Your Lips to God's Ear

A wish, exhaled on a sigh

floating like a feather high,

caught on the clouds and lingered.

It held firm but not patiently so,

fluttering, twisting on invisible breeze,

trapped by desire that stirred the wish

and the thought that it won't come true.

I was reminded of

moths--homely dull brown,

wanting desperately to light on light

and finding themselves denied by heat

moving restlessly, endlessly in constant flight.

Only when wishes and moths fly without fear

do you finally find

your lips to God's ear.

I think the Universe listens to us when we make wishes or dream about things we would like to happen.  It hears everything--even the unconscious, unsaid things.  That is why a lot of desires remain unfulfilled.  We want so much for things to happen that we end up not only thinking about the fulfilment of desires but also the fear of not achieving them.  We send mixed signals and in the confusion, the Universe responds accordingly with indecision.

Have you ever noticed it is the singularly focused people, the ones usually free from worry that have things work out well for them?  Part of their success of course comes from their own actions, but another part of it comes from the sincere belief that they will be successful.  When they wish, or dream, or plan they send out clear requests unmuddled by fear or worry.  They know things will work out well and do not waste energy on negative what-if scenarios.  The Universe hears them clearly, as if they were whispering the wish right into it's ear. 

By thinking of the negative consequences of not achieving what we desire, we trap our own wishes in limbo.  They move constantly and restlessly, but never gain any momentum, and never find rest in completion.  Being successful requires a person to know what he or she wants, to act accordingly, and to truly believe that all things are possible. 

Houses of Sand: Emotional Cowardice

Dishonest relationships have as much permanence as castles in the sand.

I've been thinking about interpersonal relationships lately, but more specifically how people within a relationship communicate with each other.  What makes a romance, a friendship, a marriage work?  What's the best way to interact so that the relationship is fulfilling and healthy and ongoing?  I have recently seen how a friendship can just end suddenly due to miscommunication and stubbornness.  I have witnessed how a marriage withers on the vine due to a lack of addressing issues immediately.  I've noticed other relationships falter due to unexpressed expectations and assumptions made without the foundation of fact.  Most people screw up a relationship because they don't talk about what they really feel or think with the other person.

I think fear is probably the greatest obstacle to maintaining a healthy, happy interaction with another person.  Fearful thoughts of, "What if I say something that offends him or her? What if what I want or need isn't what they are willing to give?  What if I show my true self and he or she doesn't like it?"  Therefore, a lot of people let things slip under the rug.  They let the possibility of losing a friend or lover subsume the need for free and open communication regarding issues within the relationship.  They hide hurt feelings, they don't ask for what they need, they attribute behaviors and actions to false motivations and intentions, just to keep a person in their lives. All the attempts like this at keeping a relationship constitutes emotional dishonesty, and it starts a cycle which will ultimately lead to the end of the friendship or romance.  A shaky foundation eventually causes a structure to crumble, and a relationship built on unexpressed thoughts is like a house built upon sand.  It is never stable and will eventually return to dust.

I can understand why someone would not want to lay him or herself bare before another person.  To put out into the universe all the things he or she is thinking and feeling.  It requires a vulnerability, a willingness to potentially be hurt by the reaction of the other person.  Speaking his or her truth and letting the chips fall where they may is a terrifying enterprise, especially to a person who desperately wants to be in love or have a friend.  No one likes to be hurt and it is human instinct to do everything possible to avoid pain. Therefore people hide what they think and feel to a certain degree.  At some point in life, all people have had moments of emotional cowardice, where they've fallen prey to fear and allowed misconceptions, miscommunication, and outright dishonesty linger in a relationship and slowly begin to poison it.

Being open and honest is the only way to give a relationship a chance to realize its potential.  It is the single thing a person can do to craft a fulfilling and authentic marriage, friendship, or romance.  It takes courage to be true to oneself and honest with others, but it is a quality definitely worth having.  A person may have fewer relationships or friendships, but those that he or she has will be lasting, deep, and meaningful.  It is a quality over quantity paradigm shift that dramatically enhances one's life.  It takes emotional maturity, an understanding of one's needs and wants, and a willingness to be both vulnerable and strong simultaneously.  Honesty and openness is a hard thing to achieve, but it can be done as long as people are mindful of how they want their relationships to be and aware of how their actions impact their relationships.

