ORIGINAL BLISS

A Temper Tantrum in Blue and Gray

Hello old friends and readers. It has been a very long time. Way too long for me, that's for sure. 

The goal was to stop everything else and just focus on writing my book. I thought it would be a good diversion - to keep my head engaged as I maneuvered my way through the wreckage of my life. But now I do not think that was a wise choice. By sticking my head into the fiction of my novel, I lost touch with the reality of my heart. I ignored my emotional voice.

Blogging, art journaling, and journal writing have always helped me keep my inner space spruced up. It forces me to look at the emotional clutter and make decisions about what to do with it. What is this about? Can I get rid of this now? Can I move on? Can I transform it into something beautiful?

Needless to say, without that outlet, my innards are lookin' like holy hell.

I thought it would be so nice just to shut out all the pain and suffering... to come down with an amnesia that blocks out the memories. But if they aren't really dealt with - YOU ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT THEM!!!!

Ah yes... and that was the inspiration for my posting today. I was tootling along on cloud 9, really happy about the progress I have been making in my recovery from a disastrous relationship. Thrilled to be meeting new people and doing new things. EXCITED about the possibilities and the future.

But underneath that glam and glittery surface.... eee gads! It is dark and murky and slimy. EW.

And all that denial, grief, anger, and confusion - feeds a monster. And then when I least expect it, it surfaces and spews that nasty crap out her blow hole.

Yeah... she's an ugly bitch.

So, in order to slay the monster, I have to starve her out. I have to, like really, get to work. Stop denying the pain and grief and anger. Stop trying to hide it all in the closet and under the bed, so I can look "pretty" all the time.

And while I do that, I am going to start balancing my novel writing with a little play - some finger painting, some scribbling, and some temper tantrums in blues and gray.

Okay.... and maybe some pink, and green, and bright golden yellow!

Namaste,

CHEZ

 

 

 

Motion and Stillness

The move is complete.

I am in my new place and it is such an awesome space! A real sanctuary. A house of glass that lets in the dappled sunlight and views of lush vegetation that surround the property. A fountain bubbles outside my bedroom windows and birds flit in and out of the courtyards.

I love it so so so so much! 

It has been so much work: the planning, the packing, the heaving and hefting, the loading and unloading, and finding the perfect places for all the crap I have acquired over 43 years.

Add to that the emotional baggage and bureaucratic processes of a divorce...

I have been so busy I haven’t had time to really think. Or really feel.

I had a moment alone last night. Kelsea was at work. Mattea was with friends. It was just me, alone with my thoughts and my feelings.

When the busy stops, I grieve.

Not over the loss of the person, because when I am with him, I feel alone ~ which is more frustrating and disappointing than actually being alone.  

No. I grieve the loss of the IDEA of love. I grieve the loss of the fantasy I built my life around and upon. I just propped up the reality of the relationship on the ideals I desired and called it so.

But it was like a pretty teacup. It looked good on the shelf, with its trips and events, but when I tried to drink from it, it held nothing to quench my real thirst. A pretty, empty, cup.

So I am creating this new space, a new cup, that I fill with positive, fortunate, and abundant changes that I can drink from and actually be sustained.

Namaste,

C H E Z

 

Shannan's Prayer For Today

Dear Divine Alpha/Omega, All That Is, Whatever That Is,

I am contacting you today to thank you ~

for my anger ~ for the rational, slow burn of outrage I hold within me.

Anger really gets a bad rap down here in the second, lowest dimension from Hell. It's labeled as "bad" and forsaken for a fake, happy-go-luckiness even though we are miserable.

Recently, I have discovered anger to be a glorious thing - indeed, a gift! For it has provided me with the fuel I need for change. It has mobilized me past the constraints of fear and into action.

Thank you for every reminder: for every stupid, crazy, aggravating thing that makes me want to slap him upside the head. Each moment of insanity reassures me that I am doing the right thing.

And thank you further still for restraining my hand ~ because I sure as hell don't need that kind of drama - though he so righteously deserves it.

If you could also please help me in keeping my tongue to myself. Though it would be gratifying to cut him to the quick with some well phrased jabs, that would only keep me engaged with him and diminish me. May my talking, and blogging, about him behind his back bring satisfaction enough.

Thank you, too, for showing me that "Til death do us part" meant when the relationship kicked the bucket.... not when I did. Though I performed every lifesaving measure known to relationships, nothing could resuscitate it. Thank you for telling me to bury the damn thing already, because its putrid carcass was starting to stink up the place.

Please let me hold on to resentment as long as I need ~ to stave off regret. Allow the resentments to remind me that I never, ever, ever, ever, ad infinitum (ever) want to go back into a relationship that was that destructive.

BUT when it is time - when it is no longer useful - help me to release it, because I don't want to end up a bitter, old bitch, either.

