Warrior Rampage! Beware!

This is why my warrior gets activated! All I want to do is live a quiet life, a peaceful life, a life filled with love and sunshine, a life at one with the world around me. But that's not possible when everytime I turn around I am force fed toxicity created by the choices made by OTHER people!

In less than ONE SECOND of the history of the earth, human beings have decimated the planet. ONE FRIGGIN SECOND!

I don't know how to live in peace and harmony when it's nothing but toxic warfare everywhere I turn! The food I eat is toxic! Even supposed "organic" food is slowly being eroded by genetic engineers. The water I drink is toxic. The air I breathe is toxic. How am I supposed to live a peaceful life when my body is bombarded by the consequences of corporate greed mongers?!

The ONLY peace I have is that I did not bring children into this dying world, so at least I can die in peace with that. I can't even imagine the anxiety I would feel to leave behind my most beloved to fend for themselves in this dying, toxic world!

I can't take in any more information about things over which I have no fucking control!

Yet I can't turn my back on it, either. I can only change MY choices, but it's not enough! And it pisses me off that unless I go live as a hermit eeking out a meager life hidden away, I also can't escape the fact that I am also contributing to this toxic chaos!

We are a virus! We are the nastiest, most insidious of all cancers upon this earth, because we are SUPPOSED to have a conscience! We are SUPPOSED to have higher cognitive functions that allow us to understand the laws of CAUSE and EFFECT! We are supposed to be "INTELLIGENT" beings!

Free will sucks, when the "free will" of others rapes and pillages everything and anyone around them!!!

As far as I'm concerned, the earth has every right to erradicate this toxic cancer virus that threatens the existence of all life. Every gd right!!!!

Quantum Leap

Transition is never about just one thing, but rather about many things, some of which sneak up on us and bite us in the ass because we haven't been listening or paying very much attention.

Today I have been asking myself what I would experience, how I would feel, if I were to work along side of my 20-something self, that part of me that was so filled with the spirit of the white bear. The feelings that arise are shocking, actually, because the truth is that I would feel exactly the way that I feel now working with these other young whipper snapping white bears. . . lol.

My 20-something self would roll her eyes at me, mock me (both to my face, but especially behind my back), disregard any contribution I had to make, and would treat me with great disdain as if I were invisible and no threat at all. I would not enjoy working with her, of course. I would think she was arrogant and completely full of herself. I would also think she was impetuous and irresponsible in all of the ways that mattered, especially the way she walked away from family, friends, jobs just because they were difficult or inconvenient. But I would also recall with great joy what it had once felt like to be that spirited and care free, but I wouldn't want to be that way now. I would smile at and admire her bold spirit, but I would feel grateful that I no longer embodied this overwhelming spirit of the white bear.

It's funny how time really does change us.

I haven't gone through life stages the way most of my friends have. I am basically living exactly the same life I was living when I turned 20. . . .single and free to live my life on my terms, in any way I see fit. I was married for a while, but I didn't have children, so I never really had to embrace new and emerging parts of a life progression in stages. So I think that's one of the reasons why I'm having such a hard time with this one. . . .it's a quantum leap progression, rather than in those smaller stages. But the not so simple truth is that even though I may have the same essential freedoms, I'm no longer the person I was when I was 20. . . . not on any level.

I am almost 50 years old, now. I'm gray and wrinkling with eyes that can no longer read without assistive devices and a brain that just doesn't have the same capacity to hold on to trivial pieces of information. I remember what's important. . . .how I felt in a given experience. . . .but I just don't even care to recall the insigificant minutia of details. And the things that were important to me when I was 20 just hold no meaning for this me at all. I've done the party scene. . . .spent too many mornings puking up enough bad memories to last ten lifetimes. . . .lol. I've done the college scene. . . .spent enough money also to last at least ten lifetimes. . . .lol. And I've done the professional scene. . . .spending my own life energy units to save ten other lifetimes.

I think I need a new scene.

One of my favorite animated films is Howell's Moving Castle. The young protagonist Sophie goes through many changes, but her transformation is possible only because a witch has turned her into an old lady, which frees her from all of her fears and limitations. In the form of the old lady she is free to speak her mind with no regard of what people think of her. But there is this one scene when she's sitting at the edge of the lake and she makes a comment how all old people want to do is sit and look at things. I really love that scene. . . .because I can so relate to that now.

I think I'm invisibly resisting the natural evolution of my aging self. My priorities HAVE changed. I'm not looking for who I want to be any more, I'm looking for a space to just be who I am already. I think I really am done fighting, because it's really not important any more. . . .not to THIS part of me. What's important now is how I feel as I move through each day. What's important is my quality of life.

The truth is that I have spent my whole life fighting for everyone else, but not for me. My childhood was spent taking care of my mom and my little brothers, but no one was really taking care of me. I made a comment once to my little brother Scotty about how for that year when we lived with our aunt and uncle, that was the only time in our life that we'd had a childhood. He corrected me by saying, "No. WE had a childhood. . . .you gave that to us." It stopped me dead in my tracks, because he was right. While they were outside playing, I was the one who was cleaning and making dinner and taking care of my incapacitated mother from as early as three years old. . . .and yes, I can actually remember that. . . lol.

