The elderly woman was carrying a tennis racquet.

Why on earth, would a stooped over, senior, who appeared to be on the brink of total confusion have a tennis racquet in hand, Everene wondered to herself.

She mused that perhaps the elderly woman was, in fact, a tennis fiend, who only showed her true agility once on the court. She imagined her stooped back zigzagging carried by fiercely agile legs, making solid stroke after solid stroke.

By the time her daydream ended, Everene realized the woman had long since passed, leaving her to stare at her own reflection in the shop window across the street.

An organist played on the walk. She envied him for his freedom, just as much as she envied the girls walking past with hot pink laces and strawberry milkshakes to match.

A tourist passed by with an old fashioned camera. He looked even more lost than the ancient tennis champion, taking photos of objects simply to warn off pitying onlookers, who couldn't help but notice his abject loneliness.

Everene recognized that look well. She had been a tourist herself in places that failed to excite her imagination. After all, a brick is a brick, a building a building, a street, no matter how lovely, a street. Not a particularly cheerful girl, she preferred these days to sit and observe the world pass by, rather than trying to pass it by.

An observer has no duty to be cheerful, to smile or engage or entertain. An observer might just sip her coffee and quietly form opinions, at no cost of time, effort or funds. Most importantly, observers are rarely observed. Granted, they may be noticed, as a ray of sunlight falling through the leaves is noticed, but observers are rarely watched with the same intensity they give their subjects. That's what Everene liked most her hobby, it's freedom.

She could hide in plain sight, leaving others momentarily curious, but never giving them any insight, any answers. Her silence and stillness left them bored, and they moved on, leaving her to continue her statuesque duties. 

Speaking of, she had been squinting, occasionally, at the other unmoving object in her eye line, a statue of two wolves. One appeared to be lunging over the other with her directly in his sight. Perched precariously on a tower of stone, the two seemed suspended in mid air, as though taken from a frozen arctic and perfectly preserved.

She watched, and they watched, amidst the city's attempts to disguise itself with bits of nature, as an aging woman attempts to disguise her cracks and wear with cosmetics, a touch of blush to evoke youth, a dash of greenery to cover up years of grime.

Drop me by the waterfall

Just drop me by the waterfall, and say goodbye to me beneath it's moonlit flow.
Just walk me up the mountain, and leave me to find my way down to the valley below.
Take me in an aeroplane, and drop me out the hatch, put me in a cellar far away, and just forget the latch.

I'll find my way, don't you mind, I'll find it by and by
I'll be alright, on my own, and trust, I'll never be alone

But keep me close, and don't forget, that I'm not here to die.
So let me be, and let me go, and let me ride the starry sky

Seek me in the black night and shadowy branches, in every place of dark
And find me in under the river's stone and between the spread feathers of the lark

Remind me to follow, and to keep the pace, and don't let me forget to cover my face.
Remind me that there's always another day, and another way
For me to find my way home.

For I've traversed this globe, and I've done it without you
I've watched for myself, and done what no one else would do.

And I've waited and wandered, within and without,
To and fro, ceaselessly seeking one without doubt

To put it loudly, I've been ignored and neglected without just cause
But, just because.

Lord, a great sadness has come over me today, and I no not why nor what to do. My hands disfavor all work, my heart sinks with every word, and I desire nothing but some comfort that is far off, beyond my very reach. All around me is that which I never asked for and never wanted.

A father who sees me as one might watch a bird flying overhead, not a daughter who is in need of love, care, attention, guidance and protection, but as a beast who has her own flock. In some ways, he sees me as his maid, his servant, here to give to him and do as he requests. Here to serve some duty or purpose, to love and attend to him, which I fail at miserably in my distrust of him. Perhaps he sees me as something, an object, pretty to look at, but if he cannot possess it, a pointless thing. It is very painful, and I am viewed as selfish in this light.

