Portland, Oregon —- Reflection of Tree in Window with Words I AM May 2012
I AM
Hidden in window
Waves of reflection
I am
Watching
Helplessly
As he slips through parched fingers
Cool water
Evaporated
Into sky
I am
Longing for his sky
Same world
To break free
If only momentarily
From this prison of glass
by Sam Craft
Maui 2012
Return
Erotic Dancer
Moves like dripping sunlight between sheets
Swaying sensually
In the coming of last summer’s day
Amid the amber warmth of season gone
And fall’s approach
Embraced
In oneness
Scattered crimson crows through open door
A trail of breathing soul
Hopes
Prays
Winged-wind doth carry thee home
To me
by Sam Craft
Sam Craft
Today I weep to the music of the Carpenters, with a depth I’ve never felt before. And I dance, to ABBA, with a glee only known to the Dancing Queen. This is me, today. All over the fricken place!
My gnome is laughing at me because I just said a bad word over and over. OH, NO! But I don’t care!!! Because gone is the prude-dude residing inside of me. {I can use “dude” for me, even though I’m a girl; I looked it up.}
What is the definition of prude? A person concerned with decorum and propriety…someone who uses those words in ordinary conversation is probably a prude. Here’s the part of prude that was me: more uncomfortable than most with sexuality; unusual modesty; goody-goody.
Before Photo: PRUDE
Miracles are erupting. I’m engorged with passion! Prude-dude is shrinking like a tornado has just smashed her into asphalt. Serpent power rise!
Proof of my serpent power rising and prude-dude vanishing: I actually like the music my grandma used to have on in her very slow moving car—because it is stirring me in an erotic way. More proof? I used the words loins and erotic, and enjoyed it!
Lately, I can connect to every single song that has a semblance of a romantic edge of hope. I’ve been delving into songs, living and breathing the lyrics, like some lovesick damsel in distress or a diving duck. Plunge, ruffle feathers, plunge, ruffle feathers. Every inch of me is longing for connection. Here is a song that suddenly I think is the bee’s knee, only because the prospect of romance dances within the words and ignites my entire being….like almost every damn song I listen to. (swear word, giggles)
Ignore the commercial…but the music really is a must for this post: Direct Link
Once a prude, NOT always a prude, I tell you! In high school, I kid you not, inside the bathroom walls, more than one girl inked, “I want to be like ‘Samantha Craft,’ the virgin.” Whether the wash-closet writing was fact or fiction remains a forever mystery. The point is, I looked like a prude, acted like a prude, and was assumed to be a prude. I couldn’t say the name of private parts aloud—hmmm, writing them still causes difficulty. Don’t worry, by next week I’ll be able to write that word used to describe hotdogs—I’m certain.
Passion was a no-no for long-long time.
But I’m done with the subdued prude-dude. I remember wearing my first jean skirt as a young adult and asking my father if the skirt was too revealing—the hem touched right above the ankle. There was a time period I wore short skirts, but this was primarily to appease some goof-head (for lack of more fitting words), I was hopelessly in lust with. For the most part, my hemline was long, my clothes loose, and my neckline high. Typical stereotypical grade school teacher…from the early 20th century!
Well, what’s happened? You might wonder. I know I was wondering. I’ve had crazy surging and purging emotional eruptions for the last few weeks. At first I thought it was the pig hormone I’m taking for my hypothyroid—Karmic payback, in a beneficial way, since I stopped eating pig when I was ten. But, no, the pig-powers-that-be might love me, but this is something that even out does the power of Wilburs and oinkers everywhere.
An extreme knowing that I have a right to feel what I want
Pleasure seeking
Pain avoidance
Extreme feelings of passion
Extremes of emotions
Sensuality
Reconnecting to and appreciating my body
Longing to walk barefoot
Feeling improved energy, vitality, and health
Youthful glow
Expanding personal relationships
Achieving excellence in creative endeavors
Indescribable enormous power
Vibrating sensations
Less sleep
Thinking and acting remarkably different
Detachment
Self-transcendence
Bliss
Ecstasy
Visions
Clairaudience
.
After Photo: Goddess of Love!
If only I could bottle this! Oh, but to take any away from me, would be sinful.
