An Almost-Empty Nest

Yes, I'm the completely Caucasian chick that prefers to eat with chopsticks.  And I love that I'm getting so much better at it.  Tonight's dinner is the same as the past 2 nights, a Greek salad: 50/50 spring mix lettuces, an intense balsamic vinaigrette, feta cheese, and Kalamata olives (the saltiest and tenderest black olives).... with chopsticks.  *shrugs*  Dare I mention... in the candlelit dark in my jammies, in bed already.  

...I shouldn't be eating the feta, but every once in a while... mmmmmhmm.

Today was my physical.  I would say "annual physical" but I haven't had one in... well I can only recall one other in my adult life (outside of my army days).  In fact, before I had my leg pain in early December, I hadn't been to the doctor for even a sick visit in at least two years.  But I decided to make one after my leg pain issue.  A vessel in my right thigh, the main one, swelled up near bedtime and became really painful.  Not even moving around it was still painful.  I had an ultrasound, which found absolutely nothing (of course).  Doctors never find anything wrong with me when I complain of anything.  I guess I'm too sensitive to the slightest of changes.  I don't know.  How can a person have that much pain and it just go away and can no longer be detected like that?  That can't bode well.  

I had already decided to start working out and eating better before that happened.  For all I know, that's what brought it on.  In late November I had edema of the lower calves.  That's when I started working out, eating more cleanly, and quit the mtn dew again.  I've only lost a measley 6 lbs.  But hey, it was over the holidays and the numbers are going in the right direction, if ever so slowly.  I'm currently trying to break my second plateau.  Gawd, I can remember when I could lose 10 lbs in the first week. *smh*  The 40's suck in that regard.

In other ways, 41 (nearly 42) isn't so bad.  I was done having kids at 25.  That means my oldest is 19 and my youngest is 16.  She will be 17 when she graduates high school.  An empty nest is just around the corner.  And boy do I have plans for it! My poor kids, they won't be coddled.  They have been reminded from time to time, while growing up, that mom intends to pursue her own dreams once they're grown, which could including living anywhere, stateside or not.  Mom may not be one of those always-around grandmas for their kids.  

And it's really getting close.  I mean, I've already gone through the stage when, after wanting the years to speed up, I started wishing they would really slow down - it was going too fast, they were growing up too quickly, I wasn't sure I wanted to let go of this period of my life any time too soon.  Now... well now there are plans forming.... nebulous plans, but directions and desires swirling about in more and more specific ways.  

It's just that I need to polish off the edges where my multi-year depression had alchemically changed my spirit and body.  It's not just the coming empty nest.  No.  It's spaceman.  Of course, it's also spaceman.  This man is the love of my life.  I swear to it.  Every time I'm having a bad or not so great day and I think about our coming conversation and might not be as up for it as usual... just feeling blah, you know?  Once we are chatting or talking, a certain cadence kicks in and my heart lifts.  He brings life to my light.  And I'm sure that if you could see auras, ours would glow a little brighter while we are "together".  

Of course, we aren't really together-together in the sense that we live 6 hours apart.  In fact, I have not laid eyes on this man in over 10 years.  Scary, eh?  Kind of, but kind of not.  Like I told him last night, this sweet, sweet flavor of romantic love that we have going on in recent months is all wonderful, but it is not the basis of our love.  The basis of our love is the 10 years worth of cherishing one another through frequent letter exchanging.  Our romantic reconnection may bring us closer, but "we" have always been.  There's going to be a lot of dreams coming true.  I can just feel it.  And, so can he.

That brings me back to these nebulous plans that are developing.  Oh so many hopes and dreams, co-mingling, forming in thought first and later in actuality.  What exactly that will be, we do not know yet.  I like to watch things unfold in real time, and so does he.  It's a living in the moment balancing act that is far more difficult to achieve than conceive. Yet somehow, with him, I feel calm and patient.  I feel confident and truly loved.  I am liberated in a way I cannot describe.  