In truth, I am sick of any celebration of fathers or of men. I am tired of birthdays and holidays and some force telling me to be grateful for those which God has set before me, who seem only to mock me. I am not a bird, I am a woman with a word, with a spine and a voice and a feeling and a heart and I must outsmart them. They all seek to weaken me, even those who are here to love and protect me, will eventually start tearing at my heart. They fail to see our commonality, and I am not one to teach them, nor to trust them as my teachers.

The verses I stay up to read remind me to trust one thing, and that is God. How trying is my life at times, and how much I've sought and still fail to find that comfort. How hopeless I feel at times, for I feel too weak, and overcome to take another step or give another drop of myself down that empty well. He knows I am tormented in the darkness of night, up to hear the swallows begin to chirp softly, then to hear those nesting in the trees begin their loud cries.

You show me couples Lord! You show me dancing, life, vibrancy and truth. You show me fun, and beauty and yet... I am so far on the outside of all of it! You have given me some small beauty, I know it's true. Men tell me of my great intelligence, they marvel at it... and yet, what use are these gifts if I cannot share them with those who receive them with honor?

I can think of nothing I'd rather do than write and write, and write a novel.

The Power of Forgiveness.

God told me to write, to write for my sister and to write what is right, which I do not know. I avoid, yes, I avoid, but perhaps, as it said in my little book on my little phone, full of all the information the world has ever known... why do I need to know all these things? All these little available pieces of tidbits that will never pertain to my own existence and will never answer the questions of my heart: is everything really going to be okay? What about for the people it's not okay for? Am I loved? Why am I so awful and how do I improve? Who of all the contacts in my phone can tell me that? Who can tell me, with the utmost certainty, you are okay, and so is she and so am I and so is everyone else? Who has the power to condemn and retrieve me when I've lost my way and I won't return? Who will remember me?

Anyway, the little book on my little phone said avoidance is not the answer, acceptance, acceptance is the answer.

So, what happens is I need, so I take, but it's not really what I need that I'm taking, and then I feel more sad than ever, because I am disappointed and I need something. Like drinking from a mirage. And it's all a mirage right now. So, I must stop taking and I must start giving, though everything in me says take, take, take, they don't know your pain and they must know your pain... but the truth is, what pain? I am walking, I am talking, I am flirting, I am reading helpful little books on my little broken phone. So, what pain?

The pain of being alone, of feeling pointless, of wanting all those things, like the Fantastic Four, X-Men or the Avengers. Desiring a teacher who will show you the truthful way, who will guide you through all your frustrations, because it's not really time for me to be wise, but maybe, maybe it is. I don't do well as a student, rarely as a patient. I do well as a leader and a teacher, as a guide myself, though I desire that figure, he's only available in movies. Like Morpheus, Mr. Miagi, someone who embodies love, faith and can take all my rage and hurt and fire and passion and funnel it into something magical, a practice, an understanding, a trial and difficulties and obstacles that are all meant to be understood. Otherwise, well, otherwise I could ... well, I can't even say it.

I've been saying for years I need training. I need that kind of training, from someone who wholeheartedly believes in me, even when I don't believe in myself, who is there with me, helping me to learn discipline day after day, as a disciple.

Ah, well, for now I may have to substitute that beautiful person, with all of their ceremony and nice garb, with all of their grace and depth, for Google. And, I do realize, that one of my greatest fears is knowing it all, and remaining indifferent. And I, for one, am genuinely afraid of indifference. It is something beyond my grasp, beyond that which I have observed, which is that someone fully believes that you do not count. So, I am afraid of my own indifference. I am afraid of others' indifference toward me. I can think of nothing worse, for that is loneliness. It's isolation on the side of a blisteringly cold mountain, begging for someone who's stronger to come, and no one does. It's actually almost impossible for me to believe it happens, but it does. It's caused by something I cannot name.

So, speaking of Google, which God may use when no other human substitute is available, I just suddenly felt a strong urge to search for the definition of "acceptance," and this one of the first things that came up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_and_commitment_therapy

Some quotes (which I think aforementioned mentors may seek to develop in their very proteges, shockingly):

ACT differs from traditional cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in that rather than trying to teach people to better control their thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories and other private events, ACT teaches them to "just notice," accept, and embrace their private events, especially previously unwanted ones.