Even my career choices have been about trying to save other people. During my early college days, I was actually a math major (I have always wanted to be a math teacher). When I got cancer the first time it was during my first year of college, so I changed my major to nutrition so that I could help other people never get cancer. However, after a year of dietetics study I transferred to another university as a math major again because the only class that really excited me was the one unit statistics for health professionals class.

My major quickly changed to art and creative writing when my life started falling apart because it was the only voice I had at the time, and any effort I made to work my way back to math has been thwarted in one way or another. My graduate studies as a family therapist was about helping other families to heal from the trauma and abuse that infected their family life. And my work as a social worker was to help foster kids heal from their abuse and have a wonderful and successful life.

Yes. . . .these choices were also about me, but not about the "me" me.

So that's why this transition is so hard. I have spent my life fighting to change the conditions all around me so that I could live my life in peace, but I've also been putting my own self on hold while I do that. There is a me that never got to be that is rising up inside and begging to be heard. I have a right to be here! I have a voice! she cries out in defiance of the spirit of the white bear all around her.

What I am just in this moment realizing is that the spirit of the white bear gave me strength at a time when I needed to learn how to fight and trudge on until I was strong enough internally to fight in my own way. I think I can finally remove the white bear's coat God so graciously cloaked around my overburdened shoulders as a child. The spirit of the white bear protected me and kept me safe even when the people in my young world could not, and I am ready to embrace this unknown spirit rising up from within.

So perhaps I can envision a post warrior me.

There is a point in everyone's life when we really begin to understand that we don't have an indefinite amount of time to do the things we want to do on this earth. I have fallen through this truth several times, but I am only now beginning to walk through its inevitability, and I have a choice to make: Do I continue fighting for the life I never got to have? Or do I lay down my sword and armor to sit at the edge of the lake and admire all of the beauty that surrounds me?

Post Warrior?

So what does a warrior do when there's no more fight left inside? I am told that it is a good thing that I have no more fight left in me. . . .that all it means is that I am transitioning into a new me. . . .and that's why I don't recognize who I am right now. . . .which is why I have no self-confidence. . . . .and I'm exhausted because I am letting go of the need to fight.

The key is alchemy. . . .or so I have been told.

Maybe this is an inevitable transformation. I don't really know. What I do know is that I can't even begin to imagine a me who isn't a warrior. But maybe that is precisely the problem, because if I honestly can't imagine a post warrior me, then I will only fight the inevitable. . . ..which is exactly what a Warrior self would do.

Fight. Battle. Resist. These are the ways of the Warrior.

This isn't the first time my Warrior self has been confronted. I remember how one of my professors in grad school suggested that perhaps I needed to rest and let other people pick up the fight, that by me always being the one to pick up and carry "the banner" it releases others from needing to do so. My internal response was then (and continues to be), "But if I don't do it, then it won't get done." Hmmmm.....

Without psychoanalyzing the obvious roots of this belief, I need to come to terms with the question this world view begs to be answered: Can I accept the expected chaos that inevitably would ensue if I didn't fight the fight if, in fact, nobody else did pick up the banner?

There is a philosphical belief that we are always living in the best of all possible worlds. It's a very optimistic belief, but one I can't attach myself to, because we do NOT live in the best of all possible worlds. In this world there are children being abused, women being beaten, men being murdered, entire families starving, political corruption, global decay, and the list could go on and on. So, no....I do NOT live in the best of all possible worlds. And someone DOES need to fight for any and all who can't advocate for themselves. But I don't think these are the fights that are exhausting me. . . .

I know what it is. . . .I know exactly what the fight is that has me so exhausted. . . .I just can't say it. To actually say it, out loud, would be to hear a truth so painful, I don't know if I could bear its weight. And I can't walk away from it, either. But which me can't bear the truth? Because it's certainly not my Warrior Self. . . .

The Long Slow Breaking of Spirit

Spent the afternoon resting and thinking about how much I have changed. . . .how when I started out in life I was intrepid. . . .no fear. . . .how I was once filled with the bravado of the white bear and a depth of knowledge that no matter what I attempted I would succeed. But something happened along the way. . . not really a single something, but a long series of somethings that have left my spirit broken. . . . broken and in need of that which ever eludes my exhausted mind.

Where is the spirit of the white bear? Where is the me who wore elf (and chicken) suits just for the fun of it and never, ever cared what anyone else thought about it? Where is the she who barked and snapped at first sergeants and slammed doors when wrongs weren't righted? Where is that woman with more balls than any man her platoon sergeant had ever known? I don't even recognize the me I have become, this anxious, chronic insomniac afraid to snap and growl back at the white bears surrounding me and treating me as an invisible and inconsenquential threat.

