Kom me naar buiten allemaal
Dan zoeken wij de wielewaal
En vinden wij die muziekant
Dan is zomer weer in’t land!

Dudeldjo klinkt zijn lied
Dudeldjo klinkt zijn lied
Dudeldjo en anders neit.

Oh, it feels like Springtime inside and outside. . . the birds are singing, my heart is expanding out so far I feel like bursting!

Technorati Tags: Bursting, Emergence, fluidity, hope, love, Music, renewal, Spirit

What is this shame? What is this shame that I feel in my inadequacy in approaching my own finances? What is that sense of inadequacy made of? It used to be so clear cut. Just numbers that add up to another number at the bottom of a page. Money coming in, money going out.

I’ve been proud of how frugal I can be. I’ve been proud of how I have succeeded in making do in difficult times. My kids and I got through it when the business was doing poorly and . . .here comes the resentment. . . the resentment about how the money was spent so lavishly by some members of the family when I could barely buy clothes for the kids or food for all of us. . . I was the good wife. I have always been the good wife, the good daughter, the good friend. . . now I am just being an asshole in perpetuating my own neuroses. . . I have no one to blame anymore.

Why can’t I just look at those bills, make simple categories; OK, so what if you can’t pay them all. Then you find a solution. But this has been going on for so long. . . and I will have to claim my own part of the responsibility. Cleanse, cleanse, cleanse. . . your faultedness is OK. . but you have to look at it. Why is there shame in being poor? I guess it’s not shame in being poor, but for a long time, there has been pride in having the ability to make it against the odds. Now that it is all up to me, I am scared that I might not be able to do it. I am so scared that I don’t approach the implicit problems, the little decisions. . . why do they feel so huge? Why does each bill feel like such a judgment?

Dig in. . . dig in. . . as I dig into my bills I am digging into my own sense of lack. I am pulling at that tight ball that I have in my left kidney. . . I can feel the poison of the old lactic acid or whatever it is your muscles store when they have been tight for too long. . . old old brackish energy that has been holding back the tide of support, emotional or financial. . . don’t take care of me, my Lord, I am not worth it. I have been given more than my share for too long. I am just me. Why do I deserve this bounty? What about those people over there who can’t eat? Why do I deserve to live? Why do I deserve to be loved?

Gets complicated. It’s just a stack of bills, Suzie.

But this stack of bills says everything about what I have decided about my life. I am worth a person who lives in a house, buys electricity, buys oil, buys food, buys clothing, buys the extras like books and computers and internet access. Why am I worth all of that? Why am I worth the education that I was given? Why am I worth the family that I was given? How do I fit into those rows and columns of this little spreadsheet? What numbers apply to me?

I feel shorn by the categories. . . limited. . . the same way I feel limited by words, labels. . . but Suzie, this is just a part of the same lines and definitions of what is now in this life. It is just a game. Just a dance. Let it go. Open up that bill and compare the numbers. You don’t have to be limited by it. But you can’t hold onto it. Take it as a part of the flow, a part of the succession of moments that make up the flow. . . the dance. . . the rhythm of the song. . .

Here it goes. . . wish me luck, friends.

Technorati Tags: abundance, love, money, support

I want to claim your love. I want to secure your love and call it my own. I want to take it and hide it in a safe place so that I can open it up whenever I feel lonely and afraid.

But I can’t seem to capture it. The darkness falls in on me and I am alone and crying again. I give up and realize that I am only an infant. It is OK. God is picking me up and holding me. I guess over time I will understand.

Technorati Tags: love

Many months ago when I first performed “Bursting” for my friend, I came to the line that says, “Lines and measurements, gridlock to life”, and I saw him flinch. He is an artist. Line and measurement are intrinsic to art, and for that matter I suppose, any moment in this life we are in.

Whether I choose to admit it or accept it or not, I am in this life. I am in this body which is in this skin sitting on this very chair. I do spend my time in certain ways which certainly can be looked at from a myriad of perspectives, but I can’t get away from the fact that perspectives exist and whether you look from this angle or that, you are limited within a point of view.

At least until I get beyond the fear of it all and let the waves carry me. But how do I explain that to myself or anyone else? I don’t know what that means.

Forget that. Love. Focus on the love and it doesn’t matter. The love carries you through the lines and definitions carrying you from limitation to expansion on more and more beautiful waves of experience.

Again, I don’t know what that means. But I won’t try too hard to figure it out.

I have had a real disdain for business. For vocations. But I only have had disdain for vocations because I think of them as business. The exchange of money. I think of it as being a grasping, greedy, cut-throat activity where people are looking at each other as adversaries in the pursuit of survival. An activity which turns people toward hatred and fear. This has been my extremely limiting belief.

I think that this is a point of view that many people share, though. But I have hope that it is changing. I think that it is changing in me. I have always wanted to focus on love. But somehow, putting love into that which makes money has seemed like throwing light into a limitless well to me. Like the light disappears and is wasted. Most of the time, I guess I still believe that. I am just beginning to question that.

It has seemed to me like so many things which are of inestimable value are not valued at all economically. Like home and hearth. Like friendship. Like love. But to start to put a dollar sign on these things turns them into commodities. You shouldn’t have to pay for any of these things. But sometimes I think that these are the things that I truly do have to offer, and because I want to focus my energies on them, I am going to starve. I have been told repeatedly that this is not the case. But I just don’t get it yet.

I wrote earlier about a job that I took on for the past month. It has been one of the hardest and most fulfilling things I have done in my life. I love it. But it doesn’t pay enough to live on. So how do I create or find that which will actually pay my bills and yet be something that can carry all of that love and life that I have to offer?

Maybe as I widen my view and begin to not just accept, but love the lines, variations and spectrums within my own life, life may support me more. To love and accept the light, I need to love and accept each color in the spectrum. To become a part of the flow I need to fall and rise and fall again.

Technorati Tags: art, love, Selling out

I just said in my last post, “what I experience in my world has everything to do with what I do in my life, what I choose to believe, and whether I own up to the choices that I make.”  It rings true to me for myself.  But how can I say that of people who are really struggling for their lives?  Are they owning up to their own choices?

I guess it is just that casting another stone just doesn’t help.  It only continues the cycle of violence.  Can we create the change we need through love?

Technorati Tags: change, love