ACT aims to help the individual clarify their personal values and to take action on them, bringing more vitality and meaning to their life in the process, increasing their psychological flexibility.

While Western psychology has typically operated under the "healthy normality" assumption which states that by their nature, humans are psychologically healthy, ACT assumes, rather, that psychological processes of a normal human mind are often destructive.^[6] The core conception of ACT is that psychological suffering is usually caused by experiential avoidance, cognitive entanglement, and resulting psychological rigidity that leads to a failure to take needed behavioral steps in accord with core values. As a simple way to summarize the model, ACT views the core of many problems to be due to the concepts represented in the acronym, FEAR:

• Fusion with your thoughts
• Evaluation of experience
• Avoidance of your experience
• Reason-giving for your behavior

And the healthy alternative is to ACT:

• Accept your reactions and be present
• Choose a valued direction
• Take action

ACT commonly employs six core principles to help clients develop psychological flexibility:^[6]

1. Cognitive diffusion: Learning methods to reduce the tendency to reify thoughts, images, emotions, and memories
2. Acceptance: Allowing thoughts to come and go without struggling with them.
3. Contact with the present moment: Awareness of the here and now, experienced with openness, interest, and receptiveness.
4. Observing the self: Accessing a transcendent sense of self, a continuity of consciousness which is unchanging.
5. Values: Discovering what is most important to one's true self.^[7]
6. Committed action: Setting goals according to values and carrying them out responsibly.

Wilson, Hayes & Byrd explore at length the compatibility between ACT and the 12-step treatment of addictions and argue that, unlike most other psychotherapies, both approaches can be implicitly or explicitly integrated due to their broad commonalities. Both approaches endorse acceptance as an alternative to unproductive control. ACT emphasizes the hopelessness of relying on ineffectual strategies to control private experience, similarly the 12-step approach emphasizes the acceptance of powerlessness over addiction. Both approaches encourage a broad life-reorientation, rather than a narrow focus on the elimination of substance use, and both place great value on the long-term project of building of a meaningful life aligned with the clients' values. ACT and 12-step both encourage the pragmatic utility of cultivating a transcendent sense of self (higher power) within an unconventional, individualized spirituality. Finally they both openly accept the paradox that acceptance is a necessary condition for change and both encourage a playful awareness of the limitations of human thinking.

And now, the definition of acceptance/accept: 

ac·cept

  [ak-sept]  Show IPA

verb (used with object)

1.

to take or receive (something offered); receive with approval or favor: to accept a present; to accept a proposal.

2.

to agree or consent to; accede to: to accept a treaty; to accept an apology.

3.

to respond or answer affirmatively to: to accept an invitation.

4.

to undertake the responsibility, duties, honors, etc., of: to accept the office of president.

5.

to receive or admit formally, as to a college or club.

6.

to accommodate or reconcile oneself to: to accept the situation.

7.

to regard as true or sound; believe: to accept a claim; to accept Catholicism.

8.

to regard as normal, suitable, or usual.

9.

to receive as to meaning; understand.

10.

Commerce . to acknowledge, by signature, as calling for payment, and thus to agree to pay, as a draft.

11.

(in a deliberative body) to receive as an adequate performance of the duty with which an officer or a committee has been charged; receive for further action: The report of the committee was accepted.

12.

to receive or contain (something attached, inserted, etc.): This socket won't accept a three-pronged plug.

13.

My favorite: to receive (a transplanted organ or tissue) without adverse reaction. Compare reject (  def 7 ) .

