And when I am weary...

I seek out the comfort of my gardens that wrap around my home and nestle my own little kingdom with comforts and delight! I love to get my hands and feet covered in dirt. It makes me feel like I have actually accomplished something. I love the peace my gardens give to both growling tummies and hungry soul eyes! My sanctuary of solitude and contentment. I dare say more has been planted in me out there than in the ground... I just take longer to blossom!
Love Lion~*KissAFlowerOnceAnHourPaw

Stained

Stained glass brings in a glorious array of colors dancing within a room!
Stained hands show hard work and determination... accomplishment!
Stained clothes testify to a hilarious day of fun and run!
Stained lips taste of berry juices delighting the buds!
Stained coffee cups rest in a sink and warmth resides in the belly!

Stained cheeks mark the path of worry, pain, confusion, plain overraught!
Stained soul etches scars edges, dark imprints, raw cells, bacterial grief!

I feel very stained.

My inner rooms are covered in stained glass images... outside the glory just cannot be comprehended! Stained windows can only be appreciated from within in the day... and from out in the night.

Outside in the day one might comment, " Oh look at that - how lovely"... but inside as the Sun shines through is where the struck of awe at what is seen... is seen! Outside at night... nothing is known if no light is lit or if only one stubby candle glows deep within.

Yesterday my soul friend Maggie said that I have developed a complicated inner world. I had to store this away for some thought. I have only really ever had my very own self to hear me... so I suppose that I do have a complicated world within. Perhaps this is why I have never felt anyone at all understands me. Until I first began to allow my inner world to be heard... and with imagery... visualized.

I have some rooms no one has seen... not even me... I *feel* the ominous that is there... but do not step down that hall not knowing who awaits for me there.

I have rooms I long to have friends come visit with me. I want to share everything that fills those cavities. The wonderments, overwhelming, astounding, awe inspired creativity that blends so significantly together.

And I have rooms that are just simply stained. Splashed all over the walls going from room to room is ANGER and loneliness. I am the only one welcome to enter there. Trying to repaint is futile... the stains just seep back through. I think they need to be there... and some days... so do I.

I truly hate the probing question, " HOW are YOU?" Suddenly with the speed of wind all those rooms echo down into the hall of my heart... and I am searching for some safe ambiguous non-reply to satisfy the individual with the audacity to ask me this.

I am supposed to be the strong one, the helper, the keeper, the encourager... the one who never wears out. The one who has worked through her life and has come out on top.... I thought I was nearing the top one day... and I got pushed... and I fell skidding all the way to the very bottom... injured, broken, marred, winded of breath... alone as a clock kept ticking.

So I pulled myself back up and on twists and breaks, with portions of my heart bitten out as if by a wild animal... I walk room to room alone and look at the stain created pictures and artifacts
there. I laugh and smile, I cringe and cover my mouth, I scream and beat my fists and I share the best that is left of me.

One day when I am prepared... I am going to stand out in the night in my raw nakedness of soul... with all the lights on in my rooms...every room!!! and I am going to SHINE my own Stained Glass and I believe it will be astonishing!

Love Lion~*Stained,Drained,GainedPaw

Unconfined

Unconfined. This word spoke to me the other day. I suppose it really wants me to journey to the core of its descriptive meaning... and to procure some vast treasure for my soul's released blissfulness.

The last thing I feel right now is bliss.

I feel rather like a walled fortress that has been pummeled with mortar attack and the main tower is now listing and crumbling... with a momentum that is sure to bring every brick crashing to a heap of rubble... I suppose however, that in that downfall... the fortress herself will finally be.... unconfined.

But how do I let my walls of defense and defiance crumple to powder... like talc? To create a smooth , softening that heals a deeply chafed vulnerability...

I want to shout... * I AM DONE!!!* And yet sadly... I am so aware that I have not even begun this melting down of the purifying ritual my life demands and demands with awakening intensity.

Unconfined.... redefined... intertwined...so sublime... can this be mine?

Lion~*ConfinedDesignedPainInTheHindPaw

Snap Out of It!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Snap Out Of IT"... Get OVER IT... Let Go of IT... Move On... and on... and on...

No one knew that the words "He's Dead" would trigger off a life of torture... Greif demands so much from everyone who is brave enough to hold its hand. Some walk away from grief ignoring her tender call ... tender call... what a strange thought to come forth... yet it is... grief is birthed from the depths of love and the value someone has been within our lives and hearts. I have grieved... grieved deep , wide, high and looooong! I also said a very releasing " GoodBye"...

Grief always stirs up the tenderness and longing we have.... and the disappointments of what will not be.

It isn't the grief I am dealing with daily anymore... you can't get over it or let go but you can move on... and memory comes along with me... and I smile in this.

