Canoe in still water...

"Aware. Be aware." I always heard that saying and thought long and hard about it. Thought I understood and was living it. There's a switch that can be flicked on and off within us. In a matter of a second we can flip it. We don't always flip it the best way for us at times, well, I'll be honest, almost all of the time. I had a misconception when it came to awareness, being at peace, and all loving - you had to be a monk in some snowy mountaintop after sitting in a cave for a month meditating or one of my favorites is the skinny naked man with dreadlocks and ash from a cremation ground marking his skin, in a forest a night talking to the animals. It's that switch from thoughts to feelings and can be flicked any where and any time and any place.

On my travels I truly felt life, I had so much room I was willing to devote to being and being me most importantly. I discovered through such great pain one of the best blessings I've experienced and look forward to many more. My father is no longer in form. He exists in the realms of energy I struggle to attain to. My definitions had been redefined, specifically when it came to those people I called friends. My standards were low and out of comfort of not being alone I would have acquaintances around me disguised as friends. I realized how many of them were friends when it was pointed out to me that my friends are those who know where my father is buried. I was disappointed too.

I chose to shed and renunciate the things I once held dear, just like the saddhus of India... roaming in orange robes with their offering pots. Well, not quite, it felt that way to me at that moment. It's difficult to part with what is comfortable and now I am challenged to be at ease with the uncomfortable. That's where there's growth!

So I begin writing my growth to myself in these sentences, paragraphs, and this emotional dumping grounds. Writing kept the thoughts to a well balanced level allowing for more being. I choose to have balance in my life, like a canoe on still waters. I love that visual! Breathtakingly beautiful morning with light overcast and a a slow rolling fog cloud hovering above the water as the sun rises. That's my happy place ;)

I miss that place so dearly and am stumbling my way back. Writing facilitated one of my many ways that make me love myself, love others and most importantly recognize what love of One means.

Begins with a single step...

The Journey

On the day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
‘Mend my life!’
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognised as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life you could save.

- Mary Oliver