Month: February 2015

The Last Interview of Prince Charming-Finding Mr. Right


She stood as he did, and they faced each other across the interview table. She offered her hand politely, and as Princes are wont to do, he lifted it to his lips and brushed them across her knuckles, smiling quite charmingly before he took his leave. She huffed a dejected sigh and sat back down on her throne. It suited her perfectly. When she had taken her place as Queen, she had, after all, built it herself with her own blood, bone, heartbreak, and indomitable will. Every time she came here, and took her place, her power replenished itself with the reminders of each victory, every triumph, every goddamn time she stood back up when knocked to the ground in battle.

Although she knew she could withstand any uprising, and the power over her world was in her hands alone, she still searched for the One who would be King. She interviewed endless Princes from various kingdoms, but they all ended with her standing and offering her hand, their charming smile, and a mix of dejection and relief when they left the Throne Room. It was really getting to be too much of a bother, and there was plenty in life she could experience and enjoy if she decided to just let the search die off here.

She knew that many thought her efforts foolish, that she was wasting her time better spent doing normal kingdom things. She heard the whispers as she passed by of those who had not yet found their soul; the ones who said she asked too much, dreamed too big, burned too brightly. She heard them, and she laughed to herself, because absolutely NEVER would she minimize herself to another’s standards again. Never. Again.

She slumped a little on her throne of bones and heartbreak and tapped a finger against her lips as she pondered her Queenly list of Kingly requirements. She wanted a King who was a man first. A warrior, a poet, a lover, a wolf. She wanted him to be her kingdom, her fortress, her laughter, her light. He would be willing to stand in front of her and protect her with his life, with the greater courage of living for her each day. In return, she would give him all of this and more.

She could almost imagine the look of him, the strength, the feel and sound of him. Sometimes she missed this King; this man she’d yet to see. Sometimes she thought she felt him out there, breathing, fighting, waiting, searching for her just as she searched for him. Then again, maybe she’d taken one too many cracks upside the head from the sword of Life, who can say?

She remained lost in her thoughts until the sound of heavy boots striding towards her caught her attention. She turned her head to watch the man who strode across the room to stop directly in front of her, his head lifting slightly to acknowledge her, instead of bowing.

Complete and utter joy rendered her immobile. She saw the armor of a Lion Hearted man, a strong face, his eyes burning with the determination that only comes when you’ve learned to rescue yourself. There was no doubt, she recognized the look that she saw in the mirror every day. Everything in her came to life as never before and she was electrified by the magic arcing between them in the silence.

His lips curled in a half-smile as he extended his hand to her and left it there, letting her decide her future.

She stood to face him, eyes locked, and put her hand in his, along with her heart. Then they smiled at each other in recognition of all the other times they had found each other and loved.

Victorious.

Giving Up The Ghost-The Perils Of Living Dimly


I could see through her. It was obvious that her lack of substance was not apparent to anyone else, but I could see where parts of her were so thin as to be translucent. She appeared to leave the world undisturbed as she moved through it; unable (or unwilling) to notice the beauty and the possibilities all around her. It was as if there were a veil between her and the real world that she didn’t have the strength to rend through, no matter how she longed to feel her heart beat again.

Her soul weariness was evident, and when I finally caught her gaze she just stared at me quietly, without without even a hint of a smile. She shrugged a shoulder and looked down and carefully removed the few remaining dreams and treasures she had that still clung to her, and let them flutter to the ground between us.

I was appalled and for some reason frightened by this, and I demanded to know what she was doing. Her eyes widened and her voice quivered a little when she asked me if I could really see her. When I told her of course I could, the almost desperate expression that crossed her face left me with a deep sense of unease. I fidgeted a moment and started to turn away, knowing it would be easier on me if I did. Her whisper stopped me before I could do so.

“You’re the only Hope I have of living in your world”.

I was astounded and horrified, was she dead? Before I even spoke, she was shaking her head and answering my question.

“Oh, I’m alive…but I’m not living”.

I was staggered by her words, and my heart was thundering like a thousand wild horses set free. There was an almost insane look of hope in her eyes that squeezed my heart and made me want to run for safety at the same time. The growing determination I saw on her face caused my chest to tighten and compress, making it difficult to breathe, her hands clenched into fists at her sides as she waited for some mysterious sign from me that remained lost in my growing panic.

