fireandeye-blog

[fireandeye-blog]

Revisiting Love Cont.

1-23-18

So this morning during my healing and meditation, I started thinking back on my actually first love. Funny how when I usually think back on my first love, I think about the relationship that hurt me the most for the longest amount of time. Why is that? Can’t’ we think back to the first love relationship that didn’t hurt? I did today. I always laugh when I remember, because how could I have been so blinded by my bad times that I had forgotten.

I met him at science camp after my 8th grade year in middle school. We stayed on the Clemson University campus for a week. There were other kids from around the state and we had all scored particular high on the PSAT. My roommate and I were about 14 at the time.We walked to college campus and attended our classes during the day. Chemistry and computer tech for me. The boys and girls stayed in different dorms and often flirted and followed each other around between classes. There was this one particular guy from Charleston, SC. He was dark skinned, and spoke with a funny geechi accent. He constantly made fun of me for my country accent as well. But for a week, we spent falling completely in love. We mostly just hung out between classes and my roommate and I talked to him and his friends on our dorm phones in the evening. They would somehow convince me to sing Diary By Alicia keys, to him while I was extremely shy with him in person. On the last day of camp we wrote each other letters expressing our love.

After going home that summer, we continued to be pen pals. But as high school began, we lost interest in long distance relationships. We were going to be able to go out on real dates soon. So we soon broke up on good terms to pursue new people and to be teenagers.

He on the other hand stayed with a girlfriend he made back home. He was a football player and had been offered a scholarship to a University in Florida. Unfortunately he was never able to go, because he ended up being placed in jail after corroborating with his girlfriend in robbing the McDonalds she worked for. Later he went on to have a child with her.

We always remained friends and never truly had any ill feelings towards one another. Years later he popped up in my life every now and then. Once he suddenly appeared on the cruise ship where I was taking vacation one Spring Break during college. We hung out together like old times and old flames were rekindled in a gentle, yet detached way. He later transferred to my University for a year or two. Again, we became friends. I often kept him company when he was lost in his head, deep in contemplation about the state of his current affairs. He had spent most of the year on house arrest for getting caught selling marijuana, or something of the sort. He played rugby at school and I was bartending and selling candy as a small side hustle. He bought candy sometimes, and was a friend in my lonely hours as well.

I also remember that he broke his leg that year playing rugby with the guys. I was the one who brought him food, helped him around the house a few times. Spoke with him about finding a job.

I remember we parted ways once again. But he never left as my friend. If I saw him again, it would be the same.

That was my first teenage love story. But perhaps that is how family is made. To give the other what we can, and let the other do as they will. There are ways to maintain healthy boundaries in love, in life. To make our life transitions in love and relationships as painless and as compassionate as can be. To realize that these are only transitions, not endings or grand finales. To completely withdraw love and support for someone we have loved and called dear to our hearts, is to withdraw love from ourselves. To withdraw love in our own hearts.

Take note of those you are able to come home to over and over again, no matter how difficult the journey back may be.

Aloha ke akua.

After writing this I’ve come to realize that today (January 23)  is that guy’s birthday. A rebirth of an aspect of self in the same.

I have been brought to this point to examine the current relationship that I am in now with the father of my son. He has endured so much with me this past year. Though we fell completely apart, we have found some way to come back together, slowly but surely. We may have hurt each other a lot with our mistakes and false perceptions of love, but we never stopped trying our best to keep loving each other. For the sake of the life of the other person and for the sake of our child. I am finding my way back home, slowly but surely. I will find a way to bring our hearts together again as one. I will find my way back to our family as one unit. As a loving whole. We are growing. We are learning. We are healing together. I love you.

[fireandeye-blog]

Revisiting “Love”

As I look back on my teenage love affairs, they seem so trivial now compared to what I have experienced in recent years. But I have come to see all of these stories in a new way as I have revisited them through extensive shadow work. I’d like to revisit them here, for my own reflection.

My first boyfriend. He was not quite the man of my dreams. He was was the first boy to become my friend. After all of the terrible stories of rape and abuse I had been told, and all of the religious restrictions I had been given, I was terrified of boys. I was definitely terrified of sex with boys. Yet, at 18 I lost my virginity with a boy who had worked long and hard to gain my trust and friendship. Still, I did not trust him enough to enter into a relationship with him. He asked me to prom and I told him yes. However, later I broke the news to him that I couldn’t go. He ended up taking a last minute date to prom, then humiliated her by kicked her out of his car halfway through the night. He was sure to make me feel guilty for declining his invitation and ruining his night for a long time to come.

We eventually made up but it was our senior year of high school and he would be heading off to New York for college soon. We remained friends our first year of college, yet I quickly caught wind of all the girls he was sleeping with in New York. I went on with my life, though I was lonely, depressed and drunk 3-4 nights of the week. I had always extremely shy and had a hard time making friends. College was no different.

On one drunken occasion, I called my friend in New York and blabbed to him in tears about a girl I had fallen in love with at school. She had lied to me snuck around with one of my friends behind my back. He didn’t receive this news very well, even though he had been been openly bragging about having his fun while he was away. He told me that my betrayal was something he could never forgive me for.

He came back home to South Carolina to visit for Christmas that year. He suggested that perhaps if he were to move back home, that we could be together again. I told him I’d think about it.