What’s happening to me, as far as I can tell, is called Kundalini Awakening (sexual energy). I’m no expert. I am a life-student still enrolled in school. But something boot-kicked the prude-dude out and let the coiled serpent expand. This energy of consciousness, I take it, has been aroused through spiritual discipline (120 days of bleeding my soul onto the screen for all to see) and spontaneously (connection with another). The energy of the second chakra, located physically in the pelvic area, has transformed. My center of creativity freed and honored. This chakra, my gateway, the center of emotions, is spiraling in divine tune because I have ALLOWED myself to experience life through my feelings and sensations. The prude-dude removed! This is my serpent power, the energy that lies like the serpent in the root chakra. Think of those trick cans opening to expose the explosive toy snake. That’s me. Snake in a can!
So this explains why I can’t get enough of music; why I can’t get enough of photography and poetry; why I can’t get enough of any source that evokes extreme emotions. And probably why guys keep opening doors for me!
“So, that music, Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin, meaning the beauty there of being the consummation of life, the end of this existence and of the passionate element in that consummation. But, it is the same language that we use for surrender to the beloved, so that the song — it’s not important that anybody knows the genesis of it, because if the language comes from that passionate resource, it will be able to embrace all passionate activity.” Leonard Cohen
(These photos were changed since the original post.)
This is the song I used to sing and imitate…when I was like ten. As I’ve said, I didn’t carry a barometer for appropriate behavior. I loved this song. I loved Natalie Wood. In my mind, this was a perfect song to sing in middle school in the cafeteria, while swaying my hips about and tossing my hair. Trouble started when I didn’t outgrow my delight in life—this innocence to dance and sing, and just be. Big trouble, as I approached high school, while still a ten year old in my mind.
I got downright cute and sexy approaching freshman year in high school, but didn’t know it. Once I turned fourteen, I always thought I was ugly. I was entirely clueless why the boys gawked and the girls jeered. Why the boys wanted my number and the girls shunned me. To me, I was still some scrawny kid inside. I didn’t see my sexy, my curves, my short shorts, my passionate eyes. I didn’t see what the others saw. As I matured into pretty, in my mind, I was still a little twiggy girl with buckteeth, a chipped front tooth, stringy hair, high-water hand-me-down jeans, and a flat chest. I had no idea I’d blossomed.
This was the other song I sang loudly in the middle school cafeteria
I used the moves and all. I was special. I was confident. I was damn awesome!
Before I turned fourteen, I was engorged with passion, full of life, energy, and the feeling I could conquer the world. At the end of eighth grade, Mother plucked me from the coast of California and moved me to Massachusetts to live with her longtime lover. All at once, I knew no one, was loved by no one, and knew not who I was.
This was a time of unmentionables. I transformed from wild stallion to fearful doe. I hid. I stayed in dark rooms. I pretended not to exist—this after being driven down a long country road by our twenty-something neighbor who was married to the flat-chested lady I babysat for the next door over. A scene, I blurred and blanched out of memory, that sucked out my passion, that transported the little girl I had been to a frightened woman, terrified of life, terrified to live.
I stopped living at the age of fourteen. I just stopped. My daily laughter turned to daily tears. I no longer danced. I no longer sang. I just existed. It was then I began to see my past, to compare what I’d been through to what my peers had been through. I recognized all at once how different I was, how damaged, how hopeless.
I stopped living because I finally saw my mother. I saw who she was and how she never was who I longed for her to be. I stopped living because I was ostracized at school, made fun of for my “California” looks, for my clothes, for my curves. I stopped living because when I looked in the mirror I was something horrible, unrecognizable. I wasn’t me anymore. The spirit of me, the joy, the lover of life, had been siphoned out of me. I was staring at a stranger in my skin. My eyes dulled. My heart numbed. And my entire view of life grey.
I no longer trusted the world or anyone in it. And I didn’t know where to go, how to be, and knew not enough to tell a soul of my agony. I angst perpetually from want, desire, and deafening loneliness. I ached for companionship, for people, for someone to shout out they loved me, for someone to see me—for someone to find me, wherever I’d gone.
I dreamt of ending my life. I dreamt of my prince, my twin flame, my soul mate, and would spend hours with him, in some enchanted place my spirit held. I imagined wherever he was, he would know the heart of me, that his heart would match mine, that he would be holding my heart, and would someday find me. I wept and wept and wept for him as much as I wept for the lost me.
I walked emptied.
It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that my spirit returned. I don’t know how, or why, it just did.
I have ever changed. This joy-filled, spirit of light has once again turned on, filling me with child-like glee. I have a plethora of things I want to do. A list that keeps growing and a spirit that keeps yearning and celebrating. I’m dancing inside. I’m walking on air. I’m not caring how silly I look. I’m loving me. I’m embracing my beauty, the beauty I lost thirty years ago.
