No Man's Land...

I have to wake up.
This dream has become a confusing reality and I desperately need to awaken...

I tell my legs to move,
I instruct my arms to do the same,
they oblige...

But my heart is another matter all together, it won't budge...
It is the biggest mountain of a rock on this green earth of my soul and I can't do anything with it.

I feel trapped...
frozen in the ice of it's highest summit where no human has yet dared to go and claim...

Who do I wait for to claim these icy, frigid waters at it's base...
the depth of which seem to carry on forever.

Who do I wait for, and why am I certain that I am not a worthy quest and that no one's actually coming...

The pain freezes me in silence...
the winds are bitterly unbearable at this height...
how do I expect any human to ever break through this barrier of pain...

Even if they do have the skills they lack determination, or visa verse..

I am weary of always being strong...
i want to be weak.

My body cries out for weakness...
but the cold solidity of my imposed and accepted strengths,
keeps me frigid...
cold...
alone...

I wish to simply dissolve...
yet what I really need is to rise up.
Even if I am bone weary of rising up one more single time...
but the single time always becomes again...  and again...  and again...  and again...

I rise up...
I step forward.
I choose to see the light,
or I choose the empty comfort of the dark pain...

This I do know, weeping may endure for the night,
but I can always find joy in the morning:  light... joy...  hope... and strength...

If I am crying tonight,
it just means I am emptying my cup, that was once again too full.
Tomorrow will bring, as it always has,
a fresh outpouring to suffice me for the day.

so I hold on, and then breathe in deeply that fresh morning light.
after all, what else is there to do when you have an awakening...

Tj's Kick-Ass Coconut Granola Recipe

5c. Rolled Oats   (I use Bob's Red Mill GF Rolled Oats they are wonderful)
1/2c to 1c Almond Meal
1 c. shredded unsweetened raw Coconut
1/2 c. Oat Bran (Can use any bran, even wheat germ if you aren't Celiac)
Combine the above ingredients in a large bowl with enough room left to stir in liquids and disperse evenly.

1 c. Melted Coconut Oil (Can use others, Coconut tastes the best and is the best for you, it is a good fat)
1/2 c. raw Agave Nectar (You can use honey or brown sugar if you prefer, the Agave works better for me because the sugar in it is better assimilated in me and I can't do honey.  Also you may want to add more sweetener, I use very little now, I used to use a whole cup of Agave)
1 to 2 tsp. pure Vanilla extract  (Can also add a tsp of Almond extract if you want a cherry taste)
Combine the Coconut Oil, Agave, and Vanilla, then pour over oat mixture and stir until all oats are coated with mixture.

Place in a 9x13 (ish) glass dish and Bake at 275 for 15 minutes.  I prefer mine soft and chewy so if you like yours crunchy, just cook it longer, and stir it in 15 minute increments.  Let it cool and add fruit.  I add raisins as a favorite and then it tastes like a warm oatmeal cookie if you eat it soon, that is a huge comfort thing for me and the coconut oil, oatmeal and vanilla really soothe my stomach.  You can use fresh fruit, strawberries and blueberries are best, it is wonderful with raisins and bananas.  Find your perfect combination, I have some on hand most days of the week, it is a wonderful sweet treat without the unhealthy fat and sugars.
Enjoy....

You can also add more nuts and seeds in 1/4 c. increments; pumpkin, sunflower, and sesame seeds are all delicious to add for a change in flavor.   You can also add Hazelnut Meal instead of Almond Meal and that is very tasty too.

Big Red Balloon...

I close my eyes...
I take in a slow, deep, cleansing breath...

Joy and Pride rise up in me from my core, I lift them up...  they awaken drowsily from their slumber.

My roots are tidy... soft... comfortable... safe...  and cleansed.

Bathed in a soft, golden glow...
the tides rise and fade away in my spirit.

My pulse strengthens...  my heart relaxes...  my cup is filled.

The light pours in, and floats through the tides...  like water and oil not mixing.

There is a drain, and a swirling...  a pulling.
the wrong thoughts are removed...
the pain subsides and releases...
the darkness is filled with light...
the light pours into the bowl...
the core of my being.

I breathe in fresh oxygen and direct the warm current to my root, focusing on building and restoring.

The inner lights soothe me...
they bathe my mind...
softening hard thought patterns...
lifting broken reasoning...
restoring peace.

My soul begins to float up... up... up...  like a big, red, bright balloon...
full of life...  bursting with color... lifting with joy.

I am an amazing being...  fearfully and wonderfully made.

When the Heart Breaks

I have often pondered why the heart must break...  It seems so needless, the suffering and the pain that can come from the broken heart.
But when a bone is broken and it doesn't heal properly, it must be reset which is quite painful physically. However the pain is necessary to heal properly and not cause additional pain when one uses it from that point forward.
It must be reset so it gets aligned  and works together with the rest of the body in proper harmony.