I looked past her and saw the trail she had left behind her disappearing far into the distance. I saw discarded dreams, crushed hopes, relationships buried under piles of neglect, talents set aside and scarred by mockery, and worst of all-drop after endless drop of Hope all along the way. She stood before me, losing her last remaining drops, and dared me to turn away.

I lifted my head and looked directly into her eyes as my chest loosened and my heart began to beat strong and steady, like a promise to myself. I lifted a trembling hand to reach out and touch her face in compassion…

…and my fingers brushed the coolness of the mirror.

Becoming Real-The Lie vs The Wild-ish Heart


She refused to die. The uncivilized heart of her beat slowly, laboriously, and refused to give up. The wild-ish blood in her veins had been diluted to a mere trace after years and lifetimes of acceptance and settling. She had the good job, the good money, the spouse, the house, the acceptable words, expressions, and behaviors. Day in and day out generic life performances to maintain the status quo had converged into a falseness of epic proportions. She had fallen for The Lie so many years ago, that she perpetuated it herself almost mindlessly every day.

Almost.

More and more lately, her blood seemed to bubble and spark beneath her skin. Her life-deafened ears began to catch whispers from a spirit that wanted to roar. Her eyes would sometimes flare and burn, seeing herself with a clarity that would temporarily freeze her in her tracks. She began to have trouble controlling these freakish moments that would break and then settle inside her. She began to fear for her sanity.

She would catch herself pacing about the house at night, drink in hand, eyes casting to every corner searching for the thing she needed to satisfy the burning hunger she felt. She would sit down and write things she didn’t even know were in her head until she read them later, appalled at the fury of the emotions expressed. She began to dream at night of mad things, precious and untamed things that left her broken hearted upon awakening. She became certain of her insanity.

She tried everything to numb the madness overtaking her. Too much everything; food, smoking, spending, sleeping, reading-anything to take her somewhere out of the reality she allowed to boil her slowly to death, one degree at a time. Nothing stopped the Wild from creeping ever closer to the hidden trip wire of transformation, but she did everything she could to maintain the Normal.

But She is here now. The Wild One. The one who will not be tamed or reduced by circumstances. She holds the trip wire in her hand with lifted chin and burning eyes. It is time to change, to live, to be. She doesn’t care about the consequences, she steps up toe to toe and stares them down until she owns them. She will yank the trip wire of transformation with a snarl, and feral eyes that see a future worth living.

And she will embrace her insanity.

Excavation of a Soul~The magic of Yoga


There are still those countless people who believe that practicing yoga is an “exercise”. They believe that it’s only the movement of limbs and core to tone and tighten their body to appeal to someone else, who honestly, probably isn’t worth that effort. They tell themselves it’s an “easy” way to give physical effort it’s due and carry on with their regularly scheduled program. They think yoga is about the clothes, and the malas, and the Om, and the Zen, and the whatever bullshit they have floating around in that brain so full of misconceptions.

I was one of them, until it brought me back from the dead, opened my heart, and uncovered the Goddess buried inside of me under endless layers of pretense and shitty perceptions.

I taught myself with a DVD at home, craning my neck awkwardly towards the TV screen while I assumed the next asana. I felt ridiculous and incapable at first, but I kept going. In a few weeks I no longer needed to see every move, I knew what to do when I heard her speak. I began to flow from one asana to the next and my heart began to release, and my spirit to glow.

****Silence is not an absence but a presence. Not an emptiness but repletion; A filling up.”
― Anne D. LeClaire

I felt like every morning began with a moving prayer to the Universe; one of gratitude. I was answered by the filling of my heart with peace, and my mind with power over myself. I became alive in a quiet, joyful way that began to clear my vision of all things ridiculous and  unimportant. The frenzy of my world began to calm a little, smooth out here and there, my heart began to recognize moments of peace.

**The practice of yoga itself transforms. Yoga has a magical quality.”

― Ravi Ravindra

There is a magic to the practicing of yoga that defies anything but the word magic. It is miraculous in that it can release something beautiful and rare from a generic societal state of being. It is powerful in that it’s quietness brings a still heart screaming to life in living color. It is the equivalent of the calming of the storm in biblical times, or Lazarus rising from the dead.

It’s truth, I can say that, because it happened to me.

