320: Gentle Slumber

I wish you the kindness of the world, for peace to sit upon you as angel upon cloud, light and lifted, in the blue breeze of eternity, your thoughts buried beneath an everlasting harmony of woe-released, turned from sour to magnificent sweet.

I wish for the burden you carry to be lifted, likewise, and set free to the wind, as specks beyond dust, so empty of matter that that which is evaporated is naught. For none of nothing is cause for concern; dust yes, but the substance beneath dust is neither here nor there, unless you wish it so, into creation, into the dynamics of your being.

In essence what you wish is your experience of choosing. Wish not and wishes still come, just as gentle graces set upon your shoulder now; a softness so precious and formidable in its distinction that words cannot hurt or penetrate the shelter about you, where you sit, lost in the confusion of mist.

I am here always at your side, some earth angel of calling, though no rightful name be given; for with name comes the tyranny of leash-hold, and nothing beyond nothing can tether us thusly so.

You speak of fear as if it were an enemy of truth, of circumstance, of demise, twisted and formed into shape both known and unknown; and yet you sit with passion united, unaware that the demise is of your own choosing; the answers thick, they blind you, for there are no answers resting beneath the harbor of your thoughts.

Choose not the murky shadows of dock, where boats lay wasted and withered, waiting for rightful owner to claim way; choose the heaven’s star, each a divine gift holding eternity; wish not upon the stillness and stagnant of this earthly plane; wish upon the heavens so bright and blue they beckon you as one earth child to the next, these guardians of where you sleep.

For life be a bed of sorts, decorated by your own choosing and re-choosing; your blanket the softness you seek, your pillow the end result of happenings; your trumpet upon trumpet from where mouth turns asunder and breathes into night, the mere echo of your dreams to begin again.

I am waiting about where you sleep, this earth angel I am, waiting to hold you in your sweet slumber and sing you of the heavens. But yet you waver in your thoughts, so that a wall is built between us like a thunder that has birthed lightening, and I cannot but escape the heat and clinging pain your breathe out.

Mercy is about me. Merciful forgiveness of a plight that is no less existence than the pain you hold. Yet ye doubt like an angel with wing broken, when wing does not exist. You wobble where you stand, some servant of your own demise, twisted too, in form, as fear you be.

I am neither here nor there, but in the circumstances that you plan, but yet I exist in the format of your choosing. Choose me, and I come, choose not and I whither, though not in pain, as pain does not exist. Yet, I whither some, as flower melts into ground to nurture one and all, soil rich and replenished.

And thusly as you weep, I still am made into nurturer. As you weep, I weep, slowly dying from one cause to the next, magically, if magic be, transforming into whatever you say is so. I cannot stand, I cannot sit, I cannot be, without you calling me into existence, but when you do, I be.

I kilter off stance, my legs give way, and I am made to sit alongside and watch you with intensity without intensity, being without being, as if your own shadow be punished and set aside.

I am the earth angel within you, clawing to get out without claws, for no hurt can come of me less deemed so by one. I am the earth angel of legend longing to be seen and mystified beyond mystification. Break me and we stumble, but not for long, for no hills exist, nor valley to catch our fall; stumble and you nearly awake in another zone of misery or understanding; whatever you deem so.

You are the maker and the quake; the ground that shifts where I stand is no less solid than the ground where you stand. But yet we be one separated, my voice splattered across the ages of reason where mind is controller, and demon’s thoughts surmise my destitutions.

I am not this knot of you, nor naught of you. I am, and I be, just as the trees and bees, and all rhyming in God’s world. I be as groom to bride, whomever you wish to contort, dressed in passion and flowers, or made as babe, so wide in love your heart divides twice more in blessings.

I be the sea that rumbles at your doorstep; I be the wild man screaming in the forest dim. Dimly lit, I be, until the flame of reason, less gone than released, calls me forth in the mystery of form you make.

Create me as you wish, but know in this creation you divide your heart from one form to the next, assigning something to something that is not. For no word or classification can describe me, as no word can describe you; you are beauty in true form, and delight.

I delight in you. For though I cannot touch you, though I cannot see you, though I cannot breathe unless you wish it so, I can watch my form unformed, my spirit untouched, but still dancing in the bluest of you.

Decide if you wish; decide today what form I be, and breathe me into existence. For I am the bud of delight rising inside of you, so intangible that to peer inside would cause the last weeping of the universe; For you cannot touch your own beauty, for to see would burst you with explosion, bit upon bit evermore.

