spiritual

375: Dark Virtues

| Aspergers Girls

Knock, knock, knock: This is judgment, I appear at your door, turning the knob, and begging you so. Come take me, release me, contour your edges into me; through your threshold bring me forward, that I may dance in your own silhouette and teach you of your great imperfection.

Oh, dear judgment, I see you, I recognize you, and I embrace you; come hither and dance in my bedsheets of imperfection. Penetrate me with your disillusioned skill, for I see your shape, pure disguise, a mask of humiliation set to place on my presentation. I know you well, the way you drive like screw into the bare parchment of my soul. Come here, closer, and delve into me and you shall find pureness and love and rapture. I am nothing of this calamity you claim, nothing of this disapproval or blasphemy. Smear my very name across your bedskirts, wind me round the posts, trumpet my calling of failure across the curtains billowed, out into the open free air. For I have dived into my deepest soul and found what lies there, a truth beyond this illusion you carry, in the creases of your darkening cloak. You cannot scour me with your lies or misgivings, as I banish them out with the same plate as fear. Feed you to the masses of angels readily waiting with appetite fierce to turn miserly offerings into blessings abundant. I hear you, I feel you, I take you fully, your bride-mistress, and here I sink my teeth into and divide you into smitherings; nothing but vanishing truths slithering away to the aforementioned hole in which you slithered from. I am higher than the serpent tongue with God’s grace at my glorious side, and your ways no longer tempt me; even as you breathe heavily into my ear, whispering of your knowing. For I know the truth of me, the light, the realism of fortitude, the castle rendering me angel in the heart. So go, my love, if I may call you so, leaving the residue of your scattered goodness, the crumbly truffles of reprieve and reflection in the trail of your lost dignity. Here I shall meander and nibble, eating of the limbs of you, the humility of resurrection. Treat me not to your judgment, oh unraveled one, for there is nothing in my ability that cannot devour you rightly so, and leave you shaking, the helpless shadow you be.

Knock, knock, knock: This is pride, I nibble at your doorstep, anchoring your goodness in my arms, rocking you like babe to chest, my precious adored one. How special you be, how singled out, how entirely worthy of my praise and gratitude. You are like kindle to my black-heart’s fire, though dead I be, you liven me with your coming.

Oh, dear pride, tisk, tisk, tisk, my precious one. How merrily you wait upon my stepping stones, waiting for the appearance of my smile. Do you not know that upon entering, I shall, like the visitors before and after, devour you in my sweetness? Your poisonous ways cannot beseech me. I see through you as the clear night sky to the endless stars. I see you in the ebony of my master’s eyes. His way, His gaze, His blessing set upon me through His gentle watching. You cannot abode me in your phantom glory, for you are no lesser or greater than the trespasser dressed in borrowed belongings, garbed in riches and dreams that do not beget me and fit me less than the horns upon the ram righteous and strong. I cannot lean into you, no less, less you jam into me first, and inject me with your venom pure, forge me onward for the coming of His name. For I know not how to go round you, evade you, or leave your plentiful sight without first taking you fully into me, and letting you bend in my very blood, your harboring devilish ways. Eat at me from the inside out and I shall ache and wane in the misery, knowing that when you rise again, less fed than drowned in my goodness, that I shall be the one victorious, claiming your opportunity vanquished and wiped out with the faith of my Lord. For you are but nothing, this glamorous foe, fooled by your own malice making. So come, come now, sweet cavernous pride, and ride me as the black rides the night, and I shall set my shining soul upon your stale skin and reach into the very heart of yours, pull out the tentacles and claim you naught. For you, above all, are illusion set out to cast the demon from my very mind, and spark him life. And for this I give you recourse, for this I give you your own filthy ways, a tar pit of mercy, for you to sink and harbor thusly in.

Knock, knock, knock: This is fame, sleeping at your staircase, my eyes set on the glory of your coming, my head set at your feet, bowing down in recognition of your name. Climb down the spiraling heights of you, and play with me, in your magnificence, so I may kiss this beauty known as you.

