Blythesong – Bliss through whatever may come

Angels

Angel ornament brings soft laughter of Christmas.
Angel…pristine…new
Awash in soft creamery dreams.

Halos from the cross
But halos before
-in the timelessness of eternity-
we are all new, free, yet bound in a dream of life.

Eternity in the flash!
Our fortune is pure night…

We frame your thoughts.
You hold us…we hold you.

Green Irish tree god- choking on some bark
Shower Tile
Entrance to faerie realm, fantasy in rock.

Sweet urgings of the dream time
call from my soul.
The darkness is only a facade…breathe the dirt
and come to the light.
Butterfly
Come back to the song of the ancients,
the verdant green fields of clover.
and sing in your naked body
Dance with streamers around the maypole.
Be free, angel child.
Come to my light.

Gore Vidal’s The Best Man is playing in the city until September 9.  Last week my friend Theresa and I went in to see it.  We really went in for James Earl Jones, John Laroquette, and John Stamos.  We got so much more.

First of all there were some isolated torrential downpours which left us stranded (in the second of three trains) at the Mineola station for 90 minutes!  We were told that we were there for an indeterminate period of time until the rails were cleared.  (We were told that repeatedly which surprised me because the announcer was preaching to the choir.  No one was getting ON the stranded train.)  Finally we decided to get out of the train and see The Flood.  It was neat.  The first person we spoke with told us that we would never get to the show on time.  Then we walked a little further along to take pictures of the surging flood.  It was a few inches of water.  The next person we spoke to looked at the lights blinking on the train and told us to get on……

We jumped on the first train which meant that we upped our transport real estate and so got to Penn Station earlier.  From there we hailed a cab in the rain (which was the only time we got poured on.  The cab got us the few blocks to the theater pretty slowly but in time for the beginning of the play!

And it was great!  First of all, how often in life do we get the chance to see a national treasure perform?  James Earl Jones is such a treasure. From “The Great White Hope” to “Star Wars” he has just created character after character with brilliance.  My favorite character, though, is the Sky God from Gale Haley’s A Story, a Story.  “How can a weak old man like you, so small, so small…”  I still remember a quote from a book I pored over as a teenager ( I was strange) in which he stated:  “If mankind is the first order of life to reflect upon itself, then theater is the reflector.”

There were some empty seats in the theater which stuns me still.

If you don’t go to see James Earl Jones, then go for John Laroquette’s seriously amazing  performance, or Cybil Shepherd’s stoic self-restraint, or Kristin Davis’ somewhat playful portrayal of a sharp southern diamond, or, John Stamo’s surprisingly evil candidate.  Or just go to wait outside after the play and get a photo WITH John Stamos!  I did…..so did Theresa.  I bet you don’t have such a photo….you could if you go to see The Best Man before the end of the summer!

Sometimes seeing a great play is the bliss of the day, but other times the bliss comes out of the collage the pieces create.  After the play we wandered around giggling and trying to find a restaurant.  We settled in at “Pig and  Whistle” for salad and wine.

We walked back to Penn Station under our umbrellas in the soft rain, and this was when the bliss set in for me.  The peace of just ambling in a busy city topped with umbrellas down a street lined with flowers and benches during a cool respite from a hot summer absorbed me in experiencing the moment in the sweetest way.

Wonderful!

Edited: July 11, 2016

Note: “This was written when I still worked a straight job.  Four years later, I am still on the quest of a carefree summer.  I’m updating this list in light of my ongoing Adventure !  List notations in parentheses are from 2016.”

I feel like I’ve worked through summer, which is fine except that I also feel like I’ve missed a lot of summer fun! No energy has been left over to do all those “summery” things. I admit to being a bit miffed about this upon realizing, but then I had a thought. I would make a list of things to do for the remaining 32 days!
I am a list person….always have been. I can create a list for practically anything, so I thought, why not write a list of things to do before summer is officially over and we begin looking for falling leaves and roasting chestnuts! I compiled a list and was going to post that, (so I could convince myself that I was actually blogging something), but then I remembered a book I read every summer (except this one), titled ”A Window on Provence.” It is the memoir of a woman who summers in the South of France with her parents for a month. Written in diary form the book follows the writer through her days in France.
Following in her footsteps (a very slight bit), I thought I would create my list and then share my summer experiences as this precious season wanes. Of course I will be looking for the bliss in all of these beautiful singular transcendent bits when we are absorbed by and enmeshed in the moment and experience becomes profound or profoundly silly!
I would love to share with others. So, if anyone comes up with some other good ideas, feel free to contribute with a comment or two! We can all enjoy these last [couple of months]few weeks of summer together in the bliss of new adventure!

