literature – St GEORGIA & Boo

wander lines

A philosophy of tracing

This TRACING / from before the sign / I will never cease to see in it / what no gaze / would it be mine / will ever see • the human is there / perhaps / quite simply / with no one in the end / without voice • those / TRACINGS / are from my hand which borrowed the manner of handling / the style of this janmari who speaking is not • and everything that I can write from this / TRACING that all the writings of the / world have no chance of drying up. (Deligny, 2007: 813; quoted and translated in Alvarez de Toledo, 2013: 5)

I am exploring wander lines. trying to move away from neurotypical thought processes to a wider less structured thought way. I am trying to not think in straight lines, like my son and my eldest daughter, they don’t think in straight lines.

I was leaving early on a Saturday morning to head to a farmers market. It’s always a big day, a big drive there and back. As i was heading our down our driveway i was stopped by fallen trees laying across my access. This was a big deal, they would have to be moved and i was annoyed that i was the one having to do it. From closer inspection it would require a chainsaw, not an easy task for this moment and for one person. I worked in slight annoyance, internally voicing my frustrations at the inconvenience, which could have been tended to yesterday. Why didn’t she say this needs to be cleared, she knew that it was mess, she knew because she walked over it to check the mail. Why didn’t she say you won’t be able get through tomorrow. I was having a self indulgent early morning rant to myself.

Nevertheless I was able to clear the path, remove the trees and branches and the nuisances that were ailing me and was on my way to the farmers market. All was well. On my drive I calmed. Breathed. And there it was. I understood the need for the early morning obstruction. The obstruction was not in the fallen trees on my path, it was in the obstruction of my thinking of how she thinks. Yes, she knew about the fallen trees, yes she mentioned them in an incidental way, but she wasn’t thinking in straight lines. She doesn’t think in straight lines.

I had been pondering on Deligny and his maps of wandering lines. I was wanting to understand this more, explore it from new spaces within my own thinking. I was wanting to see it in movement, thoughts in processes not travelling on straight lines. It seems someone was listening.

The straight line process would have been to notice the fallen trees and say we need to move them before tomorrow morning. It would have been to work together and have the driveway cleared for access again in the morning. But that’s straight line thinking, neurotypical line thinking. Its thinking- action-result kind of thinking. Its thinking that has been educated, indoctrinated, cultured into us like good manners. Its viewed as rational and necessary, as normal.

But it starting to feel false. As though by thinking in such ways we are denying something else. Perhaps something is becoming lost within us, within this process, something innate, ancestral, something that offers more to the experience we are having. We are not seperate from our experiences. My fallen trees were my lesson here. It would seem as though they were a cleverly planned obstacle placed within my path, within my thinking of things. They were my obstruction of thought and became an invitation to think of things from wandering lines.

Deligny clearly recognised this in his working beside non-verbal autistic children. What can be lost within the language of words. It reminds me of my son when he was small. He didn’t talk with words until he was four. We had to understand each other in other ways, by other means. We had to feel into these places. I had to remind myself that i can know him from here, just as a mother understands her newborn babe, words become so unnecessary from this space.

..that touches us without our knowing why, a touching that occurs not through the effects of language but beyond, where “something that cannot be seen” exists, something ineffable but nonetheless “immediately felt” (Deligny 1990).

My son thinks in wandering lines. He has his own maps of thought. They make little sense to the indoctrinated typical mind. They aren’t clear, they don’t stay in one place, they cross space-time- realities. Yet when i listen, really listen, his anarchy of thought makes way for contemplative thought, they invite possibility, maybe not always in this place, or in this time, or even this universe but what he chooses to use his voice for is stories of happenings and who am i to determine such things as real or not.

carly

beings as wild alters

“I worry about fixing these bodies that are beginning to experiment ..when we have fixed the human race the human race can no longer evolve.

