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 spoke in an earlier post about singing through different parts of my body. I said that I discovered that the quality of the sound and the emotional content change as I explore different areas.

Since I started being more aware of my own inner processes in the past couple of years, I have learned about chakras and a little about what the meanings are in the different regions along the spine in the front and the back. The concept really isn’t that far out. It’s not unusual to hear people talk about a “gut feeling” or a “guttural sound” or “speaking from the heart”.

I think that to a large degree, people have come to judge the lower chakras, those that are more connected to the earth, as lowly and less deserving of attention. These areas are connected with basic survival instincts, security, money, home, appetites for food and sex.

These needs and instincts have been used as weaknesses; as tendencies to manipulate. We manage these needs of our own and each other with a focus other than love. We exploit ourselves and each other just as we exploit the earth itself. I want  to focus love and attention on these lower chakras especially. Maybe it is OK to be so very human. Maybe we need to accept each other’s humanness. Maybe it is OK to love and accept the very materiality of the earth. Maybe it is OK to be here, really here. Maybe here can actually be heaven.

My music is responding by coming from a gut level. It is often gravelly and very connected to my body. I can’t help but move as I play and sing. And I don’t want to intellectualize it. It is, I believe, what often is considered primitive; a wisdom that I believe is important now to offset a world which is so out of balance. The outward world seems to be based so very much on control, manipulation and exploitation. And perhaps also the inner world which has its counterpart in the control that we feel we need to exert over our bodies, seeing our bodies, and perhaps our very souls as simply objects to manage.

We need to remember that those “objects”, those bodies and souls are our very being. We really are alive. We really do exist. It is easy to lose track of our present reality when so much of our life is connected to computers, TV’s and cell phones. Maybe I can’t speak for anyone other than myself. I must open my eyes. I must do everything I can to save this thing while there is still time.

I am still so preoccupied, I spend most of my time in my brain. But I am finding my music to be an avenue which brings me back to a fuller perspective which includes my heart, my emotions and my great desire to survive.

I have a hard time putting all of this into words. I am used to using words in a narrow way. The best poetry can convey amazing depth of feeling and more. Perhaps this blog can be my practice in bringing words to that which I want to convey. What I want to convey feels so big and undefined to me, that I find it difficult to begin. My focus is general. It is both upward and downward. It reaches up to God, (and I am not even sure what I mean by that), and downward through my own body and self with all of my foibles and roots itself into the earth. I want to draw nourishment from both directions just like a plant. I feel like I have been focusing so hard lately on the sun that I have forgotten that I also need water and nutrients. The earth feels so arid right now. We need to take care of the earth.

Technorati Tags: appetites, chakras, earth, home, money, primitive, qiging, security, survival, wisdom