Oh, dear fame, I am coming. I hear you calling, but I rise up from the depths of you, neither ascending nor descending, but appearing as your equal. I carry nothing of the glory and gifts you speak or imagine, and nothing of me remains in the sight of you. For to see myself as lowly creature risen, I must see you as risen creature lowered. And still, as little and feeble as you be, I am no less worthy than the weakest that treads. And so I sit here at your own feet, imprisoned less in the light you display as good deeds, and more in the agony you set in my heart by calling me forward so. For how can I dance in a light that is mine when I cannot dance in the light that is you? How can I begin to proclaim my light worthy of the dance at all, and beg you to uphold the illusion you create me to be? Oh, grand fame, can you not see I am not made to be this phantom hero dressed in honors and badges of mighty? I am born to be given as the sacrifice, spread out and slayed, so that in my ruins the light from above may find me and shine down. So the very light of our world may seek refuge in my scarcity and inadequacy, and shine that much brighter. How can I shine for one, when the One I shine for is brighter than the heaven’s gates that beckon? No, my wavering fame; you are much less real than dream. Something I once touched long ago, and ran swiftly from, as one seized by the lion’s mouth does; for as I was almost bitten in your demise, I would rather remain caged in the glory of recognition from above, than in the praises of the phantom ghosts that chew away at my bones. Bid me not your partner rich, but sit upon my very lap, so I may adjust my view, and peer into the depths of you. And here I will remain until the story unfolds and the end remains unturned, your catered promises brought out in the open of day and laid out for all to peer upon. Here I can laugh, and with each chuckle disperse you into the air from which you came, lesser than dust, and greater than the deepest darkness. Here you can live, in the wind, as the wind is invisible yet pushes, and turns what was ripe and growing into dead droppings spoiled.

373: Enlightened Aspie Semi-Saint

| Aspergers Girls

A mental health professional, in referring to me, recently said: “I have never worked with a person who has Aspergers and who is going through the enlightenment process.” My acupuncturist, a kind, wise soul, he sees the energetic and spiritual transformation I am undergoing. My family, they see the changes in my nature from nervous to serene. Me, I am hiding, somewhere under the couch cushions, waiting for when the coast is clear and I can come out.

Announcement:

Please be aware my new fixation is sainthood and mysticism. I cannot be responsible for my actions any longer, as who knows what I am going to become. I mean I can pretty much become anyone I wish—I have that super power.

My writings have drifted dramatically and I have this all abiding security and light of God within me. Have I created this, imagined, wished it upon myself, or simply figured out that with all the torture, suffering, separation and isolation involved in saintly-life, it is still a HECK of a lot easier than having ASPERGERS!

I decided tonight, if I am going to don the cloak of a semi-saint, then I totally still want to be able to have relations with my husband, not marry God, and not reach the last mansions in the houses St. Teresa speaks of, as this would involve leaving my body and giving up all earthly possessions. Unless they make chocolate a food of the godly women, I can’t do it! I just can’t.

Something is happening to me. Miraculous healings; I have no doubt of this. But I don’t want to lose my sense of humor, passion for life, and lightness of spirit. I cannot, and will not become a Catholic mystical icon.

I tried the Buddha route, and that was hard enough, but at least Buddhists keep their child-like joy and light-heartedness. Too much diving into the saints life and I feel stifled and drug down, like the very life of me is being siphoned out as a sacrificial lamb.

I am afraid, (the only fear I possess right now) to study any more religions or spiritual practices, for I have hyper-jolted my capacity to morph into any way of living I study.

I don’t want to live like a saint. I still want to make jokes about poop and sex and about other people. What am I to do?

Crap! This feels so right. This sense of enlightenment and the “way;” really it does, and miraculous writings are pouring through me as a vessel. And I see my light, and know I am of the light, and so much grief, strife, worries, anxiety, etc. has been removed from my being—but at what cost?

Am I to serve the masses, and if so, when do I breathe and relax?

Every role I take on, or persona I think I am, makes me eventually strangle in the rules and rigidness of said “type.” Despite that I know in fact there are no rules, I still get lassoed by them; as if the rules themselves are my dark virtue, trapping me at every turn.