We continued a vicious cycle of coming back together and spitting up violently. He often cheated on me and then would seek to humiliate me in front of large crowds for things I had done in the past. When I often called him drunk and in tears, I was instantly placed on speakerphone for all to hear.

During one of those years, he ran off again to California. There he proposed to a girl he had been seeing a short while there . Simultaneously though, he was contacting me online, confessing his unending love for me. When his fiance hacked into my social media account to discover the truth, he later blamed me for the break up.

He then moved to Clemson, South Carolina to attend school. After not speaking for a while he spotted me at the mall with a new boyfriend. I’m sure this peaked his curiosity as to whether he could win me over again. He succeeded as I went to visit him right away. Our meeting left me in much confusion as he kissed me upon my departure.

The next day I texted him in hopes to get a better understanding. I asked him if he wanted to be with me and he said no. So I asked, “Then why did you kiss me if you don’t want to be with me?”

He responded, “Why would you kiss someone who you know doesn’t want to be with you.”

My current boyfriend discovered our conversation and broke up with me. When my ex found out that he was successful in breaking up the relationship, he gloated.

But of course, somewhere along the lines, after he decided to transfer back to my University, I took him back again. We dated for another year, and then one day, he came to my apartment heavily stoned. He announced that he was transferring to another school and that he was leaving me once again. He already had everything in place and ready to go.

He moved to Columbia, SC this time, but he continued to visit my campus in Greenwood to sleep with other girls there. When he showed up for our homecoming celebration I was a drunken, ticking time bomb. He followed me from club to club, taunting me to come outside. I refused. Yet sadly our night still ended in a fist fight on his friend’s  front porch. He pressed charges against me but later dropped them the day before our court appearance.

That fight was the last time I saw him, until this past year. I attended one of my childhood best friend’s wedding and he was the best man. When I saw him, I felt that childlike love all over again. I was able to forgive him and let him go. And I apologized for everything I had done to contribute to what had happened in our past. He has permanently moved to California now and I’ll probably never run into him again.

Boyfriend #2

Not my second boyfriend in life, but I’d say my second significant relationship. He was the guy I met after breaking up with the several year long nightmare of my first love. But this one was different. I had spent several months alone and disconnected from friends and family. I had finally found myself diving into my spirituality and learning more about who I really was. I let my hair grow out natural for the first time and I felt a new freedom and self love settling in.

There was magic in our meeting much more than fear. We met up on 4-20 that year and were inseparable from day one. There was music, dancing, and shooting stars. We radiated in the eyes of others. He made art together, he exposed me to new music and taught me to longboard. I visited his hometown in Louisiana for Christmas and we saved up our spare change in order to take a beach vacation in the spring. We even had a dog together. I’d say he is mostly responsible for giving me the jumpstart I needed to become the hippy I am today. We seemed like the perfect couple to the outside world. However, inside it quickly became a different story. His actions began to play on my low self esteem. He was constantly surrounded by other girls, flirting and spending time in their dorms. At a party one time He smacked a girl on her butt while he held me, the other arm wrapped around my shoulder. But I loved him.

But I didn’t know how to love myself. Everyone loved him so much, he was outgoing, funny, and entertaining. He was an art major and soccer playing and everyone told him he reminded everyone of Bob Marley. Me, I was awkward, too shy for the big soccer parties. He was constantly frustrated with my inability to blend in and mingle with his dozens of friends.

This time in my life was also when my health began to fade. After years of heavy drinking, college life, and poor diet, it was all catching up to me. I also had a sudden increase of unusual spiritual experiences that neither of us were prepared for. After a near death experience and developing an anxiety disorder, he had had more than the average college guy could handle. Plus he was still in school while I had already graduated. I soon stopped doing the things we used to do together. I stopped drinking, changed my diet, and I wasn’t too much into sex because of my failing health. Soon, he left for a school trip to Amsterdam. Upon his return something had changed. I still loved him deeply, but I feared for my life. He only felt rejected by me. I went to pick him up at the airport and we broke up before making it home. We later began to fight over the dog that we had raised together. After living in separate rooms in a shared house for a month or so, it was clear that he wanted me gone as he quickly brought in new girls, and eventually a new girlfriend.

After our break up, I was forced to move out on my own (escorted by police) and he kept the dog. I never quite healed from that break up. And I never got attached to another dog after that.

Boyfriend #3

I think this is the last story I’ll revisit for now. These three stories represent a good bit of the wounds I have delve into this past year, as far as consensual relationships go. The trauma I have revisited from childhood and early adolescent abuse would need an entirely different dialogue of its own. Yet I believe examining the unhealthy dynamics I experienced in major life relationships later on has given me greater insight into how early abuse affected my life in the long run.

So the heartbroken girl is drinking again. But then I started to shift after a few more unwanted blacked out experiences. I had been drinking for so long that my tolerance had become unreasonable. There was no tipsy for me anymore. I either felt nothing, or I was blacked out. So I continued with my vegetarian diet and began working at a cell phone store. I had previously decided to finally pursue my dreams and go back to school for art, but after moving out on my own I could no longer afford not to work full time.