And so, I'm making progress towards what I want.  After all, just because you yearn for something doesn't mean it will come about.  You have to meet it in the middle.  You walk towards what you prefer and expect wonderful outcomes without being attached to any, but welcoming whatever the universe forms to deliver.  Positive intention is key here... an intention with open-endedness.  Don't focus on the hows.  Just focus on the feelings you want to have.

Right now, I'm having the feeling that I would like to eat something yummy!  It just needs to be healthy, too.  

hmmm... it cannot be that awesome cottage cheese and homemade strawberry jelly I have sitting in the fridge.  I've already had too much dairy (feta; lactose intolerant).  A fuji apple then... with peanut butter... better yet cashew or almond butter if I can find some.

Leaning In

Last night's story had an alternate ending that was, what feels like to me, thankfully and miraculously avoided.  There's no amount of writing it out here that could possibly convey how grateful I am to spaceman for what he did for me last night.  I'm in uncharted waters, this relationship navigation stuff, and he is beyond incredible with his support and understanding.  

Last night I was delivered some news that sent me into a panic... a familiar panic mode because it has happened twice before and I thought I was done with that period of my life.  I'm being purposefully cryptic here, but please suffice it to say that I knew I had to get a grip on my reaction before it ran away with itself... and I was losing the battle.  

I was at a friend's house when the news came and I told them what was going on, that I needed to leave, and added that I didn't know how I was going to keep my freak-out from spaceman because I didn't want him to see me this way.  Their advice?  Don't hide it.  If you want more intimacy with him, be completely open about it.  It was sage advice.  

As open as I can be with people, it isn't easy to be open when your worst fears are triggering.  It's definitely complete vulnerability to allow someone to see such things for the first time, live in action.  It was terrifying, the situation, more than spilling my beans to him, though.  So I went home and asked him to please call me.  Mind you, we have spoken on the phone all of 4 times in the past year, once over Christmas and once New Year's Eve and again yesterday earlier in the day.  We message one another, email, etc., usually... all hours of the night and wee hours of the morning, but not usually voice-to-voice.  It's something I have been wanting for a long time, and spaceman being the self-described hermit that he is, well let's just say he has been slow to warming up. :)  But it doesn't really matter to me over all.  We have such a great relationship already that I have nothing but patience for him.  Anyway, after I got home last night I messaged him and told him I got some really bad news and I really just needed to talk to him. I couldn't type it out this time.

And he did.  He actually said that when we said our good byes while voice chatting earlier in the day that when he said he would like to talk again later in the evening that he had been hoping to talk over the phone and not in chat anyway - which was a huge delight for me to hear that.  I've so wanted to move into this phase and it seems we may just be doing that. <3

So, I put my blue-tooth in and went for a drive around my neighborhood to warm the car up ("feels like" temp was 18F) while spilling my beans.  He listened and spoke and listen and spoke.  The whole experience was new territory for me... to be able to admit when I'm feeling at my worst is one major thing by itself, but to tie so many pieces of my life together in a more coherent narrative for him...  well, it took SO MUCH weight off my shoulders, AND shifted the outcome of my "freakout"... to the point of... well, although I still had this uneasy raging energy flowing inside me, it was subdued, wrangled if I may use that word... It's exactly like, by having shared all this with him, somehow all the additional anxiety I would have felt if I had kept it all in for an indefinite period of time... well not only was that mitigated, I felt lighter and closer to him, having him in such an intimate inner circle with me.  

I have never had this much love and support from any man.  

We made more specific plans for his trip out here in February, half the time in a hotel (for privacy) and half the time here in my home with my kids.  I've told my brother he needs to make himself scarce for the weekend.  We'll see how scarce he actually becomes.  I also told my brother recently that he needed to start thinking about moving out.  I need my home back, for my own sanity, for my own health, for my family.  We need to get the "home" back in this "house". 