**“When you catch yourself slipping into a pool of negativity, notice how it derives from nothing other than resistance to the current situation.” ― Donna Quesada

Practicing yoga brought me back to life by bringing me into the present.  I learned to be and show gratitude now, for my blessings now. I began to regulate the past where it belonged, and look at the future as a present to be unwrapped when it arrived. I began to look at myself more gently, and with a sense of forgiveness, which allowed me to do the same towards others.

**“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. ~Michelangelo

I didn’t so much reinvent myself, as I began to excavate who I was from beneath a lifetime of expectations, criticisms, and societal rules. Not just those imposed on me by others all the way back to childhood, but those I imposed upon myself. I would uncover some unknown part of me and sit with myself in awe, learning to love it, or at least understand and accept what was. I began to see the beauty and purpose in even the flawed parts of me I would have normally hidden away from view. I had inadvertently fallen into a state of grace via 30 minutes of morning yoga.

**“Courage is often associated with aggression, but instead should be seen as a willingness to act from the heart.”
― Donna Quesada

I began living from my new heart, my new state of being, and it gave me joy and countless challenges. Apparently nobody likes the status quo messed with in any way. But no matter the discomfort suffered by those around me, I had to act and live in the knowledge of my newly awakened state, and although I rocked a few boats, I stayed on course. It’s frightening to step outside of all that you’re accustomed to and expand into more, but I am determined. The magic of all I’ve uncovered so far has made me more alive than ever before, given me the courage to speak and write and be as I feel I must, and to hell with the consequences.

I think of this every time I do a heart opening asana and feel the bands of bullshit release and set my heart and spirit free of fear.

**”Oh, that’s fear. Try the pose again.” Fear. I hadn’t even known it was there.”

― Claire Dederer

Welcome to the magic, to the miracle, to your heart, to the truth of who you are.

Welcome to Yoga.

The Choosing


If you were a powerful man,
a leader,
a modern day king
of your own destiny…
would you choose
the princess-pure and tame,
naive and malleable,
obedient,
and full of innocence?
Would you need
a sycophant
to stroke your ego
and your sword?
Someone who followed
meekly;
her belief in your protection
an aphrodisiac
to your ego?
Or will your discerning eyes,
strategic mind,
and courageous heart,
look past that vision
of youthful beauty,
and in your wisdom call for
the Queen?
And as she stands gracefully
in her own power,
will you see her timeless
beauty,
her scars from
victories won,
her presence and nobility
an inspiration for all those waiting;
untested still, by life?
Are you strong enough
to conquer, and kneel
before a woman
of equal power and appeal?
Will you pander to your ego
leading the princess,
or rule your world,
your hands firmly holding
the heart of
the Queen?
~Shelly~

Walk in the Wild


She always felt
the Wolf somehow beneath-
and heard
the breath and rustle
of it’s feet.
She finally relented
crouching down to face,
the one who gave
her writing
all it’s wildish grace.
She looked into her eyes
and saw her soul
refined,
by being wise enough
to touch
her wolfish mind.
Then as their hearts combined
the souls
they couldn’t tame,
their breath exhaled as if
they were
one and the same.
Thereafter –
she refused to be denied
the Love, and Words, and Dance
she felt
were Justified.
She stepped into her power,
thus discerning lies
that some would use as weapons
to dehumanize.
She learned and loved
her shadows
as a precious child
until She-as her Wolf
could rule the Wild.
~Shelly~

The Phoenix


We face each other
eye to eye,
the look in yours the same-
mine not…
I smile a little
at the disdain you show
changing to fear
as the ground cracks
beneath us…
You curse
and struggle for control
as I lift my face
to the cutting winds
of change…
You draw your sword
as I lift my hands
in gratitude
for the rain falling,
like a storm of tears,
washing me clean
of your opinions…
and as you let the blade fall;
ego triumphant,
you become the death
of me,
and the universe
in celebration
sends a fury of lightening
to burn me to ash
so I can finally
Rise.
~Shelly~

No Absolution


No Absolution
At what point
in your growing awareness
do you cease to be
the unknowing
victim
of soul suffocation,
castration of joy,
and the blinding of
your pure vision
of the world?
When is that moment
that you accept responsibility
for everything
that follows the knowing
you have just
earned,
and stop balancing
on that thin wire
of hypocrisy
that let’s you remain
imprisoned
while you stare at the key
in your hand?
You did not need
forgiveness
before this ability to perceive
became yours,
but now…
the existence of everything
that has finally
come to life inside you
cries out for blood~
and without stepping
outside of yourself,
into yourself,
there will be no
absolution.
~Shelly~

