fire. wine. my cashmere sweater that goes all the way to my knees. the right soundtrack, mercury glass, my children’s art. avocados still on their branches and clementines in a hand-thrown bowl with a blue patina at the center of our well-worn table. thick lentil soup that sticks to the inside, a friend on the way over. the stuff of my life. my home.

it was a fall of inversion. of hermiting and long mornings spent trying to breathe more freely. of asking for help, opening my fist, and resting my head on the floor. i paid attention to the birds, to the rain, to the bright reds and purples of the latest sunsets. i threw a few tantrums and we tangled ourselves under the down comforter at the end of each day and i learned to rest. to really rest.

this is the longest gap between entries since i first began blogging. as you know, the more time passes, the more it feels like there is just too much to say. or not enough.

and so i offer a few images of the past month. the time wherein i emerged from the dark, after going all the way in, and simply began to love my life.

the boy is now 12.

breakfasts have mattered. a lot.

the beast and i have been hiking. often.

the girl is behind the wheel. enough said.

time on the mountain top with my love.

sunrises with community.

and sunsets, too.

sigh.

and you, friends? how are you wrapping up the season?

it is not unfamiliar, this place.

though i have grown weary of it.

noisy and sharp, inhibiting rest. ego on alert, fables and accusations running rampant.

i only want to feel at ease. elemental. not wondering if i lit the right candle, said the right prayer, or missed the portal.

it might be hormones, or darker shades of what i have always known.

(fear, unexpressed pain, hunger, loneliness, grief, anger, shame–whatever)

only now, i refuse to consider that i haven’t “worked” hard enough. or that i haven’t sat in the fire long enough. or that i am lazy, inconsistent, uncommitted, or indulgent. that i am faint of heart.

i am none of those things.

though there are plenty of arrow wounds that suggest i have believed otherwise.

this is the day that i begin to understand. that i challenge the separation that bores canyons in me.

separation from source. from love. from beauty. from you.

i think that salvation is in the letting out. the letting go. the letting in.

the allowing.

and the help.

(the tree, the camera, the nourishment, the time, the forgiveness, the care, the now, the us)

photo: shelter. 11.11.11. butterfly beach, santa barbara. iphone.

there are those times when we have no choice but to retreat. when it is energy and not words. when the oldest, most foundational, primal cell stuff is calling. when the whispers become shouts and the knees find their way to the floor.

it is uncomfortable and necessary and simple and expected. it is every workshop and retreat and therapy session. it is every poet and guru and mystic and shaman. it is the heart that pauses and then fires too fast, and the burning between the eyes.

this is waking up in a sweat, floating above the surface, and too deep for story.

this is about embodiment, alignment, integration. but even this language does not address the grey veil and the terrifying vacuum that precedes it.

i suppose this is the beginning of awakening. of healing. of really becoming.

but all i can presence is now. the now that feels chills between my shoulder blades. the now that seeks solace in the woods, wants pasta, looks to spider webs for guidance, and sleeps better with his hand on my chest.

there are those times when we have no choice but to retreat. when the senses are amplified, when it feels like a choice between light and dark. between static and flow. between love and fear.

and so i have gone in. to be with all of it.

photo: where the shadows meet the light. october 2011.

in all things, i look for the ways we are the same. every day i listen to the soundbites of the chatter we exchange, and what i hear is the hunger to connect, to tell someone. we want to be seen, held, and heard. we want to own some visual, visceral, felt recognition that we are here. that there is progress in our evolution. that all the effort, watering, plowing through, will yield something that feeds us.

today is one of those days where i feel saturated in simplicity and complexity. i can hear the swooshing of my heart in my ears. i cry when i read or witness anything that recognizes our need for love. i have awareness of the density of this cup, the bitterness of this tea, the hum of electricity rising from the keyboard and into my fingertips. i taste date sugar in my teeth, tenderness in my belly, gaps in my cognition.

and i know that you also know what this experience is. to be stimulated and depleted. to be starved and stuffed. surrendered and resisting. to be nothing and everything. here and there. the same.

and to need to bury our faces in the words and shoulders and stories of someone else who gets it.

Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. And between the two my life flows. ~Nisargdatta Maharaj

photo: the view as the fog lifted. santa barbara. october 2011.