I think the word I'm looking for is shellshocked. That is exactly the word I'm looking for. I have had to fight for so long that I have no more fight left in me. I just want to be left the fuck alone so that I can have whatever peace I can find in the solitude of isolation.

That is exactly how I feel.

I touched this place ten years ago when I was coming out of my last cancer surgery. I had this weird experience where my body was under deep anaesthesia, unable to move or speak, but my mind was perfectly clear. As they were trying to awaken me, I was aware of how exhausted my spirit was. . . .aware of how much I did NOT want to fight to come back. . . . aware of how much I wanted to just lie there and let the struggle leave my battle fatigued body. But I wasn't ready to give up, so I fought to rise up out of that dark fog slowing trying to lull me into complete and utter submission.

But now, my spirit is broken. . . .broken with no more fight left. . . .no more fight and just wanting to be left alone in this dank cave with the spirit of the white bear somewhere off in the dense misted fog that has once again wrapped itself around me. I think I will be here for a while. . . .yes, I think I will be here for quite a very long while.

Fable of the Porcupine

(Author Unknown)

It was the coldest winter ever.  Many animals died because of the cold.

The porcupines, realizing the situation, decided to group together to keep warm. This way they covered and protected themselves; but the quills of each one wounded their closest companions.

After awhile, they decided to distance themselves one from the other and they began to die, alone and frozen. So they had to make a choice: either accept the quills of their companions or disappear from the Earth.

Wisely, they decided to go back to being together. They learned to live with the little wounds caused by the close relationship with their companions in order to receive the heat that came from the others. This way they were able to survive.

The best relationship is not the one that brings together perfect people, but when each individual learns to live with the imperfections of others and can admire the other person's good qualities.

The moral of the story is: Just learn to live with the Pricks in your life!

I think I might just be an alien

Today I feel like an alien, like I don't belong on this planet, and don't even want to belong on this planet. My friend tells me the problem is my expectations, my expectation that human beings will treat each other kindly, with dignity and respect. She tells me that's why I am chronically dissapointed. . . . because of this expectation that I have about the fundamental nature of human beings. She tells me that if I would simply expect to be treated like crap that I would then feel gratitutde and appreciation when I am treated kindly. Interesting perspective. . . .

If I were an alien, today's report to the home planet would inform that the humans of this planet are sad and unhappy people who treat each other with great insensitivity. Happy people just don't push and pull people down around them just to make themselves feel better! And yet on other days my report would be how amazing these human beings are to overcome so many hurdles in life by forgiving and accepting those who hurt and offend. The bottom line is that I just don't understand the mean and hurtful things people do to each other.

Perhaps I should stop trying to figure out why people treat each other so badly, and figure out instead why I am so turned upside down like a desert tortoise who can't upright herself when they do. Why can I not very easily let go of the hurtful things people do? Is Gayle right? Is the fundamental human journey the path of forgiveness? Am I failing to walk on my path of forgiveness?

Today I just feel like a pollyanna alien in a world filled with mean, hurtful, and insensitive people. But with enough pizza and Dr Pepper, this, too, shall pass. . . .even this day shall pass :)

Call of the Ravens

It’s another beautiful day at the canyon. Blue sky. Green trees. Feeling good to be alive. As I walk along immersed in the beauty of the day I notice some ravens cawing over across the way, so I turn to look for them as I continue walking on. I can’t see them, of course, but I can tell that there are several of them up inside the scraggly branches of two tall pine trees across the railroad tracks just beneath the village road that loops a complete circle around where I am in this moment palpably pulled into these enlivened trees as the ravens continue to caw.

How many times have I walked past these trees, tall and silent on my way to work in the wee darkness of the eerie walk to my graveyarded shift? Yet now they openly speak to me in the full brightness of day in a way that makes me suddenly very aware of the sun’s heat rising up off the dry brown dirt puffing up around my tennis shoes as I walk along, now fully immersed in the inescapable cawing of the ravens.

The dry path slopes downward now, about to cross a small creek. I don’t even stop to wonder where this tiny flow of water sources itself, I just step across making sure to land squarely upon the large single rock bridge that gaps the two dry sides. My crossing disturbs a lone raven just up the other side hopping like a three legged dog, its mouth full of something dead and fleshy. It’s amazing to me how large the raven is, and I remark to myself the irony of crossing paths with this dark harbinger whose mouth is filled with dead carcass like a symbolic piece of a long ago me, long since dead, perhaps, but not very long forgotten.

I am in love with this moment that has opened up the flow of spirit through what would have otherwise been nothing more than a mundane walk to lunch as I consider the urging of a friend to write down my dark stories and publish them for others like me to read. It’s an interesting and enticing thought, yet something that would most certainly change my life forever. And as I begin the last trudge to the top of this short craggy climb, the invisible ravens continue to caw out to me as if to warn of the dangers that lurk just beyond. . ..yet, I continue on. . . .I continue on.