I found a new boyfriend that New Year and ended up moving back towards my hometown to be closer to him. However, I still had to drive an hour back and forth to work from my new home in Simpsonville SC. I worked nearly 60 hours a week and it was exhausting. On top of that my grandmother had been put on hospice and my car was barely holding up with my two hour drive each day. I was still driving the same car I bought in high school with the money my grandfather left me after his death.

One day, on my way to work, I looked down for just a moment, but long enough to crash into the back of a pickup truck that had stopped to move a few tree limbs out of he road. I didn’t last much longer at that job and my replacement car wasn’t holding up much better than the last. I decided to leave my job and go back to school for pastry arts.

While in school, I worked part time at a bakery but I was unable to pay my own rent. So my boyfriend decided to move in with me to help support me and help with bills. After the wreck though, many of my health problems began to return. This time they progressively got worse. That year my grandmother passed and I was also diagnosed with multiple sclerosis shortly after.

Soon I was unable to work and barely able to finish my classes. I spent the next 6 months finishing my pastry certificate and nursing myself back to health through diet and lifestyle changes. Yet, I was still lonely.

My boyfriend owned several businesses and was often a gone all day. He would return at night then be gone by 7am. As disfunction increased in my body, my interest in sex diminished once again. I desperately longed for spiritual and intellectual conversation. My limbs were numb, often paralyzed and painful. There were no medications available that eased the electrical shock pain that shot throughout my body. I could only sleep with muscle relaxers and ativan. I sweated profusely at night and woke up every hour with spasms in my bladder and other muscles. My hands trembled as if I had parkinson’s and I walked with a constant limp.

I think what was most hurtful in this situation was that I was facing a light threatening disease, and in my mind no one close to me really seemed to care or offer any real hope. I had left my best friend back in my college town and I barely knew anyone back home anymore. I had always been distant from my parents since leaving for school. My boyfriend was not interested in any of the health and diet information I was learning about, and when I tried to talk to him about yoga or spirituality I was met with blank stares. He only came home in the evening for dinner and hopes for sex. When I tried to talk to him about our relationship issues, he suggested having a baby together. When I obviously refused his outrageous, inconsiderate suggestion, he started disappearing on exotic trips, leaving me behind. Soon after our break up, I discovered his fake facebook account logged in on the ipad we shared. He had been contacting prostitutes and making price checks before taking a trip to Colombia, South America.

I moved back home for a while to get back on my feet. His sister attempted to find out information as to why we broke up, but I never told her what he had done. A few weeks after I left, I finally received an apology from him. He had been hit by a car and the shock of nearly losing his life seemed to have moved him to remorse.

Today I look back on these stories and I see similar patterns. I see stories of my younger self completely giving myself over to men who in the end may or may not have really cared for my overall well being very much. But most of all I see my own perception of low self worth. I see myself destroying my body and health in a constant search for love in the external world. I see a hurt, lost little girl….looking for love in all the wrong places. I see how the stories of my past have played a role in creating my present circumstance in life.

Now I am a mother of a two year old and the father of my child has witnessed my descent deep into the shadows of my past. After the birth of a child, the strain on my body, the financial stress, the strain on a fairly young relationship. He has had to take a step back and become more of my friend than a lover these days. He has had to surrender to my surrender.

My battered, weak body, gave birth to a beautiful child. And soon the stresses and pressure of motherhood would take me down once again. I could see that everytime I had managed to get my health in a good place, I ran off into another love affair, allowing myself to crash and burn. I was never sure how I could do it on my own though. I had always struggled financially and my home life with my parents was a constant struggle. I think maybe I was always running off searching for somewhere to call home. I just didn’t know how to find it. Or maybe I knew how to find it but just didn’t know how to keep it. I was too busy trying to figure out how to survive.

Some things I wonder if I should share them with the world. Then other things, I know will be beneficial to others in their own life journey. Then, there’s times when I just need to write things down and release it. Who’s really reading this anyway?

I have reason to believe that by reflecting on my past I have learned to create something different for the rest of my life. I’ve got so many more years to live. Reliving and revisiting these stories have allowed me to heal parts of myself that I didn't know were wounded. They have helped me let go of the burden of unworthiness and adopt new standards of self care for myself. Most of all, becoming a mother has given me another life to value other than my own. I have been able to see how my lack of self care affects my ability to be an adequate mother and partner. How it hinders me from being able to provide all the things I dream about for my son. Most of all, he needs me here, healthy and alive. I have fought for my life for nearly 7 years since my first decline. I have now come to a place where I no longer feel the need to fight, but have found a better way to live.

Most of all, I didn’t find this through doctors or medications. I’ve only been able to find this balance through my own personal journey. Our bodies were not meant to carry and store so much emotional pain. Those energies get stuck there and they live in your energy field. They continue to rule over your life through your unawareness of them. Yet I have always felt that I would be proof that healing is possible. Today I will say that I am now living that reality.

Oh, and when you Google the symptoms of MS, Kundalini awakening definitely comes up as an alternative diagnosis. Glad I stuck with that one.