How do I be me without feeling a need to be all I can be, which places this unyielding pressure on my soul? How do I be me without doubting if I am me? And what if I am now so empty in the result of recognizing my own invisibility and illusion of self, that I morph into anyone I am with—become whom they think me to be, and become, too, a part of the observer?

What if I am slipping through these pages as a sage of sorts revealing the aspects of the ever-changing, complex mind of Aspergers, primarily because of my capacity to change roles and cling to rules? If in truth my suffering through Aspergers is serving the world in some way, then should I continue to suffer just to carry on my duty? Or is it that even this Aspergers is something I created to serve as a carrier of sorts to bring me from one edge of the river of self to the other edge? And if so, what was I when I set out across the water, at the start, and what will I be when I step down on the other side? What if the waters are safer, and my mind itself the murderer of serenity? How can I be anything when I can see the complexity of everything, and dissect myself enough to bare no untruths or falsehoods? How can I exist so readily spread out to the world, open, honest and true, when the rest watch in bewilderment? Surely I am some creature not of this earth, not made for earthly ways, and made to suffer through the maze of non-ending questions. How to turn off this mind long enough to be me, without finding a rigid way to do so—whether this be misery, melancholy, creation, or taking on the role of someone or some purpose. How do I exist without existing?

“Oh, how the mind deceives you into thinking you are nothing, when you are all. Belittles you for your own refuge and leaves you flayed out and sparred, beaten and forgotten; your sense of worth as little as the darkest hole of demise. My sister, I tell you now, you are no less than the stars’ creator, the witness to persecution, the one who collects the stardust of your falling tears. Beseech me and I shall come. Call out my name in chant or song, and I am here, existing as your twilight and ever answer. Do not know me by name; know me by action, less fame than fortune. Know me in the spindling and dwelling of thy mansion, the way I call out through the corridors of passion and rise you up to my virtuous calling to eternity. Though my voice less audible than delectable retreats within the deepest cavern light, beseech me and step to the trumpet and calling of my grace. Do not feign attention in the attention of naysayers and slayers of righteousness, do not call out to the falsehood of humanity roaring, for you are the treasure you seek, ripe with the passion of days brought onto your through suffering just, though you think not this so. Apparent is the wind to me, how it blows and pushes through the upmost mountains, crumbling dust where once stood stoic. Am I not mightier than the wind? Am I not capable of shifting through the dove-making (intoxication) of pride, the wings fluttered against the (pride) which caused repercussion of one and many? Am I not capable of climbing the highest peak with my wind-tunnel of hope and bringing echo towering down the cascading falls? Can I not roar and shake the earth as dynamite surrendered to powdered remnants? Hear my shout as the wind of change, a chill of ache, a spade of glory, digging beneath the ground of foundation and shaking the doubt from your miserly mind. For you are not made of this dust and clay, not formed as inhabitant of earthly demise, not a destroyer or temptress ripe; all these scenarios blanketed upon you by the shadow speaker of the dark. How can such beauty exist outside of self, if not first intertwined with divinity; and once entangled willfully, can this not then be effervescent glory arisen from the ashes? How you do doubt me in your own suffering, wishing to be harlot less angel. Wishing for non-other than the devil’s spawn to announce you truly unworthy, when all about your worthiness shines. Will it not upon yourself to suffer justly evermore, for in suffering is no cause for grief, less I deem this so. And I say onto you, branded upon the serpent of your tempted soul, in suffering I bleed out to you the unified blood of eternity. In suffering I have spared my story’s end through the walking of your path. Insist I am one, and I am. Insist I am two, and I am. But split me as wood splintered cross the open flame, and I am burned with you, made less hallowed and less holy than where I grew tall tree of remembrance. Do not bless me with your mournful disgrace, with your intense sorrow and retribution; cheer upon my presence with your heavenly nature, and press into me, like child to cherub, angel to angel; two lips, two wings pressed to form the gateway to earth beyond.” ~ Sam (written this evening; scribed what I heard.)

