Stream of Conciousness

It’s been a little while since I’ve written another blog, I’m having a hard time deciding what to make this blog post about.  Too many topics.

SO, I’m going to do.... Stream of Consciousness:

My throat feels funny.  I think it’s because of the herbs that I just took.  They seem to be pretty intense but make me feel better... the main thing I notice about them is they make me sh.... wait I don’t want to cuss right there.... they make me poop....  boring, I want to write something more entertaining.  My herbs make my bowels spout off about 4 times a day, like Old Faithful!    ... haha groos!  But it’s true.  My stool is soft and comes gushing out of my body when I am taking my herbs.  My naturopath would like it if I took them everyday and finished my HUGE bag in just a month... it’s taken me about 2.5 months to reach the end of my bag.  Oh well.  I’m not too worried about it.  The herbs hurt my stomach sometimes, so it’s hard to take as much as she would like.  Maybe the next batch will have a mix that is easier for my stomach to handle and therefore I will be able to ingest them more frequently.

Enough about herbs what else am I thinking about?  TMD.  Logan.  Housemates. Game night.  Motorcylces!  I can see my hands in the reflection of my screen as I type.  :)

I did TMD 2 weekends ago.  TMD is a weekend training that stands for Transformational Mind Dynamics.  Through TMD, I can see more clearly what I’ve been trying to see about myself for a long time.  It has altered the way I see my life and how I see the world too.  I feel like the world is less scary and I can take risks and fail or succeed and neither really matter in the grand scheme of things.  Sounds nice doesn’t it?  It’s true.  I now have a pretty good idea about what is holding me back.  I usually play my life in such a way that if things happen, then they should have happened and if they don’t then so be it.  I guess you could say I lived out the “fate” idea.  I used to fight for what I wanted at about 75% to play safe.  Just in case the world had other plans.  Ha what a victim.  Now I choose to fight for my life and desires at 100%.  If I fail, bummer, but I have a better chance at succeeding now.  I choose to let people in, I didn’t before, just in case they hurt or left me.  Now I want to let them in.  Some will leave but others will stay and love me the way I’ve been craving for so long, yet never allowing anyone close enough to do it.

I have decided that I am going to be proactive in my life.  How am I going to do that?  Well, a number of ways... I am going to hang flyers up about my reflexology/reiki business.  I have them made and I am going to go print them today.  I am going to get an office for reflexology.  I am going to speak up and allow people to know me and make myself known.  I am going to make friendships happen.  I am letting Logan know who I am, what I really think and how I feel more so than I ever have before.  I will ask my mom questions about what she said that offended me instead of get quite and upset. 

This is going to be fun.

I’m hungry.  I want to eat something else.  Hmmm just finished my Cream of Rice.  So good btw, have you tried that stuff!!??  Hmmm 

Oh!  Teya is coming home soon!!  I miss that girl so much!  I want to convince her to move into my house with us :)  Shhhhhh 

Do yourself a favor and massage your feet some today!  It feels so good!  here's a diagram to explore your feet by <3

Still

Still

I still dream of you.  I see you behind closed eyelids, even when I can’t see you through open ones.  I see us walking together in Russia.  You are wearing a blue cloak and I a brown... leaving footprints in the snow.  Going where?  I don’t know.  Doesn’t seem to matter.

I see us standing on a golden platform hung by golden chains in the perfect balance.  We are both radiant blue light beings wrapped in an embrace that every heart yearns for.

I still dream of you.  Even though I have cut the cords between us over and over again.  You still come back.  I see us in a hotel lobby.  I am doing reflexology for your lovely companion.  I am doing energy work to encourage her path.  And when I leave I am overwhelmed with my own life and collapse outside.  You come and remove the blockage in my solar plexus and I am able to continue onward. 

I see us together as the fool and the world.  I see us together underground.  Perhaps it was a vapor cave of some sort.  In so many places, I see us.

I still dream of you.  I also still hear from you.  Not in any physical way.  I hear your voice in my head, like so many spirits I’ve talked to before you.  You always come in your pure, true, loving self.  You come with comfort and advice.  Sometimes you come just to tell me or show me a joke to make me laugh.  You visit me a lot.  Did you know that? 

