Inside the cold

I don’t think of it much these days. I can still hear the howling wind of a cold winter night. The wind whipping down the street and objecting across the siding. It was as if the place had only a few dim lights. I realize maybe impossible to use for reading or anything but eating and getting out the door. The wood in the house, a patchwork of things. The darkness comforted me. The silence even more. I stopped thinking about the difficult parts of my life. The parts I couldn’t change, nor run from. The unknown of what might come. As if protected from what could hurt me. Not yet immobile from anchors that got attached a long time ago. Anchors I had not yet learned to drop so I could be free. I had many at the time. Maybe I still have a few today. I couldn’t really imagine what was behind me. What was in front of me, well, it was blank, but possible. I tend to never forget that room. You didn’t know I would look over at you and wonder. I would smile. I wish the two of us smiled more about what we were experiencing. Then again, I wish I smiled so much more about life in general. I lost that part of myself from so many sad times. Sadly, I would also look over and know that some day, you’d be gone. I knew it. I expected an end to all good things in my life. I think it got programmed in my brain around 8. The beginning of the violence. I knew it would end, yet there I laid, on the bed, a wry smile across my face. I cried one time. Ironically, it was her, Mother Nature, who protected me during those days and nights; the many hours spent away. The wind was her voice, her emotions, the cold brutal air. Unbeknownst to me, both, protected me, from what was happening miles away. I remember that. She was there as were you. Both of you couldn’t have known I was plummeting through life and my bliss was temporary and I knew it. So many open doors I had passed through. There are some I choose to leave closed, a part of my heart still alive inside. Inside the cold….

Far, Far Beyond - Ch 13 - Untethered Soul by Michael Singer

If anything happens that challenges how view things, you fight. You defend. You rationalize. You get frustrated and angry over simple little things. This is the result of being unable to fit into what's actually happening into your model of reality. If you want to go beyond your model, you have to take the risk of not believing in it. If your mental model is bothering you, it's because it doesn't incorporate reality. Your choice is to either resist reality or go beyond the limits of your model. 

In order to truly go beyond your model, you must first understand why you built it. The easiest way to understand this is to study what happens when the model doesn't work. Have you ever built your whole world on a model of life predicated upon another person's behaviour or the permanence of a relationship? If so, have you ever had that foundation pulled from under you? Somebody leaves you? Somebody dies, Something goes wrong, Something shakes your model to the core. When this happens, your entire view of who you believe you are, including your relationship to everyone and everything around you, begins to fall apart. You panic and do everything you can to hold it together. You beg, fight and struggle to try and keep your world from collapsing.

Technicolor

The dreams told me.

It wasn’t the mistakes of the past. 

It was the potential of the future. 

It was the reality of what was possible. 

It was the picture of a life that would surely not be without trials.

The glimmer in the eyes.

The death of regret. 

Chapter 11 - Pain, the price of freedom & Chapter 12 - Taking down the walls

"...When you feel pain, simply view it as energy. Just start seeing these inner experiences as energy passing through your heart and before the of your consciousness. Then relax. Do the opposite of contracting and closing. Relax and release. Relax your heart until you are actually face-to-face with the exact place it hurts. Stay open and receptive so you can be present right where the tension is. You must be willing to be present right at the place of the tightness and pain, and then relax and go even deeper. This is very deep growth and transformation. But you will not want to do this. You will feel tremendous resistance to doing this, and that's what makes it so powerful. As you relax and feel resistance, the heart will want to pull away, to close, to protect, and to defend itself. Keep relaxing. Relax your shoulders and relax your heart. Let go and give room for the pain to pass through you. It's just energy. Just see it as energy and let it go."

"At some point in your growth, it starts to become quieter inside. This happens quite naturally as you take a deeper seat within yourself. You then come to realize that though you have always been there, you have been completely overwhelmed by the constant barrage of thoughts, emotions and sensory inputs that draw on your consciousness. As you see this, it begins to dawn on you that you migth actually be able to go beyond all the disturbances. The more you sit in the seat of witness consciousness, the more you realize that since you are completely independent of what you are watching, there must be a way to break free of the magical hold that the psyche has on your awareness. There must be a way out..."

Downeaster Alexa

 "The Downeaster 'Alexa'"

Well I'm on the downeaster "Alexa"
And I'm cruising through Block Island Sound
I have charted a course to the Vineyard
But tonight I am Nantucket bound
We took on diesel back in Montauk yesterday
Left this morning from the bell in Gardiner's Bay
Like all the locals here I've had to sell my home
Too proud to leave, I work my fingers to the bone

So I could own my downeaster "Alexa"
And I go where the ocean is deep
There are giants out there in the canyons
And a good captain can't fall asleep
I got bills to pay and children who need clothes
I know there's fish out there, but where God only knows
They say these waters aren't what they used to be
But I got people back on land who count on me

So if you see my downeaster "Alexa"
And if you work with the rod and the reel
Tell my wife I am trolling Atlantis
And I still have my hands on the wheel

Yay-o
Yay-o
Yay-o
Yay-yay-o

Now I drive my downeaster "Alexa"
More and more miles from shore every year
Since they told me I can't sell no stripers
And there's no luck in swordfishing here
I was a bayman like my father was before
Can't make a living as a bayman anymore
There ain't much future for a man who works the sea
But there ain't no island left for islanders like me

Yay-yay-yay-o
Yay-yay-yay-o
Yay-yay-yay-o
Yay-yay-yay-o

You were there

 In the darkest of times, you saved my life. You were there. There is no reason I should’ve gotten up off that floor. My blood had dropped so fast and drastically that I couldn’t control and then black. There is no one near me. There is no one here. I fell down. I didn’t get up for 3 hours yet I didn’t die. There is no logic or rational why I survived but I did. You or God was there. There is a memory of someone by my side. It didn’t come to me until just now. I can see myself in my living room as if I’m hovering above myself and there is someone by my side. Just watching over me. The person is bright and glowing….or shrouded in white. It is the only positive in this situation. It doesn’t feel like a fork in the road. It feels like the end of one road, going out through the sand and into the ocean and then the ocean opens up for me. 

The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least soundin fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.