Pink Vengeance

Inner Slopes

admin — Sun, 20 May 2012 13:00:18 +0000

as written April 15 through 17, 2011

Jen came to spend the weekend with me. Friday night, we talked when she got there, and we did this interesting exercise – I drew a heart, and asked her to tell me which men she had ever let in her heart. We did so. Then – I drew another heart, with 4 separate layers. I had her identify the layers, she called them: The Courtyard. The Living Room. The Family Room. And then, her inner sanctum was her bedroom (where also her dark closets and pain and hidden things are kept as well). We then decided how deeply she had let each one of them in – which room they had been allowed entry to. And then – who had been escorted out. Who still existed. Who needed to be escorted out. Who could stay. And therefore, the reason for her anxiety and discomfort. It was an incredible exercise, and taught both of us much. I think I’ll have the girls do it at the next HOYH…

Saturday – I got up and did yoga, she ran, then we ate at iHop and saw the raunchy comedy “Your Highness” (“Don’t suck on it! It’s dead!”) and how she actually said out loud what I felt (“I was disgustingly aroused by that weird oxen boner thing.” I KNOW! I KNOW!). After, we drove through Emigration Canyon, stopped at the top, and hiked the little hill I always saw people walking up. It was windy but zesty and refreshing. I kept singing, “The Hills are alive with the sound of music,” and “How do you solve a problem like Maria,” skipping around the top of the mountain. It was snowy up top but open to the mountains, and we stood there breathing it in. Driving back, we stopped at Citris Grill and sat outside in the glorious sun, eating fried sweet potato shreds, goat cheese and honey grilled cheese, salad with cilantro vinaigrette, sweet potato corn chowder, and two bites of the bread pudding from the gentlemen sitting next to us. It was so marvelous to just BE, and BE with her.

Sunday morning, Jen and I chatted about her night, then she left. I took my ski gear, and headed up the mountain to Solitude. It was 60 degrees outside, but raining a bit. I prayed for some blue sky. Smitty had given me a pass, and it was the last day of the season. Got my rentals for free, too – “So, are rentals free on the last day of the season?” Wink wink. And they gave it to me for free. Ha. Sometimes, I really love being a girl.

I just felt, for some reason, that I NEEDED to go. That it would be good for me. I have had so many of these the last couple months – all these nourishing things; to mother myself, to nourish, to fill up, to expand with – experiences. “It’s all about the experience,” Anna and I used to say. I write so much about my emotional journey, but not so much about my everyday. The humor and banter and errands and tidbits. My life is so much emotional work, yes – but all day every day I’m also existing as this natural man doing normal things. I think I need to include a little more of that in here.

So – I put on my gear, set up my iPod, clicked into my skies (it’s been two years), and headed up the lift. It was SO warm out, and there weren’t that many people on the slopes. Since it was the last day, people wore costumes, and tossed a lot of clothing off – there was lots of bare skin out there, and it was entertaining to watch. The first time down the hill, took me like a half hour. The fear I have to break through every time came slowly, and my thighs were BURNING already with fatigue. My toes kept jamming up at the bottom of the boots, but I was breathing air 8,000 feet above sea level, the sun came out, and the snow was white and soft.

I know it’s just like this every time I venture inside, feeling and exploring and uncovering the things I’ve avoided for so long, pretending they don’t exist. I live in the Rocky Freaking Mountains, with world-class slopes and snow all within 30 minutes of where I live. How often do I visit them? Like, um, never. And it mirrors the trek inward that I make, too. I have to break through the fear of uncomfortable feelings every. single. time. I have them, in order to just let them fly beneath my skies and guide me down the mountain. I don’t trust my own ability to carry myself down, enough. I am terrified of getting off the comfortable ski lift, EVERY. TIME. That fear might never go away. But, today I DID get off the lift. And I did take a deep breath, and make my way down. Stopping often, breathing heavy, letting my thighs shake with the persistent pressure and uncomfortable stance of my bent knees. I get jealous, watching the smooth, adept skiers fly past me with that suave and gracious sloooofff…sending the perfectly shaped wave of snow over me as I stumble behind. I might never look like that. But I do…make it down. I do…get off the lift. I do…eat it and curse and pick pieces of my gear and put them back on my hands and head. I do…stop when my thighs threaten to take me down. I do…look like an imbecile trying to make it back to the lift one sad pull of my poles at a time. I do…go up it, again. I do.

I stayed for a few hours, each run becoming more easy as I continue to get better at it. The lift attendant just kept saying, “You’re so smiley! Always so smiley! I’ve never seen anyone have so much fun by herself!” I replied, “It’s just because I’m awesome.” And he agreed. Lol.

