A fear of heights

something spectacular

(most likely to succeed)

something unordinary

something extraordinary

something different

something gifted

something beautiful

something to amaze

something to amuse

did I hear the word 'special'

fall from my lips or another's?

as I was falling from spectacular?

before the last bubble breaks at the surface

for even the slightest crack,
can trickle a flood,
so i have found.
bring in my army
bring in the sandbags
before i'm drowned.

Something That Was Once

During an April morning's walk,
near blooming magnolias and an awaking rhododendron;
in the dry wintered dirt; under an ever-greened branch;
lay a head; stilled and quiet.
A head with finely carved features of an ancient time.
Something that was once intact.
Something that was once admired.
Something that no longer is now what it was then.
Then.
The beauty of then.
The terror of then.
Something has vacated the premises
Something brave and beautiful.
Something without the head that lay
under the ever-greened branch; in the dry wintered dirt;
near blooming magnolias and an awakening rhododendron.
My prayer: May I be so brave and beautiful.
Walk on.

My Dear Concubine

Touch me on the chance my concubine will dance - like the tiny ballerina twirls round and round and round treasures of golden chains and diamond reins in my girlhood box of charms.

Touch me - hands close and familiar - for my muscles shiver and my skin quivers as my bones recall the ancient tales of chivalrous suitors in shining armor with razored edges.

Touch me with the shrill of your sword and call forth her rebellion - fighting and crying, yet dying to obey her lord, his every wish . . . do this so that I, face to her face, can impale her and all her misguidedness.

My breath, my death, my fear, my shrine,

My dear concubine . . .

'tis late my turn,

your urn awaits.

Beautiful music to fly with

Fate, my Fate

When I awoke, I did not remember
if I been swept away with
or swept and left by . . . the tide.
There was water. for years.

The Pacific was steady in his rhythm and strong in his force.

There was a trace of a sunset that had slipped between me and tomorrow.

There was a glimpse of something new
that had been something old . . .
in me.

I had been here before.
I had heard his call before.
But, I had blinked too long. the glimpse was gone.

I am here now.
I have returned.
I can hear now.
I have learned.

My eyes are open, waiting . . .
for him to emerge from the foam.
more than a glimpse.
more than yesterday.
more than a someday.

Return to me as I have to you.
Fate, my fate . . . I am ready to meet.



Potions, Lotions, Magic Charms: Music. Music. Music. Take a trip of ethereal Icelandic proportions on the wings of Sigur Ros.

This I Now Know: My mother always said . . . This too shall pass. This . . . this thing . . . like everything else . . . is passing . . . finally. And now, I must grasp onto new things as not to let them pass too quickly. Some things I want to let run like silky sand through my fingers . . . for long stretches of time. Some things, I want to quickly wash my hands of.

He Said / She Said:Eleanor Roosevelt, activist You Learn by Living
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

The Absence of Balance is Like Standing on the Outside but Thinking I am in

Do opposites really exist? Love and fear are called opposites, but isn't fear really the absence of love? As chaos is the absence of order. And darkness is the absence of light.

Black and white are sometimes referred to as opposites. But since black absorbs all color, and white reflects all color, at what point are they separated from each other?

It can be debated that all things deemed as opposites are really only separated by fine blurry lines, volume or perception. Like the opposite of quiet is not loud; quiet is loud with the volume turned down. The fine line between love and hate varies depending on the root of the 'hate;" whether it is fear based or based on an emotional perception.

Balance is the key to understanding all of this. I have been struggling all my life to achieve balance. For my grandma who used to say to me, "everything in moderation," she understood balance, and applied it to the best of her ability, even despite to her difficult circumstances. I, on the other hand, have always been an 'all or nothing' kind of person. Feast or famine. Anything but balanced in yin yang harmony. But, as I come to see that opposites do not really exist, I also see that I have been creating the drama of the extremes in my life.

I have been made more aware of this as I have come to recognize one of my greatest character flaws; indulgence. I began to see myself indulging in everything from tears to fun to work to sleep to . . . ironically enough: the act of indulgence itself.

After sometime beating myself up over my greatest flaw and seeing that I was now indulging myself in self-reflection and self-awareness . . . I laughed. I could only laugh. But not too much.

Now, I think I have gained a better understanding about indulgence. Indulgence is the act of attempting to achieve Zen . . . the Zen state . . . but turning the volume up full blast; the act of absorbing something - as black absorbs all color but does not reflect or give back in an equal-balanced exchange of energies. Zen is becoming one with something - as white becomes one with all colors, reflects all colors, and becomes so balanced with all colors that it appears to be no color at all - nothing.

So, yesterday morning while I was having coffee at a friend's home on the lake, I sat quietly alone (she was sleeping) staring at the water with a heart-full of gratitude; gratitude for my friends and family, my health, for life, for the water. The brilliant morning sun sparkled radiantly on the soft wake of a sailboat. I sat. I sat. I sat. The water . . . water . . . water . . . until the transient bursts of light became too intense for my eyes. But even so, I did not want to look away. The sight was so amazing and hypnotizing. It was at that moment of my hesitation - my resistance - when I knew my state of Zen had passed. I got up and walked away.

