Intentions

This is a photo from Whistle Lake, a sacred beauty-spot on Fidalgo Island.

“What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.”
Ranier Maria Rilke
Excerpt from the Poem: “The Man Watching”

Only fourteen hours remain until the beginning of my experiment with living the a-musing life. Intentions always strengthen a sacred effort. My intention for this blog, as gift for you is: To inspire friends and family to consider their own particular gifts as worthy and meaningful and to transmute challenges and sensitivities into personal and even global healing. Now, that is a mouthful. But I mean it. I hope that you can pull your own inspiration and healing from the highlights of my process.

The format for the November writing experiment is just to write. I want to see what is born from a part that does not edit or criticize. At this point there is no plot or outline hovering in my brain. That being said, here are a few of my intentions for the coming month:

To spend thirty days actively in love with the Muse, making recognition of beauty, the body and the emotions of life creative priorities.

To let nothing within my control, and within the scope of personal integrity, impede living the life my heart longs for.

To write the story that needs to be written… the story choosing me.

To clear out the trophies and old boxes from my past in order to be more free with what life remains.

To “come out” and be more public, as an experiment in what it is like to be in the world and to be true to the internal life at the same time.

To say goodbye to my land and the dreams planted there; To share the realities and the grief about a forest that was killed for a neighborhood of high end homes.

To realize the privilege of being alive, of being me, in this body.

To write a truth of my experience, being fierce, tenacious and blazing in the telling.

“She” took a course based on Stephan Levine’s book A Year To Live several seasons before she died. That inspired me to treat every day as sacred. So I intend to write like this was the last year of my life. There are two months left. What is real? Where are the chords of love evident in this experience?

What if this was the last year of your life? What would you release? What would you do to celebrate this transient gift of breath?

RSS

Three Stones

Hello Dear Friends,

This is an excerpt from my vision statement for my November Project. The photo is from three years ago. She is looking across Burrows Bay near the San Juan Islands. That was the last day I saw her.

Thanksgiving On Burrows Island

I sit on the stoop of the cabin painted with the bright green and purple of happiness and whimsy. The grey rain falls on the forest canopy, catching in the Spanish moss, never reaching the bones of last years roses below. Across the wilting glen, only ten yards away, is a circle of three standing stones. Each is about waist high. One stone is granite, sharp and bright. It is the memorial to my brother. One stone is sea green and strange in its slant over the moss. That stone is for her, set in the very last spot we held each other in the sun. The third stone is molten red and humped, smoothed by some ancient waterfall. She is for the living Song of the Island. She is the Great One roaming in my lineage, now whispering in the swaying cedar and hemlock.

I watch the circle, expecting movement. But stones never move when you watch them. I stand, my head dizzy beneath the single strip of gauze wrapping an old and healing wound. My mouth is open to the sky, free to catch the few unstrained drops falling. The grass is still, supple and bending low with last nights fog. My boots and jeans are baptized in their passing touch as I walk to my altar of solitude… to the stones removed from my head… stones full of stories… stones of longing that must sung.

I kneel, sinking into loam and next spring’s seed cones. I wrap my arms around the three. I look out with my mind and feel the waves, languorous on the shore. I feel the boat waiting for me. But the crossing back to the village can wait. Braving the cold floor of ocean can wait. The crying wind in the sails can wait. I have lives to save, no less my own.
So, I begin to sing.

RS

November's Story

Hello Friends and Family,

I am finally coming out in the world. And true to my contrarian nature, I plan of doing this via a soulful retreat. This Thanksgiving week is the anniversary of losing my anam cara (A Celtic term: "loving soul mate"). It also marks the death of my brother. Both were connected with land and a simple cabin on the shore of Burrows Bay, near the Anacortes ferry. And it marks the final days on land that I have considered to be my heart's home.

For years I have hidden in the grove of hemlock, fir and madrone, writing the dreams and longings rising from the earth. I have found the soul of the land lives inside of me now. The stories of My brother and my soul lover, now hovering over the waters, flooding the page. So many season of longing and of living in dreams. We were going to build a home and write great poems and love the moon rising over the islands. In moments everything changed. There is only me now... and you.

The land is a beautiful park, a cemetery with standing stones marking what could have been. And it is time to move through a deeper layer of grief. And it is time to live again, celebrating who I am becoming... because of the messy life of love and the consequences of loss. This is my attempt to make the stories of my land live forever. The land has been sold to the developer that already mowed down the neighboring woodland. The bulldozers will come to my land in the winter. The trees will be cut. The standing stones will be knocked over. I want to honor this place and the paths, unseen and seen, woven through its tangled woodland.

My intention is to clear a path through my soul into the world. It's time to come out of the woods. I been lost in grief and untold stories. I've learned that the best way to heal is to be receptive to the process and the emotions and circumstances of being human. In November I intend to write 50,000 words. More importantly, I intend to let the untold truth about a love affair and a family story come forward. The truth is elusive and fickle. The truth lives in the heart, and not necessarily the facts. I am grateful to share my life with you, my close friends and family. I'm grateful to begin writing the words that may clear the way for my being a more loving, authentic presence in your lives. Thanks for letting me share my process in this adventure.

RS