The more immediate feeling I have this morning is one of relief.  I know just how badly my emotional state would have been had spaceman not been there to hear me out and be my support last night.  I'm sure it wasn't the conversation he had been anticipating, but he's quite flexible in nature and always wonderful to me.  He, being 11 years older than I am, was able to pull from his own past experiences to help me gain needed perspective.  And where my circumstances have never been his, he was the gentle voice of reason and love that brought me back towards my own center.  And... just being there, voice-to-voice, letting me ramble on in needed distraction, gawd, I just love this man so much.  He's a mirror into myself, and I into him.  Instead of laying awake in an insomniac-stress event last night... after a long very good and important talk with my 16 year old daughter about the fiasco (and about my relationship with spaceman), I, with relative ease, fell asleep.  It wasn't an entirely peaceful sleep, but there was much sleep, the most important feature of... sleep. ;)

This morning I don't feel panic.  I feel a little emptied out, which is good.  Actually, it's no longer "morning" lol - it's 1:45 pm already.  I would like to make it to the gym at some point.  I'll have to look up what time they close and try to make it.  I also want to borrow my son's truck and go to Sears and buy a new humidifier (ours broke).  We are all complaining of dry nasal passages - this being the season of nose-bleeds for my kids who are prone to those sorts of things.  Other than that, I have no plans other than the hope to choose a small project or two around the house and tackle them.  I think I'll marinade some salmon, too.  Yum.

Ignition

What a surreal evening.  December 23rd and the thunder is rolling across the sky.  I had to drive home in the beginning of the storm when it was at its worst.  There was a tornado watch in effect... in December.        

surreal

Regardless, I love warmer weather, skipping winter, and thunderstorms.  I also love feeling like I've received the blessing of a warmer day instead of frigid winter temps and blanketed grey skies.  

This week has been a bit different.  I was flying high with a certain vibration for so long and then Wham!  I've decided to harness the energy for what it is.  It started out with having my ducks in a certain row for increased energy (working out and eating better) and culminated in... I guess you could say... putting to rest a situation that needed to be put to rest at work.  With the support of those closest to me and some great superiors, I feel much better.  However... this anger that enraged from the situation may very well have caught some tinder alight in my being.  With the tinder having already been smoldering, I am wondering if, even after I got my resolution at work and felt that relief, the reason I'm still feeling this strong degree of fire inside me is because it's just another way things are burning through me lately.  

It may not last.  

But what if it does?  It makes me think of things like how I will adjust to yet another flavor of personality showing through.  Now I'm starting to get just how a modern mystic like Sadhguru can become so intensely spiritual.  

I had a dream about him the other night.  I'm not sure I want to share it, but it was a powerful message, in essence a confidence booster and recognition of being on target in my life, even by his designs.  You have no idea how important that is to me.  I tried to make it not important, but it is.  Even while I have thought myself lost.... he shows me I am exactly where I need to be and with whom.  

If you keep getting thrust into situations beyond your former experience and comfort zone, you can wiggle your way through realization after realization.  Yet you can still pursue your own goals.  It all depends on what you want and if you want it badly enough.  I've always known what I've wanted badly enough is epic love.  Having tasted it and found myself battered by my and others' inabilities to contain and balance such love, these things I began and eventually all but gave up on.  I have known great failure with some awesome people and been tested through intense heartache and dysfunction.  But my sweet day has come and he travels in love with me now.  And I feel very little, if any, dysfunction with spaceman and I.  That's an awesome thing to be having going on... and there's more.

