Somebody Closer.....

I wrote most of these lyrics last year, and have always wanted to finish the piece.  Interestingly, I tried on several occasions to get it right.  But, the circumstances and my headspace would allow for it.  Until now.  

You know, I think we all have a yearning kind of love song inside our souls..... maybe even more than one.  we'll see.  

My Somebody Closer

Just poured a second cup of coffee,

Waiting for the dawn

I'm filled with haunting memories

In the body of our song

Of a day so long forgotten

In the rippling of the years

I'm lost in your soft expression

Trying to hold back my tears.

______

Can you be my somebody closer

Instead of a figment in my dreams

Or will you haunt my waking everyday

Your laughing eyes unseen

I want to live out our memories

Our love captured in the breeze

This is my early morning yearning

Please set my heart at ease.

________

We walked away in silence

too young to see ahead

No fairy tale ending binds us

Our separate ways instead

Yet through the fog of lonely

I see your shadow on my soul

I'm aching for your fingers touch

Your roughworn hand to hold.

______

Can you be my somebody closer
Instead of a figment in my dreams
Or will you haunt my waking everyday
Your laughing eyes unseen
I want to live out our memories
Our love captured in the breeze
This is my early morning yearning
Please set my heart at ease. 

_______

On days when I am busy

On days when peace alights

I feel a stirring you're still near me

Like you're just within my sights

Then, I look up and all around me

Your real presence isn't true

Our lives unfolded separately 

Yet my heart's still yearns for you.

 ____________________

Can you be my somebody closer
Instead of a figment in my dreams
Or will you haunt my waking everyday
Your laughing eyes unseen
I want to live out our memories
Our love captured in the breeze
This is my early morning yearning
Please set my heart at ease. 

hellos, goodbyes and important life lessons

Miss Muskie and her crew of campers, circa 1980 

 I have never been able to encapsulate the intense feelings that accompany an experience of living for an extended period of time amongst a group of people who are all around the same age.  However, when I meet up with someone who has had such an opportunity, there is almost an unspoken smile, a nod and a faraway glimmer in their eyes.  They know.  They know.

For 12 summers during my youth, I spent time immersed in a community that offered this expansive emotional ride.  At age 9, I attended Camp Kawabi for the first time as a camper and fell in love with the place and its energy.  It began as a two week stint, but morphed into one month at age 12, and then the whole summer when I transitioned onto staff when I was 15, continuing until it was time to say goodbye the very last time the summer I turned 21. 

Even though its been more than 25 years since then and many of the events, activities, connections, the late night antics, days off, canoe trips, chapels, campfires, hot summer sunny days and rainy day hikes have blended together, there are moments which are still so crystal clear.   They allow me to revisit a time when I learned how intense a keenly felt sense of belonging can alter how you look at the world and what is really important in life.   Friendship, love, acceptance, trust in others, trust in myself, respect and appreciation for differences, mentoring, supporting one another, helping others .......... all continue to feed my sense of who I am, what I believe in and who I strive to be with confidence.  Most predominantly ensconced however are the feelings which I treasure... ALL of them. 

These are the same emotions and values which we learn from our families as well, but when a person has the chance to step out beyond their own nest into a group and experience the unbelievable joys and sorrows of belonging?  It takes you to a place one can only share with a kindred spirit who has experienced it as well.  Believe me, I've tried to explain this but I've never managed to get it right. 

These thoughts have re-emerged of late as I've done my best to help my children make sense of it.  In the past 5 months, they have experienced this amazing intensity;  last summer for my daughter when she signed on as a Counsellor in Training at Camp Glenburn and more recently for my son, who just returned from a month in Costa Rica with an organization called CISV (Children's International Summer Villages.) Both of them have ventured off our front lawn to live amongst a group of peers, led by trusting people. They have learned many new skills which will come in handy as they grow into adults.  The values we have done our best to pass on to them have been reinforced fully by their experience. And, they have made longlasting heart connection friendships with others who draw upon the same feelings and the same values.  Independently, they both found themselves immersed in a sense of belonging so wondrous that it left them reeling.  

Martha and her Glenburn kindreds, smiles from the inside out

Not wanting the moments to end, they returned home overwrought with the sorrow of saying goodbye to the friends who are like family and goodbye to life altering happenings.  Many stories.  Many questions and new ideas. Big tears.  Big pain.  Big transitions back to the ordinary reality of a home routine and the reconnection to family and friends they had left behind. To say this adjustment is difficult is an understatement.  To say these life lessons are important is also an understatement.  Why?  Because so many internal shifts happen during these opportunities and they happen within a relatively short time frame.  It takes a while to adjust, to refocus, to recognize the personal impact.  It's all positive in the long run, but in the short run, the initial feeling of pulling away from a group your whole spirit was blended into is akin to losing a piece of yourself. I wish everyone could have a chance to go through this ride. 

