joy

433: Five Ways

| Aspergers Girls

marcelle in lightFive Ways

1. I recognize that I am okay in who I am and where I am. I recognize I am okay in where I am going. That everything is unfolding as it should. There is no rush. There is no destination. Only now. This moment. This breath. I breathe in the essence of the world. Taking in the ingredients of millions of breathers before me. I am one with the universe and the world is safe.

2. I recognize I am changing every moment. Each thought, each stimulation, each person, each encounter, affects me at a molecular and spiritual level. I am no longer who I am within a second that passes. Beyond change, I am nothing. I am that which transforms and rejuvenates. The entirety of me working together to live and breathe. I am enough in that I am like the all. Interconnected in my being. I exist. And in my existence, I strive. Not for goal or need; yet simply as an intricate and important part of the whole. I am completely renewed each moment I am.

3. I allow myself to experience emotions. As the observer, I step back and watch. I move in recognition. I speak in recognition. I think in recognition. But I do not attempt to control, counter, or interrupt. I allow myself to be as the river, flowing in a natural state along the stream of consciousness. I remove all judgment and unchain the bondage of should, could, and what if. I release the pain and suffering, and breathe in the constant joy. In my silence, I rejuvenate. In my stillness, I grow. In my grief, I embrace opportunity. No emotion is punished. And likewise, I am not chastised for simply being. I am aware. I am continuing to prosper in awareness and recognition. The rest is unnecessary. In awareness all avenues are opened, all veins of love moving at full capacity. I am all that I am and nothing less or more. Nothing is in need of repair or evaluation. All that I am is already enough.

4. I allow myself to feel attached. I am attached to substances, to dreams, to places, to goals. I am attached to others’ evaluations, opinions, emotions, and energy. I am attached to beliefs and perceptions. I am part of the whole, and in being so, I am part of everything. I am attached, yet I do not need to cling to the attachment. In recognizing the attachment, I can watch, as I move in the motion of need and want. I can watch as I cling, and watch as I attempt to let go. I can see myself in tears, in struggle, and in the illusion of triumph. I can glimpse the happiness attached to substance and the sorrow attached to absence. I let the joy move past the now and into eternity. I am neither an empty vessel nor a net that traps. I can hold nothing, as I am already over-filled with love. Everything I am is plenitude and freedom. There is nothing outside of my own understanding of self that can satisfy me. Everything and everyone is fleeting. All that I need is already within. The light of me is serenity, peace, and gratitude. The light of me is complete love.

5. I release fear. Emotions are a part of my being. All emotions are okay. Fear is okay. Fear is my teacher and at times a protector. Fear reminds me of who I am and where I have been. Fear instructs me of the inner workings of my mind. There is a mutual relationship between what I feel as fear and what my body communicates to the whole. Each part of me responds to anxiety and discomfort. Sometimes I sit in pain. Sometimes I rise out of pain. In everything there is release. I am like the seasons, the tides, and the nature of the living world. I bloom and I wither. It is natural and expected. When fear comes I approach him without caution or dread. When fear comes I answer his calling. I welcome his company. I let him move through me, to penetrate my being, to whisper to the rest of what he seeks. And then, in union we release. Together, hand-in-hand, we walk out of the shadow. In the darkness I have learned, and in the light we are formed as one. My friend. My darling companion. In loving him. In loving all in completion, all turns to light.

415: What Happened to Sam?

| Aspergers Girls

awake (painting)

AWAKE Painted today

awake (no time)

What happened to Sam?

Man, I was really missing me, today. It’s a strange sensation, missing the person I used to be. I know I am still me. And I ultimately believe people don’t completely change. But I also strongly know people can transform. I think we are meant to transform. We are meant to become the best we can be. Not in a perfectionistic way or in a people-pleasing way, but in a way that accentuates the positive-ness of our authentic being.

I am a flutter of blossoming self at the moment; no longer clinging to fixations, rapid thinking, complex worries and obsessive anxieties, I find I have an over-abundance of creative juices. To pour out some of my creativity, I started another blog, in which I share my spiritual prose, poetry, writings, and paintings. This has been a fantastic outlet. However I am missing Everyday Aspergers.