I kept going up, and kept skiing down. By myself. On the mountain. On the Sabbath. Just me, some soft music, God, and the slopes. I called it a day around 3, dropped my rentals off, walked to the car in my socks, stripped down, and drove home. Ate. Read some magazines. Watched a couple movies. Packed for Florida. Went to bed. Woke up, went to work. Drove to the airport and met Ryan and Adam for our week in Orlando for work…

Laureate

admin — Sat, 19 May 2012 13:00:51 +0000

as read April 12, 2011

“People say they don’t read poetry because they don’t understand it,” Merwin points out. “But you don’t start by understanding it; you begin by physically responding to it: You’re hearing something. You’re moved. It’s not because you just understood a calculus problem—something’s got to you, you’re not quite sure why and how.”

“Place”

On the last day of the world
I would want to plant a tre
what for
not for the fruit
the tree that bears the fruit
is not the one that was planted
I want the tree that stands
in the earth for the first time
with the sun already
going down
and the water
touching its roots
in the earth full of the dead
and the clouds passing
one by one
over its leaves

W.S. Merwin – current poet laureate of the U.S.

One Self

admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 13:00:26 +0000

as written April 13, 2011

Contemplating
oneself
As one
self

These observable facts
flitting
like quick krill
thru cerebral spinal fluid
(that magnificent liquid intelligence)
upon a conveyer belt

of self

In front of (fasterthan)
emotion that hurries
breathlessly after
often thrown wide from its wake
(tumbling into synapses sprouting inaccurate emotive response)

I digress,
from one
self

The soul alone
I feel
amid millions
standing on stools to speak
eyes focused
smiling
chuckling like wine
at the words I toss carefully (creatively. humorful. banteresque)
across them all

but
this self
is also

barren of companions
solemn
as a mute camel
crossing, forever
a kalahari. a sahara. a mojave. a gobi.
within her
self
hooftohooftohoof atop the sand

I nourish
within
(no water flows easily. it is kept deep)
swallowing back the lives
trudging forth the life
of one grace
one hope
one pain
among us million grains of sand

we all walk
hooftohooftohoof
as one

Self

Keep reading…

Steady

admin — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:00:46 +0000

as written April 10, 2011

After the upheaval and Noah’s flood type healing – I need to finish this.

The anxiety in my heart as I sat on the beach, kicking my legs and alternately burying them deep in the cool sand, dissipates in waves like the receding tide. And any time that it surges, I just picture that smiling, laughing, perfect little child after she was healed and I know it no longer serves a purpose for me to believe it. It’s just habit, now. And I simply need to remember that. The source of the pain has now been healed…even if the echoes remain a while. But the sun is setting at my back, turning the world a deepening pink red that makes everything even more beautiful than it is at high noon. I have been sitting here for some time. But suddenly, I find the strength in my legs, and the desire in my heart:

I want this!

Underneath the pain, lies the ACTUAL desire of my heart. I DO want this! I DO believe in it! I DO deserve it! And if this is where God brought me, then whoever it is absolutely deserves me. I leap from my sunken perch, pulling my feet from deep in the sand. But I am ready, and I am wanting to – so the strength is easy and accessible. I look around, suddenly sure I will see his bright face, hand extended out towards me. But my eyes don’t behold him yet. And I struggle against the urge to whine and complain and panic.

So soon, Monica? So soon after you relinquished the barrier? So soon after you felt honestly that you actually want someone permanently?

Argh. Yes, I know, I know. I am impatient. And I smile and I cry at the same time. I can wait a little more. If I want him to come, then don’t I need to be permanent, too?

Be your own permanence, in belief and action, and all will come to you, child.

And the sun sets a glorious, unforgettable red crimson…everything bathed in beautiful reds and oranges and golds…and I place my hand upon my heart and feel the beat: steady, sure, and loyal under my fingers. My permanence.

Keep reading…

The Broken Road

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:00:31 +0000

as written April 9, 2011

My dear Savior…

I sit here, and my feet have been paralyzed and mired into the sand with this 30-some-odd-year-old belief. I do not know when it started, I do not know when it got hold of me, and I do not know when it so securely wound it’s way around the deepest emotions that this body carries. What I do know, is that it has been there. I’ll tell you what I feel:

I feel sadness and remorse at the havoc such a belief wreaked upon my ability to have healthy relationships, to let go of them and my marriage, and how they simply enforced the incorrect tradition of the belief itself. I feel frustration at myself for latching on to this belief and making it an identifier of who I AM – and therefore letting it determine what I can and cannot have for myself, limiting myself in all the horribly wrong ways – like stopping love. Abandoning love. Avoiding love.

I feel anger towards whomever and whatever inspired and sired this belief within me. Because, my Spirit does not believe this. She, does believe in permanence like it was the easiest thing in the world. I feel…anxiety that I am so close to this and that somehow I will fuck it all up and lose it too – not because of him, but because of ME. These underground power plants that rule my behaviors from an unseen source. That is terrifying, Lord. Terrifying. Makes me feel out of control of myself on such a deeper level that it scares me.