For some mysterious reason,  I spent their first days home with them alone.   With my daughter, I was the lucky one to pick her up at camp on the last day.  If you've never seen a group of teenage camp counsellors on the morning after the campers have left at the end of the summer, you'd never believe it.  Not only do they look like a train wreck because they haven't really slept much all summer because they've worked their butts off running "the show" caring for the "ankle-biters" and stringing the late nights "hanging out" with their buddies, they have just pulled one last all-nighter as a way to stretch their final moments together.  Believe me, it's brutal!  I've been the sleep deprived counsellor with a mitt full of snotty kleenexes and a heart that feels like its been ripped out.  It is the emptiest bone weary feeling.  Now,  I can say I was the Momma loading the van of half packed bits of summer memories, luring the sobbing daughter to the front seat and then listening through my own tears to the stories and pouring emotions while trying to keep the van on the winding road home. 

My heart broke for her......... the magically lovely summer moments of bonding with kindred spirits was over.  It has changed her in ways she still isn't fully aware of.   It stretched her, comforted her, AND discomforted her.  That's what important learning does.  It offered her a really good taste of independence, of learning how to make decisions, to weigh options, to be herself and to know the unbridled trust you can feel when sharing your deepest secrets with someone who not only "gets you" but accepts you unconditionally.  Those gifts of friendship will forever be quilted to her soul.  I know, because mine still are. And you know what?  I still miss my camp days..... all these years later.  It was that meaningful. The lessons linger...........  The lessons guide me daily.

We talked and talked, just the two of us for a whole day.......... I left her alone when she needed to sift through her memories and I tried to be there for her when she wanted to share a story.  I promised she could have all of her camp friends visit whenever it could be arranged, though I knew it wouldn't be the same.  My empathy was boundless and I knew her transition was going to be a rough ride.  Her friends whom she had left behind at the beginning of the summer couldn't understand her disinterest in coming back to "planet earth...."   It took time........ and a bunch of mini reunions throughout the fall to help her find her footing again while she readjusted to the changes inside herself and to have those leadership value lessons reinforced more fully.

Max in Costa Rica with his arm around his new buddy.....could the smile be any bigger?

My son who is younger than I was to have gone through such an amazing experience......... he's only 12......... also crash landed.  He returned home at the end of January.  His reaction was even more intense because the people he grew close to live in other countries around the world.......... Finland, Sweden, Brazil, England, Costa Rica, Thailand, Guatemala.... this put a whole new spin on it.  

Despite the language differences, and the adjustment to being so darn far away from home, he gathered a whole heart and head full of awareness that he will forever be changed.  Even though the geographical distances are huge and that reality is what hits him the hardest, he is tied to a group of kindreds who also absorbed the same huge lessons ..... global peace, equality, leadership, advocacy, problem solving and many many more.  He has joined a group of multi-cultural kids who have become enlightened while they became friends for life.  

On the day I spent home with my son before he returned to school, we shared tears and talked.   It was probably the most important relationship building day for the two of us.  I shared stories with him that I hadn't before.  He shared stories with me that perhaps he wouldn't have if he thought I wouldn't understand.  Like I did with his sister, I expressed to him how privileged he is to have had the opportunity to feel life as deeply as he has......... AND to know that the friendships he made will always remain with him along with his own learning.  I pointed out that he now has his own group of kindreds he will forever be attached to and that because of his opportunities, he has a responsibility to continue to expand his awareness of the plight of others.  He gets it.  At age 12, he knows that joy is eternally tied with sorrow.......... and all the feelings in between.  

It has been intense, but it has all be very very good. Tonight, I say a prayer of thanks for my own experiences at camp because once again........ they helped me understand what my children were feeling and guide them through big maze of milestones they are coping with in their young lives.  In turn, they have helped me re-evaluate those lessons I gathered up, as well as gave me another glimpse at how important those friendships have been all these years.   

 

Max learning a few new dance moves at a War Child fundraiser on Saturday evening.

an osprey comes to visit....

Out of the grey winter light

bleaked of colour

streaked in mourning sombre silence

you simply appeared, taking me by surprise

filling my vista with your fierce beauty

in flight.

In one articulate motion

your majestic wings,

feathers dappled in shades of clay

stretched beyond the toptip of the Poplars

propelled you forward

closer to where I stood

in my home on the hill.

Your fan-tailed brawn

mottled to blend with the winter woods

swept my into sight

like an awakened temptation,

and a longing to absorb your swift assurance

so powerful

so resplendent

so gracefully exalted.

My breath caught in awe.

Our eyes met for one standstill second

until an invisible wind draft

aroused your sense of freedom

awakened your fervent hunger

invited you to soar downstream

above the open river water.

Slow wingflaps lifted you up into a natural floating soar

a perambulation with a friendly downwind.

In silence,

I stood in the shadow of your wonder

as you flew beyond a speck in the grey winter light.

Alone again,  left behind

with new dreams

that I too

could sail above the valley with outstretched wings........

thank you for that.

