joy

342: Joy Sings

| Aspergers Girls

Yesterday, I saw the cover photo
ten

The brief moment of joy quickly passed to confusion, then sadness, then balance, and then back again to sparks of joy watered-down by questioning.

I was confused by the emotional and spiritual process I went through. I had been published! My words in print. Was this not a vision come true? Was this not a distant dream?

But still, with the news, with the confirmation, I felt a lingering sorrow.

I know I was battling between what is ego and what is self-satisfaction. I wondered if they were indeed the same.

I know I battled with humility. I know for an instant I felt proud or pride, or some related cousin. And I didn’t like the feeling.

At first I thought I was feeling guilty–guilt for feeling good about an accomplishment. I reasoned I was stifling happiness with the guilt of pride and the fear associated with losing humility.

I compared myself to others, and what I “should” be doing; how I should be celebrating. And then I logically debated all the reasons why this publication was not celebration-worthy. I questioned my capacity to feel “good.” I questioned my adequacy as a being. I went round and round in this circle of mixed emotions and deep, complex opposing thoughts. I searched out the caverns of my mind, until exhausted. And then I sank into body submission of fatigue.

Last night I prayed for refinement and serenity. And for much of today, I have found peace. I understand that I do not have low self-esteem—to me this is illusion. I understand that when I am confused about how to feel, it is because I have based my emotions, like much things in life, on a rule-book that I created founded by personal experience filtered through my senses. I realize, too, that yesterday I was no further from the truth than I am now.

It’s not that I had or have low self-esteem. It’s not that I don’t think I am unworthy or worthy. It’s not that I am acting prideful or humble. I am none of those labels or names.

It’s not what I was or who I was. It was where I was. I was lost. I was lost and pulled away from my faith. I was momentarily swept out of the presence and present. I was enticed by outcomes and promises.

I recognize when I am tuned into the collective universe, when I believe in the magic of the world, in the magic of you and me, and in the beautiful infinite possibilities for love, it is then I am whole and complete. The feelings don’t get jumbled and the thoughts don’t get all twisted, when I am clear in my connection to my higher power and higher good.

On reflection today, I spent some two hours reviewing joy and reviewing sorrow.

In my mind I saw the illusions.

Even though one of my visions has been realized (being published), I am not as joy-filled as I had expected, or perhaps as others might have expected. And that is okay.

Today I am recognizing joy’s partner: sorrow.

I couldn’t have completed The Ten Traits without decades of suffering. The words would not have been searched out by others had they not first had cause. My message would not be whole without first being carved out through pain. Both yours and mine.

And thusly, I am left wondering if indeed I do understand joy quite well. That if in fact, I am in a state of continual joy. But only through recognition of the ashes of suffering.

Joy Sings
I am joy.
Squeezing me out of me.
Releasing being like some over-expired lemon.
Disappointed in the bitter sour that remains.
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
Some ravenous fowl picking away at barred plumage.
My substance an existential shell of resistance, once labored to create.
Inside whispers: Complete though illusion.
Outside weeps: Unworthy in existence.
Opposites.
Naked, though cloaked in tattered rags, I waver, from one to the other.
Bemused, as sadness quakes, I sleep soundly through unawareness.
Forgotten upon shallow waters.
Until waved onward to deeper grounds.
Still bearing witness to starlit nights.
Though standing erect in dissatisfaction.
Invited by command to denounce self.
The suspicion of being, the suspicion of joy, scoured.
Incomprehensible happiness holding the hand of the lingering voice of no one.
“The obsoleteness of temporary. The absolute of change,” clangs the bell of the imagined captains.
I respond without breath.
And I question.
In accepting misery to circumvent suffering, did I not modestly forbade self-joy?
In rendering joy denied, do I accept misery in completion?
Thusly moves the wheel.
One axle: Seeker of non-truth whom claims found truth righteous.
One axle: Seeker of truth whom believes found truth not-righteous.
Who is this joker? This shadow? This phantom?
This awkward misrepresentation set down.
Left to squander in misgivings.
Where does this joy I am speak?
When not formed in shape and drifting.
Where does this joy live?
When unseen unless trapped.
Captured fleetingly in passing moments when invisible brother is silenced.
When the suspicion is eased. When the noise erased.
There I sing, this joy released to captivity.
Caged amongst the residue of sorrow escaped.