I try to tell you to go.  I tell you that you don’t really want to be here or you would be here physically as well.  But you don’t go.  Even now I can feel your presence.  I tell you to leave.  I tell you that I have cut the cords and that I have done everything I can to separate myself from you.  So you leave for a few days only to return again... to my secret glee and to my hearts lament. 

I dream of you.  Yet, I have let everything go.  I will not hold on to you despite your strange hold on me.  I will let "what is" be what is.  I trust things are as they should be and I will learn to float through what life presents as a pianists fingers float over the keys of an arpeggio. 

Beloved

Listen to this as you read, if you so wish.

It’s time to say goodbye.... hmmm hm hm hmmmm hm hm

I love that song.  I love it almost as much as I love you.  I love your smile.  You face is one of the most gorgeous things I’ve ever seen.  And it doesn’t even compare to how beautiful you are on the inside.  Your beautiful spirit can only partially be represented in your body.  I love the mess of your hair and the musk of your skin.  I love the magical, tender caress of your touch.  I could absolutely melt in your kisses, and in fact I have many times over.  You don’t need anything else when you can kiss like that.  I love our talks, discussions and heated debates.  The way we talk of ideas is something I crave more than chocolate.  I even love how unbearably hot it gets sleeping next to you; I know I will always be warm when you are beside me.  I love the way your laugh trickles and falls from your being like water through the mountain cascades.  The way the light dances in your deep blue eyes, the way they sparkle when you are about to tickle or tease me.  I could gaze into your eyes for decades.  

But that’s the problem.  I could go on like this forever and be completely happy..... if only.......  I know I have your love, I have your body, I have your company and your eternal friendship.... if only I had your heart.  But I may never have your heart, be that because it belongs to another or because you refuse to give it, it doesn’t matter.  I don’t have it and I don’t know I ever will.  I can’t go on like this.  I’ve chosen to whore myself out... for my own selfish reasons.  Sweetly, we used each other.  It was wonderful and I would do it again.  

I was once told that I have no business sleeping with someone I don’t want to have kids with.  I wouldn’t mind at all having your children.  I smile to think of you with a child.  You would be a wonderful father; any child would be lucky to call itself yours.  However, as you can see, I am a whole person and cannot separate my selfish self from my heart any longer.  So I must separate from you.  My heart has been yours once before and you loved it and took care of it to the best of your abilities.  You poured love and time and gentleness into it.  You adored it.  You helped me to see for myself what there is to adore.  I can never repay that kindness back to you in the same way it meant to me.  But you did not choose me; against logic you followed your heart... for the reason that your heart never fully rested completely with me.  Again, you do not choose me.  And that is why it’s time to say goodbye, my love.

I close my eyes and am swept away by the melody of this song and let a tear escape my eyelids.  I will miss you like the sky misses the stars.  I will miss you like the flower misses the rain.  I will miss you like the melody misses the music.  I will miss you like the ocean misses the shore, in which it rests and with which it crashes against in misty, playful gales of laughter.  I will miss you, but you aren’t gone.  For I know that I will always have your friendship and I will always carry a love for you in my heart.  I know that if I ever need anything you will be there to support me in love and caring words.  I know that I will always do that same for you.  But it’s time to stop this illusion.  It’s time to face reality.  It’s time for me to really know that you are not mine as I wish you to be, nor am I yours.  It’s time to say goodbye...

With all my love,

And with friendship offered for eternity, no matter what ensues,

Yours,

Erica.

The Walking Man

7 am.  My eyes flutter open and I smile at the dark ceiling like I always do at this hour.  I haven't been able to sleep past seven since I was a teacher for so many years.  I don't mind though, there's something magical in the early morning hours.  

I start to move my body in attempts to wake it up.  My bones and joints creak, moan and crack like my old trailer house does when the wind blows.  Slowly, I can feel life begin to flow through my limbs and I roll over to prop myself into a sitting position. 

