spiritual

341: The Mourning

| Aspergers Girls

I haven’t been able to write as of late.

I transitioned through immense amounts last year, especially during the month of November, transitioned through what I hesitate to call “junk,” but that which most certainly felt akin to garbage.

It was rumored, through various channels, that the end of last year would be a period of much availability for release. The key was to freely bring up the past and old aches, to tear open the scars, dig deep, and like magic, much would be healed.

Truth be told, and truth I often tell, this aforementioned rumor was mostly true. In fact, repeatedly I brought up to the surface my unfinished “business,” and repeatedly the thoughts, emotions, body-history, and spiritual “business” rectified itself and was reborn into sudden and freeing understanding, acceptance and forgiveness.

Interestingly, there was little analysis I undertook during this process. In explanation, I offer a contrast: instead of opening a book of an event or events and feeding myself the pages, unlike a reader, or even an observer, in my process of recovery of self, the experience was liken to watching some other part of something open a symbolic window to let the lingering pain in; and within that same instance of the opening, some force beckoned a sweeper, an unexplainable substance, that now entering the space of self, scoured away to dissolve unneeded residue.

A dear friend calls some people “sandpaper” friends. They refine us. They grate on us. In a certain bowing of spirit, we allow them to hurt us. But in the end, we come out better for the experience.

Well with the window open, and the sweeper entering, I felt the sandpaper. I felt the needling rough edges pry open my skin, go asunder, and dig up the muck and guck that had lived and harbored within. I felt the intensity; I felt extreme discomfort. I felt exposed. I felt found, singled-out, even hunted. And then, I gradually felt slaughtered and left to die. Until, in the swirling of sensation, that came rather abruptly and all at once, I was cleansed and left lighter.

Through this all there was no effort on my part. I didn’t try to heal myself. I didn’t even want to heal myself. What I prayed for was love. That and to be a vessel for spirit and light.

This is what I went through most of the winter season. One day after the next of windows opening, and then finding myself in the midst of both trouble and rescue. Until at last, after months on end, I begged for reprieve, for break, and opportunity for rest.

And rest came.

But soon following was a time period of vultures, of name calling, of doubting who I was and my own path. Then with the passing of these trials, after I’d faced more inner frailties and demons, I found a profound inner peace and knowing. I had a clarity and a comfort. I felt blanketed by the divine. I was granted an unbridled passion to create and communicate. And each morning, I experienced intense visions which included powerful visuals, healing words, and much beauty. This too, this rapture of passion coupled with the visions, like the sandpaper and vulture times, became daunting, and I begged too for these to stop. And they did.

Soon the window closed to whatever was entering.

And here I have sat in silence for over a week wondering what my next step is; while all the while I hear a distant whispering of “There is no next step.” A whisper reminding me everything is okay and is occurring in divine timing.

I think I am mourning what I thought I’d found. I think I am mourning this profound peace and understanding I had for several weeks—a traveling period where I saw heart-clouds in the sky and angel shapes everywhere I looked. A time of deep prophetic prose and agonizing, sweet-release through creation. I remember asking for this profoundness to stop, to give me reprieve, but I don’t think I ever thought the experience would truly end.

Yet, as I sit here now, I don’t wish it back; as much as I miss this part of where I have been and the connection I had, I am glad the window has shut. For it is time for me to move along my path further. A time of new mysteries and discoveries, and a time of further refining. I guess what is somewhat discomforting is I know I have made a spiritual vow of learning. I have made this life about growing, despite the personal cost. I have dedicated myself to being the best me I can be. And with this dedication, I understand there is no stagnant place. And there is no final place either. There is just this continued traveling to a new something and new someone.

I think I have been mourning the past selves. The ones who thought they found themselves. The ones who thought they knew so much. I am mourning the possibility of ever knowing again. As there is no knowing, and there is no finding this self I so diligently had searched and longed for. I am here. In all my states, in all my emotions, in all my frailties and fallings, I am here. And this acceptance of self, in all stages and all phases, past, present, and future, is perhaps the most frightening feeling of all. The learning I am enough. I am love. I am light. I am home. Whilst still traveling this road that eventually leads somewhere else.

