A difficult new Year

I don’t know,
I think it’s a new year
For someone, somewhere, perhaps a whole tribe or nation
This mental illness, depression, anger and self-recrimination
I just hurt. I’m tired of it. I miss her. All the time knowing
There were two sides to the pattern, it takes two to dance.
And I miss having my love hate partner, no moon to my sun
I walk the sky and the earth alone, just watching,
Holding my vow of silence to not pursue her.

Writing is a salvation. As well as sitting and crying
Talking to friends, knowing I am not the only one alone
Or sad, grasping at what small beautiful gems of joy
And brilliance I find throughout the day
Now I find myself going to work and the anxiety
And desperation of doing a good job and not
Breaking down in front of strangers
Will fill my day, and I am grateful for this.Next breath

Monday Morning writing practice

Monday Morning 7:30

I awake from dreaming I am coming to you
Not the you of my soul, myself, but my confusion and pain.
I spent the last year there, perhaps lifetimes in chaos
Avoiding the harder work of just being present with myself now.

So I return to this practice of being, each breath, this one.
So many, many thoughts, all embraced, all released
Like all my loves, held too long, never truly met
Wanting some person or idea to take care of me
As if anyone, can offer ground to even themselves.

This joy of pain, this tender surrender to suffering
The destruction of all the past. It has only brought me
To this morning, so full of gratitude for the beauty
Outside my door, within my heart, all the love
I heave received, and given onward, away.

sunday morning

Slept better last night, many dis-jointed dreams
Skating on my sneakers on the city streets (even uphill!) why cops cruise by uninterested
While great rains flooded many neighborhoods as echoes of Katrina resonate. I see cars sliding and SUV’s drowning in great watery pits like strange alien beasts come to play but over their heads just headlights floating to the surface un answered pleas for succor.
Picking up laundry and receiving strange coins in exchange, I wonder at these strange
coins and haggle for some saint’s medal from a strange meditrainan city, I seem to recall
visiting long ago. Seeing old friends and working together the dreams leave me slightly
More connected to my life and sense of self yet also strangely anxious in my solar plexus as I awaken to the silence in the house and the seemingly noisy Sunday morning traffic which is actually so quiet in comparison and energy to the rest of the week.

I did the Body scan meditation from the book, still strangely aware of my solar –plexus. Some shamans consider this area to be the center of personal power, and I guess I have a great deal to learn about that, it’s certainly the most alive area in my body, I don’t know what it means, or how to feed it, yet is actually seems alive and very powerful.

It’s interesting being celibate, I play with it from time to time, yet now, it seems more serious, as if a goal, or an exploration. My personal energy has usually been focused sexually, and this shift towards holding it appears to awaken some unlooked for gift or shift which will take time to investigate and watch unfold.

Thoughts continue to move in habitual patterns that have brought nothing but suffering in the past. I am awake to this yet feel almost groundless in living into a different life.

Very much enjoying Reading the Myth of Freedom and seeing my own spiritual materialism and finding relief in just being here, in this moment, house, body, life.