Potions, lotions and magic charms: Take this exact moment, this very second, this breath and this heartbeat. . . to become completely and absolutely present in yourSelf.

This I now know: Resistance is a sign that either the state of Zen has passed or it is just beyond the next breath.

He said / She said: “Children are natural Zen masters; their world is brand new in each and every moment.” John Bradshaw

My Dragons . . . My Pets

Name your dragons . . . then slay them.

Kill them?

But I've put names to their faces. They have grown on me. They are a part of me . . . of my life. They have been with me for so long and I don't know how to live without them. They never leave me alone . . . abandon me.


Over the years, I have learned each of their needs. I feed them. I pay them attention. I keep them safe.

My dragons are my pets.

But, I must move on now. I am packing up my boxes. They have grown too large for boxes, and I can't afford the cost of keeping them any longer. No dragons allowed where I am going. No dragons allowed.

I feel a sadness. I feel an emptiness. I feel afraid to go on without them.

What will become of me without them?
What will I become without them?
How will I recognize myself anymore?
Who will keep me company when all else fails?

Like a baby must leave her blanket . . . a child must leave her teddy bear . . . a girl must leave her dolls . . .

A woman is leaving her past . . . all she has come to know . . . all she has believed as truth . . .

All she has lived as real . . .

This woman must leave all of those things . . . it is time.

Potions, Lotions and Magic Charms: Rock and Roll, a couple of beers and lots of packing tape! Call it a kinky spa treatment - anything for beauty!

This is what I now know: Sometimes starvation hurts deeper and kills quicker than a sword.

He said / She said: Despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, I have not been able to answer... the great question that has never been answered: what does a woman want? Sigmund Freud

Warrior Spirit Descending

I am LEARNING how to fight for my life.
I am learning HOW to fight for my life.
I am learning how to FIGHT for my life.
I am learning how to fight for MY life.
I am learning how to fight for my LIFE.
I AM LEARNING HOW TO FIGHT FOR MY LIFE.

I am learning I am worth it.

Potions, Lotions and Magic Charms: MUSIC: Music is music for the SOUL and from the soul.
This is what I now know: Air heals better than bandages.
He said / She said: "I am a woman above everything else." Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Spiritual Surgery

My heart hurts from behind. It crept up on me, the pain. It began between my shoulder blades and my ribs seesawing through my chest like a jagged blade with every breath. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to move. I thought I had slept funny. I applied warmth with a heating pad. Nothing. I slept clutching extra pillows. Nothing. It'll go away in a few days, I was told. It has to run it's course. You must have pulled something. You must have slept funny.
After a few days I could finally take a deep breath again. I could move a with a little more ease. The pain was still noticeable, but not as debilitating.
It moves around in there now. From right to left, but mostly left. And it began to hurt in the front of my chest now. Yep, my heart hurts all over now - front, back, sides. Today, it feels more like the workings of a surgeon's scalpel between my ribs as my anesthesia wears off.
God gave me this rib and no one is going to take it from me.
Ah, I think I just got it . . . he's not cutting away at my rib or my heart . . . whatever or whoever is doing this is cutting away the damage; my injury.
I've heard some say that our shoulder blades are like wing bones. Maybe what I'm experiencing is more like growing pains. Maybe I'm growing my wings. Ok God, I can deal with that pain.

Lotions, Potions and Magic Charms: A simple meditation, as learned by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of "Eat Pray Love," while on her personal spiritual journey through Italy, India and Indonesia . . . A simple meditation: SIT and SMILE :) even smile in your liver . . . simple and powerful.

This is what I now know: I know that today, I do not know, and that is a good thing.

He said / She said: In passing, also, I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance he laid the blame on woman. ~Nancy Astor, My Two Countries

A special note of importance: For anyone out there who wears rose-colored glasses through a field of land mines - I heard this said on Oprah yesterday: STOP wearing your wishbone where your backbone should be.

Dead Man's Float...and other rabbits in my hat

When all else fails . . . dead man's float. Warning: you may get so good at it that you will forget how to swim.

When my skin had wrinkled beyond human recognition and there were still no planes or boats in sight, I realized I was not going to be rescued . . . at least not by any outside force. So I began to flail my arms around in a feeble attempt to swim and save myself. That was when I began seeing the light at the surface fade into a slow black as I faded into a deep blue.

Rock bottom . . . I felt the sharp edges pierce my skin so I knew I must still be alive. But, what to do next?

All these years I thought the dead man's float was the best and the worst I could do. Now I see that my ingenuity and quick thinking kept me a prisoner. Had I surrendered to those feelings of the fear of the unknown . . . the fact that I did not have all the answers . . . I may have learned a thing or two . . . like how to temporarily live like a fish while I heal myself and grow new legs.

Because, that's the thing with us humans, we are like the starfish; we have an amazing, mostly untapped, ability to regenerate. In fact, some starfish can regenerate new from only one ray (of hope) left.