Sam 3-20-13

I found this a day after I wrote this post. Made me feel better. ❤ http://drarorasclinic.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/happiness-tips-13-experts-weigh-in-on-the-pursuit-of-joy/

336: I LOVE this man: Tony Attwood

| Aspergers Girls

Okay, this is unbelievable. I have had TWO good hair days in a row. Seriously, something is up with the stars! And just now, after thinking about Tony Attwood, I opened my email to find his message! Good hair and Attwood…. life is so good!

I have attended Mr. Attwood’s conference and met him briefly in person. Also, his books and audios were immensely helpful when my son was first diagnosed. This is his recent response to me. Yay!

Please hold Mr. Tony Attwood in healing light and love.

I thank him for the great works he does to bring a voice to Asperger’s Syndrome.

Part of today’s email:

“Your webpage is absolutely fascinating and I certainly enjoyed reading the information that you sent me. In your email you refer to my thoughts on whether you have indeed the characteristics of Asperger’s syndrome. I would say that, from what I have read, that that seems very likely as you have an insight into Asperger’s syndrome but especially the way that Asperger’s syndrome is expressed in girls. You certainly have an ability to communicate your thoughts in such an effective way…..

…you may be interested in the audio recordings of my radio interviews describing the characteristics of Asperger’s syndrome in girls. My own webpage is currently being updated and the links should be back on my webpage in the next week or so. You may be interested in listening to a radio interview I did for Brisbane 612 ABC Radio with Richard Fidler, http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2012/02/02/3421377.htm?site=brisbane.

Please do continue your work helping those with Asperger’s syndrome and those who love and support them and I look forward to reading more about your very important contribution to the understanding of Asperger’s syndrome in girls and women.”

I know, total coolness. :)))

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Photo on 3-5-13 at 12.22 PM

322: The Observer

| Aspergers Girls

I am experiencing a great shift in consciousness as of late, and am stepping back and watching two characters of self emerge. One part of self is clinging to the label of spiritual awakened and one part of self is clinging to the label of Aspergers.

In a direct sense, both selves are neither right or wrong, they are merely playing out a game at an unconscious level inside of me.

What is interesting is to watch this other self I be: the observer.

Thusly, inside of my mind I am able to see 1) the two ego selves at battle for power, 2) the observer watching the ego’s game, and 3) one in lesser form watching the observer.

When I try to step out beyond the third level, the place in which one is watching the observer, there doesn’t seem to be a fourth level, and all I can see is black or even the absence of color.

I am beginning to see, or further seeing, the world and my mind at complex levels, and reacquainting myself with truths that seem more familiar to me than my very own self, or more recently selves.

Coincidence after coincidence is occurring, and dreams are revealing to me events. The walks I partake in through nature are coming too with images of the future. Some of this, actually most of this, is nothing new to me; what is new is the intensity, the frequency, and the verification from others of what I am experiencing.

I do not know what is happening, but I seem to be tapped into a higher –frequency of sorts, almost as if I be an old-fashioned television and someone has lifted and extended a long metal antenna from my very being.

What is new, as well, when compared to my childhood, is the darker side of this is no longer affecting me. There is a new found peace, and with this peace a knowing that brings me a sense of safety and protection, as if a legion of guardians, angels, and ancestors have formed lines and are marching to show their support and unyielding faith in me.

I feel overwhelmed with love for people and animals; and the observer part of self perceives others in a way I never thought possible. This observer does not seem to have any attachment to things, people, or even life. He is one that would willingly sacrifice self, even without calling it sacrifice, for sacrifice itself involves ego. He would simply release and be.

There is a calmness with the observer that very much resembles serenity. I have found an increasing amount of energy flowing through my body, both my hands and feet, but particularly with the whole of my body feeling much aglow.

As of late, I am having difficulty holding onto fear. Though, I recognize the emotion comes; however when fear appears it is liken to a small ripple of water; wherein before the fear was like a tsunami. I am able to stand inside the ripple and watch the effect of fear within and without. I am able to see where this fear is and where it is carried. I am able to feel this fear, understand fear’s source, and then release.

