Stolen Memories

Red Lily – Australian Bush Flower

Observations of being human …

Gaia guides me, helps me value my memories and my Self — through Her kind and loving eyes I see the me of my story before memories and moments are stolen — or given away; She grounds me through the trees nodding in affirmation and recognition, and the path welcoming my footsteps, and the dogs looking to me for guidance and love. Full Circle. When I step into woods, I feel Her embrace and Her love holds my memories as sacred, as mine; my soul is nourished, our spirits are One. Gaia sees me as me. And She tells me to write into my own infinity …

If I don’t make the effort to tuck away my treasures, the essence of each moment’s quenching of thirst, the healing well, can be drained by those who presume to know what I meant … they steal the memory and put their own spin on it and I wonder if I’m crazy — ! Did I recall a fantasy, a story created in my mind or was it real?

To write is my way of putting a lid* on the memory, to wrap it up with a ribbon so that I can say: this is what I felt, thought, sensed, knew. No matter what anyone else may say or think, the memory has become real — it is my memory, not someone else’s.

I have barely any memories of childhood, of being part of my family’s life, of my socially active early twenty-something years — all the people around me sucked my memories away and made them their own, and I wasn’t quick enough or mature enough to realize I needed to write it down, that I needed to be the scribe of my own life or it would appear that I was merely a footnote, an addition, an accessory to someone else’s life and memories. My wispy memories are of a solitary child playing in the barn with cats, of watching roly-polies for what seemed like hours, of twirling alone on the green grass in an old square dance dress until, dizzy, I drop to the ground in my Gypsy fantasy.

Later, the longer I lived alone, the more memories I have retained, through writing in my journal and scripting the story in my mind — consciously pausing to write my story, my internal response to a situation, before someone snatched it away and said “no, you aren’t remembering right — it happened this way.” The space, a pause, a few moments of solitude and stillness are needed to set my memories firm, to establish their home in me.

They didn’t intend to steal my memories, or my innocence, or my identity. They simply assimilated the events into their own story — like The Blob in that old horror movie — and I disappeared, became a mass of bone and flesh without a sense of Self. And I do own my part in giving my Self away. But who was I if my memories weren’t there? Most people set such store by the importance of past — of memory — and my past was someone else’s footnote.

Only a discipline – writing – within solitude’s grace, the solitude I again came to know as my long lost identifier in a deeply rooted core of being, only then were my recent and new memories allowed to remain with me — they weren’t stolen away by good intentions of control or a foreign persona of deception.

Write, write it down, write everything down before someone can abscond with my experiences and create their own version of my story, my life. I hear it revised and rewritten whenever I visit family, so hard to hold onto it. Who I am disappears into someone else’s memory of who I was and my young nieces don’t see or know me — they only know the person I was supposed to be or the me who disappointed authority. I disappear into someone else’s memory — I don’t recognize that person they talk about, that me in their memories. But since my memories of the early years are gone, I cannot contradict, I can only shrink a little further into the bubble of my dimming aura, contract in so that no more memories are extracted. If I don’t speak, my voice cannot be stolen. Write it down; become the story in the pages, preserved a little while longer than would happen if the fire blazing through vibrant personalities made me disintegrate.

Now in my fifth decade, when I am with other people, silence preserves my voice from being distorted … I listen, feel, think, and then later write into wholeness of Being. Not to be chained by ego, but to recover and know my own soul in the world.

Are there other people with stolen memories?

Lily Pad Pond in Maine

Without abundant water and earth, is it possible I fear the desert fire and air will try to steal my memory — my identity — if I let go of my resistance to its intensity? I nearly lost it once in the desert already …

The desert is another face of Gaia. I’ve always trusted Her loving presence. Maybe it’s time to have faith that even in Her most fierce form — the Fiery Desert — She will keep me growing, safe, whole. She has nurtured as the North Woods, She has inspired as the Rocky Mountains — what is Her gift to me as the Sonoran Desert? She’s never stolen my memory before, why would She do it now? Unless … would She do it to teach me that I am more than my memory?

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*The portal for the above was Emily Dickinson’s poem (#1266), drawn at random:

When Memory is full

Put on the perfect Lid — 

This Morning’s finest syllable

Presumptuous Evening said — 

Lily Pad Room, Onondaga Cave, Missouri

I have also been reading When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice by Terry Tempest Williams, and I know her essays influenced my direction toward contemplation of voice.