We think of ourselves as a climatic species but we are living in dynamic environments that are shifting that we will need to glitch out and become disabled in order to inhabit and so I worry about fixing these bodies that are beginning to experiment at the very edges of the eco tones of what is supposed to be materially appropriate. So somebody’s body that could be fixed I wonder if it should be fixed.” -Sophie Strand

this is the space I find myself occupying now. im sitting in wander. wandering lines, that are not set with a concrete direction or goal orientated destination, i already know that there will be no real answers to the questions that i am asking here. there will be no ending or certainanty, to be looked forward to. it will not be completed with yet another DSM5 diagnosis and a full stop. no, that is not the way of the wandering lines.

when I speak of wandering lines i am thinking away from what we think we know about autism, mental health, stability, what it means to be well. i cannot tentatively hold myself completely to notions of how the world interacts and responds to these things so much anymore. i have cautious steps now. i have learned to not trust the narrative. i have ventured in my thinking of things from wilder places.

It’s in the glitching out, its in the disability, its in the diaschronic. Its in the place that we loose eloquence that God comes in.
Bayo Aklomofe

instead i find myself trusting something that cannot be named, that is innately inherent, and who’s guidance has never wavered over the years. my faith in these unknowable spaces have always shown me the way, where to place my next step, or they have laid before my very feet the guidance i am seeking. these Gods have always traveled beside me, even in the times when i wasn’t able to hold space for them.

The void isn’t empty. The gods are everywhere. We are swimming in dynamic, animated, tentacular territories and there is no escaping that, there is no removing ourselves from that. We are always in conversation with these bio field signals.
Bayo Aklomofe

my son’s story is unfolding in wildish uncertain and sometimes uncomfortable ways. when he moves, it is through space time, through universes and galaxies and inconceivable notions of more than we can comprehend. i’m sure its not really new to him now, i think he has always occupied these wide places of existence. maybe what’s new is he is somewhat more aware now of this traveling self he inhibits and it is beginning to ruffle him. it has become obvious that he is not contained or limited in his thinking or do i dare assume knowing, to any preconceived ideas of how we exist in the here and now. he moves from spaces much wider than that.

i as a mother of this young human, and my ‘i’ in this is small i know, for i don’t think he has ever been a child, especially one for me to call my own, he belongs to something much greater than that. nevertheless, i wonder where i am to stand in the witnessing of this unfolding of self and other. i wonder where my place is, if it’s really relevant at all, from such expansive unknowable landscapes.

i have borrowed a notion, of’ beings as wild alters.’ Bayo Alomofe tells of a story of his beloved wife Ej and her philosophy towards caring for their son in the unknowable times of trouble. i have listened to this story many times over and it always brings me to tears, it reminds me of all the times i too have fallen to the ground to be beside my son in the face of the unknowable storm. Ej invites us to hold our children as alters, as a wild place where the subject is not to cure or to fix them into sanity, instead the object is to worship, to stay in the trouble of the yelps and screaming. this resonates in me, it makes sense to not move in these times, but rather lay down in the face of the fire. for, we can never be sure of where the fire has arrived from or where it is on its way to, we can never be certain of what it means to have such things move through and captivate the bodies of our children. there is no real language for these places, perhaps we are not meant to bring them out of the turmoil, or lead them away or quieten them down, we don’t know what they are moving in the heat of the storm.

playing the education game

“An elementary school teacher was giving a drawing class to a group of six-year old children. At the back of the class room sat a girl who normally didn’t pay much attention in school. In drawing class she did. For more than twenty minuets the girl sat with her arms curled around her paper, totally absorbed in what she was doing.The teacher found this fascinating. Eventually she asked the girl what she was drawing. Without looking up, the girl said, “I’m drawing a picture of God.” Surprised the teacher said, “But nobody knows what God looks like.” The Girl said, “They will in a minute.” … I believe passionately that we are all born with tremendous capacities, and that we lose touch with many of them as we spend more time in the world. Ironically, one of the main reasons this happens is education.”