The other key ingredient in developing a true and fulfilling relationship is how one expresses his or her honest feelings and thoughts.  I have one friend who is under the impression that all relationships should be built upon improving one another through constant criticism. That is an inherently negative starting point.  It's good to be expressive and honest, but it is important to be tactful and supportive too.  Regardless if one's intentions are good,if the delivery is not good as well, the message is lost.  I told him last night that having good intentions without good delivery is much like having a brilliant idea but no means of explaining it to someone else.  It's as if they don't exist at all.  A person normally doesn't hear intentions, they hear what you say.  A person should always be open, honest and true in his or communication, but should also always be respectful of the other person's feelings while communicating.

In sum, it all boils down to the idea that either people will like someone for who he or she is, or they won't.  It's as simple as that.  If everyone could be secure enough in him or herself to value healthy, happy relationships over just a relationship, personal interactions would be much smoother.  Expressing myself is something I work on consistently.  Just like everyone else, I have a tendency to suppress certain things I want to say or I can be tactful to a fault.  It's about striking a balance of truth and respect and courage and I think it's entirely possible to create relationships with solid, long-lasting foundations.  The only sandcastles I care to build these days are ones on a beach.

P: My Favorite Letter of the Alphabet

Wonderful words start with the letter P.

The letter P seems to be my favorite letter of the alphabet these days. Peace, perspective, patience and productivity--these four things comprise my most recent goals for self-improvement.  Upon reflection, recent might not be the best word to use. I should probably say they have been consistent objectives throughout my life, but I've been really focusing on them lately with much more intensity. The older I get, the more important it has become for me to actively live a balanced life in which I have patience for all the ups and downs that continuously occur.  I also want to be more personally productive, making each moment count for something.  Time slips by faster every year and its imperative to not waste anymore of it.  At some point in every day, I wonder if what I am doing is meaningful or I am just spinning my wheels and killing time.  I think if I can marry these goals together and keep them in the forefront of my mind, I will be able to live a life of meaning and consequence.

I've always wanted to lead a peaceful life, one in which I am comfortable with my place in the world and one in which i work towards creating a peaceful atmosphere and environment surrounding all that I do.  I think being peaceful requires a sense of balance and perspective that takes quite a bit of work to attain.  It demands a person to be both detached and attached to the people and circumstances surrounding him or her.  A person should be detached enough to understand that in the grand scheme of things, most upsetting and negative situations we encounter daily do not much matter.  They mostly consist of petty concerns which can be fixed or ameliorated with relative ease.  Therefore it is unnecessary to get overly emotional or angry about things because it wastes time and energy that could be expended elsewhere.  By the same token, a person should be attached enough to the people and circumstances in his or her life to care deeply and work diligently at being present in the moment and consistently making an impact.  It's important to always keep life in a perspective that recognizes the larger context in which it resides while at the same time maintaining close and meaningful relationships with friends and family.

Patience goes hand-in-hand with peace.  It requires the ability to keep calm and view everything with an eye towards the big picture.  I always ask myself when I am about to get frustrated or upset, if this is an incident or remark, or moment that will matter when I place it into a larger context.  Oftentimes, whatever the issue is, doesn't require an explosive or intense response.  If I were to get angry over everything that goes wrong, I would spend a lot of time being negative, and negative energy is wasted time that could have been spent much more meaningfully somewhere else.

Out of all my goals, I struggle the most with productivity.  I mean, no one can accuse me of not getting things done.  Somedays I am a whirlwind of activity in which every single thing on my list gets accomplished.  I feel good knowing I completed x, y, and z, but my idea of productivity goes deeper and feels so much bigger than just finishing mundane activities.  I want to be able to say at the end of the day that what I did mattered.  I want the energy that I expend to mean something, to have left an impact.  Some days I cannot believe that I am forty years old and I am still trying to figure out what kind of impact I want to make on this world.  I always thought I would have my shit figured out by now, but in a lot of ways being a grown up hasn't been anything like I imagined it to be when I was a child.  Being thoroughly middle-aged and still not knowing what I want to be when I grow up shouldn't necessarily surprise me then.