Tonight I found myself thinking, “I wish I could write a post on Everyday Aspergers.” I know! Silly, right? But I still have this thing about rules and the ‘right thing’ to do. I have managed to hold onto that Aspie trait rather firmly. I am definitely more lenient on myself and am quite capable of releasing self-judgment; yet, I get caught in this tango of evaluation of the next move without even realizing I have stepped onto the dance floor.

For the most part, I try to live in the moment, now. It is simply AMAZING…there is no other word beyond miracle and healing that I can think of to describe how I have transitioned in the last fourteen months. I owe an abundance of thanks to the readers who helped me find a space to be me.

I realized I died a thousand deaths here…and if not a thousand at least 400. Every time I wrote posts, typically, I was in a state of fear. I was afraid of judgment, of evaluation, of being seen and not being seen, of not being heard. I was longing for validation, friendship, and love. I truly thought I was an unconditional giver and lover—but I know now I had expectations, projected outcomes, and allowed myself to live on a roller coaster of being built up (very fleeting second) or tore down (torturous hours of misery). I dissected comments and instinctually found the tiniest bit of objection, insult, or non-congruency. I was a victim through and through, validating my own need for rejection and super fantastically gifted at highlighting my flaws.

That’s not part of me anymore. I am not easily offended any longer, nor hurt, bothered, brought off-balance, or quick to judge who I am based on another person’s opinion. Swear words don’t even make me quiver! Shit! That’s crazy healing right there.

I quite adore me. I see my ‘faults’ as humanness. I see my ‘gifts’ as part of the All. I fluctuate now between a state of deep inner peace and moments of “Crap; I am in pain.” When I am in physical pain I tend to get melancholic.

I went through a mini-phase of ‘acting’ like a Buddhist, saint, or what-have-you, and telling myself I could NEVER complain or say one ‘negative’ thing. I realized, shortly after this adapted way of ‘being’ that as long as I am human, I will have moments I need to be human. Trying to be otherwise, was plain silliness…and kind of felt self-righteous and spewed of righteous indignation.

I do believe that I attract into my life people and events that are ‘vibrating’ at my energetic level. I believe we all are energy. And I understand that I can still think ‘positive,’ be ‘positive,’ and attract ‘positive,’ even when I am feasibly ‘complaining;’ and even when I think the word ‘positive’ doesn’t exist or have meaning.

I have learned that the intention behind words is what matters—at least to me, and the intention affects the outcomes I readily observe in my life. If my intention is to love unconditionally, to serve, to be compassionate, and to have my life be my message, then when there are times I am struggling emotionally, that’s okay. It allows others to see I know I am human, to connect with my harder moments, and to assist me. I am not above or beyond help or service for me. I don’t want to be. I want to be on equal ground with others. Not some haughty-beyond-all being. And not some pessimistic downer. I like the middle road. I like it a lot.

Interestingly enough, I have been me for a long while now. A couple of months at least. I haven’t taken on any new roles or identities. I haven’t fallen into a new ‘passion’ I have to partake in. I wake up mostly with no plans and no intentions. It is very freeing, just being and allowing myself to be without restriction or expectation. I am finding that the more I treat myself with unconditional love and the more I grant myself freedom, the more others around me feel loved and free. This is a win-win situation.

I giggle and smile a lot now. I am still frank and to the point, but I am much quieter. There is this stillness that feels divine. And I think I am glowing sometimes. The world isn’t so bad when everything and everyone is beautiful, either.

I do miss aspects of ‘Sam.’ I miss her wild humor in which she would ramble on and on, sometimes with no point at all. I miss her brain-energy—the seemingly unlimited ability to write and write about Aspergers. I miss her constant tracking of blog stats, organizing binges, and the way her mind could leap from one cliff to another. I mourn her some. I truly do. Those aspects of self are transformed.

When I was little I would write stories about Clever Clyde the Caterpillar and his best friend Jolie the Butterfly. I always related to Clyde. He was a bit clumsy, shy but dynamic, and always in others’ business. Jolie, to me, was unreachable then. Someone I aspired to be like. Someone I longed to imitate. I think, in many ways Everyday Aspergers was my Clever Clyde, and I think in many ways Clever Clyde the caterpillar became his best friend, the beautiful butterfly.