Since I also changed my activity level and my eating habits, I'm watching my body increase in health... my core feels stronger, no longer like it's sitting its weight upon itself, I feel like I need my inhaler far less, my lungs feel stronger and less breathy, my fresh-out-of-the-dryer jeans felt less snug this morning, I'm not breaking down to snack nearly as much, I've had only 1 day I drank mtn dew since Nov. 30th, I'm not drinking much, I'm not even worrying or stressing over feeling hungrier - I eat or drink something light and sensible to pass it, I'm not finishing what's on my plate - like my parents always insisted, I've severely restricted grains like I should be, I'm at the gym 3 and 4 days a week, today I beat what I did yesterday by a quarter mile with only 30 seconds more on the clock, I've convinced my daughter to work out with me sometimes with the promise that if she did I might get her her own membership too, she did/I did, I have a couple of friends who also workout there and I love having a bit of a social life at the gym instead of come and go and speak to no one, my routine at home is changed as now I frequently shower in the evening instead of night... I would be requiring less sleep if only I weren't blissfully addicted to conversations with my spaceman.  

There's a lot going on that is awesome, 
so much more than I can list here.  

And yet some people I love and care about are going through some of their worst times...  I'm way up here and they're way down there reaching up but unconvinced of their possible success... or just distraught from heartache or numbness.  Having come out of such a period of inner turmoil from 2011-2014 (surprise addiction/being out-sourced/bankruptcy/anger at society and life), I know too intimately how far down the emotional scale that is.  

Maybe it's no wonder 2015 has been a stellar year for me. But that doesn't even begin to explain just how great it has been.  It's epically rewarding.  I really need to thank Tidbitz profusely, for she shared Nahko & Medicine for the People sooooo many times on her Facebook wall that I eventually listened.  Surely I have recounted the happiness breakthrough story, haven't I?  And then there's spaceman <3.  Need I say more???

So this fire inside can rage if it wants to.  I will learn to deal with it like I have the lack of inhibitions, humor, playfulness, and insights.  A fire inside is the type of energy that tripped me up in 2005 with spaceman. Sedona vortexes can be a bitch if you're not prepared. It's not the same "issues" being dealt with but it's that same raw energy.  Am I ready this time to deal with it?  Yeah, I think so.  Just bring the man to me, please.  Put him face to face with me, soon... Februrary <3.



"I'm going to ultimately liberate my consciousness."
"My eyes are crying over bullet-proof pride, because I know I didn't come to make it out alive."
"I will make a change."

Being Tested

"You're being tested," she said.  "What?" I thought maybe I didn't hear what she'd said over the hum of the brewery chatter.  

"It's a test.  These guys are tests for you."  Yeah, that's what I was thinking she'd said.  And she continued on in earnest curiosity, "Why do you even respond to them?"  

"Should I just ignore them?  That's rude.  There's no reason to be rude.  Besides, it just blows me away."  So I start to tell my sister the story of who this guy is who is messaging me tonight.  

I haven't heard from him literally since high school.  He's still good friends with another high school friend of ours whom I had been chatting with, more than I really wanted to, up until recently.  That guy (I'll call him HikerGuy) I had already set straight, a month or so ago.  I had told him, point blank, that "texting from sun up until late at night was something lovers do, which we are not."  He slowly but gradually cooled off after that.  But this guy who was messaging me tonight?  He was apparently a little miffed at spaceman and I having announced our relationship publicly on Facebook to all our friends and family.  I do not make this shit up, this is what he said to me:

"Weren't you just talking to HikerGuy? Damn...I missed the deadline again with you! Ugh!"

I am sure that HikerGuy left any assumptions his friends had about he and I very open ended and probably never used the word "platonic" in any of those conversations.  When the guy from last night asked me again about HikerGuy my reply was simply,

"Um we were talking about Hiking. And he's an awesome guy. But there was nothing you could consider not platonic. And I was not committed then.I told HikerGuy when I made [my own] decision. Only fair"

And yet you would not believe the detail in which he went into expressing his thoughts about me.  Basically, he reminisced in detail about how I looked in high school.  Having taken me to a dance, he had pictures he said he has kept and admired all this time.  Seriously, can a girl be flattered any more than that from a high school friend?  I am 41 years old now, fergodssakes.  I am just like any other 41 year old with sagging unmentionables and bulging curves.  How is it wrong, I think to myself, to allow myself to listen to a guy say such things to me?  That's not acting on it.  It's a one-time conversation.  In fact, I woke up this morning to another "hello" from him and that one DID get ignored.  He's also obviously way into looks and I'm not.  I was polite the other night, but that's enough warning.  In fact, that night he asked me for my phone number and I refused.  I am not playing the field anymore.  That's key.  