-Ken Robinson, The Element

We have reached another final ending of secondary education. The girls are all taking a well-earned breath now. The previous year, has been one of the hardest contradictions i have ever had to give my entire support to and in doing so, it has become ever so clear that my desire to move away from supporting mainstream educating is now undeniable. These girls of ours have played the game and they have played it exceptionally well. I have witnessed them consistently refrain from voicing their truths, their opinions, their creativity and their individualities. They learned to not step on toes and to keep the peace even when it meant going against the truth because to challenge the system or the school or the teacher would have had a detrimental consequence on their personal results, regardless of the validity. They learned not to make the inappropriate comments and judgments made by teachers matter to them, and the noticeable partiality teachers held for certain co students bother them. They worked incredibly hard, kept their focus and received more than admirable results for their efforts and are all now considered to be a part of a small percentage of success stories of mainstream eduction. But are they? What exactly are we defining their success on? There is no doubt of how exceptionally proud i am of their accomplishments but it has nothing to do with a number or score that some system places such high value on. I wonder to what detriment are they having to acquire their success, and would they really choose it to be this way if given the choice?

My greatest fear is that the message that is being sent within this process of educating is that they simply don’t matter. The very fact that they are unique individuals, who consist of a complexity of different abilities and talents is being lost in the process. Instead what they are learning is that they must merely comply and be willing to shut themselves off from the very aspects of who they are, and do what they are directed to do, the way they are directed to do it. They must do this without opinion and ever raising the obvious question of, why? Why must we do this? This is a very simple and valuable question that is asked often early on in the education process and rarely accurately answered. I fear that what is being really taught is, how to successfully navigate your way through a system and play the game.

These girls true abilities and intelligence cannot be measured in this way. This is not something their education has provided them with, and even with the highest notable recognition, it still fails to see the entirety of who they are and the their immense individual worth. I hold more appreciation for their ability of withstanding spending so much time within a system that increasingly denied them the space and opportunity to really discover who they are and what they really want for themselves and still keep themselves perfectly grounded. We have been blessed with wise children. We know that they are more than capable of being in complete control of their own futures. And it will be inspiring to stand back and witness the forthcoming unfolding. I only wonder, what if the same freedom and space and opportunity had been offered much earlier? What if this process is no longer really necessary at all anymore. It is my thought that they undeniably would still be powerfully driving themselves forward in their lives, unsubdued.

Next Truth

They did not feel they could choose what they wanted, independent of circumstances. … it always seems that circumstances are powerful- more powerful than you are. You feel that all you can do is react or respond to them. Even if you have developed great skill in outmaneuvering circumstances, like a lion tamer outmaneuvering the lions, it is still the circumstances- the lions- that hold the ultimate control in how you live you life. -Robert Fritz

This has been the way i have lived life, for most of my life. My first considerable circumstance that defined how i would move was my first child. In trying to choose the best life for her, I married her father and began creating the story. I wish i could say with Truth that it was out of a deep love, for him, but i can’t, it was out of a deep love for her. And i knew this at the time, even at twenty. I stayed quiet, silenced the voice within and did what needed to be done to ready myself for the making of a family. I pretended that it was all that mattered. Believing that there was enough love to make it look as though it was always going to be part of the plan. But it hadn’t been my plan, it caught me by surprise and i reacted. This story played out for seven years in all the usual ways, and for the most part i was content with all the distraction children brought. I was abundant in the circumstances surrounding the way i was moving through life and avoiding my truth. It simply was just too much to allow to rise to the surface in this story. We do that as mothers, leave ourselves behind or worse in the dark to keep the story going. And we usually think we do this well, but it’s never really far away, and life has this divine way of always bringing to you what truths you are needing to see at the time. And when my husband decided to leave one day, i remember i felt terrified and relieved in the same breath. Terrified at the idea of caring for three young children on my own and relieved that he had found the courage to leave, something i would silently be eternally grateful to him for. I’m no longer living this way, allowing the circumstances of my life to define my life. I’m moving from a different part of myself now, the one where the answer isn’t always clear right away but you know it’s there and you know that it will be revealed as its meant to, so your content in the waiting. The strength i learned about myself during this time, has carried me forward. It’s what brought me through the chapters that followed to where I’m standing now. It’s whats giving me the courage to stand strong in my truth, in the midst of this chapter. And with all resistance that comes up against it, I’m thankful to them for they are the continuum of reminders on how i need to be ever so mindful of my Truth.