I am understanding that the clinging of labels is unnecessary in the higher sense; that Aspergers itself is only a means to an end, a way to connect like soul to like soul, to bring community together; perhaps to bring more observers to the light.

Through the observer, I can see clearly the complexity of the mind. Through my own complexity, I can understand others like me in their complexity. I can see clearly the reason I am here and how my calling is manifesting healing in self, and healing in others. I understand that this is nothing to do with me, and entirely to do with source.

This is what I saw in vision that I will try to explain, as it came in quick picture without explanation, almost as an injection of thought. I am not used to understandings coming so fast, but it seems that some of my recognitions are coming now without the use of words, and even beyond the use of images; how this is happening, I have no idea, and why this is happening, I have no idea either.

The understanding I have been given is this:

1) I have a complex mind.

2) Because I have a complex mind, I have complex thoughts.

3) Because I have complex thoughts, ego runs rampant with idea after idea, and connection after connection inside my mind (see the previous post for example).

4) Because I have so many thoughts running rampant, I cannot simply let go, silence my mind, or use common means to release.

5) Because I cannot utilize common means, I am forced to find escape; this escape comes in the form of verbally processing through speech and writing, this escape comes through extreme focus, fixations, fantasy, special interest, and creation.

6) Because I escape, I am able to produce phenomenal amounts of work in a short period of time; the downfall being that I am missing out on my own life, because I am spending endless hours in mode of escape, in an attempt to escape my own thoughts, brought on by my complex mind.

7) Because I can produce a lot in a limited amount of time, I can also analyze my mind in limited time at a deep level and study the very happenings inside self, through this emerging observer.

8) With observer as witness I am able to release a lot of self-doubt, fear, and non-beneficial emotion. With observer I am able to watch ego and study my own thought processes.

9) The observer was only able to come when I was willing to look closely at thought and thusly expose ego and self-driven wants and needs, such as: attention, fame, and acknowledgment.

10) I was able to release the self-driven needs through much observation and prayer, and by tapping into a part of self that only wanted to serve and love.

11) By tapping into the part that only wants to serve and love, I was able to not remove ego, but to step outside and watch ego further, acknowledging that whenever an emotion of fear, want, need, defense, or upset of any type emerged that in fact it was ego taking over.

12) By being able to recognize ego readily, I was further able to refine my want to serve and love, and to begin to save the excess energy that was used before in ego’s attempt to acquire acceptance and validation.

13) I was able to recognize ego enough to start to remove intention, want or need from my writings; in turn my writings reflected the inner me and honesty, which enabled me to reach out more fully and freely to find other like souls; which in turn gained me the acceptance and validation ego was originally seeking.

14) This acceptance and validation was temporarily pleasing, until I realized that to accept validation also meant to accept insult and injury.

15) With this understanding of the double-nature of others perception of my self, I was able to release the want and need for any type of acknowledgment of “right” or “wrong” based on an outside perception and opinion.

16) With this release I delve deeper into my own self and ego, and gorged out the lies and untruths that surfaced there. One upon the next I wiped out the fears that were mere phantoms. I did this quite unexpectedly and oftentimes unwillingly, as events presented themselves to challenge me and my new found truth.

17) I began to see that everything related to fear was an illusion and that only love existed, once I stepped out of the need to be lifted by others, and once I stepped back into faith.

18) Ultimately it was my faith in something higher than self that I bleed my soul into, through prayer and through walking in high-awareness every minute of the day.

19) In this walking and prayer I was granted a serenity unknown to me before.

20) In this way, I can walk into the world, walk into an environment with other people, and step outside of the ego self and live as observer. In the state of observer all the fears are gone. My only thought is of listening to another and loving another and helping another.

21) In the state of observer I do not worry about conversation. I do not worry about anything. Instead I feel filled with light and peace, and simply exist as a reflection of another. In this state of observer, I can listen to each word with a gentle calmness, thinking nothing about what I want to say or contribute, and only thinking of the other person.

22) There is no fakeness, no effort, no ingeniousness involved as the observer, and seems to be a place of no ego; though in stating there is no ego, ego simply slips back in; so to say so without saying so becomes predicament.