The torture came in the trauma... how can a little girl understand how something so hideous could happen. They made me see him... and it didn't look like him... even Dad said, " That's not him, it doesn't even look like him." Why were we being put through this then... when someone made a very BIG mistake... he has to be lost out there somewhere and someone better make it right. No one ever did.

Took 20 yrs to face the grief as a mature woman... one who could rationally look at what happened and move forward without the rage and heavy grief always pressing out of her pours.

But that one moment...something happened in my body... Dr's said it literally suffocated in on itself... and the pain I had in my heart, soul, spirit... clung and rooted deeply into my body. Muscles turned to stone spasms. Joints turned into inflamed aches, Nerves like scorched endings moving across my skin. Headache... not headaches... cause it never ends... it only worsens or lessens. Treatments... Meds... you name it... it doen't work and it doesn't touch the pain. If I listed all the infirmities I would be charged with exaggeration! Some defects from the womb... other's defects from the effects of severe soul pain. Helpless... hopeless... yet determined to keep moving forward.

What did my brain do that second it heard the hideous news? The key that locked this body into a life of pain and sickness... this isn't the grief... it was an iterpretation... and all the "Letting Go" will not unlock what is held in some dark portion of my spirit. Somewhere it knows... but I am also unnerved right now to journey there... yet if it is possible... I want to go and find the key... hold the door latch and open myself up and walk into wellness, wholeness... release from this torture that so cruelly punishes me daily. I would like to know who I am "unhindered"...

"Snap Out of It!" People who think like this... have no understanding or compassion. They are arrogant and I feel sorry for their shortsightedness. I am an adult ... and I have NO idea what happened to me when I was a child... no one has a clue... How could they?

I can snap my fingers, snap a stick, snap a piece of chocolate in two... but I cannot snap out of this body pain and fatigue... if it were so simple... it would have been long ago.

When the Smoke Rose from the Forest

When the Smoke Rose from the Forest

I reached out multiple times
Attempting to hold you back to me
But no one can grip an escaped spirit
Torn away
Shattered to tiny shards of heartache
Now
Asked to line up reality’s agony
Numb
Like a soldier on guard in heavy boots
Yet no enemy to show a face
For it came to dwell within
And has used grenades and swords
To trample the jungles of perception’s tears
Death freed you from danger
But captivated me
Prisoner of the henchman’s wrath
Who will save me?
Can this dungeon be opened ?
Where did the key fall?
Does it teeter upon a precarious cliff
Too jagged for feet to pursue?
It had to stop being about you
When the smoke rose from the forest
So empty and frozen
I got so lost in that winter snow
Never finding myself home again.

Lion~*Speaks

April 26th, 2006 9:23 am

Losing my brother was desperately harsh... it always will be.

What is realistic?

What is realistic to be afraid of? Something you have already experienced... or something you have no idea about? Both hold a gripping power upon the intellect. Both get lived and relived before and after happening. Both hold gray matter hostage in it's shell of bone. Both raise blood pressure as the heart thumps hard and speeds through tunnels to seek escape... and there is none. You just have to ride each day out... each emotion and motion, choice or not.

So why the fear?

Why not throw back your head... raise your hands in surrender and let your heart leap to your throat in yells of exhaltaion as life's wild rollercoaster zips, zooms and climbs just to fall!!!
It is going to happen anyway... you have to take the ride!

But that fear loves a travelling companion!

So I let it squeeze my hands together and plung into my heart and explore my brain ... for whatever that is worth~*

Fatithfilled Reminders

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.
Victor Hugo

Some folks believe in the idea of life after death and I hope they're right... but it's also important, I think, to believe in life BEFORE death.
Ron Atchison

Live your life so that the fear of death can never enter your heart. When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light. Give thanks for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. And if perchance you see no reason for giving thanks, rest assured the fault is in yourself.
Chief Tecumseh, Shawnee Indian Chief

“If we have been pleased with life, we should not be displeased with death, since it comes from the hand of the same master.”

Michelangelo

“Perhaps they are not the stars,but rather openings in Heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.”

Eskimo Legend

“Life is a great sunrise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.”

Vladimir Nobokov

"I wanted a perfect ending... Now, I've learned the hard way that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity."

Gilda Radner, 1946-1989

“Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.” Rumi

Ecclesiastes 12: 7

and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Call the drummers, timbal beaters, and tambourine players. March toward my grave dancing thus, Happy, gay, intoxicated; with hands clapping, So that people would know that the friends of God Go happy and smiling toward the place of meeting.- Rumi

Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.- Rumi

"Faith goes up the stairs love has built and looks out the window which hope has opened..." Charles Spurgeon

Drumsound rises on the air,its throb, my heart.A voice inside the beatsays, "I know you're tired,but come. This is the way."
Jeláluddín Rúmí(trans. by Coleman Barks