I am still adjusting to my wings, I think. Still fluttering about. Still gleefully surprised by the glorious colors I be.

angel heart spirit
When I first started painting in the later part of 2012.

Belly of a Star Blog

413: The Silly Bear in No Underwear: Thoughts from the Penguin Matrix

| Aspergers Girls

For Aspie Chicks and other Cool People
(This is PG-rated because mention of penises….followed by outbursts of giggles.)

For those of you who don’t believe me when I tell you I am twelve inside, this ought to do the trick.

I saw a polar bear post a poster on a social network wall; he was all in my face about this and that. About how to talk, and how to think, and what to think. I mean he was acting like he was all that. As if polar bears know how to live!

And all these other polar bears are like: Yes! Oh right on, brother! Yep, you be all on top of that truth!

And me, as penguin, I am thinking none of that seems efficient, accurate, or correct in my bowl of wisdom. But hey, to each his own. But I’d prefer you not shove it in my face you fluffy butt.

I say, as penguin of the matrix: Make your own poster about how to be. Chuck out everything you’ve been told, you’ve learned and registered, and all that you shall be told. Forget the postings that tell you junk about being. You are already in a state of ‘being.’

All those rules and ways and silly fingers (paws) pointing direction don’t show the path to the inner you. And that’s where the true joy is. Right inside of you. Release all that nonsense. The how-to-be’s, the where-to-be’s, the who-to-be-withs. You know who made those rules up to begin with? People. That’s right. Aren’t you a people, ‘cause you certainly ain’t a penguin? Why borrow some other person’s thoughts and ideas, when you are uniquely you? Make your own poster! Then can I borrow it and paste it on polar bear’s face?

And please, please, please: Listen to YOUR inner voice.

I had a friend in high school. Yes, penguins go to school, and she taped up nude men in her clothes closet. Not real men, but cut out men from those ‘dirty’ magazines from the liquor store. She hung them all fancy and organized like, in the way back, where she thought no one with grown up eyes could see. A lot of times most of the body was missing and it was just pin-up-penises. (That was almost the title of this post. But I totally knew those polar bear types would be all over me with their truth-hoods. The wieners.)

We used to be all secret and sneaky and stare at those pinups and giggle. But the truth is naked penises in full color on magazine glossy got kind of boring after a while. Even with the whole mystery of the wardrobe genre thing going on. I mean they did nothing. Not a thing. And I would go home and find much more pleasure in staring at the unicorn posters in my room. At least I could picture those galloping through the magical forest. Penises…not so much.

I know what you’re thinking: I didn’t know penguins liked unicorns! I know. It’s strange but true!

So here’s what I am suggesting, as penguin of the matrix, is to think about these posters in my friend’s closet. A bunch of cut out penises; and think about hanging those inside of you, like as your inner poster child. Does that make sense to you? Well maybe it does… but let’s pretend for a second you aren’t a middle-aged woman laughing at me and embracing the penis poster like last year’s hidden stash of chocolate rediscovered; let’s pretend that your poster ought not be a penis poster. Your poster ought to represent you and no one else’s poster.

Might I suggest to you that when you paste other people’s views of you, news of you, and truth of you inside your mind and heart, it’s like plastering penis posters all over. You are just taking in what someone else chooses to hang up and see. And people generally see what they are! Think about that for a second. That makes them Richard’s nickname, I suppose. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be like a princess or a warrior or a cool ninja-elven dynamo penguin than a penis head.

My point is: BE YOU!

If you want to use penises as an analogy because it’s the first time in your adult life you can type the word without shame, then do it. If writing penis still makes you feel like a blushing teenager secretly staring into your friend’s closet and busting up in pure guilty pleasure, but you do it anyway, then more power to you! If you know that feasibly by writing the word penis over and over that people will judge you, but you know where your heart is and that you are pure and good and kind, then yay you!