I am on part 8:

https://aspergersgirls.wordpress.com/2013/04/12/370-starseed/
https://aspergersgirls.wordpress.com/2012/12/16/280-dear-precious-child/

This pretty much sums up my life to date:

“Why are you so quick to counter me, when I seek understanding? As I am not judging your idealistic view or denouncing anything about you. Yet, I feel this automatic hinderance and distaste, as if I have directly assaulted your virtue, in seeking out nothing but clarity.” ~ Sam

370: Starseed

| Aspergers Girls

There is a beauty that flows through you deeper than the ocean, bringing forth abundant gifts and bountiful wisdom. If you say to me you are not enough or know not enough, I say onto you: You Know Everything.

You were brought here and formed in pure perfection to shine your light upon the world; in our darkest hours you shall rise up and be the bright star that births beginnings and awareness.

You are none other than universal life itself, beating to the rhythmic pulse of the magical web of life, your every string a vibrating tune that resonates goodness and righteousness.

You are the essence of mother earth’s womb and the kindling burned by father moon, bringing forth a warmth to the inhabitants of being that radiates endless joy with the capacity to heal and return all to wholeness.There is nothing you can do to remove this joy from the center of your heart or the pain from the center of your mind, beyond recognizing no mind exists, and only heart beats true. In recognition, you shall go forth and conquer fear, and in freeing self, free the multitudes.

You are loved with an endless passion, created in the image of pure beauty, no less perfect than the one you hold most beautiful and the one you hold least special. Lift up all and in turn you lift up yourself. Self-create a universe of offering and goodness, and this shall pass. Self-create a universe of pain and struggle, and this shall pass.

There is no one and nothing that can touch you, for you are infinite in your grace and essence, a starseed set down to grow in the space of emptiness. You have rooted your spirit in the liking of me, and in so doing blessed me with abundance of opportunity. Everything about you, the way you move, the way you speak, your mannerisms, your substance is pure honey, nothing sweeter or richer.

I could search eternity for your love and find nothing in comparison, for you carry a divine uniqueness that is entirely you, a blue print spread out that carves your life into my life and sets us both on the path of mystery and newness. Your brain is a superpower of radiating virtues, capable of deciphering the deepest puzzles, and coming up from the deep of wisdom with the knowledge of the ancient ones. You have the direct capacity to tap into super novas, to spinning planets, to the world beyond worlds, to the infiniteness of your own being. Inside of you are so many answers waiting readily to spill out and cleanse the world with your healing waters. You only need open the gate, the circular lid of closure, just lift and let your beauty flow.

You are these waters, and your time has come to embrace the loveliness of you. Nothing you do or say reduces this loveliness, as nothing maximizes the girth, either, as you are innately and substantially enough, no holes, no fixing, no nothing about you that needs forgiveness or retribution. You are guiltless in your passion to do good will, in your capacity to heal, to serve, and to dive into the sorrows of the worlds and heal. You were given the birthmark of healer and potential warrior of good, and every path you carve out before you is blessed with gratitude and freedom.

You are a freedom maker. You will divide the truth from the falsehoods, and show truth in the light of your waking. I am firm in my belief in you and everything about you. There is no harm you can do to self or other, no wish you can make that is beyond beneficial, no service you can render that does not spawn further goodness.

For I have made you, created you and molded you in my goodness. How can one part of me be any less than the whole; how can one part of you be any less than me? I am your savior, your righteous one, your demon and your forger. I am anything you make me. I am your shadow speaker, your warrior, your sage, your guru. I am the truth and the light, or am naught. For I exist not outside the illusion you create and the aspect of love. I am the endless cycle of love, stirring the stars in heaven so you may rest your head beneath my twilight. I am none other than your father, your mother, your sister, your brother, and I am all and I am none. You paint me with your visions, and your visions surrender onto themselves, dripping out the substance of truth as raindrops dropping through the green to the brown earth. Droplets of knowledge seeped through the healing energy of towering love, the very love that enables you to breathe.

Call me tree or call me mystery, call me by any name this man of man chooses, but call me first and upmost: You. For I exist naught without you. It is your eyes, your ears, your intricate senses, both declared and detected, made and forged, and given that grant you the beauty of me; and in this same way, it is in that which you see as hidden I am seen. Still, without you, without the grand senses or hidden sense, I am naught. You have made me, spun me, turned me, molded me and placed me where you shall place me. And there I stand or sit, no less broken than whole.