The heart is no different, and as I have grown older and more set in my ways, callouses have built up around the areas of my heart that were broken so long ago and never healed properly.
I often cry out for healing, but am numb to every single avenue that the healing can come in through, because I am still locked and broken by the torrent of emotions that threaten to break me at the very thought of their existence..
I continue to cry out for my eyes to be opened, and then the light comes flooding in and it is piercing, blinding, and I am fearful.  At times it feels as if my heart might burst, this new territory I see, I see the corruption from the past, but then I see the light pouring in, and I know it is the light I have to merge successfully with.
I don't hold onto the pain, pain will never bring me true comfort, even if it is what I am accustomed to.  Do I repeat that memory for the rest of my life with the sharp infliction of pain in it, or do I accept that it was painful, that it happened, allowing the feelings to rip through my body if they must, and sometimes they come in torrents, floods of pain.  But you hold onto the root, to whatever you can, you hold on for dear life so that the force of the flood doesn't suck you in with it, and then once you realize all you had to do was hold on to that root, and hold on to the light that was flooding in, healing becomes much easier.  It isn't scary like it used to be... I am not a naked, fearful child unable to defend myself anymore, I am a grown woman... I am a warrior... and I am proud!   I let my colors fly... without shame, without fear...
I stand firm, tall, and am a proud warrior...
I decide with a sigh of resignation, the heart must break in order to increase and grow, and I will not be bitter for my heart breaking, but I will be glad for the opportunity heart break brings to heal, and to grow, and if I allow it to, to truly THRIVE.

I have arrived, I am exactly who I am supposed to be, heartbreak doesn't mean failure, heartbreak is an opportunity to grow...  to stretch out once more in safety... and to thrive once again...

Beloved

Beloved, my heart screams…  You haunt me even in my dreams.  Joy is stowed away, sadness encompasses my soul like water around a life preserver.  The weight pulls down, deeper and deeper sinking… sinking… sinking…

I look to the surface of the water, I can see the reflection of joy, I remember she used to be there, but as I am pulled down to the depths I slowly surrender and close my eyes, forgetting a world that once inhabited everything good for this soul.

Ancient tears pour out, the pain feels as if it will never cease, working so hard for healing, fighting so hard, fighting for so long…  was it really all to simply be left alone once again.  How I came into this world, to be reminded I am alone, I already knew this…

I want to be restored, I want someone else to do the work, I am weary, my bones are dry…  Spectators certainly gather, but they just look on, they don’t help... they don’t touch... they don’t heal... they just watch.

Loneliness threatens to drown me in his sorrow, how many times have I held out for that brighter tomorrow.  Does it ever come?  Why does it wait in darkness, in cold silence.  How am I to find it with this Winters frost still dusting my flesh.

I have been following an illusion for years, now I look up and remove my nose from the grinding stone and don’t recognize my surroundings, I have woken up in a strange place I know not, and no longer understand or feel a fight to live for.

Where is my mustard seed, the mountain I have fought and fought and fought my entire life to climb.. to move... to change... is still planted in front of me firmly.

Where is that tiny flicker of hope that used to radiate with a warmth  that drew others to want to abide with me, instead of standing by helplessly watching me fall.  Reaching, but not holding...  Saying, but not meaning…

I poured my heart out into an earthly vessel, that rejected it and pushed it back in my face with a force I have not before felt.  It knocked the wind out of my chest, the life out of my soul.   How do I fight still, what is left to fight for...

I couldn't find the silver lining for so long and then I spotted it, faintly in the distance, barely visible, but there...  I reached out, I stretched as far my earthly body would allow me, and found that when you reach that high to touch the stars, it just means you have all that farther to fall.   

I am still waiting to hit the bottom, I feel it coming, I know it is there, I can’t deny it…  But I won’t open my eyes…

Like Water Poured Out...

Like water poured out
     my soul flows forth,
Like water poured out
     I seek to dissolve into the earth.



Like water poured out
     back in the container it goes not,
Like water poured out
     I seek final solitude to absorb me into it's warm hearth.



Like water poured out
     my flesh is clean,
Like water poured out
     I wait in silence for the majestic ships to return and grace my harbor once more.



Like water poured out
     my tears fall silently,
Like water poured out
     my soul is dry.



Like water poured out
     it quenches my thirst,
Like water poured out
     I return to the sky...

Seeking Sanctuary

My heart and soul scream out for Sanctuary, where are you?   When will you come?   My voice is hoarse and my throat full of pain from the dry scratch that is created every time I try and whisper your name. My body trembles under the weight of the pain.  I miss You desperately and I need to be comforted.  Where is my Sanctuary, where is my temple, the earth has been violently shaken beneath me and crumbled all that I held dear to the very core.  

