Belief

The soul of the tree appeared plainly.

It felt like I was looking through three dimensions: my own, through that of the nights and the physical manifestation of the tree in its divine force. I came upon it unexpectedly. I have never granted nature a "spirit" but rather a vigorous inanimate life force with instinctive rythms and cycles. The funny thing is I had the honest sense that the tree hadn't anticipated my seeing soul and was laughing and howling in the night wind before me. I saw it's face.

I sat in my car briefly upon shutting it off, wanting to listen a while longer to a song on the radio, when my eyes came to rest on this roaring movement. It might have been the wind, it might have been the light, it might have been what MY mind can see through my eyes, but, the moment I identified the fact I was looking at the soul of this tree it was as if it instantly retracted itself up from eyes and seeing heart, as if it felt the whisper of my words and reduced the appearance of it's energy back to that of only natural elements. I sat waiting quietly looking at the tree for some time, for the roaring laughter, but did not see again the display of life I had seen just minutes before. Last night the soul of a tree appeared plainly.

Father’s Day Poem
6/15/08

Father

Some of your teeth still scare me
like glass in sand
that cannot be seen until
piercing flesh and sole
in jagged line

The sand is extraordinary still
light and heat bubbling up
I extend my foot in stride
to push with heals exposed
my weight into the ground
and bear with prick of pain and blood
each step
with swollen sole and smile

With soft eyes and flowing mane
you conceal the teeth of old age
your opinions like stone
some large and some like pebbles
they drive scrape and heal
pit and tousle too

I love you like the summer
And seek you like the sun
Your words they sometimes scare me
Like running on the beach playing
finding glass in sand

"Breathe Some More"

Last night I saw a man. Someone I knew and didn't know all together. There was this psychic awareness throughout the encounter unlike I've ever known prior to or engaged in so cognitively. I was having this heightened awareness and was wondering if it was occurring within him simultaneously. My soul was fully surfaced in full dialogue. There was no fear or aversion or expectation, only contact, only presence. I observed, I listened and challenged his thought and spoke my truth too. There was this amazing dynamic and crystal clear perception of every moment, like having an existential experience while in meditation but in a bar in the city at 1:00 a.m. I felt like I was inside of his person. I could understand his expression as he spoke like it was coming from me and I was able equally to divide the truth. As I sat there saturated in the awareness of him I experienced for the first time as a grown woman my psychic ability. I realized that this was a rare glimpse into my gift, one I had known as a child. For that short time I was psychically connected, in perfect perception and fully open. Tonight I am in bed writing this experience down for you.

Renee'

Dividing the Truth

Descent...

Wild honey...

Drought is a time when old tensions surface and chronic afflictions feel worse. It is a time to redress the balance between the people and their place in the world through communion with the unseen beings of the Otherworld, -"Maya Cosmos"

Paradox
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin paradoxum, from Greek paradoxon, from neuter of paradoxos contrary to expectation, from para- + dokein to think, seem — more at decent
Date: 1540

I Breathe

I saw a shaman on television this morning. I have been drawn to these people with awe and suspicion for many years being raised within a fundamental western faith. This morning was much like luck, being prepared when the opportunity presents itself and all of my thoughts came into alignment. My faith, the things I have come to believe as real, my sense of understanding of the world and the evidence of my higher awareness seeking what I need were all activated at once as I stood in my underwear sipping coffee. I watched as a small native man used his voice as medicine and creating energy vibrations. He used words to affect varying levels of consciousness He moved his hands over the afflicted woman's body in order to adjust her energy and he collected and disposed of that unwanted matter which he had used the palm of his hands to draw out. There is no doubt belief in the existence of a higher power being exercised within indigenous tribes, which for me is the existence of God, in which he exercised faith. I saw the shaman combining many applications of energy healing I have come to be aware of. What I saw him do I realized is keenly ours. Our innate ability to heal and therefore transform and exorcise what's ill, in mind, body and soul. I have been seeking this an answer for years about how to accept what is shamanic. These are acts of healing through faith. Manipulating energy, biorhythms, circulation, breath and thought. They do this "because" they believe even without all the scientific evidence we have at hand. Their mind and spirit knows.

How then, therefore, can we judge what course of treatment is more highly esteemed when seeking to be healed? The exercise of consciousness and a non-judgemental approach is needed. Is it not the quest for life that drives all down paths of healing?