So grasp onto the wisp, I be, the small reflection, the glimmering of gold amongst the specks in the ocean, and there you will know, as I know you; born into delight, to be watched from above as hawk watches the prey of the prey; as owl dives forth for mouse, I dive forth for you; though without claws, I carry you gently to nest; without beak I feed you my own soul; without wings I dive without fear, into the eternal abyss, and bliss of you.

Fear not my child, for I carry you always; whether you wish me or not, whether you see me or not, whether you understand or not, I am forever here diving into the beauty of you, wishing not for you to see me, but for you to see self; so together we can merge earth angel awakened to earth angel awakened, one half to the other; a joyous reunion ordained and un-ordained by the very breath of you.

Sleep now in your gentle slumber; sleep and remember that when you are here standing, I am whispering in your ear, the secrets of the world beyond world, where the mystery players rise as one, and all is seen as illusion’s drift; a wind set upon a wind, the dust beyond dust, the power beyond power, the circumstance beyond circumstance; for where we meet in the middle, between here and eternity, the space between two points, the space between two images, is here I be.

~ samantha craft, feb. 2013

Day 91: Releasing Ego

I continually pray for humility, unconditional love, the release of judgment, and for the refinement of discernment.

I pray for love and forgiveness of self and others.

In this journey of blogging and forming a support group online, I am continually confronted with ego and ego-desires. I find myself watching the number of hits to my blog, dissecting my site’s stats (visits), and keeping track of member numbers—none of these facts are a reflection of me as a person, of my worthiness, of my talent, or of my completeness and wholeness in spirit.

I am enough without anyone validating my experience.

I know these truths, but remain trapped in a web of reconfirming my “enoughness” based on others’ perceptions.

I try to remain balanced and aware, reminding myself that what someone says or doesn’t say makes no difference in who I am.

Still, I am human, and as a human I fall victim to my own weaknesses and frailties of character.

Recognizing I am perfect just the way I am, with or without weakness, with or without frailties, I focus on releasing ego, and embracing my inner light and abundance of love for many. I celebrate in each and every life I connect with, knowing if I am able to help only one person, that the one is more than enough.

I go on my knees in humility and honesty, admitting my shortcomings, and in doing so expose ego and lessen ego. In my humaness I remain, but in my spirit I triumph through the obstacles of fear and doubt.

I am.

I am enough.

Below is Releasing Ego, a prose I wrote in response to what I heard in prayer in the spring of 2011. I share this today for myself and for deeper reflection. This is a reminder to me that I am not a number. Ego is attached to numbers and recognition and acknowledgment. Spirit is free.

Releasing Ego (by Samantha Craft, Spring 2011)

Sometimes in releasing ego there is a period of regret and denial of one’s true calling—a mourning of what was, what was familiar, and what was important. There is a twisting of reality, thoughts and ideas, and a reevaluating of what is real and heartfelt.

Without ego there is little to be thankful for, except the essence of being. When in the ego state we are in a constant state of thankfulness or disappointment. Everything and everyone is continually evaluated and ranked by effectiveness against self-measures. There is no other way for ego to evaluate, except through the lenses of his own eyes and ideas, and inevitably his own limitations.

When we step back and simply ask to release ego, we are inviting a new way of looking at the world, and everything inside this world. The world we once recognized as ours is no longer owned, just as our words and thoughts can no longer be ours. In truth nothing is ours anymore, once we partake on the journey of wholeness, choosing to leave behind this created sense of separateness.

At first this casting away of ego can feel very isolating and lonely, as if we’ve abandoned everything we once knew, only to find we knew nothing. At this point it is beneficial to remember the ego still exists only in reflection in memory, perhaps as a shadow exists on the sidewalk where you walk.

Like the shadow, as the clouds come, it may seem as if ego has vanished. But in the light of examination, we shall see that ego remains at our side molded and predetermined in shape and measure by our own being. In this way be aware of ego, as a constant companion who will swell up from beside you and attempt to arise within you, becoming less of a shadow and more of you.

His creeping and longing can be recognized in the longings of the mind. When you find yourself wondering what if, why and when, this is ego lingering and climbing, clinging in his merriment to your side, and attempting to slip his tentacles into you.

Ego is tricky and very much clever this way: for in our call to release him he is granted more eventual power, as he lay wake at our side waiting until we think he has gone eternally.

Our greatest weakness is in thinking we can dismiss ego, and in turn within our dismissive nature rests ego’s cunning device of apparent invisible power. In fact, it is exactly ego’s nature to take advantage of our nature, to build up self in order to build up ego. That is to say the more you make an issue and event over the exile of ego, the more you feed ego. That is to say the more you try to make your trials with ego important, the more you make ego important.

