Surrendering to the experience of life continues to move me to tears of happiness, really, despite the incredible amount of pain I have experienced in the last 5 months.
I saw the Carnegie International today and there were these sublime perfect moments of connection with something truly beautiful. A sentence in a film, perhaps: Her eyes ached to see him. Or color in thick brush strokes on large canvas with absolutely exquisite composition. Or the film with the drum that moved in the light and the music like light.
And so when I was recently told of a soul connection that I have it explains so much but doesn't do anything to answer the predicament of life's experiences. Never ever having considered connections of the soul before (honestly!) I inhale articles like some long lost vitamin. But the experience remains -- the push and pull, the absence, the 'holy longing'. I am lost inside my own heart, possessed by an energy I didn't ask for. I have seen all that has kept me from advancing as a soul, an artist, a healthy human being. But I don't yet know how to get on the other side.
An understanding with my mind is simply a delay tactic, or another way to encounter it, but not the experience itself. I have started writing about it in song as a way to shape the experience into something. Otherwise I am just literally undone all day long. I have tried to escape it, and I do a pretty good job of it, too. But I know this only prolongs the new reality I never asked for in the first place. I've clearly got work to do.
And yet, even as I wish I could be beyond it, I am enormously grateful for the opportunity to heal the karma, or balance the energy, or whatever you want to call it. I'm ready for a fresh start in my life. If this is day one, bring it on.
After years of going down the rabbit hole of alternative medicine and trying to coax myself back towards myself, it's grand to have a dream again. I have wandered about trying to be content with moments in the darkness. And I am. But I always knew some broader vision existed. Other people had it. Why didn't I? What did I never know what I wanted or needed? What kept me from my own intuition, my own Self? Why did I fear its certainty?
I still have no idea what the dream will be as a literal life experience, but I can see my world is expanding. I thank this unexpected soul connection for the shift. It's like those story walls in Lascaux Caves. A connection is a flicker of light to illuminate a story that's been there for thousands of years. With a little light we can read it like a book. We can see the story and read it, or we can see it and freak out because it's too much to bear. We can blow out the candle but the story is still there.
My story starts with a woman who has centuries of baggage. She can see them now and set them down and walk away. Or that is the idea. The idea is to walk out of the cave with nothing but herself, free to move, to hunt, to love, to run, to walk without burden. That's the idea.
With some different kind of future cast in front of my eyes, I figure surrendering to the pain is a small price to pay. I'd walk through fire for that. I'd suffer exquisite 'holy longing' as long as I needed to in order to reach some kind of certain peace tomorrow.
I've been pretty good at missing things. I've been good at doing without, at letting someone else's story dictate my own. I've been good at running. For the first time in my adult life I feel like I have something that is mine and no one can fuck with it. My heart and its longings are all mine. I don't suffer because of it. I claim it as my own. I do this because I know I'm alive and I'm not alone. There is someone else doing the same thing. There are thousands.
I will turn myself inside out. Or that's the idea. If this is day one then it is a good day. We get better by accepting what is. I could go on. I hope I do.