Only in waking, some three decades later, I am finding myself in a strange land somewhat, surrounded by strange people I almost don’t recognize. Questioning my place, my role, my purpose. Wondering who I was for the last thirty years. Who I’d become. What choices I’ve made. How I’d let myself suffer. How I’d numbed my life.
I’m not recognizing photos of me from a month ago. Not understanding where I’ve been and who was inside of me for so very long. I can’t explain this transformation. I just can’t.
But looking into my eyes, I can see that the little girl who danced passionately without fear in the cafeteria, swinging her hips back and forth and tossing her hair about, is back. The lovely happy girl who played beside nature, climbed the trees, sang and dance, cuddled with puppies, held hands, and skipped and skipped long after sundown across paths of gold, rainbows, unicorns, and her forever friends, has returned to me. And I am embracing her fully, and never letting her go.
(Teacher says: Music I posted in comment section is a must to play while reading.)
This is Violet in the Morning. My little Labradoodle. I also call her Spastic Colon, but I thought the title Spastic Colon in the Morning might give you the wrong idea. I am carrying her in my arms in this photo. That is my scarf. And, yes, those are her very sad eyes. This is my first time taking a camera on a walk since I moved to Washington. Violet was initially very excited to walk. She showed me this by jumping up and down about three feet off the ground and wrestling with her leash. But once we were outside the front door, she didn’t seem too happy. She was tugging, and pulling, and shivering. I thought she must be cold and said, “You’re a dog. Toughen up!” And I giggled. Because giggling in the morning is fun.
This is my tree. I call him Fred or Sheldon. I can’t decide. He doesn’t care, because trees will go by any name, as long as you hug them.
When I passed this tree Violet was still shaking. A few blocks later and she was pulling back on her leash. Being the logical gal I am, I thought to myself, “Hmmmm. Maybe she senses danger. Like a mountain lion or wild leash-free dog.” I was still a bit clueless and exaggerating events in my mind.
About the time I reached this stump, I leaned down and soothed Violet with gentle pats, and reassured her she had a fur coat to keep her warm and that there was no pending danger.
This crow was watching us outside the lama barn. We kept walking, Violet shivering and tugging, and me clicking away happily.
Flowers by my home
Early Morning Mist. Can’t beat this calming scene.
One of my favorite properties. They have outdoor weddings here sometimes.
About the time I captured these ducks flying overhead, and was thinking I wish I had an audio recorder to capture all the bird sounds, I realized poor Violet wasn’t cold or scared. In fact, she was having a doggy seizure! This wasn’t her first. So I scooped her up and held her. And I continued the walk with her in my arms.
I have a friend who I promised to carry in my thoughts today. So as I carried my doggy, I imagined I was carrying the person’s burdens. This worked for quite sometime.
This scene caught my eye. The two friends, the dog being held, but then I noticed the broken leg. Made me wonder a bit about things.
Me wondering about life.
Fake seagull in ivy
Neighbor’s yard
Fish atop a mailbox
Hidden School Bus
Old Bus Stop
Here comes the sun
I had to keep setting Violet down because my neck and back were aching something terrible. She was sweet. Just sat there and smiled up at me.
Interestingly, this was the least violent seizure she has had.
Here are photos of my favorite part of the walk. To me, this is one of the loveliest places in the whole world. I carried Violet most of the way. First down the hill and then back up, sometimes in a cradled position and sometimes like a baby slung over my shoulder. She shivered. But with every step I took with her, she calmed more down. I kept my friend in my mind. It was a very enlightening experience. Especially considering my sensory issues of having dog breath in my face and my physical issues of having difficulty lifting things. I was quite happy and pleased with the way the walk turned out. I reflected on the way life is—how we never know what to expect—and that sometimes it is best to just make the best of things. And so we walked on.
Do you see that little blue light? I like that very much.
Green, green, green!
Love this
What a lovely tree
Pure Bliss
Looking up and smiling
My favorite road
A little red
More of my favorite road
And then comes the water
Just heavenly
More lovely nature
See how small the people are and how tall the trees are?
Swings! Lisa, do you see the swings?
Violet felt better after I carried her for about forty-five minutes.
And I leave you with my favorite trees. I call them the Humping Trees. Can you see why? I love when nature makes me giggle.