There is one person whom I was having a wonderful time hanging out with, also platonically... and he hasn't said so, but I know him... He's probably hurt, and that's partly my karma.  We had plans to hang out last night (which the universe was apparently conspiring to have cancelled because I came down sick yesterday afternoon), but he politely cancelled our plans (before I came down sick) and that actually brought me selfish relief.  Normally I would be more inquisitive of his feelings, try to foster understanding.  But this time, I let him go.  I simply asked him to please not be a stranger.  He didn't contest what that implied - that I knew he was hurting and why.  He just said, "Thanks".  His possible pain bothers me.  Steven has been in my life longer than spaceman has (just not with the same connection).  We have worked long and hard at being just friends.  I sincerely thought we had achieved it years ago.

It's not a one-way street, these admirers.  Spaceman has his own, and rightfully so.  He, too, has lost an ex-turned-friendship over our announcement.  We spoke about it at some length, if not what words transpired, but about his relationship with her.  He asked me, and I am paraphrasing here because it was days ago and if you only knew the needle in a haystack effort trying to dig up that one line would be... he asked, "this doesn't bother you... talking about her with you?"  Of course it doesn't... I want to know everything he's willing to share with me, at all times, with any subject.  He affords me so much more than that.  For instance, this writing here... he has granted me permission to write without asking further permission about anything we discuss or anything about him.  How trusting is that?  How open is that?  And after 10 years of conversing with him (he gave me permission back then as well as again recently when I re-asked him), I know he can handle anything I throw at him.  

Except infidelity.  I never assume anyone can handle that.  He never said he couldn't handle it; it's implied in our commitment with one another.  It's not even possible; it's not how I operate.  It's not who I am.  I have had a married man surprisingly kiss and seduce me while I was young and single (a fling I quickly ended), but that was a one time thing I swore I'd never do again and is the extent to which I have ever been a "cheater".  I am however, oftentimes a flirt.  This has gotten me into some sticky situations before, and I have many stories, too many stories... all of which I will, in time, spill to spaceman.  He knows I have a wild side.  He's seen it.  We laugh often over it, too. :)  

Every time a memory of some crazy thing I've done crosses my mind when we are chatting, my immediate reaction inside myself is to savor it but crush it into the secret corners of my past... and then I realize, like the million other little realizations that course through me when we are together, that he would want to know the whole me.  By not sharing, I am deceiving him into a false sense of who I really am.  So, I tell him.  I tell him the whole of it. The fun, the stupid, the dangerous, the insecure, the immature, the slutty even.  I am not afraid to be my whole self with him.  And the fact that he receives everything about me with such grace and hunger for more... well, I am on this fisherman's hook, blissfully caught up into his net.  I don't ever want to be with anyone else.  When I tell him who I really am by recounting who I have been, it shows him the range and capacity I have within me and that is yummy to him.  He tells me so in a million different ways and, in turn, demonstrates to me in unfathomable tenderness or shocking, sexual command, he loves me, he wants me, he will pour his everything out with me as well.

And so, these "tests"... *I roll my eyes*... they have NOTHING on spaceman.  It may have been that, around Halloween, we were not yet committed, but something changed that weekend... and although I was still chatting with others, I kept it platonic and was watching to see what spaceman would or would not do.  I wanted him more than I was saying at the time and he leapt, more than once to catch up, and now we are on fire.  

From spaceman to merridian:



There's a need for rain when the rivers dry When the earth's alone and the angels cry Like water I need you to fall on me I've run out of reasons to stay out at sea   I wanna get you to you In a serious way We got so much to do In a serious way I'll give you love so true Cause I wanna wake up with you everyday

The Future?

Synchronicities abound.