So, I am at the bottom. I am without reference. I am left with one ray. I will soon find out if I am one of those starfish.

Potions, Lotions and Magic Charms: cold cucumber slices placed over my eyes to decrease the puffiness; a glass of wine to decrease the pain.

This is what I now know: I have been trying to embrace what I have come to find out is the holographic image of myself . . . out there, not the real me . . . in here.

He said/she said: A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction. ~Oscar Wilde

Mondays at Midday

This is the first posting on my newly changed Sacred Footing blog. I have given Sacred Footing a new direction as described in the title section. I wrote a few lines to get her started . . . to give her the first breath of life . . . to get her blood pumping. I've waved the magic wand . . . I've invoked the goddess . . . I will write her story, my story your story. We are all in this together. (Now I must cook dinner and clean the house like a good woman.)

Did I age ten years in one night? I've heard it said (in humor) that it takes ten years to become accustomed to one's age . . . and by then . . . another ten have passed.
Maybe it's the time of year - Autumn - the ending of summer and the beginning of the end of the annual cycle of seasons. Maybe it's all me and my mid-life madness. Maybe it's the fullness of the moon. (Maybe I can find someone to blame it all on.) But, whatever, whoever . . . I feel older today . . . but not any wiser. Maybe if I put some makeup on, dressed up in a cute outfit and danced around the house to some upbeat music I could fool myself into thinking I am gorgeous today! But, I'll probably stay in my sweats (the ones that make me look ten pounds bigger), keep my hair in the messy ponytail and leave my face to its natural, pale skin . . . and I'll simply accept that I'm having a yucky day. So what.
Tomorrow is another day in my roller coaster ride through my forties. Tomorrow might show me an awesome panoramic view. But for today . . . I'll do what I have to do to muddle through.

Potions, Lotions and Magic Charms:
For today - water, water, and more water . . . I don't drink enough. (Even though these past few days have been hot and humid) I feel the dryness of the cooler weather approaching - the changing of the seasons (and my seasons) and the waxing of the moon into her fullness . . . pulling at me - stirring something up inside of me. Drink it up, wash it out, soak it up, clean it out.

This is what I now know:
For me, one of the scariest places on Earth has always been that which lives just below the surface of a smile. Coming from an alcoholic home (and this is not a pity statement, a sob story or a unique dysfunctional family memory - it is a simple fact) I learned to never trust a smile or a laugh, for moods can change in a heartbeat. It took me years to understand why I would "freak out" inside and have feelings of unexplainable paranoia whenever someone's words did not exactly match his or her body and facial language.

He said/ She said:
A woman who cannot be ugly is not beautiful. ~Karl Kraus

Dying Little Deaths

I have heard it said that every day we die little deaths. At the time I first heard that, I did not truly "get" it. I thought that it maybe meant the endings of certain things in my life . . . maybe the ending of a friendship or a project or a worn out coat . . . but, nevertheless, it had a sad ring to it. It meant the end of something, symbolic or otherwise, that I would probably miss. And though I knew that these little deaths must give me opportunities for little births - new beginnings - I did not know what those new beginnings would look like . . . a new friend in my life to balance out the one who left? A new coat hanging in my closet where the old one hung?
Then, I finally "got" it. I came to understand that death is not an end of anything at all . . . it is merely the transition into a new phase, a new time. Within each day, every little death is actually the "end" of each moment precisely as the very next moment is born into existence. Like a wheel turning on the pavement, leaving on spot behind as it comes into contact with the next spot: there are no beginnings and there are no endings to the wheel itself or its movement. I also came to realize that with the end of each moment I was given the opportunity to leave an old thought or belief behind with its passing (a little death). I was given yet another opportunity to gain a new perspective as the new moment arrived. In other words, I am constantly creating myself in every second . . . I am dying and I am being born . . . I am creating my perspective - the choices are all mine for the making.

My thoughts on Agape

Love is one infinite mass. It flows in and out of each of us encompassing our entire being. It is an not an activity limited to the heart but of the mind and the soul and the flesh, as well.

Love connects us to our source GOD . . . and to each other.

All love is the fundamentally same. The Greeks have several words for love:
the love for ones child - storgyi
the love for a friend - filia
the love for a lover - eros
the love for mankind - agape

It is all the same – it is the intention behind the love that makes it feel differently.

What am I?

Journal Entry: “What am I?”

The lake affects me differently than the ocean . . . especially Lake Michigan. There is an ancient magic in Lake Michigan . . . timelessness . . . a quietly powerful energy that evokes contemplation and inspires creativity. While the ocean calls out from the ends of the Universe, the lake calls out from within my soul. The lake brings me peace and serenity . . . the ocean ignites my fires and passions.

I lay on the white sand with my face towards the sun, and I listen to the water. I rise and walk into the lake, feeling her force push against my body . . . until the water not longer ebbs at my flesh, but passes through me as if I did not exist.

I ask God, “If I am nothing that this water can pass right through me, what am I?” God speaks simultaneously, “You are the water.”