The Moment I Let Go of It....

The moment i let go of it

Was the moment i got more than i could handle

The moment i jumped off of it

Was the moment i touched down

From Thank You, Alanis Morissette

Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie

I am always in awe of musicians and poets who seem able to express ideas imaginitively and get their meaning across so universally. Probably because i've never felt that gate to open easily in myself, although i'm getting better at allowing that. Alanis Morrissette is one of these people. This woman is a woman in touch. Her music is often raw, awkward, i just can't listen to a lot of it, and yet there is no denying for me that her words will so often resonate inside me, give expression to feelings i have not been able to put words to. In her song Thank you from the album Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, she gives thanks for things in her life which have brought her happiness or understanding. She talks about dangling carrots and things she doesn't need anymore, and thanks India, disillusionment, frailty, consequence, silence for bringing her greater understanding of her life. But it's the lines above which have special relevance to me today. Because i've realised that having let go of something really major in my life, i've gone and got it more than i ever realised.

It is a fundamental law of nature. When you release something into the world, when you give it up and allow it to leave you, like a boomerang it returns to you and smacks you one in the chops. If you're reading this then you may have read my piece a few weeks back about a moment i experienced at a pool table, when i realised i hadn't achieved any of the things i wanted to in my life, and this was making me desperately unhappy. I was distraught, i couldn't believe that i wasn't about to have a family, wasn't about to settle down, wasn't about to get married, wasn't about to get a joint bank account. My life had none of the things i wanted in it...

I realised after this moment of anger and frustration that i had wanted those things for a long, long time, since i was quite young really. I'd seen my sister married and have three beautiful children, and at the time i believed that she and her husband were the embodiment of happiness - a pillar of marital bliss. I was so unhappy in myself that to me that was the only visible route for achieving happiness again. But a couple of weeks after the pool table incident and i realised that in fact i didn't need or want any of those things in reality.

That in fact this was a mind set which had served to make my present life unbearable and which was part of a darker side of me which liked to tell me i've failed, i've not been capable or worthy enough of achieving these things. And as the feelings rose in me that night, a structure was breaking down in me, pushing out and disbanding itself so i could move on. A few weeks on again and i realise that i have let go of all that torment, i have thrown it all to the wind. The most liberating and peaceful feeling.

But it seems that having done that i'm attracting back into my life the things i really need. Feelings of togetherness and trust in my relationships which i've never had before. I feel more cared about and loved than ever, and more seen than invisible. Where before there was always a reason to see an end, all i'm seeing now is beginnings and futures panning out before me. Where hearts were once firmly shut, now they are beginning to blossom. I'm wondering what else i can let go of, so that i can get more of it than i can handle..... Thank you Alanis.

The Meeting

This poem is entitled The Meeting. It's about meeting a shadow side of me (if you hadn't guessed already) which i used to do a lot of and have been reminded of through recent conversations. In lots of work i've done on myself i've used symbolism to help heal darker aspects of me, and this poem is highly representative of that. I found the most effective way to deal with shadows is to see their beauty, so often i have been given an image of a jewel or flower to place deep within the heart of something which represents my fear. It's really worked to help bring in compassion for that side of me rather than judgement.

I can feel her pushing inside me
Beautiful wretch
Feverishly she attempts to bend the bars of her lower prison
Lifts a stilted eye to the gap where a shaft of light sparkles
Fighting desperately for recognition, for breath
Scratching at the chain

She has been there too long
But to go meet her eye is to be afraid
Don't bang so loud, dear one
Yet guided by your hand, a voice which has no sound i arrive
To open that door and burn her
Put a match to the fear of her desire

Hand trembling i see her now
She flickers in and out from the deepest shadows
Crawling, pitiful, hidden
Hold the diamond against her mass of darkness, shamed and sorrowful
Time and fear's blended creation

Step forward, i'm moving closer in now
Revealed to me her broken face
I cut into her heavy outline
As black layers fall to dust around
And as the tears fall bitterly from her face
She can die now
And be born again

She Will Consume You

Either you change or you die in me
That is my choice
This invasion stops here
Now face the wall
and see it transform to a pathway
If that is your desire

See her beauty
For it is eternal
Unknown to you it contains you
And breathes your life, your breath