__________________________

**inspired by a brief but memorable visit on Sunday morning from the full grown Broad Tailed Osprey who lives somewhere along my riverbank.  I didn't have my camera nearby, so the photo I've used is one I found that resembled it's beauty the most.

story gifts

Humans tell stories..... it is how we learn best.  By giving and receiving them.  You share one with me, and I'll share one with you.  They will take on a life of their own as they box and blend together.... as WE see and hear and feel the similar nuances.  As we see and hear and feel the differences.  

Between you and I.  

Different perspectives

Different experiences

Different cultures, promises, hopes and dreams.

Same feelings.

Similar yearnings.

To belong.  To be loved.  To be wanted and needed.

Stories let us learn empathy.

Stories thrive on emotional literacy.

WE learn and grow from the new seeds sown into our fabric and we are forever altered.  The way I view my world  changes every time I listen to a story and absorb its meaning. I t can't be avoided, especially if I allow it to pluck the chord inside.  Do you know that chord?  It flutters in song when it's plucked.  When its pulled, a lightbulb comes on..... BLINK.  awareness.  

sometimes an aha!  is uttered.  Aha! 

sometimes a sigh

or an angry outcry

or a laugh

or a wide eyed wow

or a knowing nod.... uhuh.... i know..... yup, I get it. 

Common ground! Empathy.

Once a chord has been plucked, the lens we gaze through alters.

We tell stories which feed our thirst for learning.  I share one with you.  You share one with me.  Nothing enhances life more than trusting someone enough to spill a bit of ourselves.... A story gift is a glimpse of what is hidden under your flesh.....it's a vulnerable act..... to open up our flesh .... to offer a glimpse. 

  The other day after I had been facilitating for about an hour with of a group of people struggling to get along, I asked them........ "What could I do to help you trust me?"  A young woman in her late teens spoke first.  She said.  "I already trust you."

"Why?  What did I do to earn your trust already?"

"You told us a story about yourself that you didn't have to share with us.  You showed me that you are vulnerable too."

  

I was FLOORED!  I didn't expect this answer so quickly! It was the one I was looking for.  I thought I'd have to massage and to coach it out of the group. I responded........

"It's why I told you that story..........I wanted to give you a glimpse of who I am besides the Counsellor around here.  I wanted you to see me as someone just like you so that perhaps you'd feel more comfortable sharing with one another.  It's a vulnerable place to be... to dwell in.  But, if we are ever going to find the peace and serenity, the only way to go as far as I can see, is to be open and willing to be vulnerable. Our stories are our gifts to each other.  We learn from them.  We learn from one another.  They alter the lens we choose to see the world around us........... does anyone have a story you'd like to share?  I bet we can all relate!"

By lunch time, layers of selves were peeled away.  The setting had been set for new prism lenses to be installed. A shift had happened.  The energy had changed.  All because we took the risk of sharing stories.  What a gift.

the vanity of a delusion

There is a cloudy film on her internal lens that smears her vision. It wasn't always there. It developed over years of trying to escape the painful truth ..... the same truth she continues to turn her attention away from and instead towards seducing a chimerical notion.

She never felt loved. She never felt worthy of it. These messages, which she heard inside her head over and over again until they echoed with quickening vibrations like the high pitched cry of a collicky baby. Whether this was the truth or not, it didn't matter. Haunted and hunted, this message became her acidic reality....one that poked holes in her snared heels where her soul drained out. It left her an empty chasm in need of vital attention only restored when she consumed her thoughts with pleasuring. Pleasuring herself. Fed by a powerful anger that simmered under black latex protection, her wants overheated logical thinking and left her salivating in her own ruminations. She set her sights and never turned away.

over and over and over.....

the same self talk....

messages created by an imagination gone awry

over and over and over.....

until she was completely convinced.

Most of the time, she packaged her unrelenting hunger to be recognized as worthy by ensuring that others around her perceived her actions as self-less, helpful, innocently offered. She was a giver! Many only saw her outer persona as socially capable and always giving of herself. Like a flimsy house of cards, however, her projected life was only an illusion. She knew it somewhere deep down in her subconcious, but she had convinced herself so intensely that the fallacies were rooted in rich soil. They were real, NOT fantasy. She held onto this belief......

When anyone questioned the contradictions she portrayed, she was able to sway them somewhat with her fabrications or poked her finger into their triggerpoints. She protected her stories by learning to embrace the role of the martyr .... a victim of the bile of others. Her answers to others were never exactly the same, though they had one thing in common: they were vaguely written perambulations which never answered the questions.

Her bewildering lies soon became her truth. It was like living inside a blender where there was absolutely no way of knowing what the original ingredients were or of what was natural or artificial flavouring. The more someone questioned, the more incensed she would become that someone wouldn't believe in her soft downy innocence. Even with evidence foisted under her twitching nose, she would never relent....never let down her guard to admit that she was a product of a delusion.