My Hollywood Moment

Two weeks ago, I thought to myself, hmm... I'd like to be an actress. Subsequent thoughts told me I was too old, needed to lose 10 more pounds, too stuck in Longmont. Despite them all, I found myself applying to be an extra in a film, even in the midst of great emotional turmoil last week. The night before, I couldn't sleep, but I felt my heart becoming more and more excited, as though it was anticipating something well and fine on the horizon. The next morning I arrived late to the set, disheveled, in a dress from the wrong time period and praying only for God's grace. While lining up for wardrobe, an angel, who wasn't so well put together himself, selected me out of the crowd and asked me if I was free later. I said of course, emphatically (I wasn't). He then told me that I'd be the "script supervisor." Confused, I still signed up for the job... wondering why such a large film wouldn't have such a crucial position filled. It took hours for me to receive clarity on that, but something I learned stayed with me, "Have patience." I was kept out of all scenes with extras and whisked away to a basement makeup artist from Los Angeles, Julie, and hairstylist, Andee. The power went out during my styling, and I ended up hating my hairdo.

To be continued...

A pen to page, a keystroke and a pelican in my dreams.

I've known you for a thousand years. I've known you through all of your trials and I find you here. You are reaching the end. You have been placed here for a reason, do not falter. That reason is victory. You have always been victorious and it is the reason for your trials now. To overcome.

I remember when I met you. I had been searching and searching, and somehow, you just found me.

http://dragonflyherbals.com/schulze.html

Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?

My body is lithe, and my hair cascades around my shoulders. The band begins to play, rah rah rah, and the gilded doors open. I step out and onward, from the black starry night of my youth, into the world of grown-up dress-up. I slip and no one steadies me, no one seems to notice. I whisper to myself, "I can do this, I can do this, I can do this," and move onward.

Take note. I am alright! I am ok! No need to sound the alarm. All is well within, all is well without. I am like you, light and cheerful. I am aglow with health and ease.

White cloth billows from the tall windows, beckoning us to return to the land and the lapping waves so near. Asking us to bathe in the moonlight and breathe the sharp night air.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be caught up in those stars. As though one night the Earth herself might forget to hold me close to her, and I'll just float away.

What would it be like to travel into space? I don't ever imagine a suit, no, I might just exist out there, just like I exist here, scarcely breathing. 

Perhaps I would discover something altogether new. Perhaps my lungs would fill with dark matter, and my cells would use their dark energy to propel me onward forever. Anything could happen.

Snap!

My mind ceases to wonder and I look around to see who has clicked his fingers in my face. It's a handsome man. A man too handsome to take any notice of me.

But he has, and won't stop staring into me with those crystal blue eyes that remind me of a lake I once jumped into at the top of a mountain. Nothing lived in that lake, which is why it was so pure.

Like Space, so clean. Life always dirties things and death is simply cleaning up and cleaning out.

Mold, bacteria and worms, they all simply exist to clean. The mops and dustpans of the universe. First, stop life. Then, clean life out.

The Shadow

The world around us glimmers with hope. Each cloud speaks of innumerable alternatives, each word spoken unfolds a cataclysmic fall of events, distinct as colors, bright as the sun.

I remember a day in which our world fell under a great shadow. We put down our forks and knives, and walked to the windows as the darkness came silently. I looked across the lawn to a leafless tree, watching each branch etch the air with a sigh, as a last breath.

At that time, we did not know death. In later years, we would come to know it all too well, but we never did accept it.

With the shadow came the cold, and with the cold came the inexplicably unceasing wind. I took off, on the wing of a bird, to find warmth, but all was frozen.

Our feet could no longer touch the earth, and we carried fire with us always. To this day we are known as the people of light, for we were the ones who took it with us.

Within that shadow, everything changed. Love was a challenge, as calloused hearts grew thicker without an ebb and flow of warmth and light. Many froze to death, not from the cold, but from their own hardness.

We laughed about our clean teeth after awhile, and after more time, forgot about clouds and rain, feathers and snow, pools and blooms. We forgot about sweat and tears, even blood wouldn't run from our icy veins.

The sky spoke tales to us, but in a tongue we could not understand. To escape its uneasy messages, we fled to the caves and watched the flames against the walls. We chewed sticks. Our bodies no longer had heat for food, and life had long passed from the fields and flocks. There was but one day, as even Time herself had abandoned us.

