Category Archives: spiritual

The portal of wants and wishes

11 Comments

I love dreaming.  I love waking up in the morning and putting together the pieces of colors and images that have splashed themselves onto the blank canvas in my sleep.  I thrive on spending time over coffee attempting to put together the jigsaw cut-outs and make sense of what they are trying to tell me.   Mornings are a constant source of recollection, collaboration and interpretation.   The maelstrom of the previous day becomes a masterpiece in my dreams that only I can put together the next day to make any sense of it.

Does that ever happen to you?  You spend so many conscious hours with something or someone at the forefront of your brain that they unwittingly seep into your nocturnal hours and wreak havoc in your dreams?  And it may not be the type of havoc that has you waking in a panic, covered in sweat, but the thought of them is left lingering in your mind to chase you around for another day.  It happens to me quite often with a myriad of things I encounter during my day.  It could be work or it could be a person I just can’t seem to shake from my thoughts.  I spend so many minutes of my day thinking about those things that I carry them into my dream world in a back pack that seems to open of its own volition and spill out into the landscape of my REM sleep.

(Image courtesy of Google)

And it is not that I go to bed with these thoughts whirling around in my head.  I have found a way to relax my brain before I drift off into that long-awaited slumber and wipe the stress and experience of the day from my mind.  But no matter what good intentions I have as I let the night pull down the shades of my eyelids, those waking thoughts transform themselves in my nightscape and travel through that mystical door of my dreams.  The invisible portal is opened and a new world of ideas and scenarios creeps into my subconscious.

And sometimes, if I wake early with the dream still lingering in the realm between awake and asleep, I long to get back to the dream.  Cherished moments, although created in another dimension of my reality, seem so real that I can live there again if I could only drift back into sleep.  My wishes wait there for me.  My desire holds firmly in its place to anticipate my safe arrival back through the portal of my dream world.

However, the invasion of my reality into those dreams is anticipated.  On occasion, work and family are now holding the seats in the front row of the performance of my dream to watch as the scene plays out for those final moments of my reanimated sleep.  The panorama that I had so carefully constructed in the previous hours of my dream world becomes interrupted with more genuine actuality than was originally anticipated.  Somehow that carefree abandon is now speckled with a plethora of reality and the dream that I truly wanted to dream about is invaded less by my unconscious and is now dominated by my conscious waking moments.  My dream is now a host to real life.

What about you?  Do your dreams take you on an adventure or do your dreams consist more of your reality?

Yes Charlie Brown, happiness really is a warm blanket

3 Comments

Our friends are like blankets.   They can be an endless string of material woven together with such strength that they completely envelope us or they can be an array of tattered old pieces of what once was a blanket, holding desperately to the strength they once had but unable to fully cover us when we really need it.  Regardless of whether the blanket is old or new, the heart of the fiber is still created from the same cloth and still retains the ability to protect a portion, if not all, of us.

 

Over time, it is inevitable that some cloth becomes distorted from its original plush appearance, but if you delve into memories of that blanket, you can hold on to the soothing feelings you once got from it and realize that it did everything in its power to keep you warm and protected.  It can evoke a feeling as strong as a childhood sense of urgency to hold on to a security blanket.

blanket

(image credit)

Some blankets are indestructible.   Although time may march over that blanket a thousand times, its resolve to stay in its original shape is overwhelming.  It is always consoling when you need to seek comfort, it is never in a place you cannot find it and it will always be big enough to cover all of you.  On very rare occasions, a blanket can be unintentionally neglected but when you rediscover that unique blend of interlaced textiles, you cherish the true strength of those fabrics and know they will never unravel.  Once you wrap yourself in that blanket again it is like coming home but after never really having been away.

 

I am thankful for all of my blankets – the old, the new and the recently rediscovered.  Every fiber of material that makes up those blankets has offered me comfort at some point in my life and I hope my blanket has done the same for them.  I can always take solace in the fact that the material they are made of is genuine and it is readily available whenever I need to feel soothed on those stormy nights.

A grudge at rest should remain at rest

5 Comments

I know I need to let it go.

It’s not even my grudge to hold on to,

not if I were completely honest.

But that doesn’t seem to stop me

from bearing the weight of its memory.

 I feel rage when the cause presents itself,

over and over,

the glaring reminder pokes the sleeping bear,

sleeping bear

the creature who surrendered in my mind,

but not in my heart.

My anger wants to lash out,

to right what is so wrong,

to make the waning memory remain present,

to rub that reflection in the face of the here and now.

But I need to let go.

What has been done,

will never be undone,

not if I had a thousand wishes

over a thousand lifetimes.