Nevertheless, I think if I am able to remain peaceful and patient, viewing the world in proper perspective, the productivity will fall in line.  Peace will allow me to stay in the moment and patience will keep me from wasting time on negativity. Perspective will give me opportunities to focus on more important things. Besides, one never really knows what kind of impact one has on life in general.  What we might think of as petty concerns or random acts might have very large ripples when taken all together over a course of a lifetime.  I might be rippling right now and not even be aware of it.

Now it's time for me to put my "P's" in action.  Here's looking forward to a day of peace, perspective, patience and productivity.  I hope you all have one as well. :)

Renovation: A Work in Progress

I've been struggling with depression for the past several months now.  I have good days and bad days and mediocre days, all clouded with an underlying feeling of discontent.  Like a house with termites, everything is great on the surface, but not so good on a structural level. Upon reflection, I've discovered several reasons why I have been feeling off, but like most people, I've had a difficult time addressing those reasons. I am pretty self-aware and to a certain extent I understand my strengths and weaknesses, but I've chosen to be stubborn and not work with my strengths to eradicate my weaknesses.  It's a good place to start from, knowing oneself, but if one doesn't act on what one knows, then what is the point in having any knowledge?

One of the key things I do know is I have fallen into the trap that I warn other people about all the time. A person should never fill him/herself with other people and things in order to feel better.  A sense of wholeness has to come from oneself.  I've been filling myself with "friends" who aren't really friends, experiences which don't benefit me in any tangible way, reading, eating, and other escapist activities.  None of those things help except momentarily.  They may alleviate the symptoms of depression, but the root causes are still there and the bad days always return.  Until and unless I decide to do something about the core issues triggering my depressive thoughts, nothing will change.  Much like renovating a home, only when I get to the achingly hard part of working on the foundation of myself will significant and positive change occur. All the redecoration and landscaping in the world won't fix a single thing.  The house looks beautiful and well-appointed while the internal structure continues to rot.

As far as bad days go, yesterday proved to be a doozy.  It seemed as if everything I've been running from, everything that affects my mood negatively coalesced to bury me in morbid thoughts and ugly feelings.  By the end of the day, I felt so suffocated by all the unhappiness that my chest actually hurt and my body ached. Anyone who tells you depression doesn't have physical symptoms obviously has never been depressed.  Our bodies manifest what our minds refuse to manage, and if depression continues unabated it will lead not only to emotional distress but physical distress as well.  I went to bed thinking that I didn't much care if I woke up in the morning.  I felt like I could sleep for days and my absence wouldn't much matter. No one would notice and I wouldn't care.  How dumb is that thought?  Of course people would notice, my children especially. But it doesn't matter how illogical some thoughts become, the emotion driving those thoughts aren't based in logic.  They spring from feelings.  That's the thing about depression, it skews a person's sense of reality to the point where nothing makes sense, but everything feels profoundly real.

Fortunately for me, I couldn't sleep.  I lay in bed thinking about things and eventually my thoughts turned to my children.  They are the best blessings in my life, and I want so much for them.  I want them to have good childhoods and good adulthoods.  I want them to be healthy, happy, strong and compassionate.  I want them to be independent, confident and fearless.  I want them to thrive in all things.  I had a moment of clarity then, in wishing all those things for my children.  I constitute a key component in the creation of healthy, happy lives for them, and if I am not okay with myself, it's going to be difficult to give them the best lives possible.
As I previously stated, I know myself.  I understand that I engage in behaviors that are completely unhealthy.  I am a self-saboteur with a streak of self-loathing which lets me get away with treating myself in ways I would never dream of treating someone else.  One thing I absolutely refuse to do, however, is willfully harm my children in any form, and if that means I have to make myself better to do that, then by God, I will.

I woke this morning thinking about foundations, understanding what I need to do to stabilize my internal home, my idea of self.  There will be some digging, some shoring up, some discarding, and some really hard work.  No more moving furniture, no more paint, no more external trappings.  The days of superficial sprucing-up are over.  I don't just want to have attractive curb appeal, I want to be a solid, good home from the inside-out.  I am not just blowing sunshine up my own skirt this time.  I mean to make this self-improvement last. Moving out of depression doesn't happen all at once.  I am aware that there will be days when I achieve significant renovation and days when the contractor chooses not to show up for work.  The point of the matter is that I vow to work on being better every day, to keep the proper perspective regarding myself and life in general, to be more forgiving of myself and others, and to never give up in trying to do what is right.  Just like a house under construction or repair, I am a work in progress and as long as I keep progressing, my home will eventually be done. So in the meantime, please pardon my dust.