I feel all these same things for Adam – why he also ended up believing the same things as I do, and how clearly I see it bind his progress, when I couldn’t see how it bound my own until just two days ago. I feel sorrow for his pain, as well as my own. I feel frightened because I don’t understand the idea or how permanence in this life will play out, when I have loved multiple men so powerfully. I guess there is still some belief in me that believes that if I have loved more than one man, then there is not just one man for me. Whew – that was a doozy.

I forgive myself for putting incorrect limits on what my idea of love was and is, trying to define it and label it and identify with it – instead of letting it be what it is: an entity forged from and because and outside of God Himself. I forgive myself for trying to define something that created the worlds – from my tiny, minute, infinitely short experience here on earth – and without even relying on my premortal memory of it. It makes me guffaw in that incredulous way when you realize you’ve been incredibly stupid.

My darling girl…had I experienced what you have experienced here, I can see how you have come to believe such things. They have protected you and served purposes to keep you going in many ways that you do not understand. But I do. And nothing about your journey is stupid, or lost, or unforgivable. There is nothing you could do, no damage your deep beliefs could wreak upon the plan that I have for you. You, cannot break me, my darling girl – no matter how powerful your pain.

You cannot change the course your heart has set with mine. Do you now see, the power that action has upon bringing deep beliefs to the surface? You have acted upon all forms of health and healing, and it brings you to all the broken things that need tending, care, and love. This, is just one of those things. Your hard work has allowed it to rise, and my Grace and infinite atonement will set it free. By us working together, you will have that which you have eternally believed in and desired, and also what I have desired forever for you. I feel your trust in me, and that trust enables me to continue this road with you – showing you that which I do.

We stop often, to remark upon this site or that, this stone or that, this broken place or that. You discuss it with me, you kneel to examine it, open it, feel it – and then you pick it up and hand it over to me. I have been on this road with you for a very, very long time – and I feel that you won’t kick me off any time soon. (He smiles). Just like we showed you last weekend – the trove opened to show you all your surrenders that we keep in one place, that herald your journey and sacrifice and surrender and walk upon this earth – there is nothing I cannot heal. Nothing that I would be ashamed of you for. Nothing I would not do for you. Nothing that cannot be made to happen. No miracle that I cannot create, orchestrate, and preside over. Nothing is impossible. Nothing…

And with that, my sweetest love, can you hand me this most recent discovery? This bleeding vessel blocking the broken road we walk upon together? So much awaits right on the other side – you can even see it.

It’s crying…this small, bleeding, vessel before us. I look down at her…her! This abandoned child. Sigh…she has been crying for 30 years. Maybe waiting for me to come find her, care for her, and then give her to you. She is me, at some scared and tortured place – she is the embodiment of this awful and sad belief, and I do not know what else. She is a very small version of myself, four years old – wearing completely tattered, dirty rags. She is malnourished and languishing away, her skinny chicken legs tucked under what little fabric remains. There is blood all over her, but I cannot determine the source where it comes from. Her tangled mat of hair covers most of her face, but her lips are pulled down in those eternal little child sobs that render the most stringent man helpless. She has been laying here, alone, my whole life???!?? Now that I am at the source, I can hear her endless crying throughout the rest of my life, the entirety of my heart. Why did I not hear her before now? Why did I not come to comfort her?! Despite the remorse, I can do something now. I let go of the Savior’s hand and I crouch down to this tiny child, and I scoop her up in my arms and I cradle her to my chest and I sob…

Great, heaving sobs that hurt my chest so and nearly stop my heart. I rock her against me, twisting right and left as I cradle this tiny version of myself…lost and forgotten and broken. Her cries seem to slow down as I seem to comfort us both – not caring that my pristine white robe is soiled by hers – wishing that I could make her clean, heal her, repair the damage that has been done that has not been addressed. What happened to this child!? What happened to her so deeply so as to sever herself from herself…leaving her behind…Her cries turn to hiccups and she lies limply against me. Not fighting, but not seeming to care much, either. I look at her tangled mop of hair and her cuts and bruises and dried blood and emaciated frame and it nearly kills me.

Maybe, sometimes, when the hard hurts happen – you at that age when it happened is left behind as you continue on physically growing. To hold the impassable pain. To be severed so that most of the whole can continue on, intact. Most…

The Savior nods. And He stands there…next to me…letting me feel the pain of this broken little thing. I needed to feel it. And I also know that he can heal her. I look down at her again…this sweet abandoned child who has carried the belief of impermanence for me my entire life. Who protected me with it, shouldered it, bled from it, because of it – to continue it’s existence.

“No more,” I whisper into her perfect ears, “No more. I have brought someone who can make you all better. It won’t hurt us anymore, and I won’t ask you to carry it anymore. No more, my love. No more.” The tears come again for me, and I hate myself for causing her pain, and for whoever caused it to her because of their own. I turn to the Savior, and look up at Him with tears streaming down my face and my chest contorted in rib-breaking pain. “Heal her, I beg of thee! I trust you, and believe and know that you only you can.” No more, do I ask him to help me mine unbelief. I do…believe this.

