Meeting

Nearby, a white Egret, seemingly weightless, on the seaweed. On my back in the water, floating and embraced, the fog low and the smooth ocean meeting, I felt the infinite.

An old memory

I just fell in love with Taylor Swift's "Hoax" on her new album. It totally reminded me of someone I lost. Heartbreak is never easy to navigate; like being lost in a storm with no compass. There are things in life you can't fence up, wall in, or cut out of the soul. You just have to learn to live with the longing and the absence of someone or something you hoped for. It isn't a death, but in some ways it is. That ghost of yourself is left behind as you step out in a new, raw skin, pink and delicate and vulnerable to the realities of life.

I wrote this shortly after the loss and it is amazing to me how we can feel so deeply to our depths and still find a way to keep going.

The keening of the wind
was not the wind, but me
Though my lips are closed
My soul, in anguished silence, cries

Holding sand + feeling sun

Nestled in the warm sand at Asilomar, my fingers trace designs in the sand as the layers of blue, white, gray above melt and dance with the sun. I say a prayer. I am open to abundance. With arms open wide, my whole self I embrace. With grace and dignity, I face each moment for what it is. In letting go, I surrender to a trust, in knowing the best for me isn't what I grasp for, like sand running through a clenched fist. What is best for me comes with light, joy, and freedom - the sun between the clouds, warming my open palms. Infinite tenderness wraps around my shoulders. I'm not alone and in this belonging, I'm always home.

Dingle + Anam Cara

I had a dream last night, unlike any other I’ve had. I believe it is a healing dream. There are a handful of dreams I know will stay with me always, and this is one of them.

In my dream, I walked away from something I had been longing for because I knew that it was not what would make me whole. I was faced with accepting it and losing part of myself, or leaving it and trusting the abundance of blessing that was yet unknown to me. I said “no” to what would make me less whole and walked away from it. Suddenly, I was walking down a cobblestone road, with tall, old buildings on either side. An old woman came out of a shop and looked at me with eyes that saw me. She gave me a piece of paper and a pen and said, “where would you say people should go that is best for them?” She turned around and hunched her shoulder so that I could have a place to write. I wrote a word in cursive on the paper (more on that below). Then, when she turned back around, I was filled with incredibly love and gratefulness to her. I had no words to say. There was nothing good enough to hold the feeling of gratefulness. I held out my hand, and grasped hers and said thank you without speaking. She drew me into a hug, and while I was hugging her, she pressed both her hands deeply into the spine between my shoulder blades. It was like trigger point therapy and something suddenly released inside me. My entire heart and core was vibrating and it felt like my soul was soaring through time and space, hot and cold at the same time, and glowing. I wasn't sure if my body could contain this feeling, and wondered if I might fly apart. Then the old woman said to me gently, “this is where your soul starts.” Then I woke up.

I think this old shop woman was part of me. 

Also, the word that I wrote down on the paper in cursive was “Dingle”. When I was 18, I studied abroad in Ireland. I was in heaven, learning Irish History, Literature, and Folklore, and spending every spare minute walking/hiking or traveling to all the forests I could. While there, I traveled to Dingle, Ireland, which is a very magical place. I remember standing on the beach in Dingle, and the color of the sea such a light, icy blue, with the pulsating green hills around me. My bare feet were nestled in the pebbly sand as the waves licked up. I felt grounded and also like I had always been there. In one moment, I felt incredibly small in the vastness of eternity and everything, and at the same time, incredibly connected to everything and everyone. I’ve since learned that Dingle is a “thin space”, or a place of energy, where the veil between this world and the eternal world is thin. The dream also made me think of the old Gaelic word “Anam Cara”, which means “soul friend”. There are people you meet in life who accompany you on the deep soul journey as you encounter your destiny and become closer with God. Sometimes in life, you meet people and when you make eye contact it’s like something claps you in your soul and you are filled with the sense of immense recognition and being truly seen, all the way to your depths, and your heart cries out, “THERE you are!!” Maybe these people are cut from the same heart cloth, I don’t know, but it is a rare and special gift.

Ocean morning dip

I am resistant to discomfort, yet willing to submit my senses to this; with the silky slip of belonging, I'm filled to the brim with joy. In this moment, submerged in the ocean, the feel of the water and the buoyancy and release slows the pendulum inside me to a new, gentle rhythm. It's a wonderful morning.

Cleaning and scrap paper poems rediscovered

I cleaned house today and found some old poems I wrote on scrap paper. It's interesting to find discarded poems. I remember writing them and feeling frustrated with them; sometimes words can't hold our feelings and are just scratches on a vast plain of our hearts, and there seems to be no release. However, I'm going to let the poems live in the world, as they decided to show up to me again. Maybe they will help someone navigating a similar pain:

**

The storm would come and it must and it did, drowning out the tired song until the haunting stopped.

**

It sits with me, this memory;
The moment of what if
is now aglow
in paintings wild, and faulting words.
The sharpness of the moment
Erodes my present form.
Maybe someday the edges of loss won't cut
my heart as I look back.

**

My shadow sits beside me,
and mirrors life I lead each day.
My shadow, longer growing--
Growing dark where dreams decay
My soul, light, in life's rich soil.
Shadows stretch out, choke, and spoil.
I think of beauty, hope, and sun,
Softly blooming still...I'm not done.

**

I thought I'd sail to wild north
with snowy peaks and ice blue seas;
I'd build my nest in barren trees.
But winds pushed me on to foggy skies,
Dark green moss and soulful ties.
I land on coast and daring sea
The clouds above wander free.

Dreams

For about a year, I have been having a recurring dream where I'm in my bed and a dark force/shape is in my room. In my dream, I am too scared to look at it, but I plead for it to go away and it ends up killing me.

Last night, it was different. In my dream, I was in my bed sleeping, but I was also watching myself from above. The dark shape was in my room, with an evil aura. I sat up in bed, and I stared directly at it, and I ordered it to go away. The dark shape squeezed my throat and took away my voice, but I kept thinking in my head "go away, I'm not afraid!" and then the dream ended. When I woke up, my throat was so sore as if I'd been screaming all night. I do not think this dream will oppress me anymore.

Take a breath and wait 5 minutes...

"Take a breath and wait 5 more minutes."

That's how I've gotten through many things in my life that seemed impossible. The morning I was supposed to take my flight to start classes at UCLA, I was so scared of failure and living in a big city (a huge change for a Missouri farm girl) that I was going to tell my dad that I didn't want to go. My suitcase was by the front door and I told myself, "just wait 5 minutes and then tell him you don't want to go." I kept telling myself that until I got on the plane. Ultimately, going to UCLA was an amazing experience that helped me grow in a lot of ways. I graduated summa cum laude (and I also realized people get annoyed when I introduced myself as "My name is Melissa; I grew up on a farm!"). Haha, to wake up to a bellowing cow...I miss those days.

There are other memories that pop up - moments when I put my feelings aside in order to just keep moving (paddling in scary conditions in a SoCal with no chase boats around, driving my niece out of Redding during the Carr Fire, teaching Honors Chemistry). Sometimes in life, we have to just keep taking those steps to be brave, even when it isn't something that we feel is big. But anytime we stretch our courage muscles, it IS big. We all face fear, challenges, and heartbreak...how we journey through it is a victory.