[fireandeye-blog]

There May be Darkness, But Oh There is Light

I stand now in the presence of the shadows of my past. I’m not sure where standing firm in my own authenticity may lead, yet I’m am ok with that. I’m ok with seeing love in the darkest aspects of myself. I have encountered myself in many forms, through many faces. I have viewed my true self buried among images of the old. Do I let these shadows define me? Or do I continue to focus on my light instead. Do I have faith in the hope I have seen reflected in the face of another? Do I choose to see another, the way in which I hope for myself to be seen?

I often question how long we as humans have seen ourselves as separate from love on Earth. Have our souls become so fractured, personalities so dissociated, that we have adopted the belief that Divine Love can only appear to us in some distant place or time? Why, and how did we become disconnected in this way? We have truly been wandering the Earth over countless lifetimes, searching for ourselves. Searching for the self, somewhere out there.

Then as soon as we think we have gotten a small glimpse of what it is we are searching for, it becomes quite frightening. At this point we have had years of conditioning to believe that harmony between man and woman is unattainable in the Earthly realm (the realm of separation and sin right?) When we do fall in love, we soon find what seems to be an enormous lack of intimacy between ourselves and the person we fell in love with. The person we once thought to be perfect match, becomes the person we wish we could figure out how to love again. We find ourselves standing in the same room with a partner, yet feeling miles and miles away from home. We find ourselves questioning, how did we find ourselves exiled from Eden so soon?

Unfortunately, many times when we recognize this distance between ourselves and our loved one, we run. Instead of rebuilding our heaven on Earth, we immediately start searching for a new heaven. Yet what we fail to realize is that this distance is the very thing which love needs in order to mature. Our exile is what teaches us appreciation, acceptance, and courage. Our journey through the desert teaches us to recognize our true source of water. That distance ultimately reveals to us the power of love to be real.

Sometimes we find ourselves in a state of emptiness. A state of need. So we may go out (or better yet, go within) searching for something to fill that space. But what we are always looking for is the self. When we look up, we recognize ourselves instantly upon seeing our own reflection. Yet hunger, fear, and emptiness cause us to fall into our animal nature. We devour a new lover upon reaching them, much like a starving soul upon receiving its first meal. I have been there. I have done that. Many, many, times.

However, by loving without need, I am able to hold what is dear gently in my heart.

My stories have been blissful, ecstatic.

My stories have been painful, tragic.

But all true love stories must encompass a beginning and an end. Love only emerges when endings are recognized merely to be new beginnings in disguise. This is the nature of love; the nature of life itself. These truths can be experienced and discovered along the mystical path.

Though one hard lesson I have learned is that just because I have seen God in someone, it does not make that person God. Everything and everything is encompassed in the vastness which we call God. All is one in the Universe and we ourselves must choose how to dance along with it.

When we come together energetically with another human being, we are able to share our experience of God with that person. The union of the feminine and masculine principles in our world are indeed the creative forces that form God Consciousness. The way these principles interact in our realities and within our own bodies create our experience of God.

Often we find love and intimate connection with those who share similar perceptions. We are drawn to those who seem to understand us on a deeper level. I think that because as a society our religious freedoms have been severely opressed and manipulated, people often find it difficult to connect with others spiritually outside of organized religion. A balanced spiritual understanding in the aspect of love and marriage in our society seems to have been lost completely.

Traditionally, religion often attempts to define and regulate love and marriage. Unfortunately, most religious systems have given people a purchase and property ownership model and passed it off as a Godly structure for union of partners. This has created a widely accepted practice of transactional love in place of true Divine Love and spiritual partnership. Transactional love is more like a business transaction. You give me something and I’ll give you something in return. I didn’t like what you gave me, so you owe me something more. You didn’t give me what I wanted, so I will find it somewhere else. Even though you are unhappy and unfulfilled, you are bound to me due to our joint ownership of each other and our children.

Through spiritual partnership however, we are allowed time to stand back and observe ourselves and our relationship from a higher perspective. We allow ourselves time to learn and grow with others while allowing ourselves time to work through our own emotional baggage. Spiritual partnerships allow us to observe how our emotions and subconscious patterns manifest into our reality energetically, even when we may not intend to act on them.

Our sexual energy is a powerful force. It is the force of creation. All life is created through a spark from the mingling of these masculine and feminine energies within us. Through sexual exchange we allow ourselves to share our perception of creation, our heaven or hell, with another person. This is how we come to know ourselves, as well as the other. As our creative forces are released into the world, we begin to see the results manifest in the external world. We can see these results manifest physically as a child, or we can also observe them in the reality we create around us. The reality we create for ourselves through sexual energy allows us to observe our subconscious beliefs about love and sex. We can observe how we have been programmed to love or what we have mistakenly believed to be love. What I believe is most important to remember, is that when we co-create through sexual energy with another person, we are always co-creating with some aspect of the self. Only when we are loving with ourselves can we truly be loving to the other.

Consider a situation in which the person you love is expressing anger towards other people or situations that you are unaware of. It is easy to mistake that anger to be about you. The person you love could be stressed out about a million other things, yet it is fairly easy to take that frustration personally. Now consider that the person you are in love with absolutely swept you off of your feet in the beginning. This person makes you feel simple appreciation for his or her mere existence in your experience of reality. This love has lifted the weight of the world from your shoulders. But what if your love has not quite done the same for them? What if the weight that person is carrying is just a bit heavier than yours? Perhaps they just need more time to unravel a few things, to lay it all down in the presence of love. Perhaps they have learned to build thicker barriers than you have. It may be hard for you to understand your partner’s anger, distance, or lack of intimacy. You may expect them to feel as free as you do, and when they don’t, you may take it personal. You may think that everything your partner is feeling or doing, has something to do with you.