He reaches out and takes her from me; so gently and tenderly that I once more bury my face in my hands and cry and cry and cry. But I don’t want to miss this…

Jehovah of all the worlds takes this four year-old broken child and sits down upon a rock in the road. He lowers his head over hers, his right hand covering the entire crown of her matted hair. His left hand tucking her small body into his side. She seems to be enfolded in his very robe, as he whispers, rocks, ministers, comforts, coo’s, halts anything else that might require his time – and breathes love and life and healing into this tiny girl. Me…even as I stand here, I am looking at Him…healing…me.

I cannot even write and stop again and again as I sob and sob and sob, feeling this, seeing this – that he would do such things for me. That nothing, is more important than her and I, in this moment. Nothing, is more important than his love for me. That I am worth such Love. Permanent, Love.

As he whispers things only she can hear, I see her little feet, sticking out the end, start to first settle completely and then move slightly…like she is being brought back to life. Light that emanantes from He, Himself – engulfs them and me and us on this godforsaken lonely piece of road – and I have to squint my eyes just to keep them open.

This remains so for what seems like a long, long time. My Savior, holding the child that is still broken inside of me, within a circle of light and love that bring me to my knees. Eventually, and slowly…the Savior lifts his head from hers, and takes his right hand from her head, and caresses her cheek. She looks up at him, wide-eyed and absolutely trusting without doubt. In adoration, she looks at him. And once again, I cry. He smiles so wide at her, like she is the only thing in world he’d smile so for – unique. Unrepeatable miracle. He lifts her so she is now sitting on his right thigh, and she turns to me: and I see…

Her perfect little light purple robe, unstained and untainted. Her hair a gleaming dark blond, untangled and flowing in the waves that are captured in all my little kid pictures. Her skin full and plump and without scar, dirt, or blemish. The blood is gone, absorbed by the one who bled for me. She is…perfect. Whole and complete as she sits upon the lap of my Master, looking at me. She looks up at Him again, and He smiles and whispers (loud enough so I may hear), “You, my sweetest Lily, are my forever.”

She grins widely like she’s never known any pain, then hops lightly from his lap, and patters over to me where I still kneel, too overcome to stand. Without hesitation, she puts her tiny plump hands on either side of my face, and says to me in a tiny cherub voice:

“I forgive you. I forgive us. I am all better now. I don’t need to cry anymore. I am happy. I want to play!”

She scampers off a few steps, then comes back to whisper in my ear: “I love you.”

And then she’s gone. To play like little children play. Knowing where she can come if and when she ever needs comforting again. But healed, she is. No more does she need to fulfill the role of carrying my incorrect belief of impermanence and how I believed it didn’t apply to me here. And all else she carried that I cannot remember in this moment. No more…no more…

I look up at the Savior as He looks down upon me with a glowing love so powerful in his countenance that I can hardly stand it. I cannot bear feeling His love…it is too great and I crave it and I need it but oh how this body cannot stand to hold it all…

He stands, closes the few steps between us, and offers me his hand. I take it and he deftly lifts me until I am standing with him once again. Together, we face the now open road ahead – cleared of the pain and the atrocity that was here just moments and also eternities ago. He points down to the road – and there lies the simple crack that heralds the place where a tiny me was broken and bleeding. He has healed it – but the small remnant remains, just as they do upon His palms – so it will never be forgotten. With a quiet word, He blesses my broken road, and then we both step over…and beyond.

I now, have the capacity, ability, and choice to feel the truth my spirit has always known. That permanence in this life, with a partner to walk with, is absolutely available for me. And I am worthy of it. And I can move forward into it, with Him at my side. Forever healing all we ever might come across.

In acknowledgement of my thoughts, He turns to me, smiles, and says out loud for all of heaven to hear, “It does indeed exist for you. Here, in this life, and in the next.”

Keep reading…

Permanence

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:00:11 +0000

as written April 9, 2011

Okay. I suppose I need to get this over with. Sometimes…I judge the way I believe how I should just not feel a certain way. And this, is one of them. I updated W. on allll the goings on – the tunnels and the frothy pink ocean and the net and the new beach and the ANXIETYYYYYY and – just…waiting.

And the source of the unrelenting anxiety as I stand in the heart of this unknown man’s beach of his heart – culminated in a gasped out realization that took all the pain to become clear: I do not believe permanence applies to me in this life.

