places that scare you

en route to the badlands. july, 2010

i saw this on a fellow blogger's site (miss kim):

Confess your hidden faults.

Approach what you find repulsive.

Help those you think you cannot help.

Anything you are attached to, let go.

Go to places that scare you.

-Tibetan advice-

line number four has my name all over it right now. anything you are attached to, let go. 

easier said than done, tibetan monks. but i'm trying. i guess you don't really try at stuff like this, tho. the idea is NOT to try. that letting go of things.....people....it's hell sometimes.

and the last line........that's right up persephone's alley. going down into the basement in the dark. swimming in the ocean at night and having your feet touch the muddy seabottom, slimy weeds. moonlight flickering on the surface. that kind of stuff has always repelled and at the same time, fascinated me. 

confess your hidden faults......yeah. that's a big one, too. how about pride for starters? and competitiveness? and being judgmental, critical, gossiping... 

approach what i find repulsive. i guess that would be facing my faults and thinking of doing something with them other than let them dominate me. 

the middle line i can handle. help those you think you cannot help. i have a bit of a pollyanna attitude in that i feel optimistic a lot of the time. even when i really don't feel the best, i know somehow, that things will get better. must be from a childhood of being dragged around the world as an army brat, never fitting in, always being the outsider, feeling left out. you identify with the lonely kid and that stuff never goes away. so yeah, if i can reach out and cheer someone up, say something nice to someone and see a frown turn into a smile, that makes my day. 

we all have this power. 

so i'm trying to let go. but this letting go is elastic, i think. we open our arms and let our children float away from us but if we do it right, we create this space, this sort of magical net that attracts them back to us. for holidays. for phone calls when you need to hear their voices. 

i have to repeat a statement that was written on another blogger's site, it is too good not to share. the author was commenting on how it feels to let go of our children and her words struck me like a slap of salty, freezing water:

we release our little ones out into the universe of fat stars and weathered chimes

now that's goddamned poetry. 

life can be so gloriously messy, confusing, difficult, and earth-shatteringly beautiful. and emotions sometimes feel like a car crash in an intersection with splattered oil, shattered glass. sirens, flashing lights, the entire fucking, wonderful mess. or as kazantzakis said far better than i:   the full catastrophe.

like the buddhists advise, if you're lonely, just feel that. if you're sad, just sit with it for a while. these emotions we're given, they're gems. they're gold. we just don't always see it that way. especially when we're feeling those we don't particularly like, and allow them to take us over, to strangle, to suffocate us.

since i'm feeling somewhat existential right now - floating in that purgatory of
"i know i've got to let these kids go but i freaking miss them at the dinner table"
 (although truth be told, i'm doing my best to really feel this transition, knowing that it's rich, rich, rich) --- i'll leave you with another lonely foto

south dakota, july, 2010

ever try just sitting with an emotion? let it flush your veins, fry your synapses and shoot out your fingertips?

it's like they say about the weather around these parts --- if you don't like it, it'll change in 5 minutes. 

xo♡a