Blown Away: Spring in New Mexico

Springtime in New Mexico

Today is the first day of spring.  Here in New Mexico this fine morning, high clouds dot the sky in long, drawn-out arcs and I am waiting for the wind to start blowing.  It blows almost every day in March and April, sometimes lasting throughout the entire spring. Most people associate flowers and budding trees with spring.  I, however, as a New Mexican for the past 25 years think of wind and dirt as the harbinger of warmer weather and the summer to come.  Nothing quite tops a New Mexico March dirt-storm in which visibility can go from strikingly clear to non-existent in mere minutes, where your home and every surface within it, including people and pets, become coated in a fine layer of dust, and when the constant buzzing and whirring of gusts blowing around your house never ceases.  One of the more annoying occurrences during a dirt-storm is when a little moisture arrives at the same time.  Instead of water sprinkling from the sky everything becomes covered in droplets of mud.  I am not sure about other states, but sometimes in New Mexico it actually rains dirt.

New Mexicans become used to the taste of dirt behind their teeth, immune to the grainy particles that line their ears or invade their eyes, and hair blown every direction under the sun.  They learn to work around the wind.  Some people keep up the good fight with dusting every day, securing things to keep them from blowing away, and going about their business with a determined mindset that this little breeze isn't going to affect them.  Others just give up until June, hang tight and hold on until the wind stops blowing.  Usually those people are the ones so highly medicated on antihistamines that they don't notice April and May have cruised right on by into summer.

Allergies and sinus problems constitute one of the more unfortunate side effects of the wind.  I have lived in many states, some of which are verdant, beautiful and full of flowers and trees in the spring.  However, none of them hold a candle to the aggressiveness of New Mexico spring-time allergies.  In my opinion, the wind and constant dirt in the air only exacerbate the allergies caused by pollen.  The first full spring I spent in New Mexico I lost my voice for six weeks due to allergy-induced laryngitis.  Some years I fare better than others, but a year hasn't existed yet that I haven't suffered at some point due to allergies and sinus issues caused in no small part by the wind.

Nonetheless, I would really want to live anywhere else.  In the early mornings and evenings when the wind has settled, New Mexico has this stillness, this austere beauty that does not exist anywhere else in the world. The freshness of the air, the amazing blueness of the sky in the day, and the brilliance of the stars at night, make this state a particularly beautiful place in which to live.  I can endure the wind, the dust, and the allergies for those reasons and so many more.  I love my home state.  I love each of the seasons and the way in which they arrive for their own peculiar characteristics.  In sum, New Mexico just blows me away.

Energy Expended and Other Poems

Energy Expended

It is worth the energy expended, cradling this wanting—

the need to have your mouth to mine,

our hands intertwined like bodies at rest

once the loving is done.

I won’t wake you, lending you to sleep—

at home in my itching bones a few moments more.

I imagine rousing you with trailing kisses

and warm hands sticky sweet with last night’s dream.

Watching your evened breath, it rises and whispers

remembered words, a poetry that slides into me,

making me wide and full as a river.

I drift like reflected moonlight, content upon your current.

And then, as a gentle swirl, an eddying tide

I brush against your shore, eroding the slumber

to draw you up and awake as your hand rests upon my hip

and pulls me to where I long to be.

Despising Gravity

Like a comet called to dance,

you break into the pregnant earth, the solid rock-roundness of me.

Crashing into my details, furrowing a road where none existed,

you give me words, lend me sound

to say anything, to scream up a magic that rages

against isolation interrupted.

Wary, I wait on

the imagined damage already done,

for the wave goodbye with a cynical eye and easy wrist.

I refuse your prayers to wake and embrace this love.

My head holds only space for solitary kites

in flights of fancy, the stuff which dreams are made.

I despise the gravity, the weight which holds you firmly to my lonely fate.

I cannot love beautifully, nor love right.

I am perfect imperfection in matters of the heart and night.

I'd rather you be a falling star faded on the wind,

than let me extinguish your fire in the end.

Pandora's Box

You are Pandora’s Box--

a bell unrung.