Sadly, more and more saw the picture she painted as a mirage until the early life message she convinced herself was true, that she was unloved, became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Her vanity fanned delusions took her full circle. But, she would never admit that failure to herself. Oh, no! She wasn't wrong!! She hadn't created the mess!! Instead, she blamed everyone else for being so screwed up that they would NEVER understand how much she sacrificed and how much she deserved her pleasures.

Hmmm......I wonder if she should consider running as a candidate in the next election?? She seems to have the right kind of profile.

covert yearnings.....

Hidden behind twilight's sight, she stood alone. Her unspoken sentiments veiled in cool cotton secrets, summoned an awakening of fragile pleasures beneath the evanescence of daylight. She longed to let her secrets seep out of her thoughts as a freefall offering into bliss.

Under the cascading birth of stars weeping from the night sky, she let her white shift slip into an ebony of evening lace, transcending the purity of her pale lipped innocence. Her covert spirit blushed in tender newness scented with the essence of crushed lavender and apple blossoms.

With a smile masking bodystatic anticipation she stepped across the threshold, pulled by the magnetic force of deepening longing. Her elegant movements transformed the air filled with humidity into the clarity of dizzying thinness. The ripe moment had arrived to taste the bittersweet nectar of unbridled love. There was no turning back.

As she was about to reach the soul piercing pinnacle of her heightened secrets, she inadvertently alighted upon a hard protruding root causing her to lose her delicate balance. Her secrets spilled out with a rollicking force, lost inside her tumbling heart until she landed splayed out flat on her back with a shuddering thump. It took her breath away and left her shaken to her core.

Up above, the birthing stars continued to surrender tears. She looked up to cast a secret wish as one gloriously shot across the night sky in front of the knowing moon.......

This week's Sunday Scribblings prompt is "covert..." For more covert offerings, check out their blog.....

contradictions

the sharp intake of contradiction

sits in wait at the cross of two paths

where painted signs of doubting discomfort

hung in low branches

point out the myriad of directions.

the air is thinly perfumed with baffling adrenaline

and scored by an orchestra of silent instruments

playing to the crowd of lonely patrons

what to do?

who to believe?

why the paradoxes?

what do we thirst?

is contradiction a flirtatious whore in a white dress

who lures innocent hearts into dangerous territory....

or simply a scorned misunderstood woman

offering new awareness in delicate cups

filled with thirst quenching water from the well?

may we accept her for who she is and what she offers -

a place for learning found in the bittersweet elixir of life's adventure.

take care, drink deeply, love like you've never been hurt.

.....know you are part of the unfolding of a mystery

....know that in the core of a contradiction is a clue.

losing it....

a mere suggestion

one speck of a whisper
can trip us into an
awakening soaked in
yearning.


a sheer glint of light
one soft touch on the temple
can move us into a
place awash in
souful exploration


a seered mention
one knowing nudge
can transcend us into a
world of imagination
where being lost
can lead to finding
bliss


may i make a mere suggestion?
perhaps we need to get lost more often.

_______________________________________

This week's Sunday Scribblings prompt is "lost"....it's a good place to be. Check out more offerings by following this link... it may be the beginning of a beautiful journey into the unknown.

temptation

it can

steal away focus,

create internal conflict

shrug off moral reasoning

taste like warm nectar

leave a bitterness

catch your breath

tantalize thoughts

launch impulsivity

cry freedom

frighten a grown man

start a new journey

tamper with dignity

strip down integrity

be gloriously sinful

stir a curious woman
shower you with shame

make you crave

break your spirit

harmonize two minds

be the answer to a great mystery

spark a lost soul

generate energy

kick you in the gut

leave you wanting more.

temptation entices a wandering unanchored passion in need of affirmation. it spins control on its side, wrapping it in an alluring flame with mesmerizing dreams. it chokes discipline leaving it bruised and unable to swallow.

acting on one may alleviate the trembling ache of emptiness with the heat of fulfillment or it can fuel the heart with an unrelenting desire for more.

aren't you curious to know where your temptations will lead? I wonder whats just beyond that door??

excuses...

Your ship to come in

The tides to roll out

The winds to change

The sky to turn blue

A change of scenery awaits...





For .....

a full moon

precious time

a dashing rescuer

a clean break

the right moment

a rainbow to appear

a wink from the cosmos

springtime anew

an escape hatch

more money

less stress

a clear head

a sign from above

an omen

a friend

a flip of a coin

the right words

luck to change

a new job

the phone to ring.



For the stars to align.....

What are YOU waiting for?

song for a winter's night

Gordon Lightfoot's musical repetoire spans forty years and includes many brilliant songs of love and longing. Also known for his social activism and love of the history and terrain of this country, Lightfoot is Canada's version of Pete Seeger. His roots are folk. His songs have been sung by many legendary artists including Peter, Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and Sylvia and Ian Tyson.

His timeless lyrics and melodies are woven into the fabric of this vast country. Many many people who learned how to play the guitar were inspired by a song, a melody, a story Lightfoot had penned. Sung around campfires, listened to in the warmth of our homes, embraced as the Canadian troubadour, his songs express emotions we sometimes have a tough time finding the words to attach to them....