In my dreams, the walls of the cave were no longer made of stone, but something warm and soft and light. I saw things long forgotten, and colors beyond those of the flames, but my words had long departed from my throat, and upon awakening the visions left like smoke.

After one dream, I awoke to find myself no longer chewing a stick, but grasping it familiarly. I found myself dipping into the coals and moving my wrist furiously, scratching ash into the walls, a form of speaking I had not recalled.

Someone glanced away from the flickering flame and read my ashen words. They prophesied, "We will all be changed."

Noise

I long for days filled with a new breath,
A freshening air,
Throughout my brain.

Lately, so many have called upon my services, rendered only in courage. A woman must have courage, if she is to be any use whatsoever.

Hello, my suitor. I am calm as I address you, though the wind blows through my hair and ruffles my skirt.

I am the stillness of each day, and the eye of a hurricane. I am the steps in soft silt, walking silently for days through the eternally erasable desert.

I am the lily of the valley, a sign of something new and pure, yet fleeting as a cool breeze. I am the pause before you speak, the water flowing beneath your feet and the kindness seeping from her eyes.

When you and I are alone, we walk as one, each wave overwhelming our footsteps. We ride atop a grey elephant, as king and queen, and step down so many steps into rooms of burnished gold.

No one knows our story.

I am the darkness that covers you, and the light that comes to alert you of your tasks. I am the stillness that comes again and again.

We are under many stars, and time has once again become a friend, a loyal dog that lies at our feet. The music that flows inspires a new world to begin again, a world filled with children and dancing that shakes the ground beneath us.

The sounds reverberate through each vertebrae in my spine, rattling my ribs and dancing with my heart. Yes, my heart is changing, red to gold and back, as I bend forth, my ears arching into the rhythms before me.

I blink, and hear we are. Time has vanished, as has the distance between us, yet we remain to listen.

A cup of steaming tea sits between us. I look up from the reflection, and into your eyes. The world has gone, without sadness or fear, yet not without saying farewell.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
Shall it be a day of
Sorrow, sorrow, sorrow?

Oh dear Lord, let me not speak another lie or curse,
Rather let me pronounce the cures.

You and I are one
You see
You and I and the bumblebee

So take a big breath, and blow away,
All the lies that've crept in our stay.

Blow and blow and blow and blow
All the way
To another day

Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.

Dell Hospital, Austin

I've spent the past three days with my friend, Lisa, who is a foster mother and parent of two little girls she adopted out of the system. The little boy she is caring for is in the hospital with no kidneys and has been in the intensive care unit for the past two months. Lisa is here every day with her daughters, 5 and 6, sitting in a small room or playing outside.

I spent yesterday at her home, cleaning, and five hours of solid cleaning was better than a morning here. Every moment simply feels as though it would be better spent just about anywhere else. There is something eternally disquieting about a hospital. It's cold and impersonal, from the staff to the books and plastic toys dropped off by the toy cart. It's just exhausting.

We had a moment of playing outdoors, and for that moment I felt free. If I'm feeling the strain after just a couple of days, I simply don't know where she draws her patience from. Caring and caring and caring for children can be rewarding when you see them improve, but I certainly don't have the patience that most caretakers possess, particularly when confined to a small room. It is truly an attitude of selflessness.

The hospital I dream of is much different from this antiseptic place. It is filled with sunshine and green plants. Dirt abounds, and playing in it is encouraged. The hospital is set amidst vineyards, and red wine flows in the evenings under starry, clear evenings. Fluorescent lights are replaced with soft bulbs, linoleum by hardwood floors and plastic by glass and wood cabinetry. My hospital is warm and filling to all who step into it. Food is doled out liberally and eaten communally.

When it is cold, fires are lit. Warm weather leads to open windows. There are no distractions, but just play and work and routines. We pray in the morning, afternoon and evening. There is no 'therapy' but every patient is given movement every day. No one wears scrubs, and the uniforms are warm and inviting, different shades of brilliant scarves, like saris.

The children are cared for using every piece of medicine in the known world. They are prayed over, and given to God. They are held and rocked and sung to. They get better and better. Every child gets better. Deeply better.

