A Name With No Grave

Shall I bury you? 

Or throw your ashes out to sea? 

Would you rest among the wild oaks

Whose branches, like arms, 

Reach for the unseen? 

Where can I take you 

That you can find peace? 

Where shall I carve your name- 

A stone which reads, 

"Here lies my Heart"?

In Praise of Hibernation

Only the first week in February and we haven't had the slightest bid of cold, (read: FREEZING), weather since mid-January. The weather here in southern Virginia seems almost tropical.

Except for today; today it's been rainy and meh. So, Amazonian weather, perhaps?

Anyway. Whatever the weather it is still winter. I've been staying in more and more this year than any other winter before. I'm not entirely sure why, only that my body keeps telling me that I need my rest. Truly the only way to keep me indoors and in solitude is to suddenly be beaten in the head by the sandman. For instance, I slept a solid nine hours last night- followed by a two hour nap.

See what I mean? Crazy, right?

At first I was fighting it all the way. I had plans! There are things to be done! I need to get outsideeee while it's so pretttyy outtt! Whinneee! 

Body: "Hahaha! Uh, no." *THWACK!* "Go back to bed! You need your beauty rest. No, really."

Mind: Whimpers and surrenders.

Hibernation has been good for me in a lot of ways though. I'm reading more books now, which is wonderful since my bookshelves are overflowing with ones I haven't read yet. (I once set a rule that I couldn't buy a new book until I had read one I already owned. Guess how long I stuck to that one? Three days.) 

There has also been a lot of experimental baking and cookery going on in my nest. Gluten/Dairy free popcorn chicken, anyone? (YUM.) 

I haven't been a complete lazy bum. Weekly outings to Zumba class and doing my own weight lifting routine have preventing me from getting "Bear Butt". 

All in all, I kind of love me some hibernation! 

How are you guys holding up through the winter? 

Word for the Year: Real

Alright, alright- I know I'm late for this bandwagon. I've been meaning to write this for a while now, and just haven't had the gumption to do it. So here goes- gumption be damned. 

Most of the lovely bloggers have been talking about finding one word to revolve their year around. I was intrigued by this method last year, but too nervous to test it out. That, and I couldn't for the life of me think of one word to summarize how I wanted my next twelve months to be. 

This year was easier, it came in the form of a quote from one of my favorite childhood books: 

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.

"Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand... once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

I would run across that quote several more times before and after the new year and would always keep it in the back of my mind. Letting it marinade there until it itself became real to me. 

And then I had it. 

Not in the lightning bolt moments that epiphanies sometimes come wrapped in, but in that still, small way. The way in which you least expect it, and then it's there and you wonder why you didn't notice it all along. 

My word for the year is simply: Real. 

Real-ness in all things. Relationships, surroundings, artwork, work-work. Out with old, tarnished beliefs and ways of things that no longer work. In with the true, the knowing, the real. 

The best part of living 'real'? It lasts for always.

Spirituality and Finding the "Just Right"

One thing that I've been coming across a lot in my life recently is the strict notion that an individual can only follow one spiritual path. It's like saying that the only way to get from point A on the map to point B is by taking only one route and one route only. Wouldn't that be terrible? To be squeezed into one, narrow lane of traffic heading in the same direction? Would you get to see anything other than straight ahead? Could you not pull over, have a picnic, get to know the people in the car next to you? I think one way thru life is a terrible waste of time, energy, and creativity. On our part and on the part of any sort of "Maker". 

One way streets are terribly unimaginative. 

I don't think that there are any gods, spirits, beings on the other side having wars and arguments over who exists and who doesn't. I think all the fighting is on our side of the ethereal curtain. And I think it's a shame. No one living person knows enough to say that "THIS is the one path to enlightenment! THIS is the only way to live!" We simply don't. 

"I don't think there is any truth. Only points of view." -- Allen Ginsberg

My problem is not finding something to believe in, but finding something not to believe in. Even now I'm not sure that's much of a problem to be had. I've been a bit like Goldie Locks in my spiritual pursuit. Some practices feel too tight (Southern Baptist), somethings feel too big (Buddhism). Other things feel almost just right, but not enough for me to settle into them like a second skin. 

I've gotten some grief from people who don't quite understand, and that's fine. I don't see how they can't not their comfy theology. To each their own. I believe that it's personally fine to pursue whatever believe one wants, I don't think it's very noble to shove it down somebody elses throat.

"My religion is simple. My religion is kindness."-- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

In my case it comes down to being a lover of stories. All kinds: Myths, legends, miracles, fairy tales- all beautiful stories filled with imaginative divinity! I believe in all of them- I believe in Jesus. And Buddha. And Isis, Athena, Baba Yaga, and Huckleberry Finn. 

I'm certain I'll catch a lot of flack for writing this, and that's perfectly fine. It boils down to this: believe what you know to be true. I will do the same. I will believe in the stories themselves as my own truths: You can't tell me they don't exist.