Do you then begin to define yourself through the eyes of your partner? Do you begin to feel as if you were constantly doing something wrong to upset them? Then, the more you try to make amends, to love better, to love more, the more you are pushed away and met with anger or rigidity? In the long run, it is best realized that anger with others, is only anger with self. It is a sense of powerlessness creeping in. A feeling of loss of control over one’s own environment or circumstances. It could be caused by lack of control over another person who is giving us a hard time. Yet the very thing we are unable to control in another, is what we are most likely unable to control in ourselves.

There have many times in my life that I have believed myself to be under the control of another person. I have felt myself energetically gripped, in full submission to the thoughts, perceptions, and direction of other people. Especially men who I have fallen in love with. I took myself as their prisoner, because this is what I was taught to do. This is what religion and society taught me was right. This is what transgenerational trauma conditioned me to accept. I have seen myself take a man as a teacher, guru, and then a god.

Yet I have followed my God experience. I have walked without waiver, only to discover that my perception of Divine Love had been greatly distorted and damaged. When my God told me that I was bad, I believed him. When my God told me that I was no longer worthy, I believed him. When my God told me that I was not loving, I tried to love harder, to love more. Whatever he requested, I attempted to deliver.

My God soon became angry, my God soon began rejecting my sacrifices and many offerings. What now could I give? I had given all that I had. I had renounced all financial support and materialistic belongings. I set out following, what I felt to be love. I followed the wisdom of my ancestors, the signs, the synchronicities. The symbols that entered my subconscious and expressed themselves through art. I surrendered to the mystery which was hidden within the self.

I have to stop looking back in attempt to answer the questions as to when, where, and how I went wrong. I only see myself here and now in this moment. I find myself free of all the pain and suffering that I once endured. I find that the power of love and forgiveness has given me new life. I find that I do not believe myself to have gone wrong.

It is only natural that we as humans identify our chosen partner with God’s love. Marriages have traditionally been believed to be appointed by, or at least approved by God. Our deepest desire is to find a love on Earth that gives us a glimpse of the divine, a love that does not expire in a short while. As we get older and have experienced the thrills and pitfalls of young love, we start seeking someone who allows us to see God in them. We look for something magical. Something to give us reason to believe that God is real. Something to give us reason to believe that love is real.

I know now that it is not the human form that falls in love. It is more like one ocean of consciousness meeting itself in another. It has always been myself that I love most, and my partner simply grows to become my favorite mirror. Does this mean that the reflection is always pretty? Well, how well are you loving yourself? In most cases today, that reflection does not turn out to be pretty at all, especially after the infatuation stage has faded away. At first, because of your hunger for love, you will see that other person in all the ways you desire them to be, just so that you can take part in that  joy of appreciation. Then later, everything that has been buried comes to the surface. Who you once saw as an angel, soon becomes the devil. Will you be able to face your demons and come into balance with the darkness that is yours alone?

The mirror you love most will not be perfect, as you are not perfect. It will often at some point in time, show you every single thing that you don’t want to see. But when you truly love, you find that this mirror shows you what you need to see in order to grow, to heal, to live more fully. It forces you to find the courage it takes to fight for what is true in a world full of lies. It forces you to let go and live. This type of love is sabotaged by the fear of losing it. Yet I know now that love is not something that can be lost as long as it is not captured, or held to tightly.

I believe that the higher standard of love that I wish to bestow onto future generations is not a fantasy. I believe that we all have the right to choose to live life as a pilgrimage, instead of a race. To enjoy a long journey home instead of a quick trip to nowhere. This is our birthright. Unfortunately, false representation of abundance has created spiritual poverty and homeless souls in this world. We believe it is money we lack, but in reality, it has been love.

The world may go on running, chasing, and hunting down things to buy, people to own, and cars to drive. However, I’ve come to understand that I don’t have to go on doing the same. I’ve also come to understand that it’s alright to let other people go on doing what they want to do. And as for me, It’s alright to live life as a pilgrimage. There are so many people who get away with terrible things in the world. Are we so blind to believe that we can’t also “get away” with love? We have only created these types of false limitations in the mind.  

Think of all the times in your life that you have strayed far from home, only to return once again. Have you been out wandering again for a while now? Would you approach the door of your own heart with a bit more reverence this time? Is it time to rest in the understanding that home has never been lost, and may always be found once more?

I know that personally, I have spent most of my life allowing the energies of others to define who I was. I had fallen into a pattern of allowing negative feedback dictate who I am allowed to become. Yet I know now, that I am not required to be anything other than who I choose to be. I am not required to be who I was 6 years ago, yesterday, or even five minutes ago.

I have learned that it’s okay to love myself.

It’s okay to take time to examine and to illuminate my shadows.

And it’s alright, to love my favorite mirror.

“I know you’re tired, but come. This is the way.” -Rumi

[fireandeye-blog]

Goddess Rising

Your body is a vessel. A channel for the energy of the Universe. You birth new energy into this world and your tears wash away the old.