It is truly a place of healing ministry.

Looking over this blog, I can see that it is more of a diary than anything else. A place for me to record me. Many people will say that your blog should have a theme, and perhaps they are correct, but I am a person, full of seemingly random ideas and experiences, and the only theme, within all those dots, is that when you connect them you get me. A unique woman who is transforming from a girl right before your eyes.

I am so grateful to be me, to write how and what I write, with no person to say yay or nay. It seems everything is open to improvement, but i feel okay with this space here, just to write how I see fit, no edits or changes afoot.

The dog bit my finger right before she died. It hurt unbelievably badly, as she got me in quite a tender and sensitive spot, plunging her molar right into my soft nailbed of my pointer finger. The beautiful thing is that I am typing nearly as quickly even without the use of that finger. My middle finger is taking over for the index, and it seems almost miraculous. Also, the finger no longer hurts.

I am using Makuna Honey, an elixer I bought for $20 at Vitamin Cottage instead of the amoxicillin my doctor prescribed. The wound is showing daily improvements, no sign of infection and ever diminishing pain. It is a wonder to be able to treat yourself, and watch your body heal.

I am a woman who seems to be eternally surprising myself these days. Every accomplishment feels like a baby taking its first steps, just totally unique and as moments to be recorded in the annals of a family history. I feel like I am taking breaths for the first time, as though I have been underwater for months and truly enjoy the experience of every inhalation. It feels fresh, and I can feel my body move with it's ins and outs. Somehow the exhale doesn't feel as refreshing, as though I long only to inhale. Such a strange sensation, to only want part of your breathing.

I am tired now. Perhaps a bit panicked by these small successes. I must take them in stride, yet I want to remember them.

Today I was 134 lbs. A full 13 pounds lighter than I was three months ago. It feels great. Truly, I feel I have miraculously shed some spiritual burdens that had been weighing on me for years.

The Cage

Today I awoke at 1 p.m. after suffering through terrible dreams of an endless cage, bottomless and topless, extending into infinity. The people in the wire cage, which was situated in the middle of a house, had been put there by a magic spell, they had just been zapped into it. When I was in it, looking up and looking down, I was also outside of it, as though I had just stepped in by choice and was able to leave when it terrified me. The "master" or evil wizard was zapping people back in who had been trapped in other places in the house in "solitary confinement." It was disturbing to see that they had been changed indefinitely by this unjust punishment, and one, I remember, was trapped in a kitchen vent. I think they were all zapped out eventually, but the "master" just wanted to show he had power.

Another segment of the dream included a man from that group of people. He and I each had a baby. He said he was going to shave his baby, so we each got razors. When I went to clean mine, I heard a voice saying that it was "just a baby," and needed every part of itself to grow, it didn't need to have anything cut away from it. I saw a red bump on the baby's leg, like an ingrown hair, and it did have hairy legs, but I knew it didn't need me to do anything about that. I got some soap and poured it on the baby's legs, but I didn't have water to wash the soap off, and something told me I was doing this wrong.

In the meantime, I had unwrapped a piece of candy, which was in the shape of a mushroom, but it was made of something that I had to bite at and chip away at, like hard white chocolate. I realized I was feeding my hunger with the same thoughts I was going to shave the baby with.

Here's what one site says about a wire cage dream, which is extremely accurate and in line with my ayurvedic prescription, an imbalance of Pitta.

http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/cage-cell/

Cage Cell

This usually points to your feelings of frustration and perhaps anger, or even a sense of defeat or emptiness. The prison in our dreams is of our own making, created out of our attitudes and fears. So it is important to define just what you feel in the cage, and what the associated feelings are with he cage/cell itself, and the other people involved. See: Prison.

If the dreamer is in the cage: Frustration arising from a sense of social pressures restraining expression – or from one’s moral, sexual or conceptual restraints imprisoning one. You might be feeling caged by lack of opportunity or lack of developed abilities. We might however, be choosing to inhibit or restrict an aspect of ourselves. One might restrain anger for instance.