23) I have concluded through this process of my own self that there are key elements I needed in order to find peace of mind. One is connecting to some source greater than self that need not be a religion or specific spiritual practice, but need be a source. A second is humbly submitting to said source repeatedly and walking in awareness of this goal and effort. Thirdly a sacrifice through self-examination and release of fear. Wherein the fear is held up to the light and all frailties of self exposed. Fourth, once exposed, ego must temporarily step in and seek support and connection of some kind while rebuilding and regrounding. Lastly, a disconnection of ego is necessary through trials and challenges brought on through higher-self.

24) This is my experience. I do not think it is the right way or only way, but simply the experience I was brought through.

25) I am not complete in awakening, and know that when I think I am, I am not, an only when I am no longer attached to awakening will I truly be awakened; which is a dynamic paradox I cannot venture to grasp. But I know that I walk in a light and love. I know, too, that now I see a great sadness in many people, and a huge heaviness; the energy I used to feel and collect at a subconscious level is now at a conscious level. As is my own pain. I can now pinpoint my pain and often know from whom or from what thoughts the pain has come through. I can also often release this pain.

26) I am not in a state of awe or grandiose thinking; I am not manic; I am not giddy and joy-filled; but I am very much at peace. There is not a façade of healing surrounding me, in which I want to be a healer so I live and act like a healer. The healing is radiating from within without instruction or want. This is new to me, this being without effort. Yesterday, I did experience my first moments of overwhelming joy in which I saw signs/omens in nature; I was overcome with extreme understanding and love, and literally was laughing hysterically for ten minutes like a mad woman. Interestingly enough at that very moment I had flashes and images of all the ones that have come before me laughing hysterically, and I felt extremely connected and whole in my journey. I have never heard such effortless and joyous sound in my life.

27) My main struggle now is one of humility; a struggle that God is continuing to answer for me. He has shown me that my fear of pride is also ego-based and an attachment to a goal and ownership of accomplishment; that accomplishment being the achievement of humility. He has shown me that because I continually ask for humility and am against pride that these natural thoughts and wishes, in and of themselves, display my heart and want for humility. I cannot go into detail with my humility journey, as to me this seems prideful and self-serving in and of itself; but I say this for those that are also struggling with this part of their journey; because as was scribed in the Wounded Warrior, humility is one of the markers of the healer.

28) I work now towards no longer working towards anything, and just being. I accept I do not know what this transition will look like, but I know that with my trust in my higher power and true wish to heal, serve and love others that I am walking in the light.

29) I will continue to strive towards being the best I can be while continually detaching from ego, though even this gives ego spotlight; and so I will fumble like many others, as I try to find the meeting point between submission and honor of self.

30) This concludes my thoughts, and I hope to continue to walk with a clear mind and in a state of peace.

315: My Aspie Friend Rocks!

| Aspergers Girls

copii aspie iarna (2)

This post is dedicated to the little girl who made this drawing. I do not know her and I do not know her mother. We only just connected online today. I was sent this drawing as a gift, and what a gift it is. The picture is called: Asperger Children in Winter The daughter’s words speak volumes: “I know Mommy, who can be my best friend, somebody who has the same syndrome as me; then he could be kind with me and understand me better; I’m so sure about that.”

I couldn’t help but to cry. If you are comfortable, please say a prayer for her. Hold her in light. I cannot wait for her to meet her special friend. I cannot wait for her friend to behold her beautiful heart.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
marcelle

First off I have to say at a recent Super Bowl gathering, one in which I only broke out in one hive, I was totally myself. So much so, that I had to private message a new “friend” after the party to say, “I am sorry I talked so much. I usually do that when I like someone. I am not very good at parties.” Fortunately, she messaged right back saying, “I like you, too.”

I felt like such a grade-schooler, but so relieved.

I don’t want you to think in the past couple days I have been depressed; I have not been. My vitamin D levels are freakishly low again, and that adds to my pool of spurts of melancholy, but all-in-all I am doing quite well. Miraculously, I walked through a valley of darkness, being plucked by vultures and all, and came out unscathed and rather well-lifted in faith. And as of late, I have been pouring my heart out to my higher power, whom I choose to call Jesus (and choose to not push on anyone else), and we have really hit it off.