Never Alone

We are never alone … feel into the essence of Ms. Emily …

© Kerry

Alone, I cannot be —  

For Hosts—do visit me—

Recordless Company—

Who baffle Key—

 

They have no Robes, nor Names—

No Almanacs—nor Climes—

But general Homes

Like Gnomes—

 

Their Coming, may be known

By Couriers within—

Their going—is not—

For they’ve never gone— 

 ~~~ Emily Dickinson

Thoughts, ideas, imagination, the scurrying of monkey-mind so that I am never alone and envision heart as home, cells as dens, body and soul as One in hosting the Divine without a separation where I could not find for here is all the possibility moving inside and coming out to say “hello” upon the pages white with lines to be filled by mind conjoined into heart space.

Do not fear for we are always here in Oneness.

From the corner of my eyes I see me in the shadows waiting to emerge, and I do! Host to my own desires and thoughts that play upon the page, never alone. In poem or story, prose or myth, we are memories resurfacing and the collective that shimmies down a lightening bolt to rocket along my spine radiating outward in all directions. Or seeping in from startled clouds that shed their sweat on balmy days and leave a rainbow in the arch of my foot so that when I walk the endless colors of flowers are the soft petals on my path. Never alone, held away by no key or barrier, and why would I want me or thee to be?

The dangerous ones are welcomed into the circle by a fondness for the healing of disembodied souls of self and many … surrounded by friends of fur and feather, flora abundant, spirits pluming into my room from the window peeking open with a tiny grin to welcome inside the night air … don’t despair of loneliness for having been there I now squint into the darkness and stars rise high into velvet sky of lunar lumen holding a ball, a free for all of voice and song that play within my mind and slide up and down the waterfall in impossible directions simultaneous.

Am I crazy? So be it!

Did Emily see the fairy world? Did she see the subtle energy fields and shapes beyond the veil of illusion of form? Was she visited by them as well as by inner voice? Wouldn’t it be funny if everyone thought she was using metaphor to describe “real life” when she was actually using external “symbols” to describe an inner and/or parallel reality just as valid? I smile with unknowing …

Gayatri Mantra – Bhargo

Continuing my journey through the Gayatri / GaiaTree Mantra …

Bhargo — definitions or understandings of the actual word/sound are:

light, love, purity, purify, cleanse,

reveal Maya (illusion), allow realization

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Our experiences guide us. We are born into the world, into form, and we are intimate with Gaia. She is our very essence of connection yet as we grow, we yearn for worldly experiences as this is our nature and Hers within us. 

Sometimes we hold our souls gently through journey, keeping our center, but mostly we stumble and make strange choices, often falling away from being able to see Divinity right in front of us every moment. Remember. That’s our practice. Recall our Oneness. Not as something to be achieved. Not to compare ourselves to others and how far they are. But just to be present to our own journey knowing She is always shining Her Light of Love … we couldn’t escape it even if we wanted to. To think  we or others have fallen too far to even know the Light is to forget that we already have the Light within us — we are love and only need to recognize Her once more as us. 

Is there such a thing as too much light? A garish intensity can overwhelm and burn right through, revealing so much at once that we are blinded and our skin peels away after being scorched. We may be purified of ego-dominance but at what cost? So little left after the burning that we struggle to wrap bandages around limbs oozing with salve and blood, seeking healing through the pain of too much illumination at once. Yet, with wisdom, guided by Her mysteries, we become accustomed to more and more Light, taking it in and growing stronger with each exposure.

Soak up all the moonlight we want, so gentle and pure, touching softly and with a soothing brushstroke to paint the canvas of our skin with the shadows of leaves and limbs. Night’s creatures gifting us with sound that opens all the pores of heart and soul until we are flooded with cool cleansing luminescence. 

Prisms in the air transform Her sunlight into rainbows that guide us to the spark in our hearts where energy spirals and spins out all the accumulated gunk, sending it flying out of us on a simple exhale. Could it be so simple? Light and Air a revelation of Love? Of course. She doesn’t intend anything to be hard — we create the difficulty on our own.

Light plays upon the water creating whirls and worlds of sparkling essence, enchanting us with its escapades and reminding us to pause in the blessing of right now, to dance upon the shimmering waters of renewal and realization. See how all Her elements hold hands inviting us to see Her in the world? 