The cell also often depicts how we imprison ourselves within our own anger, resentment, or depressed feelings, or we may be trapped by childhood trauma and be imprisoned by fear of pain or losing love. If a child is in a cell this almost certainly points to this type of imprisonment through emotional pain. See Avoid Being Victims

The cell is also often linked with living a life apart from the normal consumer, nine to five life, and can show a facet of you living a life of meditation or inner seeking.

Example: ““I was in a prison cell with two other men. I felt it was in Spain somewhere. We ate, slept and defecated in the cell. I was standing at the bars of the cell, and had the impression I had been in the prison for years. I was shouting and cursing the people who had put me in the prison, full of hate and self pity.

One day as I stood raging at the bars I suddenly realised that my years of shouting had availed nothing. The only person who was upset by it was me. I was the victim of my own anger and turmoil. It was as if I had been haunted all my life by ghosts of anger and passion. I dropped the attitudes or ‘ghosts’ and was free of them. Years went by and one by one I recognised and dropped other habits of  and thought that had trapped and tortured me. I realised I could be totally free within myself.

One morning I woke and sat up on the mattress on the floor that was my bed. The last ghost of inner entrapment fell away. A fountain of joy opened in my body, pouring upwards through me. It was so intense I cried out. My cell mates called a warden because they thought I had gone mad. They stood looking at me as I experienced radiance so strong I felt as if I must be shining. I was aware my joy poured into them, although they thought I was possibly insane. I could sense the enormous change in me influencing them, and I knew it couldn’t help but change them also. I realised that I might never be released from the prison, but it didn’t matter as I had found a fuller release than simply walking the streets. Even though remaining behind prison bars, I would still be touching people’s lives deeply. Nothing would ever be the same again.” 

A cage or cell is often used to show the mind and how we live within certain ideas and beliefs and maybe do not wish to move out of them.

Occasionally it might refer to your rib cage. (Which I had been focusing on in mediation and yoga earlier)

Something or somebody else caged: Desire to restrain whatever is represented by the thing, person, caged.

In a cage with something or somebody else: Pressed into a close relationship or confrontation with the person or thing with you – and it is a situation difficult to escape from.

See: escape; fence; holding; hospital under house and building; prison.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I am imprisoned what is it in myself or environment that is holding me?

What does this situation confront me with?

Am I unable to feel really free in the relationship I am in?

What of myself or another am I restraining?

Are the restrictions of this situation made of pain?

Black Coffee

I love black coffee. I hate it in paper cups.

Today I went to an al-anon meeting on the 2nd step, and I instantly felt overwhelmed. Twelve steps in twelve months, and yet another January has gone by without me admitting my powerlessness... I found myself getting rageful toward my sponsor. She doesn't make time for me, she doesn't go to the meetings I was supposed to go to with her, she hangs up on me and doesn't return my calls, she says she's too busy skiing to talk to me, or too busy with her kids, she doesn't linger after meetings to say hello and never invites me to do things with her. I like her, but all of these things make it impossible for me to trust her and feel like I can call her daily with "the good, the bad and the ugly." I feel hopeless in my program because E___ didn't work out either, and she wasn't exactly the warm, nurturing, generous woman I was looking for. Instead, she was the opposite. E___ the loving ice queen. Her life was falling apart, and she didn't understand my need to have someone there on the other end of the line. Still, I am grateful for her. I love E____ so much more so now for all of her flaws.

One part of me wonders if I am letting go of this sponsor because I don't want to work the program, because she is threatening to make me commit and hold me accountable for my actions. Another part of me acknowledges the reality - this woman has yet to show up for me AND I haven't been pulling my side either. I am terrified to call her. She doesn't pick up and sounds busy. It's terrifying to call a complete stranger with your problems- just opening yourself up for judgement. At the same time, my own issues are cunning and sly. They will evade help, as they always have and always will. My issues run from the call of health, retreating into me, hiding and protecting the ego which is only a facade.