 The higher road beckons,

and I will set my foot on that path of rising above.

But taking that road will not erase the memory,

it will not eradicate the anger,

nor will it quell the yearning for vengeance.

I may not be able

to let this sleeping dog lie,

but I know it is the right thing to do.

Sleep, errant dog,

and let those moments slowly fade.

(image credit)

Giving myself permission to feel joy

18 Comments

“Find the place inside where there is joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.” ~ Joseph Campbell

inner joy

(image credit)

This past weekend was more painful than I anticipated it would be.  Saturday was the one year anniversary of my mom’s passing and the anguish of losing her took me by surprise all over again.  I awoke at the exact time I received the dreaded phone call last year and spent the remainder of the day secluding myself from society, friends and family.

It was a much-needed hibernation from reality and time that allowed me to reflect on all of the happy memories and not just dwell in the sadness.  I was able to observe many moments of silence and stillness.  Those quiet moments gave me permission to initially grieve but then to take that grief and smother it with thoughts of a happy life spent with my mom and my dad.

After recognizing my mom’s passing, the ninth anniversary of my dad’s passing occurred two days later on Monday.  As it happened on Saturday, I awoke at 2:15 am on Monday, roughly the time my dad passed, and spent many peaceful moments remembering the good times with him.

Grief can be consuming but joy has a way of quelling the overwhelming emotion and allowing happiness to rise to the surface.  It is difficult in times of sorrow, especially when remembering a loved one who has passed, to be able to bring joy to the moment.  But those who have left us would want us to feel nothing but joy.  My parents would be sad to know that I am still grieving and not embracing the spirit they had when they lived.

It is that force that drives me to find joy in my sadness.  It is their energy that wills me to move beyond the grief and remember their lives in a happy way and not cling to the heartache I feel in their absence.  I will always grieve the loss of my parents but I will also begin to give myself permission to bask in the joy I feel having been a part of their lives.  Hopefully, in time, I will be able to carry that joy into my future and the joy will burn out the pain.

Every little bit counts

1 Comment

Every person is made up of bits.  Bits of humor mixed with bits of wisdom and intelligence and a few bits of humanity thrown in for good measure.  All of us have bits of our selves.  Some of those bits we share with the masses and some of those bits we only share with those closest to us.

Along our journey through life we choose to share the pieces of ourselves that we feel deeply connected to but we only choose to share them with people we are drawn to, people who will truly appreciate those bits of us and will find those bits endearing.  We all have good bits and bad bits.  There are bits of our past that are tainted but the true friends in our lives will see past those bits and realize they made us who we are today.

When you make a connection with someone who understands the pieces of you that make you who you are, the feeling of comfort is instantaneous.  The bits of you that made you self-conscious no longer exist and you find strength in the bits of you that you once questioned.  Those pieces of your life that seemed foreign now fit into the bigger picture and the puzzle is not nearly as puzzling.  And those pieces of you that you chose to share somehow find a home in the hearts of those who truly get you.  

love-you-to-pieces-craft

(image credit)

At the end of the day we are the sum of all of our bits, good and bad.  It is the strong forces in our lives that will accept us as the accumulation of our bits and look at the whole picture, not just focusing on each of the parts as individual pieces and labeling them as good or bad.   Those people don’t enter our lives very often.  When they do come along they leave a lasting impression.  They will love you to bits and love all of your bits.

Live long and prosper – fiction

8 Comments

spock

(image credit)

Space was not the final frontier and neither was death.  It had been weeks since he had left his physical body and yet he knew his life was far from over.  He didn’t know how to classify the realm in which he currently existed.  It wasn’t space, it wasn’t Heaven, it wasn’t Purgatory and it certainly wasn’t Hell.  It simply felt like what he imagined it would be like in the womb.  The sounds around him undulated and he felt like he was floating.

If he could not recall certain parts of his life, those memories slowly returned as if they were on a trailer reel of a film. It all seemed highly illogical but it was happening and he could not ignore the scenes as they played in his head.  Familiar faces drifted to the forefront of his mind and he knew them all by name.

The face that lingered the longest was of a man he had known well.  William.  His name was William.  As the details of William’s face became more pronounced in his memory, he became overwhelmed with emotion, something he had done his best to conceal throughout his life.

Images rushed by now, tumbling over themselves to make room for others and, as the last pieces seemed to fall into place, the movie of his life began.  He watched his childhood, he witnessed himself as a young man falling in love for the first time and he watched as he tried his first cigarette.  He turned away and the movie paused.  That moment frozen on the screen was the beginning of his end.

