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Energy

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“The antidote to exhaustion is whole-heartedness.”

I love that.

I don’t know the man’s name who said it but he lived his life as a monk.

Joseph Campbell said it in a different way: something like; ‘what dire disappointment should one realize that after a lifetime of climbing up the ladder, they were headed up the wrong tree altogether.’

When I think about what WHOLE-HEARTEDNESS means to me, it goes something like this:

There is a distinct difference between living a rational life and one guided by the heart.

If one is tuned toward that song, you’ll never have the luxury of being quite sure what or who will turn up.

And because you have left the door open and a light in the window for authenticity to find you and carve out it’s nest,

There is surely not too long to wait ’till the next miracle arrives..

No matter what it’s costume.

It / he/ she may be totally unrecognizable to you.

The clothes tattered or design outdated.

Rest assured there is a reason.

And take immense pleasure in the story as it unfolds.

Or don’t as the case may be.

But know your life has no taste for four walls.

Because some thing awaits.

Not of your own imagining or making.

A new thing.

An intuition, a tear, an inspiration, a recovery, some small noticing…

A life lived REAL.

And THAT right there, is what lights my fuse..

The Return

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.

HAIKU FOR SPRING

.

The scent of good dirt

Lifted by the red tulip

Intoxicates me.

.

–CA 2010

Still Waters

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I’ve come to rest at last.

My home feels like home and I love it’s quietness, birds, cool plaster and tile surfaces.

But most of all, I love it that it seems to love me..

I set up my whole altar.

I couldn’t do it till it told me where it wanted to be.

It certainly took it’s time lookin’ around for a spot.

Funny, how after a number of years of studying non-human energies, they have made their way into my inner circle.

I actually know that without their help, there would BE no circle at all.

I know this kind of talk sounds pie-in-the-sky at best to those who have never befriended a rock.

But, I beg you.. don’t sell yourselves short.

Just watch for one to CHOOSE YOU.

Sounds silly…

Have it in your periphery consciousness that you are open to being chosen by a part of the mineral kingdom.

You don’t have to BELIEVE.

Just experiment.

Maybe when you’re walking ’round you’ll suddenly feel a slight tug to look a certain direction..

And they’re she’ll be..

Ask permission to displace her.

And see what she has to offer.

Rocks can be great protectors..warriors at the threshold of your home.

They are so dense and that very denseness can be put to use.

I get so skittish and raw in my nervous system these days that I go to them for soothing.

The more I allow NATURAL INTELLIGENCE to guide me (by that I mean the huge bundles of energy and information we’ve forgotten how to connect with like plants, creatures, moon, wind,earth), the SMOOTHER and MORE EFFECTIVE IN MY BODY AND THE WORLD I feel.

Santa Fe is a little pocket in the world in which conversations such as these are not weird or off-putting.

This town is all about tolerance; the weird, novel, innovative, naive and far-reaching.

Actually, no one really stands a chance negotiating all this upheaval now surrounding us unless we think outside the ‘life template’ we took on as true.

Be still and know.

Toss a pebble around in your pocket and just see if your day doesn’t get better…

Or maybe just different.

Good Coat

I had dinner last night with a good friend at a favorite haunt.

It was crowded and alive.

I tend toward off hours at restaurants as I can maneuver my walker better and use the time to muse and invent and create; my life as well as a carpet design of late..

My friend should give workshops in how to be a great girlfriend.

So.. we’re sitting there having a time eating chicken mole enchiladas..

My outfit for the night is one of the approximately 5-8 things in my current wardrobe.

I haven’t the stamina to think about clothes.

But I have a good coat.

It is surely one of my power tools.

It’s a medium weight cotton canvas which is finger tip length.

Good on me as I am tall.

The ‘power tool’ part of it is this:

IT IS COVERED IN EMBROIDERY!

All the colors you’d find in a garden.

I wear it when I am in good enough shape to risk attention.

Because it surely is not a neutral thing, this coat of mine.

It never ceases to amaze me how it acts as a bridge for my disability.

This is how I know design can play such an important role in equipment, lifestyle and the healthy psyches of those of us limping around on the planet.

People see my coat BEFORE the walker.

