myself together so I can keep going, keep what is known in place, maintain the status quo. And even though I have developed a deep appreciation for the process of change, that things must die to make room for the new, I still resist the letting go. And now, with a dismantled vacuum in pieces at my feet I see it, to get what I want I have to let go of what I know, that what I know is coming apart and it's ok to let it die.

I bagged up all the vacuum pieces today and took the bag out to the trash can. I'll set it all down by the street and magically, by the time I leave for work Thursday morning, it will all be gone. So I'm taking this moment to acknowledge the work going on there; the transformation, the death, the rebirth the clarity. I'll get a new vacuum sooner rather than later and start letting go in all the tiny hidden places in myself where I'm holding on to how it's been, how it's supposed to be. And I'll move on.