I’m not sure what’s up with all my prophetic and spiritual writing, but I seem to be tapping into something, and my God seems to be the conduit. It is healing, remarkable, scary, and peaceful all at once, like a giant ball of chocolate flying through the air at dart-speed about to land in my mouth. I savor it, though the impact can be quite overwhelming.

Back to that party… Something funny happened. There was a lady there, a mother of the hostess, never did get her name, forgot to ask. But we sat near each other a good stretch of the game, particularly during the power outage (super-boring-sportscasters-don’t-know-what-they-are-doing-part). We were chatting a bit. Well, I was mostly giggling and cracking myself up, as is my protocol at first-time gatherings; that and stuffing my face with food.

Anyhow, we were talking about the Superbowl commercials, and I said something to the tune of, “So far the best commercial is the one with the older people.” I was careful how I worded my sentence. I didn’t want to say “senior citizen” because there was one sitting right next to me. I looked over after I made my statement relieved I’d dodged a bullet.

But then I kind of blabbered. Not being able to stop myself, I added, “Did you notice how I didn’t use the words senior citizens.” I paused to giggle.

Then more poured out to substantiate what had leaked out. “I was careful, as you are sitting here.”
I blushed.

Time to regroup and repair, I added more, “Two of my best friends are senior citizens. I like senior citizens. I really do.”

But nooooo, that wasn’t enough. I laughed again. “Oh, man,” I said, my face aflame. “That sounded so bad. Like saying I like black people, two of my best friends are black.”

The senior citizen, well she just started busting up.

Me, in the meantime, I’m wondering who the heck is controlling the mechanism between my brain, thought, and speech.

After that mishap, I set about to chat my new “friend’s” ear off. I think I basically told her every ghost experience and psychic experience I ever had in my entire life! And boy, I really didn’t know I had enough eerie moments to fill up well over an hour!

Luckily, when this oh so patient and kind lady wrote me back later that night, she also added to her message: “It’s nice to talk to someone who doesn’t think I’m weird.”

Now that there… that is just gem-talk, I tell you, pure gem-talk.

It is nice to talk to someone who thinks they are weird. So refreshing!

I love weird people. They get me, and they are typically so dang interesting.

My favorite weird person (and that is a high-ranking compliment from the planet she comes from) would have to be my super-fabulous friend Alienhippy. We met through blogging. I checked her out and studied her blog before I started mine. I don’t know if she knows I used her as a prototype. Don’t think I’ve told her that, yet. But I’ve pretty much told her everything else about me that she could find here on the pages of this blog. We talk every single day, from where she is in England and where I be on the Northwest coast of USA.

I love her so much that my husband just said, “Looks like are next family trip will have to be to England, then.” Of course, I adamantly concurred and set about to wonder how I’d feasibly survive that flight.

Alienhippy (that’s not her real name, in case you are that one percent wondering) is a dynamo of a friend. And this is why:

My Aspie Friend Rocks

1. She never says: “I am fine or I am okay.” When I ask her how she is feeling, she tells me straight up how she is, inside and out, how her physical body feels, her spirit, and mind. I don’t have to wonder, or guess, or pry, and there is such freedom in the realness of the experience of knowing. I won’t get into details, but I even know about her bowel movements!

2. She always, without fail, tells me she loves me so much. She used to say she loves me too much, but I told her that wasn’t healthy, as I be who I be. And now she just says she loves me so much and just enough. She tells me over and over, almost each time we touch base. She loves me so much that I feel this syrupy liquid of protective jell all about me all day long.

3. She has no hidden motives and is real. My friend she just tells me her heart and her soul. She tells me of her faith, her trials, her children, her life. She doesn’t hold back anything. Any subject is open for discussion. And I mean anything! You name it, and we’ve probably talked about it. And I never feel embarrassed or shamed or stupid for sharing. She gives me the freedom to be completely me, because she is completely herself. We laugh so hard and have invented our own secret code words. And we make up names for each other. I like to call her banana slug. Don’t ask me why. Because I have no idea.