I slide my feet into my trustee slippers so my feet stay warm while I dress.  My big toe pokes out of the blue fleece on the left foot, but I don’t mind.  I leave my pajama pants on and put my jeans on over top.  It’s cold out this morning and I want to stay warm.  I put on a couple sweaters and my blue hat too.  Then I look around for my orange reflective vest that the snowplow man gave me.  A snowplow almost hit me 3 years ago; I had to run off the road to avoid the blade.  It scared the driver so much that he gave me the reflective jacket so it wouldn’t happen again.  I’ve worn it every morning ever since.  Then I remember I couldn’t find it yesterday.  I haven’t been able to go out for 8 months now.  I don’t know where I put the darn thing.  So I shift my way over to the coat closet by the front door and pull out the next best thing, my bright yellow coat.  There’s some black on it but it’s mostly yellow, so I will be seen even though it’s not reflective.  I put it on and then pull on my oversized mittens. 

Every morning since I retired at 72, I have gone on my early morning walk.  I live close to the highway and I like to walk up and down the hill a mile and a half.  That makes 3 miles.  I would trot on the flat spots and walk on the hills.  There are two spots that are flat.  Every morning I would walk, even when it’s 0 degrees outside... all you need is enough clothes and when you get cold, walk faster.

Then last spring I fell when I was trottin’.  My doctor told me I shouldn’t be trottin’ anymore.  I have a heart problem and something might happen to me.  And then one morning I woke up with water in my lungs.  I didn’t even walk after that.

But 3 months ago I started walking again.  Not outside, but inside my house.  I live in a 60-foot trailer.  I walk up and down the thing.  I started off only walking two times up and down.  I kept adding more walking.  And for the last month I walked a quarter mile.  I figured it out by doing the math.  And this, here, this is my walker that my son gave me.  It has big wheels on it for walking outside.  If I hold on to this I won’t fall.  So today I’m going back outside.  I won’t walk all 3 miles.  I will start with only 1 mile today. 

When you see me walking, you stop by and say hi.  I like talking to people.  But if you don’t stop to talk, I will wave at you anyhow.  I wave at every car that passes by.

___________________________________________

This was my way of telling you about the man that I have come to call The Walking Man.  His name is John Queen and I’m not sure how old he is but according to him he retired a long time ago, when he was 72.  Every morning I went to Powderhorn to work during the winter, I would see him walking in his orange reflective road vest.  Rain, snow, wind, sun, it didn’t matter, unless it was a really bad storm.  And without fail, he would wave to me every time I passed him.  He would make my day.

Then this year I decided to get him something from powderhorn as a gift and to tell him that he inspired me and that it made me happy every time I saw him.  But then I didn’t see him, and didn’t see him and I looked every day.  I was afraid that he had died or gotten really sick or moved.  Then I saw him just this last week.  I was late for work but stopped anyway and was able to give him the sweater I bought him and learn his name and some of his story.  He teared up and was very happy I stopped and asked me to stop again someday.  It made my day so much brighter.

Above: The road John Walks on

Healthy Shmealthy (rant)

*Rant beware of language*

Above: language buffer photo and I really like these mountains.  :) (only positive thing in this blog)


I am fucking sick and tired of trying to be healthy and improve my self.  No matter what I do, I never have the energy that I used to before ...whatever the fuck happened to me or I did to myself (whatever perspective you decide to take) my senior year of high school.  I had so much energy!  And now all the sudden I want am not happy unless I get at least 9 hours of sleep a night, I would rather have 12 though.  Holy Shit!!  How in the world am I supposed to get anything done when all I want to do is SLEEP!???!?!  I'm so frustrated!  I'm so frustrated that I'm crying right now....

I slept from about 10 - 6 this morning which should be awesome and I went to work at the ski resort that I usually love to be at and had no energy.  In fact, my whole body is freaking out.  My pelvic girdle hurts, my lower back hurts and when I was on my board my knee just decided to get out of whack for god know why.  I can't straighten it now without some pretty intense pain.  When I got home I slept for another 2 hours got up to eat some dinner and watch a movie by myself and all I want to do is go back to bed.  Food doesn't taste good.  I eat because I'm hungry and need energy and I stop eating because I usually start to feel nauseous.  Tonight I only ate cream of rice and thank god! I didn't feel nauseous afterwords.  I don't want to ride my snowboard or my bike which usually makes me happy.  I don't want to live in Paonia but I don't want to go anywhere else.  I want to hide in the stories in my books, and when I don't have energy for that then I want to watch a movie and when I don't have energy for that then I want to sleep.