The List

1. Walk miles and miles on the beautiful trail every chance I grab.
2. Make a Pasta Date! (Did that last night at Madiran!)
3. Weed the garden.(Smartly had others do that.  Now I can play…
4. Play in the backyard.
5. Walk on a beach.
6. Eat ice cream.
7. Turn yourself onto a new writer!
8. Buy a Christmas present.
9. Write a poem.
10. Blow some bubbles.
11. Try on your fall clothes no so that you can donate your extras in time for someone to actually wear them this year!(Actually got that done for summer this year!)
12. Swim.
13. Write a mystery.
14. Take a nap.
15. Write down some autumn goals.
16. Watch some butterflies.
17. Do something to bring you one step closer to your dream.
18. Sleep late.
19. Get one (only one) chore out of the way.
20. Plan a few days out in Montauk in the autumn.
21. Linger over a cup of tea.
22. Plant impatiens.
23. Get out and take a fun walk.
24. Have some fun summer Romantic dates.
25. Draw a picture of a flower…any flower.
26. Hang out with friends.
27. Watch the boats sail in and out of the harbor for a while.
28. Watch a really bad (for you) Christmas movie…so that in December you can sagely tell everyone else it is scant worth the time.
29. Wear a flowy skirt and write in a journal.
30. Wear your bathing suit, dammit!
31. Hike (as in walking somewhere fun).
32. Take lots of photos of it all!!!
Well, that is the list! My very own sojourn with summer. Let the bliss bloom!

© 2016, Carolyn Mora

Every single breath, every single minute is a gift and a miracle. Our life is here for us to grasp and to manifest with each breath. It is for us to realize…and I am trying.

So…a couple of weeks into Lent I was still wondering what to give up. I know that I’m supposed to give up something on Ash Wednesday, but I take this giving up stuff seriously. I didn’t want to give up something goofy like eating chocolate(which I don’t do anyway)….or something that is really good for me(like naps with the poodle). So I was just meandering along thinking something would come.
And, of course, it did.
I was raised to be a scale lunatic. Weight issues and eating disorders run rampant through my family. I can quote, chapter and verse, celebrity news about dieting that I read decades ago(no joke). For instance, when I was maybe 11, there was a great magazine called “Teen.” I read it all the time. There was a newprint section in the center which, I recall, had pithy little articles and tidbits. There was one article about a singer named Karen Carpenter who had recently become a star. This article didn’t talk about her sweet voice or cool drumming. No, this article related how once Karen felt she was fat and had to take off 21 pounds. As I remember, she said that she just didn’t eat until she lost that weight. (My recollection may be fuzzy, so I apologize if I have it wrong…but I don’t think so.) I don’t recall there being editorial applause, but there was the implicit message that she had SELF-DISCIPLINE. She became an idol for me, and one that I could not measure up to. I just couldn’t starve (Thank you God for whatever native sanity you placed in my soul…because the external environment would have had me lauded for the skinny product self-deprivation would have produced.).
No, the eating disorder genie passed right over me. But it left in its wake a person who hated herself for every pound that remained on her body and tried every means to rid herself of it. While I didn’t starve or barf, I tried every diet, diet aid(hah!), and hateful trick under the sun. I was actually told once that I had to become disgusted with myself to get the discipline to get my weight down! Right…weight down….get the numbers down….which brings us to…..
The Scale….
I have never been without a scale. In my family it is the essential item for the new home. We all know we don’t like the scale. It makes us cry. But still I would get on often and chart where I was in life by what number shone in the little window. In fact, a couple of years ago, I decided to take off some weight through being healthier and the scale was an aid. Lately though, I jumped off the sanity boat. I have been obsessed with losing the 6-8 pounds I put back on. It consumed so much of me. I never thought something so small could loom so large. I had taken to weighing my body every day, thinking that I would be inspired to be more…yeah…DISCIPLINED…if I saw those numbers. Also, I thought it would be so encouraging to watch them go down. As my weight creeped up I took to weighing myself two, three, and then four times a day. I would try to calculate how much I could eat to still lose some weight or how far in advance I could start cutting back to enjoy a dinner out. It was just so sad and depressing but I did it…..
…until that couple of weeks into Lent when I realized that all I was succeeding in doing was deluding myself into thinking that I was able to control my weight , if not so many other things in my life right now. So I decided to give up the scale for Lent. I gave my husband the battery with the instruction to return it on Easter. And so it went. And during this time something incredible happened.
I felt my body. I became conscious of how I felt when I ate. I looked at my body. A couple of times I danced around the bedroom naked singing about how I loved my body….that I’m cute, dammit! (Not that the world needs to hear all this information…although maybe it does…). I touched and really felt my hipbones and ribs. I touched my stomach and didn’t recoil…and I didn’t know what the numbers were.
So today, the day before Easter, I decided to weigh myself. I pulled the scale out from under the bed thinking I would try to find another battery. I pressed on it and those little zeros came on(unbeknownst to me, my husband has been weighing himself. I must talk to him about this self-defeating behavior). I pulled the scale over and stripped(I know, TMI). Before I got on the scale, I actually felt a shudder within, a strain from stress. Anyway I got on the scale and…………
I was three or four pounds lighter! And actually that’s just the body weight….everything else….I think a ton lifted off me! Was I happy that I was lighter? Well, YEAH! A poster child for rational thought and sanity I will never be. But I realized that the scale is really unimportant to daily life for me. A wise person recently told me that I have to stop trying to control and just live. In one little part of my life I did that, and I gained so much. So I thank you, scale, for being my Moriarty . I’ll see you again in a month.