Sam Craft, March 2013

Beautiful One
I love you. I don’t know why or how. I just do.
You are immeasurably good, immeasurably pure, immeasurably wonderful.
I want to wrap myself in your essence, to bathe in your beauty.
I want to pour my soul into you, my every thought, experience, desire and dream.
I want to harbor my pain there, within your secret chamber.
If only there were a door.
If only I could find a key.
If only you would open.
Instead, I glide past your existence daily; hour upon hour, building my hopes atop the other like a child with wooden blocks, thinking eventually something will tumble, something will crash.
But nothing ever does.
You remain, and I remain.
And I am left dancing around the image that I imagine you to be.
Standing in a threshold, I both created and wished into existence.
And here, in this imagined place outside of you, I have found the enterance to self.
In this endless delight of searching out the possibilities of you, I have found the remarkable possibility of me.
My friend, my entwined beautiful one, in the wanting of your glorious being, I am.
I am. I am.
And I smile from the deepest place of happy soul child.
Smile as I swing upon the healing rainbow of you.
Still searching for the treasure beyond the imaginary door.
Yet, knowing when you are found, when you have at last welcomed me forward, that I will fall in love not with one, not with two, but with the illumination birthed from the reunion of beauty.

340: Phantom Chamber

| Aspergers Girls

In searching I have circled back, some ribbon turned into itself, lost inside a chamber of nothing; the layers and fabric thread red, bleeding the rainbow of colors twisted in perfection, and then spun down into an invisible white of naught.

I am but reflection, brought on by the sunlight that feeds illusion, stood upright in the eternal darkness, amongst the shadow speakers with the absence of ray, interwoven in solidarity into the corridors of nowhere.

I am but the eyes, ears, mouth, and skin revved up in latitude and longitude, the fingers finding me in the stillness, and measuring my righteous substance.

I am liquid amber dripping through the hands of no one—from him whom also stands in the shadows of no place and no being.

What am I least the tethered and labored music to the masses, the scent of the familiar last touched?

I am witness to the sum of my ever-varying parts, the intricate detection of bystander, the wanderers’ stopping point, however brief or meandering.

And though I exist, this ebb and flow made of conclusions and withdraws, of mediocrity placed upward or down in measure, I only exist of what illusion bends and claims real, a lost swimmer forgotten down the tunnel of not knowing what is and not comprehending the vessel that breathes.

And what of this air?

Does he too stand in the shadows mesmerized by his own selfless self; and in so doing suffer the want of recognition?

Am I but a thumbprint upon the eternal quilt of timeless time? Or rather the print inside the print; the molecular structure’s birthing house brought asunder, turned out, and opened for examination?

Where am I? Where am I hiding?

Beg me not to come out and view this self, so casually circumvented round the mysteries of never.

Beg me not to come out and spend my own self to make richer the dollar maker.

How can I be, when all about me there be nothing?

And how can nothing be, when all about nothing I be?

Where is this existence that hovers somewhere between us and them, between this I and this we?

Is we found inside the pupil, the wires that tell the openings to vision what to see?

Is we found inside the olfactory tubes, lined up and waiting to be called upon?

Is this me in this mirror of disillusioned oppression, made opposite to stare back into the light that is never justly exact?

Or am I, too, the sunshine, my ray only pleasing to the touch of those craving warmth?

Do I burn or do I freeze? Do I make-believe and then make the truth come true?

And if truth be still, if truth stop long enough for witness, then what witness sees this truth of truths? Whose truth is thusly so the path to what is and what isn’t?

How can I be so feather-like in the wind of life that to drop me here in this plane would set me adrift, scattered dust swept through the giant’s hammock strings?

What am I?

And in capturing a voice that answers, what ghost enters through this painted threshold into the emptiness of phantom chamber?

338: You Are The Block

| Aspergers Girls

Today I participated in being present.
I got in my van and drove where I felt drawn to go.
I found myself on the waterfront by the boat docks, and walked lightly along the pathway.
I felt grounded into the earth and protected, and very much loved.
I noticed the sky and all the sounds about me. I noticed many things that I hadn’t noticed before.
The sun paid a visit and peeked out from the clouds, and I was invited by this lovely block structure to lean and take in the sunlight on my face.
I closed my eyes and just let myself be.

image_1362691294737930

I thanked the block art.
I have always admired people who could be still and with themselves and find a gentle resonating connection to the earth and with their inner being.
Today I was one of those connecters.

I walked past a building that invited me in. And there I greeted a flyer about a movement class. I kept the paper and will reflect on the opportunity.

As I traveled back to my van, I practiced letting go of thoughts and took in many sounds and sensations.
When I was on the road again, I drove past a small bakery.
I treated myself to lunch there, the most sensational lunch.
I savored every bite with awareness and pleasure. The fork tickled me. The sautéed mushroom, bread, and egg saluted me. I found myself giggling inside at the images in the food. I found myself giving repeated thanks and gratitude.
I soaked in the goodness, and as I had done before, I kept repeating the words “Love, love, love.”

I was continually brought back to the present. Every movement and ever feeling inside of my body felt magical.

The world looks different now.
Wherein sensory stimuli could sometimes overwhelm me, now I am intrigued by all of the motion of the world.
As I ate, I smiled at the homeless man outside the window. I watched him eat on the bench. He had much food. I imagined we were eating together. When he was finished, and approached where I sat, a glass pane separating us, we locked eyes and smiled together.
We’d eaten together in my heart.