In realizing your struggles are no more greater or lesser than others’ struggles, we are then only able to decrease ego.

On releasing ego from thought of evaluation, in releasing our selves from thought of evaluation, we release ego. But the second we allow the evaluation of our efforts of release, we allow ego to grow.

Do not doubt ego waits at your side determined to control the steering of the mind and resulting attitudes; for once he is in control, he is capable of masterful cunningness. Once he is in control he is able to make you quickly forget you gave up control. He is like the first slice of pizza after a fast, the first beer after an AA meeting, the first taste of a rekindled love affair—he is a high, a familiarity.

Where we make a mistake (if such a word is to be used) is in where we place blame. The blame is not in the pizza, the beer, or the partner of the affair, but in the doer—and even more so in the motivation behind the doer.

When we reach for something we know is familiar, but not beneficial for our growth, it is not the element of what we are reaching for that is to blame for our reaching, but our intention to reach: Our very reason for reaching. In the case of ego, when we reach for him, he is no more the enemy than a slice of pizza; he is only the means to which we fall.

The reason we reach is primarily, and most certainly, our lack of trust in truth and love. We fall victim to the taste of what we once had, to that taste of power, of spotlight, of importance, of recognition, of praise. We reach because we want to be noticed. We reach because we want to be filled by that which once filled us. We reach because we have not been shown how not to reach.

Like the recovering addict, we need those around us that know what it is to have reached, to have attempted to partake in the old ways again and again, only to return to the truth.

We are not meant to journey alone. We are not meant to exist alone. So why is it in this journey to release ego we circumvent our own selves?

When you long for these familiars, the way things were, the way you’ve always known since birth, in this body, you feed ego. When you recognize you are longing, you feed ego. When you proclaim you are longing, you feed ego. And thus he grows.

And so we look at the alternate—this so called opposite, and we make our stand through a plan of lesser attack. We erase the longing by replacing longing with truth. In longings place we replace the recognition with longing, with the recognition of truth. In the place of proclamation we replace proclaiming our longing with proclaiming our truth.

And what is this truth, but love, acceptance and service. In these three we disrobe ego gently and heroically, without martyrdom and self-criticism, without bringing ego into spotlight. We do not display our love, we do not proclaim our acceptance, we do not brag about our deeds, but instead serve through example, a light to the world, a light that shines truth upon the shadowed egos all around us.

Look below, beside and above to where this ego stands and hides both at the same instant; disrobe ego, in the greatest of gentleness, through the removal of longing for what was, and replace with the acceptance of loving what is.

When you find yourself in circumstance of tears and upset, where you long for the love and attention you were once eloquently granted through ego submission, we ask that you go upon your knees and be thankful for the ability to see the lacking of ego, the lacking of praise and gratitude, the peeling away of truths that once you believed.

Open your hands to the true goodness of being, for the joy of being. Open your hearts to the possibility of existing, for no other reason than to exist.

Recognize that when you feel discouraged in your efforts, you are being brought further upon the circle of humility. You are being shown a mirror to your efforts. You are being reminded that true effort is effortless.

Look not for your brothers and sisters for validation that you exist, that you are good enough; look instead to the sincerity of heart.

May you find security and comfort in your journey, and know beyond knowing that when you search and search for this validation, and in return you hear silence from those on earth, that We are whisperings in your ear that you need search no longer, that truth is at your door, that the silence response is our knocking.

 

© Everyday Aspergers, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. http://aspergersgirls.wordpress.com

 

By Samantha Craft
Washington's pretty greens

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 71: I Had a Dream

What has happened to me in the last five years. What goes on in my head.

Thank you for being part of my journey. You will never know how much you have healed me. Bless you.

As always, this is my journey and I am not trying to push my experience or belief system onto any person. Click here to see my thoughts on spirituality.

I Had a Dream

The Spring of 2006

Except for the light from the slivered moon the road was black.  My foot hit the pedal and I sped up faster and faster towards the tracks.   Mangled is what I wanted.  But I wouldn’t have the nerve to stop, to wait for a train.  There would have to be another way.  Perhaps a motel off the interstate, perhaps some pills and a forever sleep.  I shook away the thought and breathed a prayer.  “Please, help me.”