I just hope it doesn’t turn out to be like that time I drew penis pictures in sixth grade with the names of one boy I had a crush on and one boy I didn’t have a crush on below the detailed sketchings. Because that note was found and passed around school. And the boy that I didn’t have a crush on, he didn’t much care for the length of my drawing.

I say as penguin of the matrix: Embrace the ‘me’ you call by name. Not me, but the me in you. Not me in you, but you in you…you know what I mean.

Do you have penis envy? Do you want to write penis over and over on a blog post and feel good about yourself, so much that other people’s opinions truly do not affect your inner truth. Then do it!

Embrace that inner you and hug her like she’s the bestest thing ever. Because you know what? She is.

I was on the quest of a middle-aged penguin sworn to metamorphoses into the great beyond of being. I tried it all. Well most of it. Now that I think about it, perhaps I should have done cut out glossies. I have a very long closet.

Meditation, grace, release, prayer, relaxation, connection, nirvana…whatever one wants to label the space of peace…you will find it when you are ready to find it. That’s it. No joke. No mystery.

Truth is, the more you hunt, the more your self hides. Really. It’s when you just stop and rest that the true doe (as in female deer) of you comes out. Before that, sticking with the doe analogy, your self is just kind of frozen with a dumb look on her face thinking: If I am still long enough and don’t move, no one will ever see me!

So here’s your choice. Keep very still to avoid certain death. Or just get the death thing over with. Let yourself be shot, and reshot, and reshot, and reshot. And you know what? Soon you realize that the hunter wasn’t out there to begin with. It was only YOU! And you realize you are far too spectacular to remain frozen in oblivion for all eternity.

Tonight I have an inner penguin. Maybe I am in a letter P mood. And perhaps you have something other than a doe, like a banana slug or sloth. But no matter, when you finally let go of trying to find the inner you; and you stop trying to stop people from hurting you, shaming you, and hanging penis posters inside of you; when you give up all you are and all you have and just be; when you realize this, the IT everyone is talking about is yours! And you shine so dang lovely with all your loveliness that you about melt the ice caps by just being.

Peace is easier than it sounds, and no book, or person, or penguin, self-righteous polar bear, or penis is going to open up the truth for you. (giggles at where your mind is.)

The truth is inside of your heart. You’ve got to dive there. I can’t reach your truth. Only you can. And any penguin or polar bear or weirdo person who thinks he has the key to your inner light and truth, well he ain’t playing with a full deck of sardines.

Just release the quest and trust yourself. You have all you need. Right there. Right inside.

Some people are preaching backwards, and saying just change your thoughts. With your huge gifted brain, telling you to stop your thoughts cold penguin is just plain nutz-o! The thoughts will change when you ARE your inner you. When you reclaim your true beauty. It doesn’t work the other way around. The thoughts stem from you, not the reverse. You are not your thoughts.

So here’s what you do: Ignore polar bear’s preaching, and all the other nutters that have gone and jumped pantless out of the butter and who seem to be streaking their truth across your path, and just giggle at them.

Just laugh and think: There’s another nutter thinks he knows the way, so he’s showing me his way.

And PLEASE laugh at the penguin in me, too. And at the new glossies in my closet.

That silly bear in no underwear! That silly penguin with the penis posters. That’s what you say.

You just shake your head, your mind, and your heart, and you tell yourself, with cute sweet finger pointing to cute sweet you: The truth’s in here sugar bear. The truth’s in here.

***
My New Blog

403: Perpetual Freedom

| Aspergers Girls

Perpetual Freedom

It has been going on several weeks now that I carry with me an inner calm. I have moments of traveling in thought to the past or future, and moments of fear, but when this happens a gentle voice pulls me back to the moment, to the present. I am practicing being in the now continually, and feel a presence about me the full of the day. I have a strong desire to be outside and in nature—to touch nature, to breathe in nature, to be one with the beauty of the world.

Yesterday, I sat outside and imagined the world of trees, how life might be as a tree. I was drawn into the green edges, the outlines, and pulled further in at the imaginary line where the green of the tree meets the blue of the sky. Such a lovely, lovely day it was, the blue of the sky the richest of colors. I sat there, in wonder, my mouth agape at the swirling colors that are between where the tree and sky meet, realizing they don’t actually meet at all, as there is no separation. I watched the beauty, recognizing all that I have been taught in how to see the world is being undone.