On a deep, hidden and pervasive level of this mortal vessel I believe that there is no one man that I am meant & supposed to be with that will be my companion throughout this life. I simply don’t believe it exists. With all my experience of letting go, loving, hoping, and whatever pain I used as the excuse to come to that conclusion when I was young – I simply don’t see how that applies to me. I truly believe I am simply a loner, a wanderer, a Strider-ess, meant to travel and possibly be a vessel to become a mother FOR children, but that there will never be someONE for me and all that I am here on this earth. Like a martyr, a servant of sorts, willing to sacrifice herself for God’s great plan. And the intent with that is good – the feeling and emotion is true, but it is not CORRECT. Because God did not ask this of me. I just assumed the position myself. Wrongly.

Here’s the thing – I had this belief before I even got married to Brent. I tried to repress that belief because I was taught it was wrong…but I believed it deep inside, anyway. I wanted permanence, I hoped for it (thus my continued attempts at relationships – ALSO, however, driven by my dysfunctional emotional needs, which parlayed against that impermanence belief equalling physical and emotional distress and anxiety on many levels), and then I did the ultimate: I signed up for it through marriage and an eternal sealing with Brent. Hoping by doing so it would squelch that belief I couldn’t squelch myself. Hoping an outward binding contract could destroy the bind I had wound around myself from the inside. Obviously, now I know that outward behaviors of ALL and ANY kinds will never heal, cure, address, or even sway the inner demons that originate within. Thus – my marriage ended. And I still held that belief as tightly as ever.

W. mentioned that, “How would and could you ever actually find the permanence (let alone accept it if it came along) when you believe that it doesn’t exist for you?” Like somehow – I have actually contributed to my experiences and their endings because I played the part of a companionship, but I didn’t actually believe in it.

This is WAY too big, right now. But all the other questions she asked me (trying to pinpoint where the anxiety was located) I had absolutely come to an inner peace and acceptance with: “Are you worthy of this love?” Yes. “Is he worthy of you?” Yes. “Is he able to be loyal and committed?” Yes. “Is a healthy relationship possible between both of you?” Yes.

And then she hit upon the truth: ”Are you afraid of finding a healthy relationship and losing that, too?” Yes… “Do you harbor a belief that no relationship is permanent for you in this life?” Yes…and when she asked me that – the waves rolled from their forgotten well and near drowned me with the ancient pain of it. Yep - THAT is it.

Look how I handle UNHEALTHY relationships and how long it takes me to take myself out of them – if I had a HEALTHY one how the HELL would I be able to leave? And this beach is SPOTLESS. Not perfect, but it’s so clean and healthy…

All the work done on this beach, means he is waiting – for me. Someone like that would have the patience to let me do it on my own, and not come out to rescue me from myself. And the anxiety makes perfect sense – alllll my emotional spiritual and physical and mental work has gotten me here. On this beach. But the anxiety tells me that I am afraid to take this last step to peacefully just wait and trust that he’ll actually show up for me because WITH this belief, I will be sure to lose him. I cannot exist here, with him, with myself, without allowing this fear to be acknowledged, validated, felt, and then surrendered. I cannot take his hand until I give this up to God.

So through my lengthy and intense forgiving (coupled with lots and lots of crying and the liberation of that bound fear so deep within), I had to forgive myself for believing that belief – and also forgive Adam as well, because he has the same exact beliefs. We are mirrors for each other, so similar in so many ways.

And so…God…on top of everything else, let’s surrender my painful yet sadly coveted treasure of impermanence:

Keep reading…

New Siren

admin — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:00:59 +0000

as written April 4, 2011

Continued from The Tunnels, Fluffy Pool of Pink, and An Invisible Net:

I have landed, somewhere. I sit up, on some strange beach that I have never been to before, but that feels familiar, somehow. I am laying in the Net that God has carried me in, and deposited me here with. My fingers absently trace over the thick heavenly rope as I look around me. A beach. The warm waves crashing lightly over my feet and legs. The sun, bright and warm – reaches to my bones. Big rocks around me and down the shore. It is beautiful, here. It is clear, lots of work has been done in this place.

Whose heart have I been taken to?

Clearly, I have been taken into someone else’s heart: beach: planet: world: inner-workings. I feel a slight panic as I realize this is not my own heart - I have trespassed! And my breath quickens in fear of being found out, seen. But as soon as I feel the fear, the words come:

You are wanted, here. You, are what has been waited for. You, are the gift that has been asked, prayed, sought, fought, and surrendered for. Trust me in this.

So, let me get this straight:…I have been spiritually and emotionally and intellectually brought to someone else’s heart before I’ve actually PHYSICALLY arrived there (met them/seen them/felt them?)????

I have been brought where God wants me without SEEING WHO THEY ARE, FIRST? That’s not the order of things! I am blind! I feel like my agency has been compromised! I did not choose THIS!!! I am not comfortable trekking across someone’s heart before I KNOW WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE!

I do not DO IT THIS WAY! It takes me a loooonngg time before I let people in, and here I am, traipsing on the sand of some man’s personal, intimate heartland beach!?!?!?!?!?!?