Shaken, and broken, crumbling down into the earth. Nothing left to be seen but mangled wreckage of something that once might have been beautiful.

Where is my Sanctuary, where is my temple.  I went searching for you and in my zealous search, I lost sight of you and can no longer even find Joy.  Where did she go, she has broken my heart, and I miss her deeply with a sadness born only in a soul that has known too much pain and sorrow for these few years on this earth.

Where is my solace?   Where is my comfort?   I cry out for you, but you have abandoned me. I followed my hearts cry completely and totally for the first time ever and my world shook and trembled and crumbled violently under the weight of my dream.

My anger and brokenness do nothing to comfort, they remind me of my inadequacies and that my life is not of value, if it were, I would not have to walk through such pain and brokenness.  Why…

So often in life I am stuck in the why, and even if I had an answer as to why every bad thing that has cut me so deeply and left scars in my very soul, the why still will not help me to heal.  The why doesn't help.

Where is my Sanctuary, where is my dream, and what corrupted it to such dark confusion and turmoil.  It started burning so bright and clear, but this is dim and fading in the growing darkness and I can’t seem to gather enough life together to keep the flame burning.  I watch it slowly flickering and fading and I fight the fear that rises from my soul that says it will never light again if I let it out. 

Yet I have no Sanctuary, no place of peace and comfort to rest my weary soul and to lick and tend to my wounds that run so very deep. 

No I must keep running, running, running. 

Running blindly from my past, and blindly into my future.   

Running, running, running.  My mind won’t stop, my mind won’t give me peace, but my heart fears daily that it will stop.  I fear the pain  in my heart could confuse it to stop pumping, it has already lost cadence repeatedly for months now, almost a year, and there are days where I wait to see if the pain subsides or if it will finally take over and consume me completely, removing me from this world altogether.

I often have wondered how much loss and grief the human soul can handle before it departs from this world, I wasn't testing the concept, I was trying to assure myself that I hadn't been given too much and that my heart would continue to beat even under the weight of the pressing water of the world that closes in around me.  

The sinking, sinking, sinking down into the depth of despair that holds me like a beaten child is held by their mother after they were beaten by her.   Comfort doesn't come through her, how could it.

Sanctuary, what does it mean to me, a haven of safety.   It is not something I have been able to experience a great deal of in life.   

I learn now I have to make my own sanctuary.  It is inside me, inside my temple, this holy body that I so often mutilate with unkind words and harsh critiques.  How do I reset my internal dialogue to that of joy, peace, harmony, and love for myself, instead of the things that were placed in me by others that aren't even the tiniest faction of the truth about me.

I used to know where my hope came from, now I am not so sure.  Tears that won’t stop falling, blind the truth and blur it to an unrecognizable form that I continually move about internally trying to scoot here or there and find the right spot for it, but it just doesn't fit anywhere.  The throw pillow and teddy bear I placed on top of it do nothing to disguise it, it is still unrecognizable to me, no matter how long I stare at it, I cannot see it for what it is.  When did these blinders get placed on my eyes, and why won’t they fall off.

Before I had hope, I always had a hope in the better, and the higher.   Hope that something was there that would lift me from my grief and that someone placed me in this world for a reason, not just for blind confusion that leads me from walking into one wall after another, and another, and another.

The wisdom I thought my soul possessed and before thought was good and secure, I have now found to be very inadequate and there are complete volumes missing from the library of my soul.  Volumes that I blacked out, by not believing in their very existence.  

If you deny something long enough in your life, you really won’t see it anymore.  Of course the pain that comes through that is that once you black out enough things that full of grief, well, you can’t keep them contained and sealed up.  They start to rot and fester in the container you placed them in, and then they begin to ooze out of their crate and start to infect the surrounding areas of your soul, until the darkness has permeated almost everything.

So I face the grief and turmoil head on, I won’t run anymore, I am not afraid, fear has never been able to hurt me, it is just an emotion, just a feeling and it passes like all feelings do… 

But where is my Sanctuary, I still can’t find it.  I need my Sanctuary, I need my temple restored, I need the foundation rebuilt, and can’t seem to find any volunteers to help. 

So I begin the work again on my own.  

Amazingly, comfort comes through repetition, and healing comes through the repetition.  

Some days you have to decide that just  breathing in and out today is an accomplishment, because some days all you can do is breathe.  And then maybe tomorrow I can start to clean up some of the wreckage in my soul from this earthquake.

It simply means it is time to rebuild.   

To stand up.   

To get up.   

To start again. 

So I stand up, I shake the dust from my sandals and I begin again, this time I will find my Sanctuary, and when I do, I will never let her go again…