I notice that in the past, I often feared tragic events. I believe that this fear comes from a place where pain has been buried and is longing to escape. Pain is stored from trauma that we don’t know how to deal with it. While it is buried there, it hurts. It wants to be let free, released. We want to cry because it may help us not to feel the pain anymore.

What keeps us from crying? What keeps all that negative, toxic energy and emotion bottled up in such a fragile casing? How do we keep ourselves from imploding?

We are afraid to feel pain because we are afraid of the tragic. Tragic events don’t only hurt one person, but they hurt many people. Tragic events cause guilt, blame, and fear. That’s what we don’t want. However, being afraid of these types of things is exactly what attracts them into our vibration, invites them in. Not allowing ourselves to release pain in a slow, continuous manner is what causes these types of explosions.

The good news, is that we can change this phenomenon within ourselves. We can allow tears to move through us slow and steadily.

Allow yourself to cry regularly. Allow yourself to be cleansed. Allow yourself to feel those things that happened to you in the past. Allow yourself to love yourself or that person anyway. Forgive yourself or that person. Forgive yourself.

Then feel that love for them again. Imagine your lives as they are, without conflict. Allow yourself to exist with that person in your current circumstances, and to continue to feel love. Begin to construct your life in your current moment without dependency on that other person. You can construct your life around the well-being of others, but not on the dependency of them. Then remember the little ones, who depend on you and your own well-being and longevity. In the end, it all comes down to a simple conversation with our children.

What do you need from me now? And how can I provide that for you in the best way possible, while also honoring my own sacred space and right to thrive, pursue goals and to exist alongside of you?

No matter what “reality” television has told you, this balance is possible. We always have the freedom to choose balance.

Our words are so powerful. We have to be careful what we talk about, what we glorify. These are our prayers, the song we are singing to the world. What do you talk about, focus your attention on, praise or even hate so much? These things will tell us who we really are. What we think about, we create.

Do you love one part of yourself while you hate another? I think we do this type of thing subconsciously to ourselves. We go to war within ourselves and project that war onto the world around us. We see the world in chaos when we ourselves are in chaos. We come to a state of chaos due to imbalance.

Just think of yourself carrying a tray, balanced on the palm of your right hand. Then in the left hand there is another tray. On one tray you are holding all of your hopes and dreams for the future. Everything you desire and believe that is attainable for your life. Here lies the courage to walk away from the parts of your life that no longer make you happy or whole.

On the other tray you are balancing your present moment. All of the people and things that you hold dear. Your past, your present, and your current predicaments in life. This tray is equally, if not a bit more important than the the dream tray. See the dream tray lies in the future. It can be manipulated and molded at will as long as we do not become too attached to it. Our groundedness, livelihood and well-being heavily rely on both. What happens if we drop the present moment tray while trying to grasp onto the hopes and dreams tray? What happens if our current reality is shattered, or obliterated all together?

But then what happens if our dream tray completely flies out of the window all at once? What happens to our hope?

This is why balance seems to be the key to living in two worlds at once. We have the ability to walk a thin line between spirit and material existence. We are gifted this ability so that we can consciously create. How can you create a happier, healthier, or different life from where you are now, if you cannot continue to peacefully exist where you are to begin with? We cannot fix our problems by simply running away from them.

Sometimes we need to stop. Realize that we are okay, that we are not in danger. Realize that the fear of any given situation or circumstance cannot harm us. Don’t fight those fears, allow them to pass and choose a different outcome to imagine, to pray to. Don’t pray to your fears. Don’t feed them, allowing them to grow and manifest.

You are the vessel and the womb. You are the incubator. Your thoughts, your intentions, are the seeds.

What type of outcomes or results are you planting? What dreams are you anticipating will bloom? Do you have a deadline or an unrealistic expiration date for your dreams? If so, then why? Do you for some reason believe your time to be limited?

What does it matter if I liked you (or myself) better yesterday or today? What does it matter if I loved you here, now or later? What does it matter if I loved you in a million lifetimes past or only one? What does it matter that I only dreamed that I loved you once, or that I may have the chance to someday? What does it matter if I believed myself to have lost a love I once felt?

What if I said, that there is no other to be loved?

Your pain, your fears, your perceptions all may convince you that those things matter a lot in love. But when you truly begin to love, you realize they don’t. You realize that all of those wounds were created by lack of consciousness and awareness of self. Lack of awareness of love.

We only find ourselves separate from the people we love and beginning to fear losing them, when we separate ourselves from unconditional love. We have believed a lie that love is something to be lost, or to be sought after. We often lose sight of love in our world when we lose sight of love in ourselves. When we lose sight of love in our own reflection. Sometimes we catch a glimpse of our own shadow and try to run like hell. But then we slow down, we see that the running, is the hell.

The running is the hell.

There is heaven within you, that you may carry wherever you are, wherever you go.

When we learn to walk gently upon the earth, our journey may truly begin.

We often make a run for the ones we wish to love better. When all we really have to do, is slow down, and walk with them.

Fire & Eye

[fireandeye-blog]

Janurary 2018: New Moon in Capricorn

Also my birthday today (insert emoji)

 I’ve spent most of it admiring the magic of transformation. First of all, it snowed this year. Twice. In South Carolina.