For just as you see me true to your eyes alone, you make me true as well, this beauty or this falcon, this vulture or this lamb. I am all and you are all, and I thank you for my creation. Whether I be teacher or student or charmer or sweetness, incapacitates me. For a name and name alone changes my dynamics and shifts me into your reality. For how can there be teacher without proclaiming the other as student? How can there be healer without proclaiming the other as victim of suffering? How can there be awareness without the other leaning on the state of unknowing? How can one be upheld and the others let down? In a state of balance all that I whisper is counteracted with an equal opposite. All that I proclaim is preempted by the predication of another polar being. How can I be better when one is left lesser? How can I be wiser when one is left unjust in his ways?

No, I am none of these things you proclaim me to be, no less victim than hero, no less widdler of words than maker of imaginings. I am none other than me, this welded and branded creation you have instilled upon the world. You create me with your breath. You create me with your words. You create me in your very thought, and with sound you share your creation with the world. So in your speech it is you who has made me into your very liking. For what YOU have made me to be, you have thusly made into yourself.

Therefore, play steadily in your game of make believe; and with release of reason and with contact with the flowing heart of goodness, where the only reality exists, release the control of judgment and miserly love, and give freely to all. For how can you love another more, and not love the other less? How can you hate one and not uplift the other more? If your love is balanced, then your love is false. It is only in the unbalancing and removal, in retrieving one falsehood in replacement of love, that your true heart shines. Love me as you love yourself; but love yourself first and upmost, as I am merely a projection of you, a creation you have decided mirrors your image. If I be beauty then, embrace me and take me to your chambers of gratitude; and if I be beast, embrace me further in a way that turns the reflection of one into another so you can cast out the demons of your mind and see where true substance lives.

For I am your answer, in me, in this beating version of living and striving you; if you so choose to paint me into the dreams of love and fortune, of merriment and peace, of sweet endless serenity, of knowledge and in grace, then you so choose to paint yourself into the canvas of eternity.

Seek not that which is outside of self; seek within and find the thread, the thread of red, and pull upon this leash of everlasting peace, unravel the illusion that has blinded you in garments and twisted ways that teach you to proclaim your own goodness above your brothers, when within you doubt your very being and see such lacking. Instead take hold of your lacking and seize it like an unwanted ghost, feed it to the fire of demolish, and rise above the ashes formed in my light and love. For when you are this walking beam of goodness, your rays radiating above and beyond, all others will bow down, not to you, but to themselves, and recognize the light of love lives within.

Reach out now, and seize this stronghold of unworthiness and falsehoods; take into yourself all that is of abundance and purge out all that is unsettled dust of chattering ghosts. Your mind is your enemy and your dearest friend. Find balance and the two will be as one, glorious and still in motion and potential. For you are enough in your adequacy, built from the rivers of my soul, and harvested by the purest spirits of eternal life. Plead not for forgiveness from one who needs no forgiveness; plead instead for the return of the knowledge of the light within, and call out my name, whatever name that be, soaking in the wisdom that is you. For you are the deepest reason I live, the only reason I breathe into this world, and your beauty is all I see, my endless sky onto self.

(4/12/13: Composed by Samantha Craft in one sitting in original form, as quickly and readily as she heard the words within. This is an example of what I am hearing during my waking day and sometimes in the early morning as I sleep. I am embraced in a sweet state of grace and absence of being, when I am scribing. There is a healing vibration in the words and a deep understanding of the divine.)