Spaceman accidentally added a link to our chat window last night, it was an article "Inside the Tiny Home Movement".  I didn't actually read it, because he immediately told me it was an accidental link. 

spaceman: oh DAMN...it is actually about the tiny home movement!...now that is freakin wierd

But I did click over and see the title, which reminded me... I started a list of "Things to Do with [spaceman] in February".  On the top of that list is, drum roll....

Watch "Life Off Grid" together https://vimeo.com/ondemand/lifeoffgrid/139603120

After watching the trailer, he said to me 

THIS gets my blood pumping....this is exactly what I have envisioned for some time now...exaactly

we NEED to watch that one together....I am just so blown away that my vision hasn't scared you off

I mean....to me...living simply...doesn't mean living in "poverty"...it means self-sustainability...and that can include a rich...ornate...lovely home....one that doesn't have to suck the life out of us by worrying about paying for it all of the time!

see I am not talking about a shack...I am talking....rich wood....granite countertops....state of the art appliances...solar power...hey I am a cancerian....I rich beautiful home os important to me 

I know you are a city girl....but I love you....and I can adopt some of your ways...and you could adopt some of mine? 

Yessss, a sustainable home is both our dreams.  We have so much in common, all over again. <3  And me being a city girl?  That's more like a suburbanite, although I do traipse all over the greater city to "play".  Seriously, all I need is internet, at least occasional internet.  I LOVE the country.  My younger sister lives on a farm and that place is just heaven to me.  

spaceman: I am not a died in the wool country music buff,,,some of it is so twangy and just stupid....but some of it resonates with me...I thought you might like this one

spaceman: think you and I could make roots somewhere like that some day?

Swimming

“To know Death, to be able to leverage mortality as an impetus to taste life profoundly, is the purpose of life.” 

~A Book On Death

In a way, I am doing this.  All this happiness, all these “finally coming true” happenings are making me hyper aware of my mortality.  It could all be ripped away in a tragic moment, yes?  

I can’t seem to forget that.

Driving down the highway, hyper vigilant and carefree at the same time...  Considering my health, wanting to be in tip top condition so that I last.  Understanding I am beyond the point of no return with him.  If either one of us keels over… there’s a dark potential there and I want to make sure every second is worth every ounce of pain that death will someday bring, because death is inevitable for us all.

“It is only in the awareness of the inevitable nature of Death that you will bite deeper into the fruit of life.” 

~same link as above

That’s just one of the many ways in which the sweetness of the deliverance of my joy is feeding upon itself.  This fire is fuel for my soul.  I’m on fire and smoldering at the same time.  I want to go dance under the fullness of the moon and swim in the sheets, completely lost to the outside world.  This passion I have, it’s wild and free and he will not contain it – instead he fans my flames greedily.  And I, I turn it back towards him, drenching what is already saturated.  I love him and he returns my call.  

Our sweetness will be my undoing.

The Return

How is it possible that this man has returned to me? 

In all reality, he never truly left. 

In May of 2005, we combusted, we broke up.  Or rather, I crashed and burned us to the ground.  We had been flying high together and I took a nose dive andcould not recover.  He, like the gentle angel he is, let me leave.  Let them go, right?  …and all that jazz.  After an incredibly, indelible deep dive into our wildest dreams, we parted ways.

I’m not sure how long it was before we picked communications back up.  I know that I had practically dove right back into the dating life with a friend (and next-door neighbor).  My neighbor (and confidant at time) and I made a go of it after some reluctance on my part.  Yet another patient man, wanting to pick up my pieces.  But in the end, I wanted more and he played the “I do but I don’t game” with me and I cut him off, too.  As wonderful as he was, I came to the depth of his ability to love me at the time and was left wanting.  After that, I was… let’s just say “stale” for a long while. 

And Spaceman was busy jumping into another relationship, too.  His lasted far longer, for 5 years, if I’m not mistaken.  It was a serious relationship full of the kind of love he craved and deserved.  His girlfriend was dreamy and capable and I admired their relationship greatly.