The light is braving its way through last year’s sludge and mud. The good intentions, that were infused into every step taken...though I stepped in piles of hot messes. I followed my heart. I dove as deeply into it as possible. I held hope and prayed through my darkest hours, that somewhere down at the bottom of the ocean I might spot a speck of gold. Could the sun, the warmth I left back on the shore, possibly be shining down into the depths of the abyss? So deep, deep down, a bottom feeder. Legs stretched out, in peaceful defiance. 

Finally feeling that freedom I’ve longed for. Feeling a freedom that I may have been afraid that no one would allow me to have. 

I’m only afraid now, that I must admit that it was only me who believed myself to be contained. The mind at times becomes the prison guard itself. 

Who is not allowing you to truly be you, besides you? The people who you ran off and talked to about your goals? Did you tell them who you wanted to be and then they said, “Well no you’re not.”

That’s alright if people say that, because its true. You’ve got to say, “Of course not. Not yet”

Don’t let disbelief in your future, block the path of your present moment. It’s not important that you reach the desired outcome in the way that you may have imagined it. It’s only important that you continue to move towards the goals. The Universe may have a much, much better, juicier plot twist.

I’ve learned so much this past year about how to cope. Well, actually I have to say, I’ve had to learn how to cope these past six years. That’s about when I remember that things really started to shift for me. I was faced with my immortality, hardcore. Before 2011-2012, I had never had a panic attack or even knew what that was before then. Or maybe I had had a lot of them, but I just never knew what it was called. And none of them had actually sent me to the hospital questioning the safety of my life before. 

I had so many doctors tell me that there was nothing wrong with me. For a couple years I asked, as my health deteriorated and slipped away, what’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with me. Why am I dying, and none of you doctors know how to fix it? Why are parts of my body not working correctly anymore? Why is it that when I take a hot shower, my arms go limp with paralysis. Hot, stinging, electric pain shoots through my spine and across my torso. 

Why are my hands so numb that I feel like I’m wearing gloves when I wash them? What is this dense invisible shell that has been pulled over parts of me that I use to feel? Why is it that when I cry, I go into spasms. Why is it that when I experience pleasure, it is followed by electrical pain, paralysis, spasms in my entire body. So painful, that it may be even more painful to scream. So I roll over and keep quiet. 

I asked these doctors why. Why am I in so much pain, why can I barely make it up the steps, why am I allergic to every food that comes in a box? Why do all my medications have a warning label for every deadly symptom that I wish not to have? This world doesn’t seem to make much sense to me anymore. What is wrong with you people?

So eventually, after years of no answers, a neurologist came up with a diagnosis that no one wanted to hear. In that moment, I was given a choice. And that was to believe him or not.

He told me that I had multiple sclerosis. When I asked for an explanation of the diagnosis, it sounded weak. It didn’t exactly add up to what I had already been google searching all weekend (unable to sleep). He explained to me that because of these two grayish areas on my MRI, it most definitely meant MS. I’m like, dude are you reading tea leaves on my brain or some shit? What do you mean, those two spots mean MS? Because my webMD app is showing like 25 other possiblities (when I’m having a good day). 

I had image searched “MS brain MRIs” already. I was prepared for this shit. So then this guy, taps my elbows and knees with a tiny hammer. He gives me a critical look.

“Abnormal.”

Yep, MS. Right?

Okay so next he pulls out a drug pamphlet, but there’s a catch. These drugs cost a little over $1000 per month. And the only way insurance will cover it is if you submit to a spinal tap procedure. If you don’t know what that is... well you know where to find out. I promise you that Google and Youtube combined know a lot more than your doctor.

So I was like nah playa you ain’t sticking no needle in my back just so you can get your cut out of my suffering.

 The whole experience was a little creepy actually. I did come back to the office for a few steroid infusions, just to get back on my feet. 

After I refused to sign the papers to schedule a spinal procedure, I had a nurse take me into a separate room for my final infusion. As I spoke with her she asked me questions that allowed me to express my plans as to how I was going to handle my illness. I spoke to her about diet and lifestyle choices that I believed would greatly impact and change my overall health. She nearly broke down into tears to tell me that diet doesn’t work. That people who have tried it, ended up in wheelchairs because they didn’t get the drugs. She had heard that I was resistant to the spinal tap procedure and encouraged me to have it done there in the office.

I never quite knew if she was pushing me to get this done because it was of her true experience, that she witnessed many people who refused drugs becoming severely disabled. Or if she was just telling me what she was supposed to because it was her job. Perhaps she was just projecting her fears onto me, as she truly did care for her clients, but did not know how to help them. Maybe she saw something in me that she could not help in herself.

I also found out later that the nurses who gave infusions were not actually employed by the neurology office. They were part of a small outside company that came in solely to administer infusions. It was apparent to me that they relied on the patients of this office for their income. They relied on people to accept diagnoses and to take medications for their sole income. Sometimes I wonder if I was the only one who could see the irony of the situation, and detect the absolute bias of her standpoint. 

That being said, I never returned to that office. I tried going to a second specialist, but never made it past the waiting area. 