I took over a half of an hour to eat one sandwich. I wondered why I always ate so fast before, when every bite was an opportunity for acceptance and gratitude.
I listened to the sound of people and watched them move. I took in the pitch of voices and the color of clothes. With every thought I released all judgment.
I felt tremendous joy of being alive, and gave thanks for the ability to appreciate the moment and my life.
When I moved from my chair, I did so with gentle intention. No anxiety was in my psyche or my physical being. Everything about me radiated serenity.
A bakery worker moved towards me to collect my plate. We shared a sentence and our eyes smiled. I felt such warmth and human connection.

When I drove again, if any sorrow arose, manifested by an ache in my heart and gut, I imagined the sorrow, the shape of the sorrow. To me, the sorrow appeared a twisted colorless ribbon. I let the sorrow rise and then I held the sorrow.
When I held the sorrow, sorrow evaporated.
Each time the sorrow rose, I let the deep ache come to me.
I felt the intensity of suffering. I felt the tears of my soul, and then, through awareness and acceptance, I held the pain once more, and once more again.

Today I was happy despite my sorrow. Today I was sorrow-filled despite my happiness. And neither was the winner.
Moment after moment I returned back to the present, leaving the sorrow and happiness to the space of emptiness.
I see neither sorrow or happiness as my partner or friend, and neither as my foe.
I accept where I am at and let the river of peace flow through me.

I do not stand in judgment of myself, and with this freedom I do not stand in judgment of my passing neighbor.
I do not stand in judgment of my passing neighbor, and with this freedom I do not stand in judgment of my self.

I planned nothing. I thought not of the future, nor did I linger long in the past. I just was. I just am.

If ever there was joy to be found immeasurably, it was in the simplicity of my being.

Now as I sit here, I feel embraced.
I know not why or how or from where this love comes; I release; I release the source and I release the cause.
Nothing matters, while everything matters.

Today I am thankful, not for anything or anyone, not for a singular experience or emotion; today I am thankful because I recognize that with the release of attachment, I am at last releasing self into the ocean of life. I am a bird swimming in the blue. I am a fish flying through the sky. All is a reflection, one upon the other.
And everywhere I look is beauty.

I am looking at you now. Beautiful one. Special one. Dear one. Lovely lovely light-filled soul.
I am looking at you, and you are all.
You are the sunshine in my face. You are the sensation of pleasure dripping off of my fork. You are the homeless man smiling with his eyes. You are the earth smiling with your heart.
You are everything to me, as I am to you.
And I accept your love and grace.
I accept you just as you are right now. Just right where you are.
You are divinely perfect.
You are the block.
You are the art in the park.
The place where one can rest and lean and soak in the goodness of the world.
Thank you.

Photo on 3-7-13 at 3.47 PM

337: I Am What I Choose to Create

| Aspergers Girls

Photo on 3-6-13 at 2.49 PM

Here is a painting I shared earlier on this blog. I changed the bear a couple of times, as I didn’t like the “energy” of the bear. I could see images inside the fur that were dark and gloomy, e.g., a person eating at the heart, a boy screaming, a heart breaking. I tried to improve the bear to my liking, but I could not. The energy remained.

image_1361638126323635

Finally, I took the canvas off the wall and had at it. I erased the bear in totality, (with water and paper towel), and for two hours let the canvas speak.

In the end, the girl’s face, which I adore, remained, and she gained some wings!

I can now rest my eyes on this painting and feel at peace.

image_1362606633997627

But I missed my bear. I love my bear.

And so I brought him back to life. Not intentionally or on purpose; in the way the process transformed, the bear kind of just showed up!

I painted, (and processed), for five hours last night. So much so that I had zombie blue fingers. (I paint mostly with paper towels and my fingers.) The canvas transformed a dozen times. I erased and erased, painted and painted, and erased again.

Each time I thought I might be done, I knew I wasn’t, because I felt stagnant energy.

I know when my creation is done by the “feeling” I have in my heart and in my gut. Together the heart and gut tell me. I “feel” this freeing of energy, a release, and a recognition of completion.

I experience the same gut-and-heart-level feelings with people, places, events, words, and even the rhythm of words. I get a knowing, and just know.

At first the painting I created last night was a princess in a dress; then a woman dancing; then the image became a woman and two spirits at the river, and then, after several transitions, this lovely bear reappeared. And he was here to stay.

I went through several states of emotion as I painted, too, including envy, jealously, feelings of being caged in, disappointment, and agony. When an emotion surfaced I would paint the pain and then go over the pain with words like “love.” I would then recreate through adding more paint, designs, or through erasing with water.