They oooohhhh and aaaahhhh and always comment.

I see that it makes them feel good to have a way to connect with me.

Rather than not addressing the elephant in the room.

Last evening, as my friend and I sat there finishing up, a good looking man passed us by on his way out the door and said as an aside “Beautiful.. both of you..”

He had been sitting at a large table of 8 people when we came in and two or three of them had exclaimed over my coat.

It seems a little thing, perhaps.

But disability carries a built in isolation.

I often don’t have the energy to connect.

Others don’t know how even if they want to.

Having a bridge such as a hat or coat or remarkable piece of jewelry can be a built in lifeline for both people involved in an exchange.

Looking good as I limp around the world helps to reframe the old paradigm of disability we all loathe; the grungy green walls and scented halls of the nursing home in your mind.

No.. a life is a precious thing.

And there is ALWAYS a way to instill it with beauty.

And find a way to invite others to participate in your precious life to the extent that YOU choose.

Win / win…

Mrs. Spencer

I remember sitting in history class taught by a very unappealingly dry Mrs. Spencer.

She was a woman in need of, shall we say, some FUN?

That class was torture for me.

I did not know it back then but my learning style needs to have LIFE of some sort attached.

If you give me just numbers and dates and a test, you will be sorely disappointed.

Last night, I finished watching the JOHN ADAMS HBO series.

The subject of hidden disabilities interests me.

As a short segue, I recently completed a public speaking course.

At the close of it, a man approached me who many considered the heckler of the group.

His displays of inappropriate commenting were tiresome at best.

What he said to me was this:

“You have a very visible disability. I have diabetes which is not apparent to others.

There is a good chance I will need my leg amputated.

I am no longer afraid since I met you and heard you speak.”

Now, this floored me…

First, because I had my opinions about him and they were pretty well set.

Second, my heart cracked open at the covert vulnerability this man gifted me with which was all covered up with bravado.

Our John Adams was an unspectacular specimen to look at.

He lacked grace in dealing with the French hotties at their fancy displays of pomp and sensual forays into pleasure-seeking frivolity.

He was scorned by his compatriots for a relentless and void-of-humor mission to corral feisty egos into a manageable and purposeful government.

He abandoned his children for the cause and asked his magnificent wife, Abigail, to test her patience beyond any human capacity for most.

And yet..

We are here, now..

Here, within the flawed but radiantly inclusive and foundationally inspired bedrock of the United States of America.

Mrs. Spencer’s disability was her inability to translate life to us, her students.

Likely, because she hadn’t touched it yet..

My disability is MS in it’s very visible ransacking of a vital and graceful physical self.

John Adams’ disability was his lack of the ‘cool factor.’

He HAD to be coarse and insistent and relentless to be heard through the din of the common denominators which ruled the day.

He tried the patience of many.

I see that my disability allows a very different kind of ‘listening’ from people I am in contact with.

I take this very seriously.

I could easily give you whining and complaint.

The religion of the wounded.

A sense of belonging, yes, but communion.. no.

This very disability has ushered me into a life so full and rich that it would make Mrs. Spencer’s toes curl from the intimacy and humility of it all.

LIFE! Raw and trying and rugged and always the new thing asking for it’s place in the car.

How much can we bear?

How much can we lose?

How do we know what is there, behind the things we lose?

Until we lose them?

Our Undoing

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There was a great comment sent to me yesterday on this blog:

“MS is my undoing, at times.”

I know the spirit in which that was sent ’cause ‘been there, felt that..’

She meant that MS can get the upper hand and sneak in a couple jabs to the most sensitive part of us and take us down.

Sneakily.. slimily…

Then walk away and leave us there to deal.

Because my mind tends toward finding the flicker of life in there, somewhere, I wonder if our ‘undoing’ isn’t precisely the point?

What if DOING isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?

Maybe, for those of us so entangled in the mire of the American dream, we need to be taken down..

With a fierce jab to the kidney.

Clock some time on the gritty ground.

And get our sights retooled.

Toward something that means something.

That has nothing to do with doing.

Inner Violence

Each time my health takes a turn..

Doesn’t matter which direction:

Feelin’ great! or… Oh, God.. make this stop….