It isn’t always about perking up LIttle Kiddle…

A few weeks ago I split up an asparagus fern(which was already in a big pot.) Since then I’ve been noticing that both the split plants look like they are barely holding their own. I have been snipping off the dry dead colorless parts ever since. I took a look at the larger one today. It just looked like a goner. I felt like a bad plant lover. As I ripped away though, I noticed a bunch of new green sprouts poking up. This made me feel better.

I have felt for a few months, that I am in a transformational period. My meditation teacher confirmed this when he said that I was in a transformative process wherein I would (in effect) die off and be reborn. This will be sweet. I like the idea of being a pure new creation.

So, like my plant, I do feel like I’m in a period of change and transformation. I sense that there are parts of me that are dying off; perhaps sloughing off. These could simply be old ways of being/feeling/thinking. I am indeed, thinking and reacting differently from a while ago. There are parts of my reactions that are like those dead sprigs on the fern; colorless, bitter, harsh, biting against my self. They are gone and dead from my life and yet resident in my self concept.

At the same time, though, there is new growth. Meditation is bringing new vistas into view. My mind and heart are expanding and breathing anew. I even believe my ability to hear is enhanced. I don’t take what hear for granted as often. I am truly listening in a way I have not before. This is not always comfortable. I am hearing more clearly. Consequently, perhaps, my interpretation in certain cases is not clouded by preconceptions and habit(who thought hearing would be a habit).

It is a strange state to be in…this state of transformation…It is almost like living two lives. This is unsettling-and downright upsetting at times– but it is life when we agree to be open to constant development and transformation. There is no other way for me live.

Just call me “Ferny.”

Ok….New Year’s….every year we are encouraged to give up the past and embrace the new on December 31st and January 1st.  I’ve never been a fan of this convention.  I love Christmas and never feel like giving it up so quickly.

For personal reasons I’ve decided to begin my year(for next year) in September rather than January.  For the last few months I’ve been living with the feeling that there are changes coming up for me this September to September period.    I even have the feeling that some of these may be cataclysmic in a good way….A couple of transformations are expected.  Next July I will complete my 500 hour yoga training.  Next September an important work decision will be in my hands.  I feel as though there are parts of my future just simmering away somewhere awaiting realization and manifestation.  The following quote from “Letters to a Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke is going to be my (gentle) battle cry through this year as I encounter and embrace all the twists, turns, nightmares, dreams, kicks, kisses, meditations and whatever wonders come onto the path.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves…Do not now seek the answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them and the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

I promise to live the questions and to really try to love them. I will try to not quest after the elusive answer, but rather rest in the beauty of the question and all the possibilities the question brings After all, who really wants answers. Most of them are terminal, anyway, right. I’m interested in answers of expansion. Yeah, life, let’s dance with that for a while….the expansive answer…music, painting, writing, prayer, love.

So I have realized that I am happy with my body a few days of the year.  Bleak, yes?  I’ve decided that I will probably be the worst yoga teacher in my community.  I believe that I am a fraud as a writer and remarkably tone deaf as well.  Oh, yes! I’m also the world’s worst housewife.  I realize, finally, that I’m approaching an impasse that is so awash in the physical and social and soul realms that I can’t even begin to decipher the language!

So, basically, I am feeling miserable.

I’m not good at being miserable.  I’ve tried to channel my misery into poetry:

“Dreams of life and of love “

(yes, the miserable do wallow in figures of  speech)

Dreams fallen between the shadows of our doubt.

Walking through the days

Starving with lack

Wasting our dreams.

Waiting for the time when the veil tears and the memories mesh into flesh.

Reality calling all into the future.

Fallen angels will walk by our side,

Lifting our heartbeats to harmonize…

Pretty awful, right?

Since I am so abysmal at being miserable,  I decided that I had to find some possibility for bliss in my misery.  Then, as if on cue, I realized something.  (actually it wasn’t on cue… I’ve been feeling poorly for a while.) This very misery reminds me that we are in a constant state of transition.  If I’m feeling miserable, it may be because something in my life is no longer “fitting.”   It may be that I am coming out of a period of comfort into a period of change.  If we cajole ourselves into thinking that coziness equates with the static security of a closed heart and mind we are wrong.  We commit to keeping our hearts and senses open because only then are we called to the dance of life.  Only then can we float on the waves of intuition.  Only then can we travel with the soul.

So what are the gifts of this bliss of misery?  I am free to look at my daily life.  I am free to announce that I am a yoga flunky(which is absurd because yoga teaches us that we are perfect exactly where we are, though, today I will afford myself “flunk hood.”).  I am free to dislike my body even though my hips are really really really toned.  (I know this because I just jabbed at them and they are pretty tight.  There’s a little fun fat, but doesn’t that just make some things more fun? ;)…) I am free to look to the future with apprehension and wild dreams, knowing that I can’t know what will happen in my life even one week into the future….for again,  the open heart is called to the dance not knowing which mysteries await and which will be clarified.

So then, for me the bliss in this misery is opening my heart tenderly and lovingly to whatever surrounds me, knowing that the true bliss is in the time, the planning, the dreaming, the waiting…within the velvet softness of the beautiful kaleidoscope of longing.