Pieces of Her


Her scars were calling to us, the odd beauty of the pain she carried drew us closer, whether we willed it or not. In the dim light, we could see her bending down to choose a tattered piece of this, a scrap of that, and periodically sit quietly for a short time and stitch it onto herself. With her own hand. She didn’t make a sound but the occasional tear would slide silently down her cheek to land on the piece she was stitching~and then she would smile to herself and stand, looking for the next torn piece of her that was relevant enough to sew back on.

You could tell she had been a great beauty at one time, by the world’s standards, but every piece of her was from a different heartbreak, and her destruction was evident in the face we saw now. She would look at us from time to time, and give a sweet little half smile, as if she knew something we didn’t. But when we dared to meet her eyes, they were a clear burning flame that left us in awe, and somehow ashamed.

The next time she sat to begin her stitching, with considerable nudging from my tribe I stepped closer to ask her a question. She looked up at me and raised an eyebrow bisected by a thin scar, questioning what I believed was my folly.

I met her eyes, and they broke my heart, but I held her gaze anyway as I spoke. I asked her how she came to be in such a patchwork state when she had obviously been a great beauty. I asked her if it hurt when she stitched those pieces of her back on, and how-I wondered-did she decide from all the torn and broken pieces, which ones were worthy of bringing back into herself.

She started slowly, and her voice was as torn as her appearance, but her eyes never wavered from mine, and the Truth bled through her every word. She told of a fractured foundation, a hopeless grasping of home, her longing to feel safe. She spoke of the slow and insidious death of her joy and spirit, the rejection of her heart, the silencing of her voice. She did not cast blame, saying only that she lost her clarity of soul~and when her fingertips no longer touched the others of the universe, she was lost.

She explained to me, in a voice that filled my heart with tears, how she sorted through every heartbreak to find the one piece, every time, that made her living worth the effort.

I was spellbound by her story of a love given, greater than any I had ever known, her infection of  ‘life-blindness’, and the loss of her power with the loss of her belief in anything that mattered. Every once in awhile, as she told her story, a tear would fall again, and in it I would see the sorrow in every single one of us reflected in its shine.

As she spoke to me, the others drew closer, unable to deny the pull of her soul made audible. She told us of battles won, and lost…the sorrows of love squandered…and her final, agonizing acceptance of her own power.

You could have heard a pin drop in the silence following her last words. She looked at each one of us, cauterizing our foolishness, and stopping our breath.

Then she stood, just as a single beam of light broke through, shining into the heart of her for the first time. She allowed herself to be filled with wonder, and we struggled to take the next breath…she glowed with an inner fire…

And we had never seen anyone more beautiful.

The Living Eulogy


Let me tell you what you didn’t know about her. Yes, she was a poet, yes she loved to write everything from inspirational blogs to poetry to fiction-trying to hold on to the dreams she no longer believed were real. But that wasn’t an occasional hobby for her, it was her breathing and her tears.

You think she was a business manager, a cop’s wife, a comedienne, an intimidating woman who took no shit off of anyone.

You are mistaken. She was injured early and often. She brought even more on herself with the decisions she made. She learned not to lie, because Truth was the greatest armor. She learned over time that she hated business and set hours and upholding things she didn’t agree with. She learned to think for herself even when it wasn’t a popular decision. It took her an entire lifetime, every damn minute of it, to shed all the labels, expectations, and ‘rules’ that silenced her voice.

She learned to let her heart-break. Every. Damn. Day. Because each time showed her something new and precious. A part of her she’d never seen before. She learned to quit blaming, and let go of bitterness, and that people’s behavior stems from their damages and sorrows. So she learned compassion on top of that. She loved whole-heartedly and paid a heavy price for it~but it was worth it to her. She never talked of ‘re-living’ anything. Now and forward was all she wanted to know.

She never really knew if she was loved greatly, but the love she gave was fierce and irrevocable.

She told me, with eyes on fire, that she intended to take the lessons she’d learned with her when she went, and that her last week of life had been her most epic because she learned to absorb the fear and live anyway.

She died happy because she’d finally become real, and real is eternal.

Now, and forward.