“You are beautiful, divine, and gorgeous in every way. I love your heart, your light, your passion, and your tenderness. I see only the love inside of your eyes and your spirit. There is nothing you can say or do that will or would cause me to love you less, and nothing you can do to cause me to love you more. You are already whole and enough, and I could love you no more, even if I tried. I think that in love, unlike infinity, there exists a ceiling. There is only so far up I can travel and love you, for if I continue on I would surely explode in delight. Can you not see how precious you are to this world, how your trials and challenges have carved you into your purest form of radiant beauty? I am honored to know you, to see you, and witness your life. Your life is your message, and your message has filled me with hope and endless compassion. Today and everyday know you have and will make a difference. If the only thing you can do today is smile, then that is enough. If the only thing you can do is breathe, then that is enough. You are enough. Thank you for being you and for your light. “ ♥ Samantha Craft (Everyday Aspergers)

369: Yesterday I thought…

| Aspergers Girls

Yesterday was a day of mourning. A part of me thought— some fish swimming in the shallow realm at the edge of the pond, un-catchable but entirely in view—that I would sprout wings and fly, become unattainable, invincible, and in a continuous state of profound awe.

Yesterday was a day of woe. A part of me thought—the missing part, the piece that floats above me just out of reach, the balloon with extended string that keeps pulling itself in jest higher and higher from the receiver— if I was to be filled with complete healing, I would, with necessity, have to shed the robe of Aspergers, the label that haunts me like the welcoming fun house complete with imaginary ghosts whom both tickle with delight and injects the approaching traveler with astonishment.

Yesterday was a day of limbo. A part of me thought—this dangling piece of thread, still attached, yet, unmoved, dragging on the ground with each footstep that cometh—in order to be successful, a miraculous door to the divine would open, and there I would linger indefinitely in a state of welcomed grace, my feet firmly planted in the place of no place, my roots free and heart aglow.

Yesterday was a day of contemplation. A part of me thought—less butterfly than cocooned fragility, inching herself into self, shielding out the prospect of metamorphosis and sleeping in the familiar dark—if I had reached as far as I could reach, and that in doing so, if I have only found myself back where I started, questioning all that is about me with an unfamiliar readiness of discovery and adventure.

Yesterday was a day of breath. A part of me thought—clutching like a creature to the womb, circumventing the prospect of action in hopes of merrily clinging to the underbelly of structure, earth, and rebirth. Narrowing my own self back into a place of molding, where I was fit and was made to bed in the shell of me—I can no longer divide myself here, amongst the broken beautiful remains of home before.

Yesterday was a day of calling. A part of me thought—isolated in my awareness, lost as the sunset without horizon or sea without moon, moving in a fashion without stage, setting, or instruction, flowing with barricade, blocked, binging on false hope, fastened to a part of self that no longer existed—where are the answers, where is the roadmap, where is my refuge?

Yesterday was a day of mirrors. A part of me thought—a villager looking past the village into the valley of where the crops grow, wanting to do nothing but harvest the bounty, and then layer myself in benefit and reprieve, wishing to stop the nonsense of happenings, the transformation of soul into soul, the victorious wings sprouting and splintering out of my back—who is this lost woman, with the eyes that drift back into a thousand hallways, the corners bent open to eternity?

Yesterday was a day of writing. A part of me thought—this damsel in distress still longing for her knight to miss her, to acknowledge his longing, to run to her rescue, to swoop her up in his strong arms and keep her at his side forever and a day. The ache in me growing for the companionship of the unreachable and untouchable one, who recognizes me as equally unwillingly as I recognize self—I still am empty, I still need, I still desire, and how does one stop this unquenchable quest?

Yesterday was a day of surrender. A part of me thought—a drifting feather of white floating through the subconscious realm, collecting up pieces of self and no self, and rebuilding what was invisible into something of form, someone substantial and worthy, yet humble and sweet. Someone more vessel than person, incapable of being nothing but human soaring through the potentiality of heaven—I am free or I am prison. I am love or I am fear. I am or I am not. All is up to me. To my very form, to my very thought, to what I chose to do not in yesterday but at this moment of everlasting hope.

And then, dove angel, I flew, far beyond the harboring of thoughts, the desert sand spilled out of me like hour-glass made still. Emptied I soared above the illusion of clouds and endless sky, into the place above and below space, into the nova of existence, into my heart and about my heart, dancing as bird rejoicing in the comfort of the abiding love of all.