Supplant

I still wonder if I my choice was in vain. I remember myself thinking so many times my own rules for indecision. One was if I couldn't make a decision then the answer is no. If I can't decide, it's no for now. Another was to flip a coin. I never could do it regarding one certain roadblock of indecision, I was sure the coin would come up heads if I had said heads and I'd have to return to what I had fled from. I was sure it would tell me go home. So why wouldn't I exercise my simple personal guidelines. I couldn't decide to leave and I didn't want to go back. I didn't want to flip the coin and see it say hey see, here's what you wanted to know, here you go, now move back home. I would not again receive the bridle.

Everyday I flash to a little something here or there about my choice. Today it was about the fact that I had given up the relationship I know could have succeeded in remaining married until death. I know this without a shadow of a doubt. It was never boring it was present. We were always yanking at each other, yammering, poking fun and rubbing each other the wrong way. Mostly me getting rubbed the wrong way. My spouse doing all the yanking, yammering and poking.

So what is this supplanting, what am I supplanting. A different way. A fuller expression of me for the cornered static bound one. IT IS SOOOOO, SOOOOOO, VERY PAINFUL! As I see more clearly, I recognize the fact that I have created a position of absolute opposition to the way I had agreed and been promised too.

I did flip the coin. It was 5 months after the divorce and it did come up heads like I said but maybe I finally willed it to do that with all my own anguish. I guess I did make the decision because I did leave and now am akin to the persuasion of my own mind to rest and wait.

SupplantFunction: verb
Text: to take the place of — see replace 1

Didactic

"Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

In the book "Infidel" Ayaan Hirsi Ali confronts the reality of her own experience as a Muslim woman. She is faced with the unequal treatment of women and the "absolute" didactic in the teachings of the Quran. In her book she states, "Humans themselves are the source of good and evil... We must think for ourselves; we are responsible for our own morality. I arrived at the conclusion that I couldn't be honest with others unless I was honest with myself. I wanted to comply with the goals of religion, which are to be a better and more generous person, without suppressing my will and forcing it to obey inhuman rules. I would no longer lie, to myself or others. I had enough of lying. I was no longer afraid of the Hereafter." Quite a brazen statement for any kind of believer.

It stopped me in my tracks! "I would no longer lie, to myself or others." I find I am choosing this same thing, starting with myself. It is unleashing both fear and a new sense of reality. I haven't fully reached the layer of others because I am not yet sure of how I believe or what I believe like being in the middle of a lake treading water. I don't have too intense a fear or guilt about this anymore but this change of faith has created a lot of unrest in me, some loss but gain in all as experience creates growth. I think and choose for myself now. I make peace.

She illustrates further how Muslim women are still walking about veiled even though they were living in Holland and how "Islam was like a mental cage". She gives a painful illustration and writes, "At first, when you open the door, the caged bird stays inside: it is frightened. It has internalized its imprisonment. It takes time for the bird to escape, even after someone has opened the doors to its cage." I find this to be true for a great many things, this kind of internalized imprisonment. We choose beliefs of all kinds to live by thereby creating a system of thoughts to live by and then ultimately embody. Is it not then very, very important to review what you believe about yourself and God?

When I say stuff like this I get scared because of "what" I am questioning because of my upbringing. The scared part is the indefinition of things now, where I have made room for "my" self, at the expense of my belief.

I stepped away from God because I couldn't believe anymore in what I was saying, or my role as a christian wife, so I stopped. I started unwrapping the anger I contained inside after saying all those things to myself, all those years, so to be what I thought correct. God was never unloving, it was just that I found life on this earth to be less than sacrosanct so began acting on what I felt rather than what I thought. It really wasn't Gods fault I had no more faith to believe or to pray. I just didn't believe things were ever going to be any different than they were in certain area's of my relationship and I still don't. People are who they are and some things just never change. Sometimes things don't turn out the way you think...

So after my separation I faced the question of unlawful sex!! After being sexually active in marriage for 16 years was I to wait to be married again in order not to be immoral? Did I have to get married to qualify for the right to have sex? What if I didn't want to get married again? Was I never to have sex again? Most of this I've pondered on my own occasionally asking questions of God but finding no answers because the questions seemed inappropriate. So I figured I could have sex or go to hell so I decided for sex and against hell. I can hardly believe what I'm saying. And why do I think so much?!? Mmmm... This is part of my mental cage. I still think of Jesus and haven't quiet decided how I fit into that picture. He's been a great teacher of mine.

Didactic

Etymology: Greek didaktikos, from didaskein to teach
Date: 1658
1 a: designed or intended to teach b: intended to convey instruction and information as well as pleasure and entertainment 2: making moral observations.