So much of who I am is the little child I used to be. Found again is the youthful innocent wisdom; as if effortlessly I’ve opened up a honeypot of yesterdays, all the knowledge I’ve collected through the centuries trickling down upon me. The blunders, the pillaging, the fallings, the woes—all of it pouring through, and with this, the stickiness itself, scouring and collecting the final residue within.

I cannot express this brilliance of being, nor will I attempt to do so. Yet, I have a strong impression I shall never be bored again. All around me the world appears reborn and renewed, and the presents that have always been present at last opened.

I no longer have extreme emotions. I no longer have lingering emotions, indeed. For as soon as they spike in degree, the observer I am, watching this mysterious play of life, steps in and erases the experience with a calmness divine. I now understand in depth most, if not all, of my journey, and am treated to painted images of grace-filled lessons throughout my waking and sleeping hours. There is no heightened need or want, or desire for anything. Outcomes are ceasing to exist. For with the coming of goals, or longing of any magnitude, I slip momentarily back into a state of pain, and recognize readily the need I once had for what would be leads only to the recognition of a finality that no longer exists.

My days are spent in gratitude. Everyone I meet a gift onto self—a self I know less and less about. A self that with each further step released, a new step is found. My need is for naught, my wishes for All. In this I have the calmness and stillness of the pond at the sunrise, the ripples evident of a spring day’s passing of gentleness and of wind asleep. I am the ripples and I am the pond, and all about the pond—the insects, the rocks, even the litter—for all seems purposeful and meaningful, and if not necessary, then accepted.

The calmness exists in my body. My being naturally following the rest. One blended into the next. The sound of hymns, the beauty of art, the eyes of a beloved, the start of a divine dip into nature, all leave me spellbound. Though, equally present. I am child returned onto master, and master retreated into the woods of before. Resting, as higher self, in some greater plane of non-necessity; the once imagined presence less displaced than returned to the phantom warehouse.

I understand why I was the way I was, and in thinking back, I hurt. In that when I travel here or there, or anywhere not directly now, my body is aware of the alignment shifted, and leaps back to the moment with such degree I am bolted or jolted, or at minimum steered with the reminder of what is.

I am at peace when I am not wondering in thought. I am at peace when I connect to what feels as source: a collective rush of pool of nothingness birthed somethingness. I am at peace when the voices I hear, that I have always heard, hush my thoughts to rest with the gentle: shhhhhhhh. I am at peace as the lessons are glided through me, as the gentle wind through the limbs of the willow. How I sway in the knowing, and reclaim my own lovely substance in the submission to the natural flow.

Tomorrow is no longer my concern, and to venture there seems illusion upon illusion. And the past equally thusly so. A past splattered in disarray and guessing, so thoroughly shifted from one reality to the next, that it is but phantom ghost revisited through phantom eyes. The queries of what is or what brings seems little of substance; the questions themselves somewhat wrapped in the outcome of nothing. I bend in this way, to the invisible of invisible, no less certain than determined, no less able than unable.

I am. And that is all. And beyond that, need I be erased, and all my trappings set free, then so be it. For I have collected nothing but imaginings: event upon event of interpretation and judgment.

I have been the scout of fantasy and mistress of pain.

I have placed my needs above All, and then watched as I crumbled in uncertainty and failure.

I have danced to be proclaimed, and then watched as my invisible dust scattered in non-recognition.

I have been this and that a billion times, each effort daunted, each need uncovered and devoured.

All I have been is for naught.

Everything done in an attempt to claim what is un-claimable.

All done in an attempt to unravel a beauty that was long forgotten.

Indeed, I was an empty present, with legs sprouted, and mind controlled, a zombie beyond zombie, unable to feed off of anything beyond the self-invented clinging-self.

I ate away at my own being in an attempt to be loved and cherished.

And here is where the pain came most truly: in the need to circumvent my own life to present myself as worthy.

How silly it seems now, that this distant traveler, brought down from the eons beyond reason, should think herself worthy in her dutiful neediness.