Is there light in the Earth? Of course! Light is transformation, Love is transformative, and all earth energy is teeming and gleaming with the process of transformation from our birth to death as we participate in the process of feeding our bodies. How much love do we partake of? Are we conscious of where our food comes from, who labors over its growth, how is it cared for? Choose to bring the Light of Love into the needs of our bodies, the transformative powers of metabolism and assimilation. 

When we allow the veil of illusion to fall away, we see Her Light everywhere and we are naturally drawn to all aspects of healing in Her Light and that includes wanting and opening to bring into our bodies as many impressions and actions of Light as possible. 

When I allow Her Light to come within, then I naturally allow and offer more Light out from myself. There is no need to fear sending out Her Love Light because we are instantly replenished. She is Abundance and Her Light is everywhere … in all the plants and animals and minerals; we are the Light of Love. Once we open our minds and senses to Her infinite abundance we know this. We participate with Her as She purifies with the kiss of a breeze, the hiking of a trail, the snuggles of a dog, the observance of silence in an instant that creates the space into which Her Radiance is All.

Gayatri Mantra – Bhuvah

free image © Michael Shake | Dreamstime.com

Continuing my journey through the Gayatri / GaiaTree Mantra …

Bhuvah — definitions or understandings of the actual word/sound are:

 consciousness, limitless, through Divine Consciousness we are free of illusion

 _______________

Greater awareness of the boundless grace of the Infinite, this is a counterbalance to Bhur’s physicality and is the opening freely to Source as more than the amazing presence in our world. Where Bhur is more than just an ‘airy’ or ‘spacey’ transcendent energy we could not touch, that is where Bhuvah comes in to awaken us to the unerring mystery of Gaia Spark that is limitless. We can feel Her vibration in every part of our body. She is the catalyst and the inspiration that cannot be named or seen for She is the field of Knowing, She is Consciousness. She shows us the mental constructs of illusion. Gaia, Wise One, holds the keys of instinct and intuition and ‘seeing’ at their Source. 

Gaia parts the limbs blocking our view of the stairway up the side of the mountain next to the cascading waterfall. Gaia shows us the miracle of the granite steps and the moss carpeting them to soften footfalls. She opens our eyes to the space between the matter, and for a moment the step disappears and only a vibratory impression remains–still there but not as we thought it was, and when we step onto the shifting image of the block we see our foot shimmer in and out of existence as well. 

Look up and see the waterfall become a veil that is transparent and not wet at all for the droplets individualize and they are filled with space and can evaporate in the blink of an eye upon the air of a thought. Time slows and we can step through the veil, gently parting the falls like a curtain that drifts closed behind us. Behind is a cave within the mountain we never knew was there–a shelter that had always been present but we never saw it behind the veil. The walls shimmer and gleam with pulsing veins of gold and silver, their pockets filled with turquoise sky and amethyst sunsets. How could we have not known? 

Gaia steps out of the solid rock that never was solid and She is smiling with delight, holding a bobcat kitten in one arm and a fawn in the other. They blink, or do I, and we are all playing as equals upon the floor of the cave, bleached bones of the pain of ignorance scattered like forgotten toys. I see myself in them and through their eyes I see myself reflected. We are all precious, all the same except that they long ago shed the veil and have been walking the earth, yearning to help us experience the joy of the present and the love in the now and the limitless potential we all share. But we–and, thus, they as part of our whole-earth experience–have been held captive to human ignorance that has kept world peace a mere footstep away. 

Splendor rises around me and we are all vibrations in a song being sung by Gaia, Her lovely voice lilting an ancient melody, all the notes of every life form coming together in harmony with no space for suffering in Her Song, only infinite space for compassion. “You can be in the world of form and also know the boundless possibility of Self.” Her words are bliss, like a cool hand upon a fevered brow too long in the driving intensity of the desert sun. Here, then not here. Nowhere and everywhere. Incomprehensible yet absolutely present.

I blink … I am once more on the mountain path gazing at the waterfall, the spray a drenching mist upon my clothes and they cling to my skin. Was it just a daydream? The rock feels solid–I stomp my foot. Was that laughter coming from the woods? There, a movement … I glimpse an agile, leggy brown body wearing white polka-dots scamper away, bounding … boundless? A whispered purr in my ear calls … I look across the river to the canyon wall where a small graceful being with long jowl fur curved around an enchanting face blinks once slowly and then turns, leaping with limitless power and agility onto a ledge, twitching a stub of a tail at me before disappearing into a dark, rocky crevice. I smile. “Gaia … !“ And I hear Her fading laughter upon the cool breeze caressing the back of my neck.