I'm supposed to be studying "healing diets".  I am supposed to do a fast.  I can't even make it one day on a fast "preparation!!" diet because I loose all my energy and therefore can't even function to do my daily work.  FUCK!

Holy shit!  I'm like a walking zombie.  I don't like anything!  What the hell is wrong with me!?

What's the point of living healthy if I fucking don't want to live anymore?  Quality of life?  I don't think so! It's only quantity of life.  Do I really want to find the fountain of youth if it steals my joy for living? God sometimes eating a greasy hamburger and fries and drinking a cherry limeade is all I want to do.  But that's not "healthy" our bodies don't do well when we eat meats and sugars and not to mention dairy.

Maybe it's not healthy living, maybe I think I'm being healthy by following the rules and I really am not?  Maybe I'm not really following god and I'm following satan and that's why my energy is gone?  Maybe someone has a voodoo doll of me (lol)?  Maybe this, maybe that, maybe, maybe maybe.... I'm really sick of trying to figure out what it is!

So it's all in my mind.  So it's all in how I perceive things... so I have a choice and can live my life differently.  Well, I'm trying.  I've been trying for a long time.  Let's see how long ago was senior year? 8 years ago.  I've been trying for 8 years.  Sometimes I feel good and sometimes I can't shake it.  I usually just ignore it.  But somedays like today I just can't ignore it.  It's too powerful and I don't know what to do.  I want to be happy, I want to enjoy what I'm doing, I want to love people, I want to be engaged and I do all that really quite genuinely.... until I just can't anymore.  I can't seem to keep a handle on enjoying my life, so then I fake it for a while.  Because how do I talk about what's going on? I just hate everything.  why, you ask?  PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE CAN I KNOW WHY!!???!  then I could tell you why, then maybe even I could work to fix it.

Guess I just need to accept defeat and death of a dream to have my vitality back.  Accept that I have a very active pain body and that I need to sleep 12 hours a night and find a way that I can hopefully support myself knowing that I don't have energy for any extended amount of work.

God. I hate this.  There has to be a way to stop this stupid cycle.  But all I do is bitch and moan and then I sleep for ever and get into the bright side of the cycle and enjoy that until it ends again.  Here's to a stupid fucking cycle that is going to be the death of me.

Church In the Morning

Funny, I grew up in the church.  I know all the right answers and all the right words to use when having a conversation or discussion with someone who calls them selves a Christian.  But I went to church this morning and I was so uncomfortable. 

There is so much grace and acceptance for someone outside the church, someone who doesn’t know the rules.  In fact people in the church are excited to have people like that around.  It makes them feel good to be able to “witness” to them and see them decide to go to church and love God too.  But, oh goodness, you better watch out if you were once in the church and are knowingly making decisions that go against the church’s doctrine.  I know because I’ve been there.  I told a really good friend that I disagreed with her life decisions and stepped back from our relationship and hurt one of the best relationships that ever happened to me.  Karma came around quick though and now I am on the side of disapproval.  I have been told that I am not living right and they will pray for me and then they stop hanging out with me.  They don’t want anything to do with me if I am not living my life the way they think I should or the way they want to live their life.   And we used to be good friends.  I guess I am a bad influence or a threat.  I’m a heathen?  I’m... scary??  I don’t know really what it is in my case.  But I do know if I met my 16 year-old self as I am at 25 I would call myself a witch and I would tell myself I would pray for me and would be scared to hang out with me too.  I could come up with all sorts of reasons as to why that’s the right thing for me to do.  But let me also tell you that it doesn’t feel very loving.  There’s this bible verse that goes “...and they shall know you by your love for others...” 

I have a long and complicated history with the church and with God.  It’s a story for another time.  I will write it soon though and you will better understand.  However, I am absolutely in love with God.  I live my life following Holy(Great) Spirit to the best of my ability and I talk with Spirit all the time.  I know I have a great relationship with him (I use him because that’s what I’m used to not because God is or ever can be limited to a gender) and thank god for that!  I don’t know what would become of me if it wasn’t for God.  I follow him wherever he leads me, even to church.  I am terrified to go to church sometimes, especially the little church where I went to youth group growing up.  I think that they will treat me the way I would’ve treated myself 10 years ago. 