You may think her power dead
but she will rise with a force which you have never seen
and consume you

You may see her lying broken
But her wounds are nothing
When you realise the damage you have caused yourself
Would you like to try it out, try her?
Please, go on, walk on and test that space
Your path will lead to a forest of darkness

Whereas she will be filled with light
Growing stronger by the hour
She could shine her light upon your path
And set you free, if you just asked

You could join her
Close your eyes and hold on
To some form of belief
And see yourself grow from nothing to everything

Blog, blog, blog

Blog, blog, blog. Seeing as this week's prompt is to google something you want to find out more about, i googled the blog itself. Apparently it first started to take off in 1999, and today there are more than 20 million blogs worldwide. Dictionaries now house terminology related to this phenomena, such as

'blogorrhea': Typically refers to meaningless ranting and raving on a blog

'blogrolling': Creating a blog. Blogrolling tools are available to simplify the job of adding and removing links. It also may imply trading links between blog sites to increase the list.

'blognosing': Sucking up to people with the hopes of getting linked in their blog. From "brown-nosing."

'War blog': A blog that came into being after 9/11 and deals with the war against terrorists.

'dooced': Neologism. To get dooced is to lose one's job because of one's website. The term was coined by blogger Heather B. Armstrong, after she was fired for writing stories about her colleagues on her blog Dooce.com. Her advice to bloggers is never to write about their work on the Internet unless their boss knows and sanctions the fact that they are doing so. (Who would do that?)

'Escribitionist': a person who keeps a diary or journal via electronic means, and in particular, publishes their entries on the world wide web. The word was coined in June 1999 by Erin Venema, an online diarist, in the course of a discussion on a mailing list for web journalers. At issue was how to distinguish web journal authors from keepers of traditional paper-and-ink diaries.

"moblogging": posting to the internet from a portable or mobile device

'blogdote': jokes, humour, anecdotes and funny stories posted on a blog... such as this one from Rach's blog:
Japan Police versus Darth Vadar

Thank you, my love

Is it ok to slip into the shoes of another of my selves? Here isn't a place that i go very often, and i realise that i should more. Expressing love isn't half as easy as expressing fear, not for me anyway. As i've heard the lyrics of love songs and lines of love poetry, i've always thought it was too hard for me to be able to express that kind of stuff without feeling plain stupid. I have incorporated the style of other poets in my piece, but it's a mish mash and has no single inspiration.

Thanks for looking at me not through me
I need a love like that
There's a little sun on my back
As i laugh your laugh and cry your tears

Thanks for putting my world at stake
Suddenly
I need a love like that
There's some rain to quench my thirst
Even though i teeter on the verge of everything

Thanks for turning my castles to sand
I need a love like that
As i see your soul older than the ocean
There's a breath of wind through an empty desert

Thanks for loving my light and loving my dark
I need a love like that
To open up my past
And cast out the deep shadows of the earth

Thanks for enjoying and not competing
I need a love like that
So when the stars all burn away
The love we've shared stays forever
In everything

Only 19, Paolo....

If you don't have the new Paolo Nutini album, then go buy it....now. This Italian-sounding boy is in fact Scottish and from Paisley, and is also in fact a 19 year old genius whose album i'm finding hard to put down, so to speak. I didn't realise he was so young ...i feel a deja vu coming on:-) he's clearly going to go far. In "Jenny Don't Be Hasty' he feels his age acutely as he tells Jenny, well, not to be hasty, when he realises that she does in fact care that he's not 23 but a mere 18, (now 19!) and that now she's looking at him all 'disgusted' and treating him 'like a baby'. He questions who makes up the rules about age and who she's answering to, and only wants her to forgive him and 'smile and change her mind'. But will she? To him it doesn't sound like it, poor baby. I hope she did change her mind, in the end, and doesn't 'kill him so'.


Jenny don't be hasty
You said you'd marry me if i was 23
but i'm one that you can't see if i'm only 18
tell me who makes the rules
obviously not you
who are you answering to?