What happened to the trend of men jack-hammering down the door of my heart if they want access? This feels like…I’m too easy or something. I just…SHOW UP!?!?!?

Because I brought you here. Because you let me. Because it is my will – because it is what you deserve, what you have asked for, worked for, and surrendered for. Do not be afraid, for I am with you.

Despite God’s assurances, I immediately go to cover myself with the Net that brought me here, looking for the remnants of the Love I just left to shield me from anything new, strange, or out of my comfort zone.

But then I am reminded – I did not carry another man with me here. Neither did I carry the Love with me to protect me “just in case of” moments of fear and uncertainty. I left that all behind. So I cannot cower under some other Love when I find myself in a new place. “Damn it all to hell!” I spew as I realize this.

As I look, there is simply not even a tiny, caked-on piece of that light pink goo that I just left behind. Not one. I cannot hide, here. There is nothing to hide behind. Old Love works well at covering me, but when it’s just me? This heart, whomever’s heart I have just been deposited in, will feel me here. And they will come looking. And with nothing to hide behind…

he will find me.

But who is he? And just because God brought me here, does that mean I will even like him? Is this God choosing FOR me or God choosing what he knows I want because I’ve given my heart to Him? Augh I’m up in my head. I feel SO exposed here…knowing my big heart and soul are too potent to be invisible.

Some time, at some point soon – the owner of this heart will show up. Will appear on the horizon…and as much as I want to flee this place…I kind of want to wait until I see who it is, first.

The waves crash and fold under themselves, and I hear the beautiful siren ring out the warning: “She’s here! She’s here! Come find her before she runs away…”

A chair rises from the sand, and I look at it skeptically. It’s clear what I’m meant to do: I am not supposed to move. I am supposed to sit still. To do, once more, something I have never been good at doing. He better be able to run fast…is all I can think, in this anxiety-ridden moment…because so can I.

Keep reading…

Throne Room

admin — Sun, 13 May 2012 13:00:47 +0000

as written April 3, 2011

This weekend has all been about pampering myself. Friday I cleaned my apartment, and Saturday morning I was up early – went to yoga. Then I went to Elase (student Spa) and got a pedicure with a bright coral spring color. Then, I drove up to the Sanctuary Spa where I spent 5 hours getting: (this Spa virgin dove head first).

A hydrotherapy body polish with Vichy shower (it’s as awesome as it sounds. My anxiety reared it’s head about being ‘touched!’ and I talked through it with Meesh, and was therefore able to enjoy it). Cut and color for my hair. And finally a manicure with light baby pink polish and perfected cuticles.

In between each service, I spent a lot of time just lounging and being still and breathing in their waiting room. The light was lowered, soft music played, and the ceiling was covered in dark, twinkling stars. I laid on the chaise, breathed, and got lost in the lights. The setup of the room was long and fairly narrow. And I sat at the far end in the middle – as you looked down the room, it ended with three raised chairs (with sinks below them for servers to kneel and wash their feet in perfumed waters and spices), with elephant sculptures on either side.

And the picture unfolded:

I saw a little girl’s feet patter as she ran down a marble hall. The perception rose so I saw where she was running – to 3 thrones at the end of a hall. Not THE great hall, more like a smaller, specific one…like…the hall for me. It was night, but the stars shone through the ceiling, and the light was a soft blue. No one else was in this hall…now I know because it is the hall for me. To come see my God’s. When the little girl got to the thrones, she launched herself into Heavenly Mother’s arms, and cuddled there. This sweet, still chubby 3 year-old me. Mother…sat in the center Throne. Abba sat on her left side, and the Savior on her right. I liked that. And then, I was following after her. The cold-looking marble somehow warm on my bare feet. But I was not alone as I approached them, past the tall pillars on either side. My Spirit was holding my left hand, and we were coming before them – together.

I could feel their love before I could raise my eyes to meet them. So much love this vessel cannot feel nearly more than an iota of it. As we stood before them, little me (who had since climbed into Abba’s lap), squirmed down and ran into my arms, where I picked her up with my right arm and held her against my hip (she feels comfortable with me, now. She will let me touch her.)

And that is the picture I see – my Spirit, my natural man holding hands, and me carrying the little child of myself. It is powerful, this Arriving. And they validate that. In the past, always, only one part of me or another has run here to them, but never, have we come before them as ONE. United, accepting, a unified front of all aspects of MONICA RAI (and all the other facets of my being that has a name). I felt the power of it, the purpose, the triumph…and they echoed it back to us.