Anyway, I went to church today and I was sitting there thinking that I want to be a conduit of love towards everyone.  I want God to work through me wherever and however he wants.  I am practicing healing and I am honing my skills to be more and more a conduit of HIS skills, by taking away judgments and fear and getting myself out of the way.  As I was being taken by fear of being in church I was reminding myself that I want to love everyone, even the people groups that reject me. (ha what a victim's mentality I have, I should also say the people group I rejected)  As I was thinking this the pastor said the verse in John (13:15) “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one for another.”  I almost laughed out loud.

My goal is to love everyone!  I thought I was doing well, until today at church when I realized how closed off I became around those people.  I find it easy to love the “partygoers” and the “sluts” and the “gays” and the “drug addicts” and the “hippies” or whatever label you want to put on someone.  They are really sweet and lovely people (most times lol).  What I have trouble doing is loving the religious.  The religious of any group... the ones that don’t love me back because I do life differently.  But I know that it will be healing for me.  I have a lot of feelings of betrayal and hurt when it comes to my “friends” that were Christians.  So this journey is one I want to go on despite my fears.

What does that look like?  I’m not quite sure, but it starts within me.  It starts with my being around Christians without fear.

This recently came to my attention and I wanted to add it.

Religions are fundamentally "belief systems"

What the Tree Told Me

Today was beautiful!  The sun was shining something fierce for mid January.  So I decided to take a walk.  The air smelled like spring; fresh and full of life.  I think even some of the grass in the yards I walked by were confused by this change in weather, because I saw some hints of green peaking through the snow.  The birds were singing to each other exclaiming how they were at peace.  I couldn’t help but have a little spring in my step, which was a nice reprieve from the heaviness I have been feeling.

I made my way out and about and finally to the town park to sit by a specific tree.  I grew rather fond of this tree after my walk ended up there yesterday as well.  This tree is growing in the perfect place to catch the afternoon sun for a good 3 hours without being disturbed by any shadows.  But what makes this tree special to me besides the fact that I feel connected with it, is the bowl shaped roots that stick out of the ground.  The bowl is the perfect shape to fit my butt without any sore spots and it is positioned just far enough away from the trunk for me to slouch to my heart’s content (and my spines).  It’s the perfect place to sit without getting “swamp-ass” from sitting in the wet grass.

Before I sat down I asked the tree if it would share energy with me.  The first time I did this with a tree I was amazed at how willing the tree was and how grounding it was for me.  I was so thankful for the experience.  This time I just wanted to hang out with this particular tree.  So I sat to journal. 

When I was down journaling I was praying about random things and talking to the tree I was sitting with.  If you are at all familiar with Eckart Tolle, then you may be familiar with the “pain-body”.  I was talking to the tree about my pain-body and how active it was these last two days.  I asked the tree if it could take it away, because I saw my pain-body as bad.  And the tree said that was impossible.  I asked what I must do instead and it said to embrace and love it, for it is part of myself.  I didn’t wonder why for very long before I knew the answer.

SIDE NOTE: Let me say that I have just been having conversations with Logan about a few ideas surrounding good and bad.  If there were no bad, there would be no good.  And if there was only good then life would be boring and we would not be able to grow as much.  So bad adds interest to life.  Life is full of good and bad and that’s the way it should be.  I recently heard a definition of peace that I really liked, though I haven’t found any source to say that this definition is used anywhere in the current or historical world, however, this is the definition that I like, Peace: the state of being as it should.  So with that in mind, life, with it’s good and it’s bad, is at peace.

I have been thinking about my relation to my pain-body as a type of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde relationship.  However, that is not the case.  In reference to my pain-body, I am three parts.  I am: 1, the observer and 2, the pain-body, and 3, the “happy-body” (what I decided to call it).  I am three-in-one.  If I were to get rid of my pain-body I would be unbalanced, terribly.  Even by rejecting my pain-body I am unbalanced.  The tree was telling me to love and embrace my whole being, even the part of my being that seems to be “bad”, but really just gives me interest.  It was saying to know that I am at peace.... I am as I should be.

Subsequently, I am now at a greater state of “peace” than when I started.