I am envious of the other women in Al Anon who meet with their sponsors for hours at a time, who go on hikes with their sponsors, whose sponsors invite them over for tea while they cry their eyes out. I'm also aware that I have prevented myself from finding someone who is fully in the program because I am not willing to do what it takes, to heed their advice. It feels so confining and I instantly shut down, and start running. And more time goes by...

No, I don't like anyone telling me what to do. Even if it's the right thing to do. I'm stubborn. I assume they don't know what I need and I don't want to listen. They don't know the order of things like I do. And yet, I have to wonder, am I shutting God out?

Another part of me knows I am choosing sponsors who will participate in my lackadaisical participation in Al Anon. Yes, I go to meetings, but I won't follow the simple orders. No major changes. Don't go see M___. Don't move. Don't travel. Get a job. Be self-sufficient. Stay in the same place.

Why? It goes against my instincts entirely. What do my instincts say? Well, they say, don't worry, we'll take care of you. But they don't, and here I am, alone, day after day after day, trying to guide my family, trying to let go, but clinging on like a mother fucker. Why? What am I getting rather. Someone recently told me, don't ask why, ask what and where....

What do I want? I want to be left alone and I want to be surrounded by friends. I want to work but I want my time to be my own. I want black coffee, but I want it in a glass mug with a perfect lid that keeps the heat in (great invention). I want to feel free in my heart, head and mind to let go and to take care of myself. I want to be organized, efficient and a great planner... I want to do what I said I was going to do when I said I was going to do it. I want to use my buddy pass.... LORD I WANT TO USE MY BUDDY PASS TO TRAVEL THE WORLD LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!!o1i18-4481-5 Does that make sense to you Lord? What do I need to do to get there? Where do I need to go? Where is my heart? What is holding me back, day after day? I am choosing days of pain and where is my strength? Where is my support? Am I alone here? Do I have faith in God? or don't I.... Clearly my sponsor and all of these helpful people are only speaking the words of my own heart. Get out. Get out of here. Stop living in pain. Stop choosing pain just because you are afraid. What would you do if fear was not an issue... I'm banging my keys so hard I might just break them. I have never typed so freaking furiously in my life, as though my life depends on the answers to these questions, and I can feel myself about to give up, I can feel myself about to get up and walk away, instead of finding the answers.

This is hard, this is boring, your hot coffee is getting cold, something even more distasteful in a paper cup... yuck. Where is Tomas, where are my guides? I can't do this anymore and I don't want to do this for another moment, but like someone hanging from a cliff, I can't let go to find out the ground was only an inch beneath me the whole time. I will learn and I will change. Like A___ who kept putting the same things down the garbage disposal! I don't want to put my freaking life down the garbage disposal, my opportunities, my beauty, my youth, my vision, my GIFTS from god, because that's  not what's meant to go down there... and yet...

This intensity cannot be sustained... It is exhausting to pound and pound and pound and pound. It gets things done, but only in spontaneous spurts, and can any problem worth solving be solved in a day? Or must it just be chipped and chipped away. I see myself skating on an ice rink, around a pond, just skating at the bottom. No money, no friends, no home, no car, no happiness, no freedom, no hope, no joy, no place to go but round and round and round. I keep looking up into the sky, hoping some hand or helicopter will finally find me and lift me out of this place, take me somewhere warm, someplace I understand, some place I can move, some place with fluidity. But, instead, I see myself taking off a skate, kneeling on the ice and chipping away at it, hacking my way through the cold, old layers bit by little bit, chip by chip by chip. It's exhausting. My hands hurt from the cold, my knees ache. I need to take breaks, but eventually I can see the thinnest layer, the fish swimming beneath, the life that's been under my feet the whole time. I break it away, and plunge into the depths. It's bracingly cold, and shocking to the senses, but I'm alive, and I will be warm soon. I feel the truth of life surround me. I've made it to a nourishing place... and maybe I don't need to jump in. Maybe I'll do that later. Maybe now I just need to grab a line and bait, to catch some fish and bring them in.

What a dream.