Instead I found a book by nuero-scientist Terry Whals detailing her recover from progressive MS. I was sparked by her TED talk (check it out). I found another book written by a blogger mom who was also a biochemist. The Paleo Approach by Sarah Ballantyne. She had transformed her life and put several autoimmune disorders into remission. I was totally into all of it.

I’m not saying I completely adopted these programs to the T, but the understanding that I gained from reading this material was a complete game changer for me. I started eliminating the substances and habits in my life that were killing me, and began indulging in as many healing activities and choices that I could find. That is what put me on the road to recovery.

Man, was it hard. But I really learned a lot about this world. I learned to identify the poisons that we are surrounded by every single day. Poisons and drugs, being handed out to us as if they are safe, as if they are to be eaten. They are being passed off as sustenance that we as beings of the earth could actually live on, and thrive on. When in reality, if we examine the population as a whole, we will see that we as a nation are far from thriving. Well, if we look at the population as a whole from the view of the media outlets I should say. 

You will also notice that when questions are brought up about the types of foods we are consuming from stores and restaurants, the answers are vague at best. No one wants to talk about it. No one wants to take on the monster that the food industry has turned into in this country. No one wants to question the entertainment industry and media that has manifested from selling and purchasing of these same substances. 

On the flip side, we also see the food industry demonized over and over again. But when are we going to stop blaming the companies and realize that it is us who keeps choosing to eat the shit?

The answer to that is a problem of availability. We have dug ourselves so deep into a consumerist hole, that making the leap it takes to dig ourselves out of it seems enormous. 

For instance, some people would radically change their diet with the snap of the fingers (which actually isn’t a great idea sometimes) if they had the money to do it. I have always been one of those people. I try to make positive changes too quickly sometimes, instead of transitioning from one thing to another. 

I do believe though that even years of lifestyle transformation can be undermined by an unjust economic system.

The old economy of the old paradigm revolves around the availability of food; “food” that has mostly been modified and tampered with at that. (Don’t fact check me. I totally just made that up based on logic, sense, and intuition.)

But think about it, if you make your living working at a burger joint (or living on a burger joint budget), what food is most convenient and affordable for you? Would it not be financially difficult, if not impossible to switch to a wholesome diet which requires you to buy organic or locally? Plus, make your own food at home? Then considering the hours you need to work to support yourself, would you have the time? Just figuring out how to make it to the farmers market once a month may be a daunting task at this point. Not to mention, are you a college student by any chance? Forget it.

So how do we attempt to pull a civilization out of a hole this deep? We have so many people who want to do the right thing, to turn down the wrong things, but there is a structure in place that make these simple tasks appear impossible. And its a trick.

We’ve got to stop looking out there for whats inside.

I began learning how to do that when I decided to stop looking to doctors to tell me what was going on inside my own body. But even then, boy did I have a long way to go.

So today is my birthday. 

I feel that every significant event, holiday, and moon phase, that I have ever lived, reoccurred in my consciousness this past year. A lot of these things may not have been physically occurring in the way that I perceived them to be, yet I still experienced them to the full extent spiritually and emotionally.

I also believe, that many things that appeared in my consciousness were very real. The unveiling of parts of myself which I had simply been unaware of before. The unveiling of a sacred key. I have found there to be secrets of divine femininity, vitality and health that seem to have been cleverly hidden. It seems that this key has strategically been mystified, even villainized in our culture for several unspeakable reasons.

Curious how autoimmune disease is much more common in women. MS is especially more common in women. Honestly, I’m noticing a lot more mysterious, unexplainable “diseases” occurring in women. All of these varying conditions with their fancy latin terms. 

Now go check out the DSM, you’ll find a stereotype for every woman you know. 

When will the medical system realize that us women aren’t dying off or going crazy? We are just not being allowed to be women. When that is what a lot of us, deeply want to be. Maybe we just want to be what we are but we have somehow forgotten what the essence of what that even means.

 If we were sent here to be women on this earth (and choose to be), why not allow us to be that?

I’ve got to break it to you. Working as a cashier, working at a call center, selling products, typing up medical jargon, writing ads, serving, or whatever other normal jobs you can apply for as a full time mom. These aren’t things that women or mothers really want to be doing. Most of these jobs don’t really add anything of value to the meaning of our lives. A lot of us also don’t want to give up our well being or quality time raising our own children just to take on these so-called careers that the educational system is producing for profit.

We damn sure don’t want to end up in small rooms, constructing iPhones until it makes us want to jump out of a window because it’s not quite perfect or tedious enough. 

Women don’t really want to be doing any of these things, deep deep down, not really.

But hey, I guess I can’t speak for all women. Some women may fight with me fiercely to defend their spot in corporate america, and that’s fine. Because I won’t fight you back. You can have it.

 I may not be your type of woman, and that’s quite alright with me.

But what I know about myself as a woman is that I want to dance. I want to paint. I want to travel, to write, to explore, teach, learn, and grow. I want to tend to my herbs, to cultivate a tasty abundance in my gardens. I want to watch the faces of my family members light up when they eat a meal made from something fresh and real. I want to be a nurturing, loving mother, daughter, and all else that I can be for the people I love. But I also want to be happy, healthy, and free.

Let’s see what happens ;)

Oh and btw.

I’m not paralyzed, or dead.