I was but siphon recognizing my invented self in another—all her frailties, her darkness, her unlit ways. I was the judge, the serpent, the demon made ripe, the inventor of my own game, and the gatekeeper to misery. I created a world in which I turned all against the one I be, trapped in a child’s game attempting to create the one I am not, into something grand and distinguishable.

How silly I be; how silly I am. Still clinging to some substance that breathes in the air of thankfulness.

I cannot express in words so limiting, and time so fleeting, how recognizable I am to self. How unrecognizable I am to no-self. How funny I seem in this garment called me, and how equally foolish in my tethered-thinking. To think I could feasibly know anything more than nothing, when I am nothing. I am nothing upon nothing upon nothing. And in this nothing is my perpetual freedom.

400: Entered

| Aspergers Girls

Where you stand, I enter. My sunlight opened in the ray of you. Where you are, I be, nestled between the edges of your making. I am the sugar sprinkled cross the sunrise desert, the frosting dipped beneath and within, yellow-dancing in the outskirts of my thoughts. Where I travel, you are, carried upon my shoulders, the lightest of feathers, blanketing me, my shield of angels splendor. I spin, come round each wake, reborn in your giving and eternal goodness. I rise; the angelic force instilled gently like the wind through the meadow spring. I bubble and wrap in the bluest-blue, the stillness awoken in your cleansing waters.

Where you stand, I enter. My darling lover of the fallen night, the darkness dripped away as canvas cleansed with the brushes wet; each color washed over with newness and new day. A caravan of awakening upon awakening, surprises always there but never seen. You move, and I follow, the drapery of your kindness a trail of delight, smoothing past the garden’s gaiety as candle wax of brevity. I drip, you drip. I bleed, you bleed. Connected we are in the tumbling of my being. Unspun and rewoven into the kaleidoscope of me within me, the light swollen as the woman with child, birthing and rebirthing the newfound hope.

Where you stand, I enter. I glide, the child on your coattail, following a form I neither see nor want, but desire, my rain to the petal wept, my seed to the fallen bird. I soar, the embers of my mind cascading down to the soil of naught, and slipping into the oceans that be, sailing once and then again, into the mystery of time. Sprouting in the eternalness of river led to mouth, and mouth led to sky. I am this. I am this drumbeat of the earth, the willow tree that touches down in gratitude and meets the tender grasses with her open hands. I am this. The weathered-breast of soldier fought, bowing down in remission and remembrance to echoes of the battlefield. I have retreated to the highest ground that leads to nowhere but to thy very self. And here, in the chambers still, I watch, my eyes as falcon born, dreaming of the ways I traveled. For I am dreamer yet, trapped in the window of my memory.

Where you stand, I enter. I hear you as I hear my very voice. The rhythm feeds my withered bones, the dauntless eyes erased, the gauntlets tossed empty. Here is where I sparkle, my soul leaped forward from the place of behind to the place of entrance. Here where I stand, you enter, taking my tethered thoughts and bleeding them out to the world. My sacrifice, your sacrifice. My heart, your heart. My enemy made clear in the taking of circumstance of my liking, when bitter liking it be. And thusly, I am sweetened, made as bread to the master, ripened in the cream and butter nut of goodness. So that when I look upon the thoughts that were, I see the emptiness of cause, the fawning ways in which I walked. How with danger I froze, the deer-dove I was, with wings of no service in the state of fear.

Where you stand, I enter. I know not what I do or what I do, who I am or what I be. I know nothing of your kindness or your glory. I know not face or name of maker. I know not if exist exists. And in this I know not if my voice is but rising to thy very own chambers of light and there made feed for the mass of me. None other but I, listening to the merry voice of reason lost. No more than this, my empty vessels feeding upon the nibbles of hope. Yet, here I rest, in the serenity of uncertainty. For no matter the form, or shape, or even the distance from the dwelling to the home of home, if I be not home already, then the waiting is of peace. The waiting is of necessity lost and freedom found. I care not what you be or how you be, or what layman’s ways I set upon your threshold, for it matters not to me the way in which you came, only that you entered so.