As a child, I recall many late afternoon drives home from the ski hills after a day of skiing listening to "If you could read my mind...." or Canadian Railroad Trilogy or Sundown....or Early Morning Rain, his beautiful song of yearning for a love. Memories and pictures fill my head whenever I hear him on the radio, or someone else singing one of his classics. A new generation of Canadian musicians have embraced the songs.....I heard Sam Roberts today singing Early Morning Rain and fell in love with the song all over again.

We almost lost him a couple of years ago......very ill and in a coma for 5 weeks, he somehow managed to rally and recover. Since then, he put out his 20th album and toured across Canada....His voice is not as strong. He has mellowed with age too. But, he continues to do what his loves.....and we are all the more inspired by his gutsy determination to carry on sharing his gifts and creative genius.

Song for a Winter's Night, sung here by the ethereal Sarah McLaughlin, is to me the most beautiful Canadian love song Gordon Lightfoot every wrote. It captures the essence of this time of year in the desire to feel the warm intimacy of love.

Enjoy....xo

Happy Valentines Day, even to the miserable f***s out there in blogland.....oh, you know who you are.

ps...please excuse the corny pictures on the video. they are enough to make me gag. It was the clearest version of the song....so, listen with your eyes closed. :)

"memories come back to haunt me....."

This is my fourth Springsteen song lyric post. Yeah, have been working on a theme! I've also tried to write four distinctive pieces of writing this week.....a story, a poem, and an informational piece. Tonight .......... drumroll puhleeeeeze ...... something for Nashville. Just need someone to twang out a tune on their geeetar....any takers??

My Somebody Closer


Just poured a second cup of coffee,
Waiting for the dawn
I'm filled with haunting memories
In the body of our song
Of a day so long forgotten
In the rippling of the years
I'm lost in your soft expression
Trying to hold back my tears.
______
Can you be my somebody closer
Instead of a figment in my dreams
Or will you haunt my waking everyday
Your laughing eyes unseen
I want to live out our memories
Our love captured in the breeze
This is my early morning yearning
Please set my heart at ease.
________

We walked away in silence

too young to see ahead

No fairy tale ending binds us

Our separate ways instead

Yet through the fog of lonely

I see your shadow on my soul

I'm aching for your fingers touch

Your roughworn hand to hold.

______

Can you be my somebody closer
Instead of a figment in my dreams
Or will you haunt my waking everyday
Your laughing eyes unseen
I want to live out our memories
Our love captured in the breeze
This is my early morning yearning
Please set my heart at ease.

_________

There you go! It needs a couple more verses, but my honky tonk is tired. If anyone is interested in carrying on, please by all means.....Daisy?

touchstones

Ana sat crumpled at the foot of the hill, a royal blue stone cupped in her hand. Exhausted in mind and body, she couldn't find the energy to walk up the path as she did everyday. She had lost the impetus to continue. She had lost her way. It simply felt too difficult to carry on with her mission. The meaning of it had slipped out of her grasp.

No matter what the weather, Ana had treked up to the top of the hill to place a stone she had carefully chosen and carried onto the pile which had accumulated over time. This was her lifework. She loved her stones and usually took pleasure in choosing the ones who spoke to her. Over the years, she came to believe stones were a home for spirits. They individually held ancestral stories. They were our collective legend. Her best days were when Ana discovered a diamond in the rough......a stone which resonated heat from its core when she cupped in the palm of her hand. She called those ones touchstones because they seemed to carry lovewisdom in them, derived from living in the heart of eternity. Touchstones, she believed held the stories from the past......full of ancestral feelings. Through her eyes, the collection she had accumulated was a living piece of art....a choir. Recently, the stones had become silent. Her mission, she questioned.

There were days when she would fill a whole basket full of stones and carry them up the hill. Most days, however, she journeyed with a single solitary one, like the blue gem she was holding onto. All uniquely imperfect and multi-coloured.....some with pink coral bits of quartz that sparkled in the sunshine, some more muted in a rich brown like the cliffs that framed the river below and carry them all up the hill. Then, she would place them one at a time onto the evergrowing, everchanging pile, and step back to see how her work had made a difference. The hill was indeed growing, as was the sculpture of stone spirits. It had felt right. Her sense of purpose filled her with a productive connection to the rest of the world, that this is what she was put on this planet to do.

Today, after many trips alone but with purpose, she had lost her footing. Her shoes were worn and full of sole stabbing pebbles. Sadly, it also seemed silly all of a sudden, and this awareness tripped her own spirit with deflated used up air. So many people had questioned her lifework over the years, had put up boulders along her path but she was always able to overcome whatever the obstacle. Her optimism and focus usually slayed the negativity and doubt. "A ghost just needs a home....." was her reply.