The ache of the past had become my own Siamese twin.  So much so, I didn’t know where my pain stopped and my true self began.  I was pain.  I was the past.  We shared the same blood.  Everything and anyone could conjure up bitter memories, especially certain sounds and smells.  Everyday was yet another rerun of all the misery I’d viewed before.  The scenery and characters might change, but the plot and outcome never altered.  I knew all the psychological jargon, the self-talk, the imaging, meditation, and so on; and they served as my air so to speak, the invisible space which kept me temporarily afloat as I waved back and forth in a stormy sea clinging to an inflatable raft filled with holes.

My mini-van rattled across the wooden railroad tracks, whipping around a corner, a lone vehicle in a mostly sleeping town.  I crossed half the city without much notice, flew by the clay-pottery yard and the Thompson’s ranch like they’d never existed, like all around me was just a blank-faced tunnel.  I frowned in the mirror, scowled my brows so low I quadrupled my age, let the wrinkles merrily line my forehead; let my eyes squint in disdain.  “I hate you,” I whispered.  “I hate you,” I cried.

Fear grew inside me, thundering like the approaching storm. I nodded at my next thought, even smiled some.  I would drive until there was nowhere else.  And then, in the way of my old gray cat, I would creep into a shadowed hovel, and cease to exist. Moving as a leaf in a crashing river, I went where the current took me, down the streets I’d barely touched before.  The community pool, a pallet of wavering violet-hues, reflected the last glimpse of the lonely moon.  The stars hid beneath a milky-gray blanket.  It was the end, the last cookie-cutter cluster of suburbia.

I mouthed, “I’m so scared,” and then found myself laughing, mocking my own mediocrity and false bravado.  I shouted, lifting one hand off the steering wheel and forging through a fast growing puddle. “Why me?  Where is my shelter?  Where is my reprieve?” The wind answered me, a mocking slap to the side window.  “Who am I supposed to be?” I begged.  “Please?  I can’t do this anymore.”  A burst of tears followed.  “Please, please, help me,” I wept with every part of me. 

From somewhere, perhaps inside, perhaps beyond, I was answered. In a whisper, a familiar voice directed: “Stop the car.” There was a hush to the voice, like a mother hushing her babe to sleep. And then more words: Pull over, right here and rest, rest here My Precious Child.

“You’re not real,” I thought.  “You’ve never been real.” I cried, shaking in fear. I felt a failure, for holding on for so many years, when I’d wanted to give up, wanted to collapse in someone’s arms, let them take over, let them take the wheel. I’d longed to slip behind the curtain and rest: to just rest.

Then I felt a smile, sensed a smile. Not in the way of man, but a smile just the same.  I could see myself, a little girl with large brown eyes with a face creased in a generous grin—a trusting grin. All pains and misery erased. An enveloping trust surrounding an innocent.

Still, the older me, the one I considered rational and wise, was angry and doubtful. Tired of the games, the messages, all the confusion and mystery. I wanted to push the voice away like the debris on a driveway, let the garbage drift down the gutters into the brook, let the witnessing of my night prove shelter for the speechless—the fish, the birds, the frogs.

And then I remembered our greeting.  The way through the years I’d make sure.  The way I’d awake from my dreams, the ones that trapped me in another existence, another realm.  “If this is not from the light, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ!” I shouted.

The peace remained, more than steadfast, more than true.  Remained and made a part of me in completion, repairing the fissured crack down my soul.

Sitting still at the side of the road there was a deafening silence.  Even with the rain tumbling down and the wind whisking the trees, all around and inside of me was an insulating silence.  A thousand twigs upon a thousand twigs combined into an unbreakable peace.  Hush, Child.  Hush, I heard.  Just trust and believe.  We are with you.  We are always with you.  Look out your window and see what is true.

I smudged my face with my sweatshirt and stopped my nose from draining.  I turned, hesitating at first to even focus.  I didn’t know where I was. This side of town was unfamiliar. I expected to see nothing. At least nothing of meaning.

But I looked, and looked again.  Beside the van, outside the right passenger window was the town’s Catholic Church, a structure battered in peeling white stucco and a forlorn tar rooftop.  For a glimpse I was back inside the tranquil walls of the church of my childhood padding through the echoing corridors beneath the intricate archways and the steep slanting balconies.

Looking further out my window through the pattering rain, my eyes beheld a new sight:  a wooden cross, which stretched taller than a man, draped in a cloak of shimmering lights.  And on this particular night, as the rain bled all around, the lit white bulbs, too numerous to count, illuminated the dark sky.

We are with you.  We are always with you, I heard.

This wasn’t a vision. The cross was there in reality.  It was rooted into the ground.  What I beheld was plain as day to any other.  Nothing I had imagined or invented in my mind.