Each time I change into something different than I was, I think I AM THAT THING FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ugg…

Where is that intellectual enchantment I know and love that has me know the solace of the in-between?

That NO THING IS AS IT SEEMS IN A STATIC OR UNMOVING AND FIXED STATE.

The opposite of this inner violent state feels like I imagine it is when one gets off the plane after landing in Hawaii (ain’t been there yet..)

You walk off the aircraft and smooth, heavy, juicy air makes way for you to pass.

Someone with an unlined face respectfully offers to lay a garland of impossibly crimson and white scented flowers around your neck and gifts you with soft eyes and a slight bow as she retreats to let the gifts work their way into your blistered soul.

I am dry from this war.

A friend has a great saying: “Look without knowing and see what you see.” -Erich Schiffmann

It is that pesky KNOWING thing that gets me in trouble.

Having a ‘die-off’ reaction from a new medication?

Giant leap into the disability chasm…

Better not count on much of anything (plans,fun,projects,LIFE ITSELF!)..

‘Cause you’re goin’ DOWN..

Then…………

I wake up with color in my cheeks and I can walk much better and my joints don’t ache and I look beautiful to myself in the mirror.

Not an ounce of that previous experience was permanent but I had it written in stone in my war chest.

I exhaust myself.

Dark Knight

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Reality check for Cath:

“Dear Cathy,

You are dealing with a formidable foe. Winning or losing is not the game. Your deeply and acutely tuned nervous system cries out for peace. Space. Time to heal. What does that mean? No more ping-ponging back and forth toward the seduction of an old and familiar life of the artist as she was. No.. she must be utterly self reliant where she can and innocently open to assistance and seek it like a heat-sensitive torpedo. Get your mind OUT OF THE FUTURE and OUT OF THE PAST and INTO THIS HEARTBREAKINGLY PRECIOUS MOMENT, dear Cathy.

Love,

All That Is”

Love

A friend told me she had read an interesting idea that three core elements which give rise to a fertile landscape for love to grow are these:

ADMIRATION, COMPASSION, and RESPECT.

I have been thinking about this and it feels right and good in my book.

Love mean a number of things to me.

Really, it FEELS a myriad of ways.

I am blessed to have so very much of it in my life.

The people I enjoy being around the most have independent and fulfilling lives.

They tend to be creative and have a high tolerance for depth in thinking and feeling.

Their circle feels complete and mine does as well.

There is no desire or inclination or tolerance for COMPLETING them in any way.

We, two separate and vital spheres, meet , and at that precious and miraculous and mysterious meeting place, stuff happens..

Or it doesn’t as the case may be.

When it does, that feels like love to me.

The song is ALWAYS different which makes for interesting theater.

When I am MET in this way, there is no drain or lessening or WORK involved.

It feels easy and enlivening and rich and wide.

Rare, in my experience, to be sure, but I am experiencing this much more often of late.

But then again, I just became REAL pretty recently so it makes sense I missed the boat a few million times because I had a leaden weight around my ankle.

The thing is, it takes TWO to meet in this way.

TWO WHOLE AND COMPLETE ENERGIES.

A figure eight.

I think about what is it really, that gave me the stamina on all levels to make it to the place I am today?

I somehow KNEW that THE RIGHT TO BE is our birthright.

Just to BE WHO WE ARE.

But we must grab it.

Reach long and wide ’til you think you’re gonna fall off the galloping horse as you grab the ring.

Then take a few years; 5 or 10 or 20…

And sink into the peace of no pretense or mask making.

The utter simplicity of just BEING.

And just watch what shows up..

Pornography

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Friday night in Santa Fe.

Single girl wants some entertainment.

And so..

What does she do?

Hightails it out to the mailbox.

And there..there it is!

The red NETFLIX envelope, praise be…!

She opens it and squeals.

MICROCOSMOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BUGS!

In all seriousness, if you have not seen two garden variety snails mating accompanied by opera, you have not LIVED.

This is the BEST nature DVD I have ever seen, bar none.

The photography is magnificent and soundtrack elegantly and sometimes humorously but always perfectly synced to the activity on the screen.

Want a good escape that tugs at your secret musings concerning whether there really is a God?

Without drugs?

Get this.

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