In my painting I completed of the girl and bear last night, I can only find peaceful and tranquil images in the paint.

Before, with the first bear painting, I could find several dozen images. In this new painting there are only a few images I can detect. Here is one image that I found soothing. I see a lady resting on the bear’s head.

image_1362606828675593

All of this “energy” and “images” inside of my paintings got me thinking about the water crystal images, and how the crystals transform shapes based on a slip of paper with a written word. I was reminded once again how thoughts and the emotions we hold on to affect our world.

Today I said the word “love” to myself a lot. I kept filling the empty spaces in my mind with the word “love.”

I remembered, that like my painting, my intention, the energy of the person I am holding in thought, my thoughts themselves, the motion I choose, the drafts I recreate, all of these seemingly random things work together to produce my experience and perception.

The new painting with the bear.

image_1362606773492295

Today I am practicing letting myself observe my self without judgment.
I am letting myself be.
I am letting myself come forward from beneath the chaos of the canvas.
I am transforming and materializing through the swirls of multi-color and seemingly misplaced and random scatterings of occurrence.
I am letting myself become whole and present, free of emotional chains.
In many ways I am much this bear.
And I am this painting.
I am what I choose moment-by-moment to create.

335: I Whisper Death

| Aspergers Girls

208578_10200678384552111_487489133_n

I Whisper Death
3/4/13 Samantha Craft

Beneath the forest floor, where roots meet and entangle, I wait, my hands stretched out in the shape of destiny, each limb bent in the design of fate. My face shines there, in the bleeding darkness, the soil rich, the harvest collected thusly so and set down at the imagined feet of one.

Like dusk blending with dawn, the daylight hours disappear, and time spreads thin, one hour yielding to the next, and falling faster than the dying star. For death himself is here, beneath this earth, where this child rests her heart, a loving seed for one.

And near this death moves life, effervescent in her appearance, her gown golden-weaved in delight.

Though death be near, his shadow thick, his breath heavy, life—she dances in a play, a widowed partner pleading for Mercy to bring her mate. And how life sings, her voice the holes of flutes, both carrying and holding the beauty that comes with creation. She bows, her hands echoes’ shadow, her arches the very threshold of his coming.

In an instant she is here and then gone, and then returns again, a spinning image of self, reappearing with the turn of merry-go-round; lost and then found; lost and then found again. Unattainable she remains, her platform chance, her shape fortune.

Please come, I call out from below, my chariot less driven than wished upon. Please come, I call out again, the pleading heard by the chambers of my soul.

Though my voice be nothing in comparison to life, in all she offers.

I am but invisible, hidden like the worms that burrow forward to the core of something.

My voice unheard, my face unseen, I cry out and then cry in, calling on the very goddesses of fairytales past in hope of capturing the heart of one.

He doesn’t come. He doesn’t hear.

And if he does, if by chance my wishes scurried across the broken channels of connections, and voice he found, then voice alone is turned down and dissolved by his wanting naught.

Unfound, I weep.

Unfound, I turn.

And thusly I wander in the deepening depths of feverish want.

In dreams I ride the cloak of death, draped in his darkness, the sorrow and suffering removed. And there, from my own tombstone risen, fine seedling is spat forth.

To bloom again and touch the daylight with green.

For if it be death that must come, then death I call upon, to release me from this bitter-thorned suffering.

Cometh death to my bedside of garden. Unlike the soldier before, find me, your shadow seed, your princess, your warrior made choice breed.

I whisper. I whisper.

I whisper death.

Death rises, without desire. He drifts in with the victorious gait of one who knows defeat by scent and scent alone. And takes me from the grip of forbidden grounds, and shapes me down deeper, trumpeting his mark into me, a brander by trade.

And I am slaughtered, a sow made sweeter for the taking. Bled out to be made ready for sup and fed upon, one mouth upon the other. Until all parts vanquished, I am free. Spread verily thin, a rail to a speck.

How thankful then I be, the sum of my parts scattered and forgotten.

How thankful then I be, for the agony released.

Until I hear his name.

The one I claimed mine. The one I called, whom before never came.

Until I hear him call out to me, his lost maiden found.

Until I watch his search, this one, for my mystery. His dreams taking him not to me but to the essence of whom I might have been: the sun per chance, or at least the rays, the warmth captured by his tawny skin and creasing edges.

And a part remembers, from somewhere lost, that I am no longer here. A part remembers that instead I be a flower in disguise, reformed and taken by another. Burst out of the darkness to reclaim the sky, yet in the same making hopelessly hidden.

While in solid form he stands in promise, searching the fields for what was once true, when all about lost memory dances with death.

And life, she gently laughs then, her voice cascading through twin-windowed souls, bringing forth the blistering wake of nevermore.