child-led learning

It takes courage to follow your own innate wisdom’s, especially when it concerns more lives than just that of your own. I have always followed the mantra, when you know better, you do better. I am watching carefully how my children are learning, even how other children i am around are learning also, by simply observing, allowing, and encouraging a child-led process to unfold. This area in my children’s development has become a necessary pursuit and now a passion. When developmental learning for a child doesn’t play by the generalised rules, it becomes necessary to begin the journey of discovering new ways for the information to be grasped, finding a way for the learning to happen. Our way has come to us on an instinctual level, i simply allow my children to lead the way in their learning, most of the time and almost every day. It may seem unlikely that we could possibly be covering all the developmental learning targets with children taking the lead however, if we are able to get out of our own way of old views on how things must be done in order to achieve results, we open up a new space of possibility for things to unfold. And children are born knowing what they want and need already. We know this to be true from babies who cry to have their instinctual needs met. Nobody teaches a new born how to be hungry every few hours or how to be tired, or how to feel uncomfortable. We trust babies to tell us what they need, to eventually get their needs met, even without the use of spoken language. So why is it that we stop trusting them, stop trusting that they instinctively know what it is they are wanting to learn, wanting to know more about? Maybe it started around the time the first three-year olds began contradicting their parents? A mass collaborative decision to get things under control before an ensue of outspoken three-year olds possibly unraveled? What would happen if we continued to trust them, kept them safe and allowed them to lead the direction of what it is they want to know more about. All children are curious we know this to be true. Usually about absolutely everything. This innate curiosity starts to take a certain shape and head in certain directions as they grow. I watched a small boy yesterday, load his 4-year-old arms up with off cuts of wood and lug them down to another part of the play area where he was building. He continued this process of going back and forth, carrying the wood to his construction site with immense importance and determination. He lay the wood pieces in parquetry style, perfectly creating a flat image of a house plan from his imagination. What was remarkable to me was that he was constructing this project in amongst a highly distracting group of twenty or so four-year olds. I wondered what would have happened if he was left to remain focused on his project for sometime, and given the opportunity to further explore this creative venture, with access to tools and supplies. Who knows what would have become of his fabrication. This is child-led learning. This is the perfect example of a child who clearly has an interest in construction. All sorts of learning can be applied to his choice of project, maths and geometry, comparing and measuring all of which can be explored. Creative thinking, conceptualisation, problem solving and independence all play a large role in a project such as this. Most importantly you will have the desire, willingness and enthusiasm of the child. Isn’t this ideal? Children learning in a way, that allows them to set their own course, a direction of learning where we are simply not filling them with masses of information that they cannot relate to, or have little interest in learning about and possibly will never again use in their lives. Of course, when we leave the education system as young adults we usually once again return to learning more naturally. When we want to know more about a topic or subject, we begin the process ourselves. Technology allows us to research and explore information on just about anything we want to know about. We pursue our interests, and intern continue the process of learning by our own innate wisdom once again.

intentionally moving off the path

Asperger would often just sit with the children, reading poetry and stories to them from his favourite books. “I don’t want to simply ‘push from the outside’ and give instructions, observing cooly and with detachment,” he said ” Rather, I want to play and talk with the child , all the while looking with open eyes both into the child and into myself, observing the emotions that arise in reaction to everything that occurs in the conversation between the two of us.”

