Me First

good morning relatives

I wish that I could share with you the beauty of the morning air here   when I open the door in the morning, the crisp clean air is there and everything is so fresh so crisp
the colors are bright the morning sun even warmer than midday

I have spent the past week or two having all of that for me  all the restoration and clarity and stark truth of it for me   letting it restore me somehow letting it in   letting it be for me choosing to let it in me

 then in the evening  the sun ends the day just as intentionally

I thought about you and I have wondered and tried at times to push the wheel and contact you relatives even when I do not hear from you by phone or email or letter which I wanted but without it i was forced to look at why i wanted it   why

i gave and have given my life for you all of you always since the beginning and yet still we are disconnected    still we are silent

I wondered about that in me about the why of needing you and I decided that was where I had to stop the ripples of my life from sending out need  i decided that when I was sending out need to you it was multiplying need not care  not love   i have been  not always  but before somehow somewhere along the road I took a turn that began to send out need and in doing so I stopped accepting and in stopping accepting I became disconnected and became lost  dependent on the reciprocal  which created a hole in the universe that hole has pursued me, I have run away from that hole for a long time and yet i could never escape it and it has followed me since the day I left the road and it has only been here  here in this house, at the bottom of the stairs, in the clarity of the winter morning that I could finally see the reflection of my own self on the pond of the world
in the fullness that surrounds me in the fullness that I sleep with as me every night in the fullness and amazing beauty that is completely me and all that is right outside my door.

like a person who has their face stubbornly stuck in a corner because they want what they want I have held on to need and turned my back on all the abundance

turning away from that corner finally, seeing the peace in laying aside need and in seeing I get to make a choice. its always a choice that we make in our lives  its in everything that we do or don't do
I see that choice like the arm that tosses the rock into the water is what determines the ripples that reach the shore  I wanted somehow after taking the road of needful love long ago when the road of love from my being as it is born in me was too hard for a little girl or a young woman or an adult to endure, I wanted you to fix it for me to fix the need I thought i was helping but I was making it worse by not standing still in what I knew by asking you to validate me  i set up in me and thus in you an unwinnable dichotomy I don't think I understood this until now so even though I am sorry for doing it I accept that it is done and was done so that I could reach today

I came to face in that winter mirror with the truth that only I can fix a need in me and if it is a false thing if it is an illusion then I must let it go I must not create more need by needing  I think when I was young I knew this

early this morning I understood finally that where I stand as me and how I stand as me and how I treat me is what matters the most for you

with or without you which sounds harsh but it is that harshness which is the liar not me for I know me and if I wait for you then you will wait for me and never will this need be still so in my waiting I stopped and i used my arm to throw away the need

 I stood still in between the morning clarity and the evening close
I stood still until I knew that I was able to speak to me for me and to stand and take care of the water in me  the lake in me and her container  I waited until there was no other motivation except the joy of the morning snow and the smell of the new day and the brilliance of the sun glinting off of that snow being accepted by in me and reflected from me out to the snow and the sun and the water and the sky and all beings as i did when I was born I gave up grasping it or trying to measure it or hold it I just allowed me to be it

I waited until I felt like that in me for me
before writing to you

one thing that I am learning here in this solitude is to trust and listen to me and to seek from within finally  not in the way that I have always known which for me when I was born was deep and not forgotten but not yet in this time finished eh?

it begins with stopping then not allowing the waves of the past actions to push me into reaction now like the long ago thrown stone causing a typhoon on shore and swamping all the boats in between
if I cannot have an original action that comes from my Being then there is no action that is worth taking

it begins with caring about myself truly in every minute  but not just because of survival have we not all proven that we survive over and over throughout the aeons  if survival was all I cared for then i feel my time would be wasted because early on in my life I understood and accepted and therefore believed that there is something more than the food on my plate, the clothes in my closet, the food in my fridge, the presence or lack of an additional body in my bed, or the ability to do well anything I tried

there was more
I believed in more deeper I believed in the divine but not as my father did
i never believed that if anything was divine that we were slaves to it or that we owed it our lives
our lives were given they are ours

I looked around me and i saw divine in everything  yes even in what people think of as hell is divine

that is what I see and care for in me

I encourage you to see the divine in you
first in yourself

yes be selfish about it  
take it and have it and recognize it and strengthen it in you

then go outside or in your house or when you look on any other

and see the divine in them

world peas

Good Evening Relatives

it's been a bit  I hope that Spring is as beautiful for you as it is becoming here In Pipestone. The geese flew over today!  The temperature changed in the night last night.  In the night, I woke up and opened the windows, the temperature was about 27 degrees, the wind was soothing and brought new oxygen and new thoughts into the house.  The wind has changed.

One thing that is comforting about the cold of winter is the warmth of the dawn of spring. As the light changes, so does the ground that was so frozen and so hard, soften.

As I watched the snow melting today and walked on ground that was so squishy and so soft I thought about seeds.

I think it will take as long as it takes for the seeds of the past to be overturned in the garden of my present. Sometimes I was not responsible for putting them inside of me but I am well aware now finally that it is up to me whether or not I give ground for seeds to sprout in, whether I water them and or fertilize them.

I think like most fellow beings looking forward to the growth and blossoming of new life, new ideas, new skills, and new paths between old haunts in the spring I actually will miss winter a little bit.

its funny we all keep going back and forth like the geese migrating between north an south south and north year after year season after season.

do we ever really learn new things? have better skills  are the new haunts we discover, old ones for someone else, are our old haunts new when we come back with different thoughts. do you think we are haunted by the seeds of our past. or do you think we can wait. stand still long enough until they fade, or crumble, or are no longer attractive. can we wait until we know that we are not growing our future out of fear, or anger, or power?
i loved hearing the geese today.  yesterday I loved sitting on the porch in freezing weather listening to the silence of the peace, today everything is moving and making noise, yesterday it was crystal cold frozen in time, a deep peace

can the garden grow new froot?

I think the best thing about spring is that things are really pretty simple, grow and blossom in a new way as old ice is shed and melted into water that nourishes new growth, or not.

it is in the spring that we find out where the difference lies in the old deadwood that from my heart I refuse to enliven even if it means I never move again

if the seeds of a new way  a new world are to grow then I must at a minimum spend the time that I have not trying to make new growth out of old habits, old thoughts, old fears, old choices, it feels so easy when it is cold to seek the warmth of the familiar, the comfort of what has kept my heart warm in the past. but it will not protect the new friendships and family that we all worked so hard to build over the last few years. Sometimes as a gardener the best thing I know to do is just not do what didn't really produce the froot I truly wanted in last years garden.  then the day will come when I will see it  the thing to do the weed to pull, the plant to encourage and once again like the geese flying home it will change the seasons.

and if in the meantime I don't act impulsively then I wont inadvertently destroy what is so valuable even if I don't recognize it  even if it does not fit the image of the garden that I thought would be best  maybe the ground and the wind and the sun and the water know more than I do what needs to grow in the ground of my heart  and maybe the weeds i need to pull are my old actions and responses or thoughts or judgements or expectations or anything but peace  out of the ground

whirled peas
lets plant some in our garden this spring


that is how ice feels as it loses its grip and cracks with springs new sun, that is how the hard ground feels as it gives way to the melting frost. at first a little squishy  but still solid underfoot

enjoy the squishy
love
mb