But the reason (other than for me to realize we were now One) for my coming spilled over my shaking lips and I asked them – (from the email of my mother wanting me to stand on her rock again and just DO it already, and how she feels that me relying on HER testimony of going back to church is why she feels is her greatest purpose in being my mother at all) – if, she was right. If I was still not surrendering to it…if I need to force myself to go back to church. If I have to have it in order to progress…

And as the humbled, hurting, shy somewhat shameful announcement of my question emerged, from behind them opened these thick velvet blue curtains, and there expanded some infinitely HUGE vault; stocked from floor to ceiling and stretching back so far that even my heavenly eyes could not see the end: were every single sacrifice and surrender I have given over to God. I could see all the recognizable pieces of all I have given up and given back and handed over the Altar…I’d never seen them all together in the same place. I’d never seen the cumulative MASS of them, piled over one another. And it was not messy or haphazard, each surrender had its own space and place. Continual honoring (it means so much to them) always.

We stood there, remembering the losses, as our eyes took in the immense treasure trove of proof of how I have given my heart to God, and allowed the Savior inside it. Tears blurred my vision…but not so much that I couldn’t see Heavenly Mother gesture to her son, and say…

“You have Him, to progress.”

I have the source. The IT Himself. She was telling me I have the most important piece already. That He’ll guide me where I need to go, that my mother is not my God, is not them, and does not always know what is best for me. These are still HER issues in trying to find her purpose in being my mother, they are not my responsibility to fill so that she feels better about defining her purpose THROUGH me. I will never step foot upon her rock again, even if it would assuage her loneliness and desperation to find purpose and worth for herself.

“So, I’m not going to mess it up or miss it by not doing what she says I must?” I ask them.

They just smile at me with grins so huge it makes my little girl giggle uncontrollably. I can feel my shoulders relax and my jaw unclench, as I see them look at one another with the light-up-the-world-smiles, and cry again as I realize their happiness is directed at me, because of me, for me, as I stand in my personal Throne Room.

I am loved. I am enough as is. And all, is well.

Jen: Beautiful! It strikes me that this is also the kind of unity that man and wife can have, if they understand it and strive for it, realizing that together they are much more than they can be singly, and that it is because of their individual gifts and strengths that brings such power to this kind of union. One does not lose oneself in this type of a union. One gains a greater understand of onself, rather. Feels good to know that you are right where you are supposed to be…

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An Invisible Net

admin — Sat, 12 May 2012 13:00:49 +0000

as written March 31, 2011

The last day and a half, some unseen (but very much felt) force has been lifting me slowly from the gooey pink pot of love I’ve been floating in. I wondered yesterday where this would take me, and I did not come to an end of it – I am being lifted out of it. From it.

To where? I don’t know. By what? God. I know His feeling, and this feels like him. But here’s what’s happening…

As I’m being slowly (slowly) lifted from the lovely light pink goop, the globs roll off of me and return to their ocean. Molecules of pink ball up like sand when it meets the rain, as gravity leans my limbs downward, and they collide into others and create bigger globs and then when they reach the edge of my skin – the tips of fingers, toes, hair, shoulders, elbows, heels, hips…they leave my body and fall back into the enormous sea of love below. At first, this didn’t bother me. I simply realized what was occurring, and that was all.

Deep inside, after a while, came the subtle but obvious urge to FEAR (used as an action verb). TO FEAR! Why were these lovely little globs leaving me? And if I didn’t save some, would they ALL leave? Would I be left with nothing? WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF I LOST THEM ALL!?!?!?

So I tried to collect them. Stuffing them in pockets and down my bra and in my mouth and cupped in my hands…I then thought of creating a net out of threads from my dress and hair from my head – which I planned on lassoing to my waist and collecting the droplets underneath me as I rose, so that I could carry them with me.

In my minds eye, however, as I made preparations to start sewing – was another picture of me in the exact same place, in a different colored ocean of love, for someone else. It was a darker pink, nearly red, and just as beautiful. I saw myself being lifted, and saw myself make this same net, and the more I refused to let fall back to its place, only served to weigh down the act of being lifted. I slowed…and as the bounty in my net grew, I slowed down more and more. Until eventually, I stopped moving at all. The force which was lifting me was allowing the unplanned baggage cease the pace at which I was heading to the next place.

I was allowed my agency. I was allowed my choice. It wasn’t that the Force which carried me wasn’t strong enough to carry us both, it was that I needed to learn that carrying things OUTSIDE of me did not serve me. And I needed to learn that that love was something that would always be carried INSIDE of me. He let me see the consequence of hoarding that which cannot be kept in such containers.

Clutching love and shoving it down my shirt and capturing it in a net is not Love. It is FEAR of losing love. I did not know, then, that I could not lose what I had already let live within me.

What I see, now – is that the net which gently lifts me from this place, that carries me to the next, is whose net it is to do such work. The Fisher of Men…has come to these waters and it is His only to whom I should let carry me, and the only one who actually can. But He is the fisher of men, not me. Even though, because I am His own, I KNOW how to sew nets…

But it is not my responsibility to do so. Even if it is no longer to carry a person, but to carry the Love around with me because I am afraid of forgetting, losing, and never having it again. I do know this lesson – and today, he reminds me of where I was, and what I have the choice to do again. And in that light…

knowing that no one else will ever be that color pink, and knowing that it doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll never see him again or share love again -

I need to let it flow through me. Change me. And then leave me.

