4:24 a.m. 8° F
The crescent moon looks rather foggy out there.
My grownup gold star for yesterday was getting the recyclables into town. Still have several bags of trash to get in....I guess I just keep running out of time and motivation. I feel drained...I keep feeling that very, VERY selective social interactions are in order, and also, it IS important for me to have those positive interactions.
Is it my funk that I'm in that keeps me from deeply connecting? Or is it just that my ways of connecting are shifting? In my human connections, I stay conscious of aiming to be pleasant and positive in my surface-level interactions, aware of how my interactions can affect others, and wishing for it to be helpful, if possible. I think of Maya Angelou's quote about people not remembering what you say, they remember how you make them FEEL.
"Seek to make everyone whose life you touch feel worthy. Give everyone a sense of their own worthiness as a person, a sense of the true wonder of who they are. Give this gift, and you will heal the world."
— Conversations with God, book 3, p. 92
I read those words last night, laying in bed with dogs all around me, feeling a sadness, an unsettledness that I keep wondering about—what purpose it must be serving, because truly it must be serving a purpose, or else why would I be feeling it? And even through my sadness, perhaps even moreso because of it, those words stood out to me. I dug the yellow highlighter out of my nightstand, and even though the light from my lamp was such that I could not see if the yellow was actually highlighting the words, I traced them over a couple of times in hopes that the words were being illuminated. This morning I see that they are. They are helpful words, for sure.
When I stay conscious of helping others have awareness of their own WORTHINESS, it will in turn help me to get out of my own head, and my questioning of my own self-worth. It is not a question at all. It is a … fuck, what is it? A misunderstanding? A misinterpretation? A wrong-learning from the very day that we are born? We are born into the world as these PERFECT, and Perfectly Worthy beings ... then become inundated by messages that it is not so. Inundated by the messages of adults who have lost their awareness of their own perfection, beauty, and grace. Inundated by messages of "there's not enough time, there's not enough money, there's not enough love to go around.…" Messages of "survival of the fittest;" that we have to fight to have our basic needs met. We have to be seen as "better" than the next girl or guy—prettier, smarter, more charming, more talented, more demure, more bold, more engaging, more desirable. We have to EARN every bit of support that comes our way, by golly—
WE FUCKING WELL HAVE TO EARN IT.
How could we possibly have VALUE by just BEING???
(Suddenly Pony has become very sheepish, and cowers beneath the desk at my feet, seeking my reassurance. I pet his beautiful black dog head, telling him, "It's okay, it's okay. Everything is all right, sweet boy." He emerges from beneath the desk, curls in a snug ball on the big dog bed next to Anzu, his elder, still within arm's reach to my left.)
So. Back to the $20 million question:
HOW DO WE HAVE VALUE JUST BY BEING?
It is not a question of HOW ... it is merely the answer that WE DO.
I feel like Winnie the Pooh right now, who is not so big of brain, perhaps, but who seeks clarity within the simplicities. Who ever said I need to be all super-smart and well-read and speaking in big words?
Who ever fucking SAID?
And why on this beautiful Earth would I wish to seek the approval of others by trying to be anyone or anything which does not flow freely and easily to me and from me, when it is not ENTIRELY an expression of WHO I TRULY CHOOSE TO BE? I mean, in my heart of hearts, in my bones which sing of goodness and passion and sweetness and strength. In these bones which shimmer and tremble with CREATIVITY just waiting to be expressed.
The other day over coffee out front of Bunny's, Erin spoke of how this is the year of the snake, and how we are shedding our skins. She also made the very good point that when snakes are preparing to shed their skin, they are blind—their eyes are clouded-over as a part of the skin they're about to wriggle out of. We laughed about how uncomfortable this stage is, and how it explains why we keep wanting to push up against things. It made me think of my frustrated comment to Liv a couple weeks ago about how I just wanted someone to fucking WRESTLE with. Someone to rub up against, to help me shed this dull and too-tight, uncomfortable skin.
One way or another, it is happening. One way or another, the evolution proceeds.
The world outside my own little world of my choosing is VERY interesting right now, that's for sure. There's a lot of big energy, a lot of big fears, a lot of big feelings rising. I suppose it makes sense in some way that my perceptions, my moods, my feelings keep swaying back and forth like a pendulum—I am experiencing all of the feelings from one end of the spectrum to the other. I'm getting a whole lot of practice at witnessing All; of processing all the feelings, then deciding what I'm going to do with them next. One moment I am in raptures, humming and singing and dancing by myself. Another moment I feel Fear creeping in, clutching my stomach and squeezing it 'til I swoon, 'til hot flashes and tears rise in me, and the thought comes terrified to my mind—
WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?????
Then love comes in, whispering gently, taking Fear by its gnarled little hands, releasing its death grip in my belly.
"Shhhh—it’s okay, darling," Love coos. "Come here now, come to me. You're okay, you're okay, everything is okay, now, dear. Less DOING, my darling, more BEING will serve us. There is nothing right now for you to do ... just Be.
Be right here with me, right Now."
Right here, right now. Dogs snoring around me. Fire crackling in the wood stove behind me. The kittens are curled in the fluffy bed with old man Manu Chihuahua; Michael has his tiger-striped paw draped over Manu's hip, like a sleeping lover. The peace here is palpable...and this is also REALITY. This is MY reality, here and now in my blessed, charmed life. Nothing else is happening right here and now, there's nothing I need to worry about. There's nothing I need to do other than to just feel this moment authentically in my bones, feel the shimmering and the glimmering of the peace. Let this Now moment be what it is, then let it be what it is in the next moment. Let it inform every single blessed moment, as it unfolds into creation of the next.
I am paying attention.
I am choosing.
I am BEing.
Holy crap, I am blessed.
I will carry this feeling into the next moment, and into the next one, too. I will see what Good I can do with All of It in the unfolding of this day anew.