Friday, April 15, 2011

After 7 years, I moved. You're invited. (schmoments.blogspot.com)

building stairs @ deep ellum

Well, I guess this is goodbye.  And hello.

I began this blog in 2004 as a way to track my fitness.  You guys surprised the shit out of me by becoming, instead, one of the most important tools in my spiritual development.  We became for reals friends.  We rode out illnesses, marriages, divorces, babies, deaths and spiritual awakenings.  We became friends outside of the blogging world.  We sent each other real live mail.  Texts.  Calls.  Facebook messages.  I wrote for you sometimes.  And I know that sometimes, you wrote for me.

I was like a hungry caterpillar who didn't know she was hungry, and you spiritually fed me.  I ate.  I grew.  You fed me.  I grew.  I fully believed I was on my way to become the best caterpillar I could be.

In something like 2009, though if I really consider it, probably years earlier, a cocoon began to form around me.  Instead of comforting and safe, it felt terrifying and bleak.

I became very ill for about two years.  From lab work and MRI's, dr's could see some stuff was really wrong, but no one seemed to know why or how to make it better.  Most of the details so took over my existence that I never want to discuss them again; the worst of it was that for awhile, I I couldn't even take my students on field trips, drive or stay alone.   B was my rock.  He took care of me when I could not take care of myself, which was most of the time.  I was so dependent on him that I would have nightmares of something happening to him.

When I happened to be at my worst physically, his sweet mom called us to say she had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.  And it was Stage 4.  It was time for B to take care of someone else.

When he went to KC to care for his mom during her first treatment, we flew my own mom in to help take care of me.  She complained of abdominal pains.

About six weeks later, she appears to be 7 months pregnant.  A cancerous tumor has rapidly grown on her ovary, they tell us.  Turns out, it is also non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.  Two moms in two months. They feel it is inoperable.

I email my truly amazing therapist of seven years to draw support.  So much of my life had been changed because of her, but like my relationship to B, I suspected I was probably overly dependent.  In fact, when I moved to Dallas, I panicked about my inability to leave her.  I begged her to continue our sessions via Skype, which we did. This time,  return correspondence includes that she has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and will no longer be seeing patients.  "I'm sorry that you are being hit with three cancers," she said.  "I want you to know that you're very special to me."  

I always thought there was something secretly spiritual lingering beneath the professional relationship between a therapist and client.  

She later died.

My caterpillar body, life as I knew it, seemed to be dissolving.

Desperate, I bought an 800 dollar juicer and began pretty religiously following Gerson Therapy.  I began to finally gain strength physically as I watched other parts of my life slip away.

Reaching for any access to inner strength, I paid what felt like a gazillion dollars to learn Transcendental Meditation.  B went as well.

Many amazing things happened after this.  Both of our moms went into remission.  I got better, physically, little by little.  I even lost about sixty pounds.  I seemed to find my body's recipe for happiness; most importantly, I learned that what she says goes, no questions.  Oddly, for Bruce and I, meditating was the beginning of the end.  Maybe the old us' didn't have the sense of infinity to let go of what needed to be released?

The relationship was easy to release at first; the unbearable parts came later, when I realized how long he had been miserable, waiting for me to push the Eject button.  B and I had been like two friends who picked one another from the Catalog Of Intellectually Defendable Decisions to be life partners.  We realized that as far as love goes, that catalog sucks.

Another version of me, shed.  Am I the same person, I wondered?  Am I who I planned to be at all?  Am I the same chick who had a soon-to-be doctor husband and a baby plan? 


broken open @ deep ellum
I have no plan.

I'm a chick who busted out of a cocoon. I don't know what's next, but I know it will be perfect for whatever it is.  I'll be here: schmoments.blogspot.com
Namaste,
Faye

Friday, September 10, 2010

3/30: Playing it small?

morning coffee spot two: ghettoasis trash waterfall ambience + coffee + books



"There is no passion to be found playing small- in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living...And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."         -Nelson Mandela, '93 Nobel Peace Prize Speech

Something I can thank Alanon for is the filling in of many of the gaps in my spirituality so that I have the faith to wait for answers to appear spontaneously, unfolding in perfect time.  Earlier today, an answer revealed itself regarding a relationship in my life which has changed.   It occurred to me at once how I often played it small in an attempt to keep the boat steady.  And isn't it usually about fear?  I read a quote recently about change being scary because we know what we're giving up, but we don't know what we're getting.  