Love is a Living thing. She cannot be boxed up and carried like fish (who cannot live without their water). This Love cannot live in the Air. It needs to be flowing along within the ocean that exists because of it. And it will always be so. Always…

It will always exist, because we gave life to it. Within us, it came alive. Us, Creators in embryo. Such power lies within us to do such things. And within us, it will always live. But outside of me? It would dry in the merciless sun, cake like dry mud on my skin and flake away as lifeless and glory-less as the rotten corpse of a fish. Releasing love is the only thing that makes room for more.

It has changed me the way it was always meant to. Letting go is the only way to Honor its existence in the first place. Letting it drip down from the curve of my hips back to its sea is the only way I’ll ever look down and see the ocean in its entirety. When in it – I could see the wave upon which I floated. Grasping at tiny particles of it in my fists only lets me see the lack of it. Above…from here…I can see the entire body of Love, stretching from one corner of its globe to the other. Endless. Eternal. Moving, shifting, flowing. Beautiful. Alive.

And so – I look at the small threads and hair in my hand, shake them from my fingers (so prone to clutching), and stop struggling. I lay, limp within the perfection of His invisible Net, and I cry. I feel each sweet glob inch its way to the edge of my body, hang there for a moment, and then fall below – back to where it belongs. Where it will always be.

They move over my body faster now, sensing that I will let them go. But I can tell you the thousand trails they cross before they do, how they feel, how grateful I am for them, and how I still don’t want them to leave.

So today, I grieve. I grieve mostly, for what I cannot see. And the pace quickens, and the Net lifts…

and I am carried.

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Fluffy Pool Of Pink

admin — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:00:44 +0000

as written March 29, 2011

After the Goonie’s slide yesterday, today it has spit me out in a frothy, buoyant, fluffy pool of light pink stuff. Yep. LOVE. ”L is for LOVE!” The gooey cling-to-your-skin but not sticky and doesn’t leave a residue gunk. An ocean of the stuff. And I’m being specifically held right there, encased within it. Somehow, the substance is moving like a slow ocean, and the waves underneath me I can feel raising me up, and over, back, and forward. The sky moves or is it the clouds in the blue? There’s no real indication of direction, but I am held securely in this goo and I can’t sit up and look around me. My face is breathing the air – but all else is pinned softly by these globs of love. I breathe deeply because it smells delicious – like fresh grapefruit and sweet air…

And so – I must sit in it. Just like I let myself be hurtled through the tunnels and almost puked every five minutes yesterday – I must let the pink waves take me where is next. Today, I feel love for him. Him, being Adam. Of course. Who else. But it’s true. My fluid constriction and expansion of emotion regarding him since this “letting go of sex” tie has been crazy, to say the least.

But today, just for today – I love him. I love him pink, frothy, gooey, lighter-than-air, silly smile laced with sadness submission into the never ending expanse of love. For him. Despite all occurrences, all pain, all circumstance, all never-ending-examples of him not loving me back, all emotional betrayal, all history, all unforgettable love – it is how I feel today. And should that even surprise me? We all know this is how I do it (baby). After nuclear bombs dropped on my love for Brent, it stood there as the clouds cleared absolutely unscathed. Why would it be any different with Adam?

It’s not. There was no atom bomb here – but there were plenty of smoke bombs and firecrackers and ground dropping out beneath it and acid rain. And there it exists: perfect. A light pink heart that carries me today devoid of being scratched by the flotsam and random branches and garbage and knick knacks that could cut me unawares. This is simply floating inside the unscathed heart of my love for him. The end. And it’s hard to be here. It’s easier feeling anger and hurt because it’s easier to detach and HURL myself away from him with every behavior and thought. But love? Makes me leeeaaaaaaan his way and makes me miss him want him (though not crave him, interesting) belong with him be loved by him. Sigh…

We’ll see where we’ll be tomorrow. Today however…I float in pink. For him.

Jen: Monica, so I know Monday was a crazy, nauseating ride that you had no control over, and so you assumed the crash position and got yourself through it as best as you could, and then Tuesday you found yourself floating in a pool of pink love, that you also couldn’t escape from, so you wisely chose not to even try. Today???

What I am struck by from all of this is the movement that you are experiencing, which I also consider as progress. You gave your heart and love for Adam over to God, and he is carrying you through…to WHEREVER it is he is going to take you. And you have surrendered to it and are trusting Him to guide you and shelter you and heal you. This is the process. I think it is different for everyone and every situation. So, that being said, this is exactly what you need and how you need it. I applaud your ability not to fight the process and to trust your spiritual and emotional instincts to just ride it out. WAY TO GO, GIRL!!! PS. I LOVE that the craving for him is gone! Float on, woman!

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