But sometime shortly after my neighbor and I ended it (late 2006?), spaceman and I were again communicating.  We found it in our hearts to try to forgive one another – mostly he forgave me (for I felt I had nothing to forgive him for) and I tried with all my might to figure out why I reacted so poorly in Sedona and be sincere in my apologies.  But mostly, our breakup matured into a wonderful, cherished friendship that lasted, get this… 10 full years! 

And I needed that 10 years, apparently, to undo the misconceptions within myself that caused me to take that nose-dive from him in 2005.  Without getting into the details of that, suffice it to say that I have dealt and continue to deal with my insecurities.

Through the years there were ebbs and flows of his interest in me and mine in him, never really meeting up in time together.  But we wrote, and wrote and wrote.  Boy did we write!  I’m sure I have all the emails to this day, which is pretty amazing.  Sometimes I go back and read through periods of them.  It’s insightful, delightful even.  This man is magical.  He’s a being of light that shines directly at the center of my soul, adding fuel to my higher consciousness.  I am sure there is no other being on this earth who sees me as clearly as he does.  Even just as a friend, he has always been that for me, always. 

This year I got happy.  I mean seriously happy!  It wasn’t even spaceman who did it.  Oh he’s a major source at the moment, but I somehow found this silly joy from music.  The first time I heard Nahko and Medicine for the People, I fell in love with their infectious, spirit-filled music.  I didn’t even know I was consuming medicine when it became the only music I could bare to listen to for months and months and months.  I just knew that by the second or third song, on my long drive to or from work, that I was dependably, raucously happy!  Weeks into it, I began to understand it was something unique, this new found,consistent joy that had invaded all parts of my life.  Things started to go right for once, twice, and a multitude of times.  A couple months into it I woke up in the middle of the night one night, and realized that I had breached the point of no return some time ago – so much so that I knew with all my being that I could NEVER go back to the emotional set-point of life-disappointment and deep depression that had ravaged me for 3-4 years prior (layoff/bankruptcy/anger at the world/lost hope of hope)... I laid there realizing my drastic and effortless return of passion, glory and bliss and promptly broke into deeply healing, racking sobs. 

Somewhere around that time, I also realized my love for spaceman was indelibly more than friendly and supportive.  We began chatting online more and more frequently, growing closer and closer again.  Out of my joy, I found him still standing there, turned toward me, but in his own puddle of a mess.

To be continued…

Bhava Spandana

I have been puzzling on just how to say what happened out at BSP (June 22-25, 2006) without spoiling the experience for others. I received an email in my inbox at work today. And incoincidentally, this email could actually be the perfect analogy of my experience of BSP this past weekend!!! How succinct!

The Whale

If you read the front page story of the SF Chronicle, you would have read about a female humpback whale that had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth. A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farralone Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her ... a very dangerous proposition. One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer. They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them; pushed them gently around-she thanked them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole time, and he will never be the same. May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate to be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you. And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude.

Dare to find out for yourself! Become Life! Attend a program near you .

A Call for the Spiritual Age

"A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily

on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth."

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Among others, our world has had the renaissance age, the industrial age, and the information age. Throughout each of these periods in our world's history, a breakthrough has first been imagined and held in vision by the forward thinkers of their times. Concepts, once only dreamed about, were manifested into existence, pushed through barriers that once were thought improbable, even impossible. Each time, a fireworks grand-finale explosion of ideas re-created mankind into a new awareness of thought and deed.

Today I say to you, this is the start of a new age... a defining period in the history of the New World that has been brewing and bubbling to the surface for hundreds of years. This is the start of the Spiritual Age, an age where tolerance is insisted upon and brought into a grander acceptance based in Universal Love.