-NeuroTribes, Steve Silberman

This is how i want my children to learn, i want to be the observer not the dictator to their curious and instinctual minds. I want to watch what they are drawn to, and where they take themselves naturally when provided the space, opportunity and environment to do so. I don’t want them ever to become accustomed to what is perceived as normal or abnormal about themselves in a class room, by the opinions that are deciding where they sit on some grand scale of intellectual competence. Children are loosing their natural flow. They are being denied the access to learn by instinctively following from their own interests, a naturally occurring process that is inherent to everyone. There is no room for individual self-directed learning anymore. Instead they are being shaped and moulded, and filled with information about things that are meant to support them in their lives, but really have nothing to do with their life at all. By the time they are reaching high school it’s all but gone. Thats when it really becomes prevalent to what is happening. It is then that they too begin to realise the sad truth of how little they matter in the system, how small their voices are, unless of course they have an exceptional skill that can offer some personal gain to the school. It becomes entirely about working hard, retaining the masses of information, memorizing as opposed to learning, endless testing and our children tirelessly keeping pace, trying to prove themselves over and over again. It is about them illogically having to have their whole life plan set out before them, at the tender age of sixteen. This is not the learning we are striving for. The learning we strive for is one that doesn’t require forcing information upon them with the expectation that they retain it and then perform it back in some way, as proof of a job well done. My children are learning to count, I know this. I hear them practicing all the time, for their own pleasure. I have also watched them refuse to count on demand or worse feel so under pressure, to prove themselves that they simply can’t. Testing children is much the same. It fills them with dread, panic and insecurity, and really is no way to conclude where a child’s level of understanding is really at. Testing children in this country in the educational systems is out of control. We test everything, even how fast they can run, in ‘beep tests’. This has nothing to do with nurturing the physical health of our children, or guiding them towards naturally being aware of how to take care of their own bodies, and everything to do with competition and adequacy verses inadequacy. Never before in our history has the pressure to perform been so rampant, you have to wonder how much learning is actually taking place. We are living in a time where we are now recognising the expansive neurological diversity amongst ourselves, more than ever before, and the educational options to cater for the diversity in our children’s differences is few. Parents are wanting a new approach, they are wanting individual learning styles for their children as they are uniquely learning individuals. They are recognising that many children cannot learn effectively in a traditional school environment anymore. With the number of children being diagnosed with learning differences it is inevitable that something will have to change. There is simply no one size fits all model that can be followed effectively anymore.

takings from T.S. Eliot’s, Little Gidding

chère douce Paris, je reviendrai un jour

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make and end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from.

For last words belong to last years language

And next years words await another voice.

But the passage now presents no hindrance

To the spirit unappeased and peregrine.

Between two worlds become much like each other.

So i find words i never thought to speak.

Miller Williams, compassion

Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don’t want it. What seems conceit, bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.

-Miller Williams, Compassion

a prayer -RUMI

I have come to drag you out of yourself and take you into my heart.

I have come to bring out the beauty you never knew you had and lift you like a prayer to the sky.

If no one recognises you, i do because you are my life and soul.

Don’t run away, accept your wounds and let bravery be your shield.

It takes a thousand stages for the perfect being to evolve.

Every step of the way i will walk with you and never leave you stranded.

-RUMI

Why i want a Wife

In August 1970, a woman named Judy Syfers stood before a crowd gathered in San Francisco and read a humorous essay she wrote entitled ” Why I want a Wife”. The crowd was gathered to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 19th amendment, giving women the right to vote. In 1971 it was published in an important anthology of feminist works, ‘Notes from the third Year’.

I belong to that classification of people known as wives.I am a wife. And, not altogether incidentally, I am a mother.

Not too long ago a male friend of mine appeared on the scene fresh from a recent divorce. He had one child, who is, of course, with his ex-wife. He is looking for another wife. As I thought about him while I was ironing one evening, it suddenly occurred to me that I too, would like to have a wife. Why do I want a wife?