See first post HERE for backstory on the Gayatri / GaiaTree journey.

Darkness

The presence of the Goddess is echoed above and below and within. She does not hide Her face for all facets are beauty. Even in the dark moments where She is storming against the toxins within her system or the changes we are trying to make to conform her to what we think She should be or look like, She does not deny the chaos from out of which new life grows and transforms.

I hear Her voice echoed above and lift my eyes, my gaze, to see Her there, whether dark clouds or sunny skies. I like to imagine that I am complete when I embrace my dark moments, too.

For we all experience them and either acknowledge them or live in denial that we ever have dark thoughts/moments. Well, maybe some people who are finally far enough along their path no longer experience the darkness in themselves but still they must live amidst those of us who still do. And if we are embarrassed or ashamed of our darkness, where does that leave us in communing with the rest of the world? Do we fear and hate and try to hide the darkness of the manifest world or do we bring it into the light to be healed? When we hide our dark moments from our loved ones out of fear or shame, or perhaps not wanting them to feel our pain, are we not burying a part of them as well and telling them they should hide their dark moments from us? Is not our ‘hiding’ of that part of self a fester that will continue to spread beneath our outer persona like a fungus, touching all our cells and reverberating out into the world like a compression wave of disgrace? Where its tone is echoed above and below and shocks through the people around us like sonar? It seems that for every part of ourselves that is denied or hidden, there is one more stain upon the outer culture skin, spreading like a virus or multiplying like spores that are breathed in and out until we are all infected and re-infected.

We exist in form in duality–this is an illusion of who we really are in Spirit, but it IS the existence of us here and now in the world. Is it not wiser to feel the darkness and then embrace it? Transform it through loving acceptance? Just as we are transformed when we open to the Divine Feminine in all Her glory as she rains and storms, becomes tornado or quake or wildfire?

She is not angry, she is simply doing what is necessary to transform Herself into wholeness. Now, one could think that she is no different than the armies who kill all those who are ‘different’ because of the ‘cleansing’ but it is far and away not the same, not even close, for she feels no hatred or arrogance or disgust–those are human feelings and emotions from the aberrance of separative illusion–and she is simply cleaning house, compassionate toward the losses perhaps but knowing the wisdom of loving the whole first. There is great distance between the destruction of humans and the transformation of Gaia.

And is that where we still have so much to learn? That the whole is more vital than the one? To know that when I am in darkness, the light will always come but it is not ‘better’ than the dark, only different but necessary. There is a certain detachment from these dualities when we find peace in them, perhaps. The dark is not bad, it simply is … no shame in the feeling of it … and when we accept this then the contentment with past and present are echoed above and below and everywhere. To experience the darkness without attaching to it, without denying it or hiding it, allows it to exist in peace and move on just as night turns to day and then back to night. “This too shall pass.”

The concept of detachment does not mean lack of love or compassion, and it does not mean inaction, it means that we can experience a solid or flowing background of peace as we see dark and light come and go as the energies that they are, knowing our power and our limitations as well. In fact, peace–Sattva–is neither light or dark, it is an energy beyond duality that allows us to evolve here and now, not out there, or when we die or when everyone is finally “perfect.”

I feel that the dark moments might in some ways be the most precious from a holistic embrace of my whole self for it is during those times, in hindsight, that grace dances in and partners with the shadows for incredible transformation.

Why so much shame around our darkest moments? Like they aren’t part of us? Like the darkness is not the ‘real’ us? My journals reveal all aspects of myself … from creative to soul-searching to daily angst or joy, to contemplative to pure imagination. Funny, I used to keep the writing separate with a book for this and one for that and now they just all flow together as the complicated messy me that I love — I am the finger painting of a child and the dark storm on the horizon and the Monet and Gaia’s precious gift to Herself.

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This piece was the result of several energies pouring into me … one was the ClarityWorks Online daily writing prompt of “echoed above” holding hands with recent comments about our ‘dark moments’ not being our ‘real’ selves and all swirling in the body-soul of where I was in that particular moment.