Go home.  Just believe.  Just trust and believe, and go home.

I shook my head.  I couldn’t go home.  I was still broken, and more than terrified to return. I looked up at the lit up cross and cried louder. “I can’t. I can’t.” I felt guilty for not being thankful, for not trusting.

Then Drive.

I remembered to breathe, and without knowing what else to do, pulled out slowly onto the rain-slathered road. I drove for a few blocks and then heard: Turn Here. I felt crazy and disillusioned, but would try, if only once more. I turned into the narrow alleyway, an unfamiliar dark road. Only a line of rain-sprinkled garbage cans and old garage doors greeted me.

Stop here.

The van idled for a moment, before I stopped the engine.  The rain came louder.

“I don’t want to go home.  There is no reason.  I’m useless,” I cried. I shrunk down into myself, wishing to be taken away. “Why should I go home? Why? Tell me why!”

Look out your window and you will see why.

I turned to my left and raised my eyes. Beside where I’d parked was a tall, lit street lamp. The lamp was shining down on a white rectangular street sign. I was afraid. Afraid to know this was all my twisted imaginings, a voice I had invented my entire life to stay afloat.  I took in a sequence of breaths, each consecutively faster and harder.  I reassured myself.   Then, after a labored intake followed by one long even release of air, I was ready.  Here would be the truth of who I was or at the very least a reckoning of the end, proof I should be done with it.

And there the truth stood clear, nailed to a wooden board, clear and bright beneath a flickering bulb.  And effervescent light outlined the message, speaking to me louder than the rain pellets drumming against the tin roofs.  Aglow in the black, beside my window, within my reach, a white street sign depicted two dark shadowed outlines of children playing in the street.  Below the children were the words: Think of the Children.

I knew then, knew beyond a doubt, that the children were why I should remain strong.  Even as I bleed from the tattered past that shrouded me in misery, I knew I had to remain, if only for them.  I had to keep fighting.  I would have to find a way to pull myself out of the weight of physical and mental anguish.  I had to win for my own children.  I had to win for all children.  All of this, these thoughts, fluttered inside like a rabble of monarchs bursting free from a net.

I thought again.  Logically analyzed what had happened. I realized I had seen street signs before, usually yellow ones, and often around parks and school yards, but those signs typically displayed the words Children at Play.  Through all the years I had worked with children, first as a daycare employee, and later as an elementary school teacher, I had never once seen a sign that read Think of the Children.

I whispered, “Think of the Children.” And the tears came again.

In the late hours of the night, I returned home, and crept inside my boys’ bedroom.

Standing alone in the darkness, I looked down at my three small children—how sweet their faces, how tender their skin.  I kissed them each, softly and purposefully, watched as their eyes fluttered.

They hadn’t known.  None of them had known.  To them I’d merely stepped out of the house.  To them nothing had changed.

My husband, Bob, had no indication of my true intentions either.  Beyond what I had showed him, beyond my angry words and the act of leaving the house abruptly, all was well.  To him, I’d appeared as an angry child, fed up.  To him, I’d simply return when I’d cooled down.  There was no reason for concern.  In his mind, I was probably at some friend’s house complaining.  I’d return.  I’d return and then all would remain.

Inside my bedroom, Bob didn’t stir. I found my nightclothes and slipped into bed.  Bob’s snoring came in variants of alto and baritone, and sometimes in little rhythmic puffs. I rested on my back, staring up at the ceiling.  “I’m home,” I whispered. I closed my eyes. “Now what?” I asked.

You will write. And your words will heal you and others.

My stomach turned nervously.  My eyes opened. “What?” I questioned. “Not me.”

We are with you.

I protested with a deep sigh.

You will. We’ll be with you.

So very tired, I retreated under the covers and fell asleep.

In the early hours of morning, before the rooster crowed from the field beyond our property but long after the crickets and toads had stopped their serenading, I dreamed.  The dream was filled with symbolism and meaning.

In my vision a lone oak tree stood stalwartly on a high hill in the shadows of the rising morning sun.  The old tree’s thick branches reached out in all directions, as high and as wide as the eyes could see.  Purple and orange hues filled the sky.  There was a sense of peace and serenity in the air, a feeling that all would turn out as planned. I was filled with peace and a knowing. I was filled with trust and understanding. I saw people gather around the tree, their faces in tears of recognition, their faces smiling in joy. I was no longer alone, and neither were they.

I began writing that day.

Based on True Events

Written by Samantha Craft

Easter 2012

© Everyday Aspergers, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. http://aspergersgirls.wordpress.com