368: Dream a Dream

| Aspergers Girls

Photo on 4-11-13 at 9.24 AM

I sometimes dream of the maroon Mazda GLC (Great Little Car) compact car I drove when I had just graduated high school—the very first vehicle I owned. Last night the car appeared, all dressed in his muted reddish-tones, still working, and still pulling me through my subconscious. We arrived in a mall parking lot, him looking auspicious, but me thinking he was running on empty, or at the very least stripped, undesirable, old, and worn out. He took no note of my emotions; like an unattached vessel he was used to getting me from here to there. I found a spot in the crowded parking lot at the side of the mall. It was mid-afternoon, with the sun in the air, but a sense of evening setting soon. I don’t remember saying goodbye to the car, or even where I parked; only that suddenly I was entering through the tall glass doors of the shopping center. I hadn’t given a second thought to the car or where’d I left it, or how long it would be there; I was too focused on my destination and some purpose that led me on like a star dancing just out of reach.

Inside the mall, I walked a short distance before turning left. My gait was at ease, my mind relaxed. There wasn’t need to rush or plan, or even focus. I approached a room and found myself inside a banquet hall full of graduates, mostly, perhaps fresh out of college or graduate school. I was part of the celebration, but entirely separate, not really seen or noticed, but included nonetheless. People were smiling, chatting, even planning. I was more of the observer: both invisible but present.

I left the gathering with a sensation inside of me that indicated I period of completion; I had attended the celebration not because I had to or had wanted to, but because I was drawn to. I hadn’t remembered being invited or previously being aware there was such a banquet. The crowd dissipated and I was neither left alone or isolated—I just was.

I walked on, inside this gigantic mall, the ceilings quite high and filled with shops and the airport above on the second-level. There was noise, people moving about, a few handsome men I can recall, and me thinking: If I bump into him on accident we can connect. Why didn’t I ever think to bump into people before? Why do I still feel the need to be noticed?

I continued on the main floor and glanced down at a watch, which was somewhere and nowhere, existing without existing; it was a little past four in the afternoon, and on reflecting on the time, I thought: Good, just enough time to get upstairs to the airport to fly to New York. And then, as soon as I’d thought that, an inner voice chimed in: Wow, that was cutting it close, maybe you should have allowed for more time, with your flight being at 4:45 and all.

I smiled and headed toward the airport terminal; until, after a few steps later, I realized I’d come empty-handed—I’d forgotten my suitcase. I turned then, searching the mall for the exit and walked swiftly towards the doors. My mind began to race, but I reassured myself, while calculating the time, that even with a quick stop outside to retrieve my luggage, I would make the flight.

Once outside I scanned the parking lot. I saw the line of trees that appeared to be the same line of trees near where I had originally parked. I scanned the rows, some five or six thick, with multiple rows in far-reaching directions leading out parallel and perpendicular. I knew my car was parked in a similar place, something like this at least, but I had no indication of where to walk. I knew to the right was too far, the place beyond the trees sparse, with the lot partially empty. I knew the place to my left to be too far the other direction, as I’d not walked that far to the mall door. I moved briskly down the five or six rows, not yet nervous, but with a burning gnawing sensation building up inside. Soon, the first element of doubt was born and my mind began the race, as if on seeing my own self lost the first shot had been fired. I worried now, the tension building, and the time seemingly building itself as a pressure upon my shoulders. How would I make my flight, if I couldn’t remember where I left my vehicle and retrieve my luggage?

Down the end of one row, on the left, was a car that matched mine almost exactly, only it shined more and appeared newer; I was almost certain I’d left my car facing the opposite direction. I approached, peered inside, and noted the interior was different, some papers, almost like a map sprawled out on one of the chairs, the inside cleaner and crisper. I opened the front passenger-side door anyway, hoping by some chance this car was my car, even though I knew this to be an impossibility. Upon swinging the door out, a bell chimed and a masculine computer voice spoke. The words indicated I didn’t belong to this car and to proceed onward. The voice made no indication of judgment, but even so there seemed to be an underlying, unspoken echo of laughter. Perhaps a chuckle of forbidden-knowing, like a parent watching a toddler open yet again the drawer he ought not touch.