He focused once more on the show and watched the legacy he helped build, in his personal life and his career.  The words he uttered many times on-screen came true in more ways than one in his life and, even though this life no longer existed, he would still live long and prosper in the minds of those who loved him.

mutant750-wk

Written for the Grammar Ghoul Challenge – In memory of Leonard Nimoy the word prompt is illogical and the visual prompt is a scene from Star Trek II – The Search for Spock.  I was extremely sad when he passed.  I spent many of my childhood years watching Star Trek and, in many ways, Leonard Nimoy reminded me of my dad.  LLAP.

 

And then the muses slowly disappeared…..

13 Comments

I’ve been dreading writing this week.  I knew it was coming and as much as I thought I could distract myself with topics that did not strike me on an extremely personal level, I was wrong.

I have been enjoying a great relationship with my muse since January 1st.  Together we have posted every day since the start of the new year, sometimes twice a day, and I have become truly immersed in the creative process.  But something drastically changed with the passing of the calendar month.  My muse has slowly retreated from the active space in my mind.  It has nothing to do with the continuing frigid temperatures or the delay of springs’ arrival.  It has everything to do with the looming date of March 7th.

That day in the calendar year of 2014 irrevocably altered my life.  It seems like only hours ago I received that horrific early morning phone call to tell me my mother had passed unexpectedly and my life spun into a tornado-like funnel cloud.  Images, hours, even days blurred.  To think it will be a year on Saturday astounds me.

It feels like I am back in the first moments of coming to terms with the news and yet there have been so many firsts since then.  Birthdays, anniversaries, Thanksgiving, Christmas….all were celebrated to the best of our ability with her glaring and undeniable absence.  Knowing that she is no longer suffering the effects of her illness is the only comfort I have.  It should ease some of my suffering but the feeling of loss goes much deeper than that.

Comparing-Loss-copy (1)

(image credit)

At least each day I am still here gives me a chance to hold her memory as close as I would like to hold her in a childlike embrace.  The pain never goes away, we just think about it differently as time moves on.

 

Floating in a most peculiar way – fiction

16 Comments

eagle-neb-lg

As he neared the Eagle Nebula, he gasped at its beauty.  He always hoped he would see it in his lifetime.  As he got closer to it, his trajectory changed and he was able to view it from many sides.  His thoughts turned to home and, although each version was different, he mumbled audibly as he rewrote the letter in his head for what he hoped would be the last time.

“My Dearest Love,

I can only anticipate how worried you have been since you have not heard from me.  The mission to Mars went horribly wrong on so many levels and I fear I will never be able to get back to you.  I have not seen my crew nor am I able to communicate with Houston.

I am miraculously floating through space with no oxygen, yet I continue to live.  The noxious carbon dioxide that I expel with every breath seems to dissipate and is no longer toxic to me.  I have not consumed food or had water in what I fear is more time than I can calculate but I have no true concept of time in this vast constellation.  I have no waste to rid from my body and, against all odds, I still seem to exist.

The sky is beautiful.  I remember how you used to love to gaze at the stars, taking the time to point out the constellations in our own galaxy and you would always wonder what existed outside of the Milky Way.  I am here, love, and it is beyond anything you could have ever imagined.  It is color and music and poetry all connected by stars.  It feels like our wedding dance when everything and everyone seemed to disappear and the only thing I felt was your breath on my neck and the only sound was our hearts beating together.

But with all of this beauty comes so much despair because you are so far away.  I wish for this journey to end.  I wish my mortal self would cease to exist so you and I could be reunited.  I wish that I would not have to go through the pain of writing this letter yet again because I fear that I do know how many times it has been written and that number is too high to be accurate.

I will do my best to get home to you.

Until we meet again, my love.”

~~

mutant750-wk

 

Written for the Grammar Ghoul Challenge – combining the photo above of the Eagle Nebula taken by the Hubble Telescope and the word Love (noun) – A person or thing that one loves.

 

 

My wish

10 Comments

fountain-coins

I wish, oh how I wish

that I could open up your heart.

I want to get to know you

but that’s the hardest part.

I know you from the outside,

your voice I recognize.

But the real you I’m looking for

is always in disguise.

Sometimes looking into your eyes

I can read what’s on your mind.

But then you turn, you look away,

afraid of what I’ll find.

I want to know what makes you tick,

what makes you run away.

I’d like to understand you,

there just seems no easy way.

My empty heart beats for you,

it wants us to be one.

It wants to heal the scars you bear,

to have the knots undone.

The seconds move, the hours wane,

and still you turn from me.

Still I wait, I keep you close,

awaiting what may be.

~~

(image credit)