For some reason though, the opponent's words now haunted her thoughts and the more she listened to them replay in her head, the more she felt rejected. She looked at her worn scarred hands dried and cracked from the salty grit, remnants of her labours, her nails chipped and ugly and was overwhelmed by a sense of futility. Alone and unloved, that's how she felt. Her mission rejected. Her person rejected. When did her own self entwine with her mission? When did they become one in the same?

As she sat in a heap on this day, Ana looked at the last touchstone she had discovered. It was the smooth blue stone with white cracks etched on its surface. Its size fit perfectly in her palm, but it was far from perfect. In fact, it held character.......with chipped edges softened by the tides. This one actually never made it to the top of the hill. She kept it tucked in her pocket for company. So, as she sat questioning whether or not this truly was her legend or whether it was about to change, she found herself clutching onto the blue stone with it's softness. She ran her fingers unconciously over the fissures feeling the warmth generated from her touch. It helped her surrender her worries to the air around her. The more she repeated the movement, the more she could feel her muscles relax and her mind clear.

Time stretched on unnoticed as Ana found comfort in her meditation.....so much so that she was startled completely when she looked up and saw a man hiking down the hill close to the path she used everyday. In all of her days working on her mission, she had never seen anyone else on her hill. But, there he was. His steps seemed light and energetic, his arms swinging in purposeful motion. Continuing to stare at him like he was an apparition, Ana stood up to greet him as he reached the bottom of the hill.

"Have you been to the top of the hill?" he asked smiling.

"Oh, yes," Ana replied, "I walk up every morning," her reason kept silently in her pocket cupped in her hand. "And you? Is this your first time hiking in this area? I'm surprised I have never seen you before."

"You've seen the altar then?" Before she could overcome her confusion and gather her thoughts he continued...."Our paths probably havent crossed because I always take my walk at this time of day after I've finished my work. I find this is the time of day when the angle of the afternoon sun gives the altar a warm welcoming glow. Somehow, the stones someone has placed together comes alive and sings to me...." The look on Ana's face must've made the man realize she didn't know what he was referring to. He continued..."you have seen the altar, right?"

"No, well yes I have," blurted Ana, "it's just that I see it as a piece of artwork and nothing more."

"It's much more than that. Maybe you've never experienced the feeling because you're usually here in the morning" he reassured her. "Someone has worked very hard to build a beautiful chantry and at this time of day, when the sun warms and reflects its light off the golden touchstones the spirits share their wisdom with me. I hope you don't think I'm crazy, but I have found a place where I can lay my worries, where I can relax. It is where I come to pray everyday. It's where I give thanks."

"The stones speak to you? You pray there and give thanks?" Ana asked a bit dumbfounded. He tentatively nodded, unsure as to how this woman was receiving the informaton he shared with her.

"They speak to me too," she admitted...." which is why I have walked up this hill everyday with a new stone in my pocket to add to my art. I wanted to give the stories they hold a home."

"You built the altar?"

Ana nodded as tentatively as the man did. "I never saw it as an altar. I saw it as art."

"Your piece of art is a place of worship. It is beautiful! Oh! I want you to see it with new eyes and in a new light....come with me," he said with the excitement of a young boy who has just discovered an abandoned treefort.

As they walked up the hill, the sun warming their backs, Ana explained why she was there at a different time of day. She also shared with the man how lost she had felt because her sense of purpose seemed futile to her now. She told him she was going to give up on her mission....and was so worried about what she would do next. He listened without judgement and only asked a few questions as a way to help her find her words.

It was a different path than Ana had travelled on every single day so when they reached the summit, she was approaching it from a new angle. So, as soon as the stones came into her sight, Ana stopped abruptly and looked directly at the pile of stones which suddenly had transformed from an abstract piece of art to what the man had described. She saw the altar. Not only that, she heard the choir of spirits reflected from the afternoon sun.

Smiling, she approached her loving stones....the ones she had given a home to....and knelt down in front of them. The man knelt down beside her and quietly whispered...."You may have started your lifework by providing a place where the stories could find a home, but somewhere along the line, your mission changed.....you have built yourself one."

"I see that now......I see that now...."

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postscript........We begin projects with clarity of purpose and so often we lose the thread which ties us to the original reason. Or perhaps the reason for the journey begins to take on a different meaning. For so long, I saw myself as a "collector of stories. The stories others shared had a home with me. They had a voice too. I became a storyteller. " That was my vocation as a counsellor and then as a writer.

Somewhere along the line, as I collected and shared.....the meaning of my work, the direction of my journey began to take on a new shape as I realized the touchstones in my life have been providing me with lessons and have pointed out the direction of a new path. Though it is still a bit blurry.....my vision needs some adjusting, but I am finally seeing that perhaps I need to find an altar I can call home.

I have a long way to go.....and I don't know the way or even how to go about it. But I do see it. More importantly, it is what I want. This ghost just needs a home.

tonic for her clenched soul

Another restless night as the wind outside whipped up storm clouded confusion. It was a persistently lonely howl on a moonless planet that managed to push in between the souls who tossed and turned as they wrestled with their dreams. The wind encased them, stripping away any sense of connectivity to one another.....like coffins separated by walls of dirt. It felt like eternity soaked into one long, long night.