And I shout HellYeah!Lujah! Thou hast provided me with a sense of humor. Although others may find my wit irreverent or inappropriate, it surely saves me. And I am so grateful!

Namaste,

C H E Z

 

In A Perfect Storm... Perfect Peace.

"Ethereal" Mixed Media Collage, National Geaogaphic Art Journal Series, Shannan Sinclair

I consider myself a pretty strong person. I mean, don't we all see ourselves in that light? After all the pain, heartache and suffering that we go through, when we come through at the other end of it, don't we think, "Damn! I can't believe I made it through that!"

Well, I have a confession. Sometimes.... I don't feel that strong. Oh, I may look like a B.A.M.F. who's got the tiger by the tail. But when I am alone, and trying to hide under my covers... mmmm not so much.

Sometimes, the pain is agony.

Sometimes I feel utterly alone and completely broken.

But I have also experienced something A-M-A-Z-I-N-G in that.

There have been several times in the past couple of months, where I have been in those moments. I have nothing left in me. No fight. No spark. Empty.

And in the very moment of the deepest dispair a strange and perfect peace embraces me, fills me and refreshes my soul.

Just when I think - I can not go on any further... I am restored.

Namaste,

C H E Z

Follow Your Heart - OR DIE!!!!!

So I watched Oprah today.

I don't usually watch Oprah. I have nothing against her... I just don't like sappy, overdramatized, preachy things. I like authenticity. And although she preaches authenticity - it doesn't feel authentic to me.

I want REAL. Like, really really REAL.

I like my sunshine with some clouds...

my flowers in the dirt...

I like my tears... not to be a pretty, little well-up with one sliding down my cheek.... I like tears with snot and sobs and black, mascara eyes that leave a salty rind encrusted on my face.

But I watched Oprah today, featuring Tom Shadyac, the director of Ace Ventura, Bruce Almighty, Nutty Professor, who gave up the so-f-ing-rich-and-successful life, for a REAL one.

It hooked me. It touched me. And it reminded me of several things about myself that I have let go to seed.

I haven't been living my purpose. I know my purpose. I yearn and crave to be fulfilling it. BUT I continuously put it aside and give my energy away to purposes that are not from my own heart. I get distracted and off-track.

Oprah said today.... "Each day we live not doing our heart's desire... we die a little."

That resonated with me. I know that little inkling of death. I feel it when I close my eyes at the end of a day that I have been completely out of touch with my soul's reason for being.

So I am putting a little Posty on my bathroom mirror that reads - "Follow Your Heart - OR DIE!"

Every morning... as I floss my gums... I will repeat it in my head and go into my day following my heart.

Namaste,

C H E Z

I Am A Writer After All

 
I had almost completely forgotten about this project. A year and a half ago I submitted some of my journals to Stampington. They got in touch with me and asked me to write an article to go with some of my pages.

What a nice surprise to see it finally published. And a lovely reminder when I struggle with my current writing project... I am not TRYING to be a writer... I already AM a writer.

Namaste,

C H E Z

Being in Amusement

Once upon a time... a long, long time ago...

there was a period in my life when I started having intense and frequent intuitive revelations and premonitions.

Our spiritual senses; clairvoyance, clairsentience, telepathy, etc... are natural gifts that we all have, but we forsake them and let them atrophy because we let our physical senses wear the pants during our living experience.

So although "psychic" phenomena wasn't really new to me, my abilities became so dominant in my life that it kind of scared me. I didn't have names for what was happening... I didn't have control. I couldn't turn it off or on. It would blindside me at inconvenient times.

Rather than seek out a psychiatrist ~ who would have medicated me and suppressed these valid skills ~ I decide to attend some classes to understand and direct it for myself. If you ever watch Psychic Kids and A&E, they do this for youngsters who are "out of control" psychics.

The classes I attended taught many tools for centering and owning your beingness in life. They offered a safe place to explore these abilities... to let them out of the closet and play.

One of these tools was called "Being in Amusement"... and I am amused when I confess I had forgotten all about this tool until very recently.

I have gotten sooooooo caught up in being serious! All of my life has been serious business that must be brought under control and managed. Seriousness is a heavy energy. It is like being cloaked in a fog... with an ominous fog horn sounding in the background. With seriousness comes worry, fretting, effort, rigidity, and overall "poopiness".

"Being in Amusement" is a Zen Buddhist / Sufi way of living your life. Zen and Sufism use humor and laughter in viewing and dealing with the human situation and themselves. As Thomas Moore points out in his book "Dark Nights of the Soul," Zen Buddhists and Sufis can see irony in the most serious situations and their laughter frees their compassion and liberates them from worry.

As I look at some of the heavy situations that dance around me, I am looking through the dark glass, lightly. "Where can I find the irony in this?" "How can a be in amusement as I move through and past it?"

This week I have found some amusement. It has lifted the cloak from around my heart and put a smile on my face.