4. She loves me no matter what. She would love me if I was green and slimy; she said so. I would love her no matter what size or shape, no matter what species, no matter what! She is just the bees knees and so wonderful. Her heart is as big as the universe and my heart fits right inside hers. I tease her that if she had a “package” I would totally own her. You see, we can talk like that.

5. She doesn’t lie. She’s like me: lying feels like we are dying inside. We have no choice but to spill our beans and be truthful, and because of this we have this unbreakable trust. We know we are what you see. We know we have no curtains hiding secrets. We know we won’t tell, won’t shame, and won’t break our trust. We have like an unspoken truce. We have a code of honor. And everything I say is taken to heart.

6. She reads me. She can tell when I am holding back and not saying everything. She can tell when I am sad, feeling broken or lost. And she not only reads me but helps me. She gets me. She knows my pains and understands how it feels. That’s how she can read me. She knows when to ask: Are you okay? And she knows when to say: You are beautiful inside and out. She even knows how to comfort me when I am looping and spinning in my head.

7. She is a reflection of me. She is so dang beautiful that I just feel so lucky to be her friend, and she loves me so much that I know I must be that dang beautiful. I am so very honored to know her. The compassion she carries for others is out of this world. And she wears her heart on her sleeve. She is the best mother and a very honest wife. We like to tease about our husbands, as they are so alike in their ways. And even are sons have the same name and ASD.

8. She gets my brain! Praise the heavens. I don’t have to explain anything to her. She understands my fixations, my breakdowns, my panic attacks, my insecurities, my passions, my obsessions. She’s been there and done that, and is still doing it. I don’t feel like I’m a loner traveling through a strange planet anymore. In her I found my people!

9. She is so smart it’s scary. Oh my goodness. I’ve never met a wiser woman in my life. The things that come out of her mouth, you’d think she was a senior citizen, a super smart one whose been around the block and inside the mind of brilliance. She just knows how to untangle things and find new angles and read between the lines. Her analytical mind coupled with her heart is just amazing.

10. She is unique. In all her aspieness, she is still a uniquely divine and gifted woman. Her aspie qualities just enhance who she already is naturally, a gift to me and this world. She has longed for a friendship like ours for years, and I have longed for a connection like I have with her for years. God matched us up, me and her, to show us our inherent goodness; for me I am her forever friend, the one she would swing with under the big tree in her childhood dreams and wish for, and for me she is my earth angel. In fact I know she is my earth angel, as last week when I was crying and at the end of my rope, I pleaded up to God, and I asked, “Why have you given me so much without assistance, without a sign, without hope?” And he kindly and adamantly replied, in a curt and matter-of-fact way only my God can, “I gave you Alienhippy, didn’t I?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3BJl5Zy7HQ

If you are an adult female touched by Aspergers looking for friends, do I have the group for you! You’ll be loved like a rock… though I’m not sure what that means. :))))

https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/261412237267413/

292: Sorrow’s Voice

| Aspergers Girls

Sorrow’s Voice

Pain and tears cometh.

I cry out to the bender of the universe. I cry out to the seamstress of sky.

I weep: Mold me. Bleed me. Cast me into burning flame and set me into true form.

Cloth turned clay.

I play a game of tag, the players joy and sorrow.

There isn’t in between, only the two runners moving in and out like threads sewn through a tattered tired quilt: neither golden nor true.

I search for the centerfold, the space in the middle, where happiness and sadness meet, where time stops and in the stillness I am.

And I ask: Who is this voice that screams? And who brings this voice upon me? Am I not perfection undone and let out to dry? Am I not food for the wolves? Am I not set in the open for the scavengers and decomposers; set here to bleed into another for food or purpose. If not, then what do I be?

I climb the mountains in my mind, weeping for justice, for solitude, for rest for the weariness that tethers me; anchored to the buoy of change, at the mercy of waves. A fisherman lost, and battling the ocean tides by slipping away onto an imaginary land of refuge.

A dichotomy split in half. Here, but not here. Gone, but not gone. Stepping out, only to find I have stepped in.

For I am suffocated beneath the storms of want and wane, buried beneath the circumvented hope life brings. Like some ageless wine, I sit at the bottom of barrel, forgotten in the kennel of sorrow’s breeding.