Oh Jenny don't be hasty
don't treat me like a baby
let me take you where you let me
because leaving just upsets me

and i'll be round again
to see these other men
that are more adequate in the age department
i did not think you'd care
there'd be no problems here
but now you're looking at me like you're disgusted
and i'm deftly waiting for you to smile and change your mind
then i'll say i'm sorry and i'll wrap my arms around your body
i really hope that you forgive in a hurry and don't just ask me to leave

Oh Jenny don't be hasty
don't treat me like a baby
let me take you where you let me
because leaving just upsets me
oh Jenny you are crazy
first i'm perfect then i'm lazy
i was calling you my baby
now it sounds like you've just left me
and it kills me so

you said you'd marry me if i was 23
but i'm one that you can't see if i'm only 18

Poetry Thursday: Blue Landscape

I opened the gate to the blue landscape of my heart
And crawl on, slowly, concentrating.
The leaves wither and retract as i walk past
Once compelling, now anaethetised, withdrawn.

Birds fly up and fill the broken sky
In the distance the sun begins it's quickening rise
I walk now, more assured, across the resistant bridge
And i am home, i can feel that i am home.

I glance behind to catch an outline of myself
Now fading
To turn is to see the prize of my journey.
Brought to me silently, lovingly, outrageously
Other paths disappear in the light of it's glow

A search light shoots overhead
And comes to rest within my midst
It reveals all recognition of this haunting and beautiful place
How did she find me, and how did i ever leave at all

At the cliff i hear the rocks fall into the sea
While the stars align in a dark blue sky
I've left no footprints, scatter ashes around me
And i am home, i've found my blue home

Sunday Scribblings

My ego has really got me today. It's had me in its throes, its little voice arguing with me as i just let myself be me, stop fighting with myself. It doesn't like it obviously as having cleared my head of its ramblings and having found a centred place, it has no room to live. I often find that times where i'm contented and feel peace of mind are followed by surges of self doubt and hesitation. It's like a machine that's had its usual workings blocked, so that everything comes crashing out in an overload of energy. It needs putting in its place or else it will easily get the better of you.

My ego works more subtly than that though on a more everyday level. Tomorrow i go back to work. I've had six weeks off now (i'm so lucky), and this space has allowed me to see myself more objectively. I've begun to see how my ego works in me to try to keep me in a safe place which it knows and yet which suppresses me.

Playing a game of pool a few weeks ago, the most unlikely setting for something so major, and something opened up in me, part of me came rising to the surface which had long been hidden away. All my frustrations and anger at not having achieved what i want to achieve came flooding out, and it was only the start of something much, much bigger. I don't know how long it's been now i've thought that i wanted to have a family; to settle down. The crazy thing is i think i've wanted it since i was young, really young. At that pool table all i could feel was that i hadn't got it, it wasn't there in my life. I was overwhelmed by the fact that i simply couldn't seem to grasp it.

But now, a few weeks later, that angst and frustration has cleared from me. That moment at the pool table was it all rising to the surface so that i could finally free myself of it. I can see so clearly that my need for this has in fact been a good way for me to put extra pressure on myself, growing stronger as i've got older, and that in fact i don't need, or rather i don't want, any of that yet. It's like i don't know the person who wanted those things anymore, as if she's dead. Someone new has been born into my life. The ideas i have held on to so strongly, like a child with a lolly, have worked against me rather than for me. I am still young and still have so many things which i want to do before my life becomes dedicated to other people. Having my sister's children here reminds me that i like my freedom, thank you. They are the best children in the world and i love them with all my heart, but i don't in fact want to recreate that for myself yet. I've only just found a bigger part of me, a more expansive part of me. I'm going to enjoy being with that and enjoy integrating her back into my life.

The urgency i felt for this family of mine has also been a good way for me to make the circumstances i find myself in impossible to support. And what i mean by that is that by putting this pressure on myself i'm in fact making where my life is right now something which is impossible, something which can't possibly make me happy and which instead is something i've been striving to change continually. That's a lot of fighting and it wears you out. I can't fight anymore. It's a massive change in my outlook and it's like i've dropped this weight i've carried around for so long. Metaphorically speaking i've changed the clothes i'm wearing because they were way too worn out. I'm ready to go back to work tomorrow now. I'm ready to give myself up to that lifestyle again, now that i have found something so much more important to feed my life.