Namaste,

C H E Z

Where Have All The Grown Ups Gone?

We are having an epidemic of immaturity in our country. Screw the Swine Flu! We need a collective inoculation of wisdom, compassion and enlightenment, STAT!

I have been exposed to the infected in staggering numbers this week.

It has been as minor as middle age adults trying to dress and behave like they are back in high school. This actually does not make them look any younger. The gray hair, wrinkles, and pot bellies are actually accentuated when you dress age inappropriately. It is painful to see and I am embarrassed for them.

Though prevalent, this is but a small transgression.

I am teaching my daughter how to drive. God bless all parents trying to instruct their children on the proper way to maneuver a 4000 lb hunk of metal through our community.

Sitting shotgun, I have begun to think I really need the said shotgun.

If you cut my daughter off while she is turning into a parking space...

or speed to pass her only to pull in front of her and slam on your breaks then glare at her because she was only exceeding the speed limit by 5 mph, instead of the 20 mph you wanted to speed...

Or honk at her because she stopped at a crosswalk to allow a pedestrian their right of way...

I get to use my shotgun status.

But here is the biggy!

By know we have all witnessed at least one "Facebook Smackdown". This is a Shannanism that I have added to Urban Dictionary. This is the knockdown-drag-out arguments that occur over someone's status updates. Typically occurs when one "friend" misinterprets or takes another "friend's" status personally and begins a comment war for all to see and enjoy.

I have had the un-pleasure of witnessing a Smackdown between my sister and my mother and my aunt... between several of my co-workers... and finally a bullying session between a few 40-something adults against my 15 year old daughter.

Yeah.

I witnessed three, adult parents belittle and attack my daughter on their Facebook status over a second-hand rumor they heard from other kids at her school.

Some of the comments went like this:

"What I really think is weird is disrespectful kids who think they are all that and so good that they can say whatever they want. Someone needs to realize they are not as good as they think and in fact - they are the weird one."

"Don't be to hard on whoever is making comments they can't help it if they are immature."

Then one adult goes to my daughter's page and copies, then mimics, her status about having a great time at a football game - Mattea's status in BOLD, lame ass adult, italic:

"I just wanna say, "The day has started off AMAZING and MAGICAL and has continued to be SPECTACULAR... because I rock and I'm a legend in my own mind...BLAH BLAH BLAH....BARF!! Gag me with a spoon."

I might add that the adults in this Smackdown against a 15 year old, call themselves devout Christians...

Don't worry. I stepped in.

We all have been seeing the teen suicide epidemic in recent weeks over online and school bullying. And maybe you have been wondering why these young teenagers are hanging themselves from their neighborhood trees and jumping off bridges. It is because their peers... and maybe even adults... are cruel, predatory bullys.

It might not be because the child is homosexual. It might be because they aren't like other people... maybe they are smart, or pretty, or talented, or something the bully isn't and the bully has to bring that person's esteem down so the bully can feel good about themselves.

We can try to console our youth with the trite "sticks and stones" cliche. But a teenager's esteem is in a fragile state of development, and thinking that "words can never hurt them" is so very, VERY wrong.

Words do hurt.

We take them in... we question whether or not they are true... we repeat them over and over in our heads... and if we decide we believe them, they have life-long, and sometimes life-ending, ramifications.

When are we all going to GROW UP and start being NICE!?

How are our children going to learn how to be wise, loving and compassionate human beings if we don't start BEING THE EXAMPLE!!! ???

Namaste,

C H E Z

 

Dear Diary....

I am craving good times, with good friends...

 

here are some notes on a new meditation technique I am practicing...

 

I liked this list of "25 Things Every Woman Should Know" that I found in Elle and decided to save it forever and add some of my own.

My favorites: #9, #12, #24

and my own: "Trust in your faith and remember who you are."

 

I have been craving living water as much as I do air to breath...

 

I have been reading Keats...

 

and Oscar Wilde...

 

I have so much to say, but don't have the language to say it.

So I lay it all down in you,

in paint and in glue.

 

In symbols only my soul understands...

 

and ideas that I don't want to forget.

 

Namaste,

C H E Z

Theos Ek Mechanes

"In some Greek dramas, a god showed up out of nowhere to cause a miraculous twist at a crucial point in the tale. This divine intrusion was referred to as theos ek mechanes, literally "god from a machine," because the symbolic figure of the god was lowered onto the stage by a crane. In modern usage, the term is Latin ~ deus ex machina ~ and refers to a story in which a sudden event brings about a resolution to a problem."

Rob Brezsny

"PRONOIA is the antidote for paranoia - How The Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You With Blessings"

I found this little nugget during my morning hunt for inspiration while the coffee was brewing. It reminded me that I need to leave room on my stage for God to drop down from a crane.

Can I get a little drumroll with my divine intervention?

Namaste,

C H E Z