I would like to go back to schools that I can become economically independent, support myself, and, if need be, support those dependent upon me. I want a wife who will work and send me to school. And while I going to school, I want a wife to take care of my children. I want a wife to keep track of the children’s doctor and dentist appointments. And to keep track of mine, too. I want a wife to make sure my children eat properly and are kept clean. I want a wife who will wash the children’s clothes and keep them mended. I want a wife who is a good nurturant attendant to my children, who arranges for their schooling, makes sure they have adequate social life with their peers, takes them to the park, the zoo, etc. I want a wife who takes care of the children when they are sick, arranges to be around when the children need special care, because, of course, I cannot miss classes at school. My wife must arrange to lose time at work and not lose the job. it may mean a small cut in my wife’s income from time to time, but I guess I can tolerate that. Needless to say, my wife will arrange and pay for the care of the children while my wife is working.

I want a wife who will take care of my physical needs. I want a wife who will keep my house clean. A wife who will pick up after my children, a wife who will pick up after me. I want a wife who will keep my clothes clean, ironed,mended,replaced when need be, and who will see to it that my personal things are kept in their proper place so that I can find what I need the minute I need it. I want a wife who cooks the meals, a wife who is a good cook. I want a wife who will plan the menus, do the necessary grocery shopping, prepare the meals, serve them pleasantly, and then do the cleaning up while I do my studying. i want a wife to go along when our family takes vacation so that someone can continue to care for me and my children when I need a rest and change of scene.

I want a wife who will not bother me rambling complaints about a wife’s duties. But I want a wife who will listen to me when I feel the need to explain a rather difficult point I have come across in my course studies. And I want a wife who will type my papers for me when I have written them.

If, by chance, I find another person more suitable as a wife than the wife I already have, I want the liberty to replace my present wife with another one. Naturally, I will expect a fresh, new life; my wife will take the children and be solely responsible for them so that I am left free.

When i am through with school and have a job, i want my wife to quit working and remain at home so that my wife can more fully and completely take care of a wife’s duties.

My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?

when a daughter of my closest friend gave me this piece to read i did so lightheartedly thinking in the beginning how truthfully funny it was.. however the further i read, the humour was lost to how implicitly relevant this piece is to the women of today. How do we change the story? How do we teach our sons and daughters differently, to expect different and fairer for themselves when all they see are mothers taking care of them, taking care of all that needs to be done for their lives to feel secure and loved as children? How do i show my daughters that their lives are abundantly worth everything and that they need not lose themselves to the children they bear and the husbands they marry, when it is all they have ever witnessed and not by their mother’s choosing? This piece was written in 1970, it could have been written today, i could have written it, for myself.

A Room of One’s Own

So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its colour, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery, and the sacrifice of wealth and charity which used to be said to be the greatest of human disasters, a mere flea-bite in comparison.

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

the journey

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice—

though the whole house began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

‘Mend my life!’

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations—

through their melancholy

was terrible.It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

though the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice,

which you slowly

recognised as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do–determined to save

the only life you could save.