A catalyst for my mini-realization seemed to be reading a truly beautiful, inspirational blog entry of a friend of mine:
"Hear ye, hear ye, I’ve resigned my sovereign reign over tiny kingdoms, no longer bound by my own self-imprisonment. With nothing left to numb me, got me  thinking/wondering – Am I even still the same me? I know this is true: I feel full and I fully feel."
I've denied the magnificence of the universe, the collective, infinite, source, God, many times to impose the will of my tiniest self, of my tiny kingdom.  Our smallest selves will take what we can get, because we have a sense of poverty.  Our infinite selves know that poverty is an illusion, and so is net loss.  Our infinite selves have permission to shine brightly and unapologetically, and to be the first one in the room to light up, if need be; isn't it true that that high vibration consciousness is contagious anyways?  "We give others permission to do the same."

Today, I am grateful for feeling full and fully feeling.


Thursday, September 09, 2010

2/30: Here Comes The Sun

‎"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."
Henry David Thoreau


In a lot of ways, I feel like I've recently woken up (or am waking up) from a long, maybe two-decades long, waking sleep.

It was my winter. A time of dormancy.

Even in winter, the seeds hidden beneath the layers of snow and frozen ground are no shorter on potential, patiently waiting for their due time. Perfect, perfect due time. And everything's a paradox anyways, isn't it, when we consider the illusory nature of a linear experience. Nothing is liner. The seed and the grown tree take up the same space. Enlightenment and ignorance. Love and hate. Break it down: sameness.

I can sense the sun coming; but, it's always been here.

Today, I can feel it's warmth. Like, in a girly drink with an umbrella kinda way.


Wednesday, September 08, 2010

1/30: feelings aren't emergencies

my partner teacher's abacus

So, I took on a 30 day blogging challenge. It's day one, and I am under the weather, but I'm still showing up. I dig a blogging challenge, and it's been a long while since I've indulged in the social part of blogging. I remember the days of Creative Every Day and Self Portrait Challenge. Aw.

I've not been quite myself for a couple of weeks now. It really comes down to taking exceptional self-care; time to get back on the bandwagon. The Faye recipe for health and happiness seems to be Transcendental Meditation + daily exercise + sleep. Add a little green juice and a lot of gratitude. The meditation went first, and the gratitude went last. So, let's work backwards: I'll stop whining by way of raising my vibration to the tune of gratitude. And then so on.

I'm so grateful...
-That acceptance is the answer to all of my problems today- that I don't need to solve how I feel in this moment. For today, I can let it be, and I'm so glad I know that.
-That I finally get that feelings are not emergencies. I don't need to *do* anything besides nothing. Talk about liberation.
-That when I pray to be surrounded by full of light people, the universe just responds and responds and responds.
-To hang out with kids all day.
-To be surrounded in nature.
-For my connection with God, however heatheny my version of God might be to someone else. My connection with God has been absolutely transformed over the past year, especially the past two or three months. I'm dumbfounded.
-That abundance is abundant.
-The love is the only truth.

Lately, whenever I feel a sense of or a worry of poverty about something (afraid of not having enough or of losing what I have), I take that moment to reflect on how that particular thing (money, time, love) is already abundant in my life and to pray about more. I'm amazed by the power of prayer, and I kinda can't believe I'm saying that.

Monday, September 06, 2010

in the dew of little things

grateful for this view.
From The Prophet.

On Friendship: Because I'm feeling very blessed.

And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.

For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

grandpa penis?

Yup. Grandpa penis. Latest google search to find my blog. Things are really going down hill around here.

Monday, August 02, 2010