Darkness finally turned into daybreak. It was a daybreak, however, without an end to the elements speaking in anger. No lipstick sunrise on the horizon, only the welcoming of grey laden skies weeping in grief with no end in sight. The wind was winning over humanity. Dominance laced with growling moans of lost ghosts demanding refuge, it wailed in pain.

She lay in bed listening to the howls caught in the abandoned branches stripped of green light and realized that her own thoughts and feelings surged inside her with as much ferosity as the wind. Thorns cut into her own clenched aches like a harmonious dirge. Without hestitation, the winds outside upped the ante slamming gusts of rain against the side of the house. Like it was responding to her thoughts, the wind challenged this very idea that this women's ache equalled the wrath of the wind. It shook the foundation of the house, splaying painful torrents against the windows. It lifted the soggy leaves and broken discards up into the air with sorrowful wailing gales from the lost souls.

"I dare you," the wind shouted....."I dare you to believe your wrath is more powerful than my own."
"I DARE YOU to show me!"


Alarmed by the very idea that the wind was speaking to her, the woman's eyes popped open. It was challenging her to what? A dual of sorts? She was too tired......too exhausted to find the energy to respond. Her internal wanderings fed by her own indecisions, anger, frustration and tears of loss and what might have beens provoked the desire to simply pull the covers up over her head and drown out the mighty boastful wind. But, she was stronger than that and never ever stepped away from a challenge. In no time, she was dressed and out the door as she pulled on her rain slicker to go for a walk into the wind. Determined, she marched right into it's eye, up the hill to the fields flooded with new rain and muck, her soul clenched anger feeding her the energy she needed.


The wind beat her back, but she persisted to push through it's wrath as it wrapped around her body, making her coat flap behind, making her face pull in it's rapture. Her hair quickly became drenched; her shoes muddied in the mixture of cloudspills and wet clay. At first her own thoughts bellowed back at the wind..............rage against rage............sorrow bumping into sorrow......pain pushing pain..... her own torrent of tears spilled with the rain.

Why is life so difficult, she asked? Why do I have to suffer so much when I know what I want? Why can't the happiness and not the struggle be the gift from God? The wind spitwhistled through her, filling her ears with sound as she trudged up the hill. Before she knew it though, she found herself standing at the top of the hill overlooking the swollen river, angry in it's own right, flowing like a large belch of brown sludge. The canopy of trees surrounding the field were bent in mercy as their roots held on in frightful hope. She was surrounded by the nature which normally acted as a refuge. Today, however they seemed to be fighting their own battles. Or maybe, they fought alongside her?

She took it all in, surveyed the landscape held ransom to the vengeful wind, and suddenly found her internal noise was being buffered by what seemed like the groans of a thousand ghosts, in much more pain than she had ever suffered. Their pain became hers. Her pain then molded into theirs and soon she realized that though she was standing in the field defiantly all alone, she was part of the swooning forces of nature. A thought entered her muddled head. Someone had once told her that all it takes is to look at one grain of sand and one would know the glory of creation. One grain of sand she thought, as she acknowledged the fury churning in the river down below, and the wind all around her. One grain of sand held the mystery. And with that one thought the wind turn into gusts. It stopped it's incessant bellowing and took a breath. In between the gusts, when there were minute lulls, the wind's loud voice turned into a whisper which echoed one word over and over again like a mantra ..... repent ..... repent.... repent. Then it would kick back into a gale.

She heard it clearly......... repent....... ask for forgiveness......... feel the shame and guilt and ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness for what she wondered? The world blasted against me, what do I have to do with how this forsaken life has unfolded? I have tried and tried to do what is right, what I believed was my responsibility. I have lived as best as I could up to the standards expected of me, and yet I am constantly let down, diminished, abandoned, rejected. Why should I repent for God's sake??? What do I have to repent??? I just want to be recognized for who I am and not rejected or left on the sidelines.


"Humility," the wind responded....."Defiance. Not relinquishing your strong desire to control the forces instead of realizing you are one with them. A speck of sand may seem inconsequential at first glance, but it holds the mystery of all of creation. A speck of sand washed up onto a shoreline has surrendered to the elements and has allowed itself to be validated as one of many. No one is more special than anyone else. No grain of sand feels special. It is simply part of the universe, as you are. A speck of sand and YOU are one in the same."

This message brought her to her knees in realization that she was trying too forcefully and in the meantime brushing back the people and the forces who were in her life to befriend her. Rather than accept herself for who she was, she constantly fought back and in so doing left people in her wake feeling threatened by her yearnings. Shame washed over her as the dawning pressed on her temples. Destiny cannot be thwarted. Destiny cannot be altered no matter how hard you try to manipulated the circumstances. Trust in the universe is the way to be. Sure we have the strength to help overcome some day, but it will only happen if one trusts that life will unfold as it should.