-Mary Oliver

the mother, 1949

“there has been an enormous amount of talk about the sacred rights of women, but being a mother is not how women gained the right to vote; the unwed mother is still scorned; it is only in marriage that the mother is glorified- in other words, as long as she is subordinate to the husband. As long as he is the economic head of the family, even though it is she who cares for the children, they depend far more on him than on her. This is why, as has been seen, the mother’s relationship with her children is deeply influenced by the one she maintains with her husband. So conjugal relations, homemaking and motherhood form a whole in which all the parts are determinant; tenderly united to her husband, the wife (mother) can cheerfully carry out the duties of the home; happy with her children, she will be understanding of her husband. But this harmony is not easy to attain, for the different functions assigned to the wife(mother) conflict with each other. Women magazines amply advise the housewife on the art of maintaining her sexual attraction while doing the dishes, of remaining elegant throughout pregnancy, of reconciling flirtation, motherhood and economy; but if she conscientiously follows their advice, she will soon be overwhelmed and disfigured by care; it is very difficult to remain desirable with chapped hands and a body deformed by pregnancies; this is why women in love often feel resentment of the children who ruin her seduction and deprive her of her husbands caresses; if she is, by contrast, deeply maternal, she is jealous of the man who also claims the children as his. But then, the perfect homemaker, as has been seen, contradicts the movement of life: The child is the enemy of waxed floors. Maternal love is often lost in the reprimands and outbursts that underlie the concern for a well-kept home. It is not surprising that the woman torn between these contradictions often spends her day in a state of nervousness and bitterness; she always loses on some level, and her gains are precarious, they do not count as any sure success. She can never save herself by her work alone; it keeps her occupied, but does not constitute her justification: her justification rests on outside freedoms. The wife (mother) shut up in her home cannot establish her existence on her own; she does not have the means to affirm herself in her singularity: and this singularity is consequently not acknowledged.”

Simone de Beauvoir, the Second Sex 1949

Remember if you want to make progress on this path and ascend to the places you have longed for, the important thing is not to think much but to love much and so to do whatever best awakens you to love.

-Mirabai Starr, St Tereasa of Avila

“we all begin the process before we are ready, before we are strong enough, before we know enough; we begin a dialogue with thoughts and feelings that both tickle and thunder within us. We respond before we know how to speak the language, before we know all the answers, and before we know exactly to whom we are speaking.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

She asks now not for guarantees or assurances of things to be alright. She asks now not for anything to make sense or even to play out in any particular way. She no longer needs all the right answers or to even really understand why life seems to be so much harder now, even though she’s older. When all she ever really imagined was it getting easier. All she is wanting now, is the courage to simply be still, with it all. If she can accept everything her life is presenting, without the need to change or move anything, if she can truly be alright with the uncertainties and resist the need to give into bitterness or regret or blame of another, then maybe, just maybe, she will be able to move a little closer, sink a little deeper, towards her centre, towards a new truth for herself. Maybe then she will see that all that has ever happened to her in her life, has really happened for her. She will understand that she is the creator of her story, that she has always been the one painting the picture. And if, she can bring herself to move though this, with love as her centre then maybe life will begin to flow differently for her. Maybe she will finally be able to be, the love she so deserves.

Being

When your deeper sense of self is derived from Being, when you are free from the psychological need, neither your happiness nor your sense of self depends on the outcome, and so there is freedom from fear. You don’t seek permanency where it cannot be found: in the world of form, of gain and loss, birth and death. You don’t demand that the situations, conditions, places or people should make you happy, and then suffer when they don’t live up to your expectations.

Everything is honored, but nothing matters. Forms are born and die, yet you are aware of the eternal underneath the forms. You know that”nothing real can be threatened.”

Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

I can see now that in small ways I have always been on this journey, the one towards truth, life, the essence of what Is. I have at times paused, challenged, denied, become lost, held great doubt, regathered, left and come back many times to this path, i now find myself back on. Maybe it is that i am only now really ready. That i have searched long enough and i have finally come to the understanding that the truth of what i am seeking is not out there at all. I am beginning to understand the depths to which our intricate beings travel, far beyond this thought or that, far beyond this world and that world. We are so very lost, within our minds, within the stories that we hold with so much faith and so much pain, and really they are only just stories. We are not our minds, we are not the stories we shape our lives with. We are so very much more than that. On some level I have always deeply understood this to be true, maybe that is why i have never been able to just settle into anything. And i have always been able to walk away in the end and continue the search, for what truly matters. I understand that really there are no endings, we are just all in some way trying to find our way back towards understanding the vast depths within ourselves and was it is exactly we are meant to know.