I am the waiting,--

anticipation’s ring, the latch undone.

Then you say, “The stars are but stars,

nothing less and nothing more.”

And I respond so fervently, “Tell me

are you sure?”

“As a star, you sound like memory,

you feel like infinite song,

you taste of sunshine bliss—In this,

you are wrong.”

But Pandora refuses to teach me,

So I burn with stars, with words unsaid.

From your box my unwilling ears hear,

“Don’t wish on me, don’t wish on me….

Please throw stones instead.”

 Falling

You fell in love with her tears, and then
as they evaporated to salty skin,
crystal streaks on rounded cheeks--
did your love dry thin?

If you had fallen in love with her laughter,
her inappropriate giggles, after
another oddly-timed sigh,
would your love be less a lie?

You should have fallen in love with her words,
and the way they fly the air, like birds
to swoop and nest so deep into you,
then you would know your love is true.

Chaotic Space
I am not the ghost you wish me to be,
the muffled silence behind a locked door.
Nor dust motes sun-sliding from air to floor.
I'm not your distraction, or distance longed for.
I am who I am--no less, no more.

I am not the memory you wish to see,
the expected, accepted easy fade.
Nor a song with volume muted, down played.
I am not your twilight making descent into shade.
I am who I am--brilliantly made.

I am not the perfection you want from me,
the mannered charms and flawless grace.
Nor sweet lips with apple-cheeked face.
I'm not your dream bound into place.
I am who I am--chaotic space.

If You Aren't With Us, You're Against Us

God is love, not hate.

I get so tired of people telling me, "You are such a nice person, I'm so sorry you are going to Hell."  I hear it from both my Christian and my Muslim friends.  My Hindu friends are pretty chill as is the one Buddhist I know. Southern New Mexico has a scarcity of people of the Jewish faith, so I am uncertain as to what their opinion regarding my immortal soul might be. Nonetheless, I would venture to guess they expect to find me in Hades as well.  Monotheists definitely seem to have some exclusivity issues. They think that they've cornered the market on salvation.  They use their righteous certainty to deny the validity of anyone else's beliefs, basically shouting,  "If you aren't with us, you're against us."  I despise that exclusive attitude and it constitutes the primary reason I reject following or practicing any mainstream religion.

Don't get me wrong, I am what a person would call a believer.  I have a devout faith that God exists and I believe in only one god who judges right from wrong.  I am in essence an ethical monotheist, much like a Jew, Christian, or Muslim, but I classify myself as a spiritual deist.  I respect the right of every one to decide for him or herself the best path for understanding or gaining knowledge of God.  I don't adhere to any particular dogma or doctrine because I truly believe that all religions are basically a means to an end--discovering and developing a relationship with the Creator.

It frustrates me to see people use their faith as yet one more way in which to create and strengthen the us-them paradigms that chronically plague society as a whole.  People consistently highlight differences between one another from the smallest, superficial qualities to the large, encompassing ones, like religion.  Race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, appearance, sexual orientation, lifestyle choices all act as barriers to truly seeing others as we see ourselves, to recognizing the divinity that exists and connects all of humankind.  Out of all these classifications, however, I think religion is probably the most divisive social institution ever created by Man.  Throughout the ages, wars have been fought over faith.  God has been invoked to justify the killing of millions of people.  People have been segregated, separated, treated inhumanely, massacred, marginalized, displaced, and decimated all because people believe they have God on their side and anyone else is a servant of Satan.  Again, a classic, "If you aren't with us, you are against us."

I don't understand why people can't accept the idea that just because others believe differently regarding their relationship with God that they aren't wrong.  Different beliefs don't automatically mean bad beliefs.  It's not a black-white scenario....humanity is full of a thousand shades of gray.  We all have the same end-game in mind, securing a better afterlife.  How we choose to get there should be a personal journey that best meets our own, specific needs.  If people truly followed the examples of Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Buddha, or Vishnu, they would be respectful of the beliefs of those different from themselves as well as very aware of the connection between all human beings. They wouldn't disparage or hurt or condemn.  They would act out of love for their fellow man.  They would acknowledge that we are all God's children.  They would respect the differences and embrace the similarities.  I hold out hope that one day that people will not only realize this, but live their lives in such a way that there is no more us and them--only we.