Enlightened, she fell into a heap on the ground and thought about all the winds she chased after......all the causes she fought in what she had considered were good deeds. She thought of the people in her life who mattered, the moments in her life which mattered. The pictures played quickly through her mind and then came to a sudden halt when she finally realized that the world wasn't an "us against them scenario." Rather, it was a single solitary oneness.....the essence of all that she was made of was an accumulation of the past which was held in the ground she knelt upon and the future which was held in the hands of God. At that moment, she looked up into the skies and let the rain wash over her like a cleansing baptism.

Time lost meaning as she knelt in the thinness of the moment of feeling a sense of surrendering peace as she spoke the humbling words....."please forgive me....."

Soaked, tired and vulnerable but also feeling empowered, she pulled herself up and let the wind carry her down the hill to her home where the people she loved were waiting for her to make breakfast....a big Sunday breakfast as always. She couldn't wait to put the kettle on to make herself a hot cup of tea......tonic for her soul. It was time to restart the day with a new set of eyes. It was time to give thanks.


****Written with a lot of help from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I highly recommend the book if you havent read it yet. *****

omens and blessings

How often do we miss a blessing because we only see it as a curse? Are we afraid to recognize them for what they are? How often do we miss reading the omens scattered like autumn leaves along our walking path because they simply look like wet rotting lifeless mulch in need of a good raking? They smell of death, not life! Some of them.....the strong ones stick to your shoes and trail along, persistently holding on. Those messy buggers.

All the while, we keep thinking "Gotta keep the walking path pristine..........leaves are just messy and mean nothing." We have tucked away our ability to use our intuitiveness.....the essence of how we read the world around us because we want life to be pristinely predictable.

why? Fear.

Omens and cursed blessings mark change....change in our messiness we label "life unfolding," .... a letting go of the past, and a bridge to the future. They stir up our feelings and make us feel uncomfortable in our own skin. It's like we don't know ourselves because blessings and omens bump us from the outside and make us look inside. However, if we use our intuitiveness tool to journey into the clay of others who have been here before us, perhaps we will find that our lives are simply a thread of an eternal wise soul where answers and maps are found.

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consenting.........

trio of beauty

"Why am I afraid to tell you who I am -

because if I tell you who I am,

and you don't like who I am,

that is all I have"

I first read this quote on Pip's blog a while ago and it has always resonated with me. This one small confession seems to sum up all of the reasons why we choose so many masks to cover up our real selves. We fear rejection. We fear judgement, especially from someone whose opinions matter. We fear that naked vulnerablity which accompanies new disclosures. It's like being asked to stand on a podium in broad daylight without a stitch of clothing on while others poke, prod, stare, gasp even. Stifled giggles, and comments behind your back..........these are the fears which stop us from showing off ourselves. People can be so darn mean. Even close friends and family can strip you of your confidence to show your true colours.

We also have such an urge to fit in......not be considered too different from the pack. Part of this is needed for survival within the pack, but mostly it's where the comfort zone lays. Too brassy and you'll turn people off...........too mousy and no one will pay attention. So, we stay within the zones of acceptable roles, and that's fine if we are sharing ourselves within those roles. But when we hide in those roles, we lose our selves. We lose our identity.

There is nothing more reassuring and confidence boosting than acknowledgement and acceptance. We crave it.........crave to be loved as we are, warts and all. When we do manage to find the guts to strip off the labels, the clothing, the protection and display ourselves as we are and are not accepted, our instinctive reaction is to go hide deep in a cave of self despair where true identity is melted into a mass of rejection. It's just too painful to try again. It's too painful to be that vulnerable again. We automatically shut down to a point where we arent even honest with ourselves about our own identities.

Should we rely on other's opinions and reactions? It is only human nature. I believe we do crave this, but I also believe that we have far more control over how someone reacts to what we have shared. It comes from finding the comfort of knowing ourselves first. If I am accepting of my own strengths and weakness, of the gifts I can share and the deficits I need to fill, of my of skills as well as the areas I need help in, then I can be genuinely be comfortable displaying who I am. I am the one who reflects my identity, and if I am confident in who I am and how I strut my stuff, than I can release an energy which is attractive. Not that its easy.....its never easy being naked and vulnerable when consenting to show just who you are the first time. But what is a life if one doesn't show what you're made up of?

"Why am I afraid to tell you who I am -
because if I tell you who I am,
and you don't like who I am,
that is all I have"

I think this quote touches me because it makes me realize we are all a little bit scared revealing our identities. Sometimes we think we are the only ones frightened to show up in life.....that we're all separate from everyone else. Not true. In fact, I think every single person on this planet has said this statement before........in words, in their inactions, in their defensive feelings. Its good to know we aren't alone in our fears........its good to know that perhaps the person you have consented to show your identity too is feeling just a little bit frightened of the stage too.

So......Here I am..........yes it's true

And here's the song to accompany....enjoy!

The prompt this week at writers island is Identity.............for more revealing bits, check it out.