I realized then, as I walked away from the car that I was in the wrong place. That I had no idea where my car was, and that it was a strong possibility I would miss my flight. I panicked some, and searched frantically for the place I’d last seen my car, and with no luck in finding what I was seeking, I hunched my shoulders and pattered back toward the mall, feeling both sorry for myself and angry at myself, and very much alone. A few older ladies, white-haired and plump, were entering their own car; as I approached the end of the aisle, most of the cars behind me, they asked: Why are you so upset? And I tried to explain. They instantly expressed no concern, and found my dilemma rather ridiculous. For here I was planning a trip and they had their own worries that were much more pertinent and important than some destination of flight. Why did my silly trip matter when so much was happening in their own lives?

I shrugged and carried myself onward, feeling heavy and burdened in thought. Entering the mall I approached a man and asked where to go to find the banquet room. I figured if I could find the banquet room where the mall journey first began, I could find the original exist I entered through, which would lead me back to the parking lot and my car. The gentleman pointed to the left, and so I turned, finding only more stores and no banquet room. I returned to the main part of the mall, knowing there was a good chance I would never make my flight, calculating the time, the cost, the potential outcomes of missing the trip. Another person gave me directions. This time I was told to: Turn right and then turn left and go down to the first floor. I looked at him bewildered: But this is the first floor, I thought. He took no notice of my concern and just guided me with his eyes and pointing hand. It’s to the right and then down to your left, I am certain, he offered. I followed his instructions and sure enough there was a room, but I knew instantly it was the wrong room. The space was marked “Theater”—it was a stage for performers, a place I had left long ago and had no desire to return to. I couldn’t see the stairs leading down, and so I assumed the stage itself must descend.

I thought to myself: how silly to have even parked in the mall parking lot, and to leave my vehicle unattended for so long. Would it not be abandoned and alone when the night came to pass and the rest drove home. Would it not just stick out then to be found by robbers and thieves?

I mourned over the loss of my car, as thoughts of failure and further isolation submerged, most of the iceberg of wounded self now surging upward through the icy-cold waters of forsaken.

I left now, completely beside myself, close to hysteria, and found myself sobbing on an outside stairwell. Someone approached and handed me a phone. On the other end of the line there was a guiding voice—albeit an unattached, very much removed guiding voice. I explained my predicament, my fear of missing my flight, my incapacity to find my luggage, the consequences of my circumstance. The voice on the other end listened. And he answered without much pretense or concern: Why not take the flight and purchase new garments when you arrive?

*********************************************

In reviewing this dream, I know the car was the “old” me, the way I chose to move through the world. I recognize I mourn this part of me; even though the vehicle was older and perhaps sluggish, and lacking luster, it was still my mode of transportation. The car holds the luggage I carried with me, the necessities I think I need—my cloaks/costumes, my way of being, what is familiar and known. In searching for the car, I have lost the car, primarily because the car no longer exists and really never existed. I am worried of what will become of myself.

The gathering in the banquet room and the people in the mall are all symbolic of the other travelers in life that I see around me but feel disconnected with. I love them, I admire them, I even want to bump into them, if not for connection than for direction. I am searching for myself in others, searching for guidance, and understanding. And although no one shuns me or judges me, I am in essence invisible, there but not, moving through the world unnoticed.

The only moments I do connect are when I am in my state of sorrow and panic; here in my sadness about taking flight and finding my way out of being lost strangers will listen, but they will not understand or take interest. They are focused on their own life. No one feels what I am feeling, and whether outside the mall or inside the mall, I am lost. I am surrounded by everyone and no one. The stage is symbolic of where I used to be. The place I acted and performed. This is no longer my destination; neither is the banquet room of celebration. I have moved beyond celebration and pretending, and I am ready to journey onward. However, I think I must find the old me and follow the old ways to move forward. I am lost both inside the mall and outside the mall, in a place of limbo, searching everywhere and ending up nowhere; by entering a stairwell, I am at my last stop, not in the parking lot and not in the mall. Here in a place that doesn’t belong to either world, I realize that the answers are not found in the ways of the old or the ways of the new.

The only answers are to be found in letting go of my past ways and letting go of my search. By risking flight without the answers, I shall find the answers.