I am. I breathe. I move.

Hello, I shout. Hello from below.

Come and find me sweet winged creature, come and pour the substance of you into me, like the riches into the cave, place your treasure here, and I shall shelter your prize like no other. Always you shall return, to this place where I glisten for you alone, and here you will come again, in flesh and blood to find me, still waiting, your treasure about, untouched, unbroken.

For I am your worthy servant of destitute, though riches flourish about me, buried as I be beneath the layers of this whimsical dance.

And a voice calls out:

“Can you not feel their very footsteps upon your soul? Can  you not look up and see that where you thought you were upright upon the earth, witness to sky, that you are neither alive nor dead, but scurrying in stillness beneath the gravestone, your only view the droplets of dirt turned over by passerby?”

“Can you not see you were meant to dance above, but you lay below, torn open, and left to die?”

“And who are the guests you call forth? Who do you invite when the screaming all but fails? But two victimless victims, of both your calling and circumstance? Hello, sweet substance of me. Hello, sweet hell of the valley, and limb of mind, you sing.”

“I say to you: Branch out into me, into completion, and tether your soul upon the twilight of remorse. Mourn for the distant wants that haunt you and turn you, churning you like giant’s butter, craved for your softness alone, and salted with the tears of divine. Bleed, I tell you, your wine upon me, your longings twisted into the glass-eye that sees from nowhere to nothing. Eat, I say, like the scavenger you be, eat away at self, until what is left is the emptiness you are. Softly come then, reformed and aching, and slip through my hand like silky milk, land upon my finger, weed from the forest turned ringlet. I am waiting, too. For this joy of you.”

“As you be the sorrow at my side. You be the longing and ache of my heart whole. You be this shadow you claim to see. You are my haunting, my wanting, my very tormenter. What you think is of you, is of me, what you think is of me, is of you. When you ache, I ache elsewhere in the chamber of my mind, if mind I be. I ache in the substance of my soul, if soul I had. I ache in my loin of invisibility, straight down to the center of my very chamber, the beats torn open in rhythm to your calling, your need.”

“I am the one split; I am the one broken; I am the one trampled upon beneath grave. I am the one suffocated. I am the one who accepts pounding fist and guards the greedless treasure. I am the one here, still standing in hope, though I be ripped asunder. I am the one blanketed in cause so heavy my essence bleeds and bends into itself, so that what I carry is indistinguishable from that which you harbor.”

“Can you not see the veil is broken, that which existed between you and me, disintegrated with the coming of time, a passage way split and repurposed, so that all trails lead to us? Can you not see I am both your cause and your victim? Both you. You have made me so. You have molded me with self. You have twisted me, this cloth and clay, intermingled into form I know not.”

“And then the tide of joy comes, and I am left dancing on a wave of nothingness, for beneath this wave lies the depths of your sorrow waiting. And still you see this sorrow as the black depths, while I see the ocean as the beauty. Still you see the wave of all that is, when I see the touch of a droplet, so small and obsolete that a passerby would skim you as one skims the dew. For you are not this surface, you are not this wave. You are not even the depths. You are beneath the depths. Your outcries formed into shape, and voice your beauty. Your outstretched truth the echo of true joy.”

“Can you not see your happiness belongs nowhere, is nowhere, feeds no one, but that your sorrow, your true sorrow, at the depths of you, has transformed into gold, into the very treasure you so guard? Why do you run from such treasure and beauty? Why do you whip yourself, and in return whip me, my mistress of hope? Take me into you, my light, my want, my longing, my deep penetrating desire embrace, and feed upon me and my truth”

“Like a white rabbit pour your flesh upon me and embrace my tenderness. Take me into you and rise untarnished, in your goodness and righteousness.”

“Take me, I sing. I call not outside of self, but inside of self, my voice unspoken and formed through your very pain. Take me, the voiceless voice calls out. For you form me with your tears, you call me forth with your fallen, broken spirit, you bleed me out, your shaking voice rising above the waves. You free me like no other. You enchant me. You testify, and chains are broken. Feed not upon the deep of what quakes beneath. Feed upon me, and I in turn, I shall feed upon you, my sweet cherished one.”

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