One of my greatest heroes is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who stood up, under deep oppression of segregation, to face the course of our country and incite strength and movement in our people who had the power to speak up and demand FREEDOM and liberty for ALL. What Dr. King spoke about then and what he later spoke about in reference to the war in Vietnam, still holds true today when applied to the Freedom of Religion and the foundation of the separation of Church and State upon which our government was founded. But more than that, Dr. King's messages are founded in Love, Spirit, Acceptance, Equality, and Diversity - the same spirit in which our oppression shall, too, be liberated.

"Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on."

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in "Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break the Silence"

As I sit here today in front of my keyboard typing these thoughts, I am thankful for the freedoms we currently have in our great country. Without those freedoms, the Right to Free Speech not in the least of them, I would not be able to speak my mind without serious repercussions. Our country was founded on LIBERTY, and today as a great many of us see it, our freedoms are being eroded away. The will of the minorities are being over-ruled by the righteousness of the majority, however slight that majority is in reality. The difference between this point in history and that of previous majority-minority rights causes is this battle divides not based on race, but based on spirituality and religion. This cannot go on. If we are to lead our world in peaceful cooperation, we cannot go down this road of war, revenge, self-righteousness and division that is currently the flavor of those with the influence over those who conform in the name of morality.

This "morality" that the moral elite conveys does not represent the spirit of the new age. It insists upon the rest of us digesting and accepting new laws now being created that limit our choices, remove our rights to privacy, and effectively impose religious beliefs (morals) in which not all of us are in agreement. Soon, the laws that protect our freedoms will be challenged and possibly overturned because of the gathering conformist moral elite. While they insist their views are the ultimate truth and way to lead the world to justice and peace, they are actually representing the spirit of resistance and fear of that which they do not understand.

It is not my intention to convince anyone that MY way is the RIGHT way. My personal spiritual beliefs should be insignificant to the equation of equal rights. My intimate beliefs of whether or not God would approve of my actions or the actions of others should never be the basis upon which a law is approved or not approved. What should prevail is the right for all Americans to choose their religious path without laws imposed upon them that prohibit expression of their beliefs, without laws imposed upon them that prohibit their liberties. Not in the least of these is the liberty to marry, or join in a civil union with someone they love, and share in the benefits that legal unions provide such as healthcare, decision-making rights in their family units, and last but not limited to - death benefits. These are the same liberties many of us enjoy, but some withhold from others. For what other reason is this withheld than fear, fear of something unknown and expressed upon us by these liberty withholders as immoral?

"And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us."

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in "Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break the Silence"

I present to you the idea that Dr. King's ideologies still apply today within this time of mass "moral" insistence across our nation. This is a GREAT nation. I believe firmly in the spirit of our founders. It's time we stand up for that spirit, speak out against those who have consistently spoken out against us. It's time we insist upon our rights to be who we are inside, as they have had the right to be who they are inside. No one should have the moral majority; morals based in religion should NOT be a part of our laws. Morals based in freedom are inherent and should be protected.

Yet, despite all I have said here, there is one thing that trumps all our national disputes on who makes what laws, but not trumping the concern on why, War. When we take our self-righteousness out and impose it upon other countries, we will undoubtedly eventually lose. Again, I quote Dr. King (as he quotes an unnamed source):

"This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words, and I quote:

Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism (unquote)."

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in "Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break the Silence"

At this time in history with the inauguration of this new Spiritual Age, lies the battle scarred cries of humanitarians around the world. This must stop; the hatred and oppression must stop.

Postscript: Say what you will. I will not disable comments. I unlock my heart and expose my hopes and dreams and take my bruises with dignity while fortify myself in the Love that flows through the foundation of our Universe. That said, I do not claim to be a literary or history scholar, nor a writer. I am merely an average American with the conviction to speak up for what I believe.

Click Here for the source of quoted text excerpts

from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

and for the Audio MP3 of the speech itself.

There is so much more in this speech that resonates with the War in Iraq and the trials of our time, much as America went through during the Vietnam War.

It is painfully clear, America has not learned from its past and we are called, yet again, to speak up for the injustices that are running rampant.