"Read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body."
- Walt Whitman
The days are getting shorter, the light of the day turns to that beautiful goldenrod hue at about 2 in the afternoon, and seems to hang there until it feels compelled to dusk. Crisp leaves fall from the trees, and there's a brisk breeze that cuts through the heat of the sun or the humidity of the lingering summer. Soon, smells of woodsmoke will fill the air, the blue mountains that surround my home will light afire with trees of scarlet, yellow, orange and earthy browns. This is my favorite time of year. You can almost taste Autumn in the air. I ring in the fall like most people ring in the new year. I feel, with the crisp refreshing breeze of Autumn, comes a new excitement for life, a change with the season. Each year of my life, thus far, I have felt that, and have had good reason to.
This year brings certain excitement, but unlike years past, this Autumn brings with it a desirous, almost desperate need for change.
I'm not one to air my dirty laundry in public, as we southern ladies say, but I feel sharing my story with...well, the world...is a way of healing. Both for myself and hopefully for others who may be going through something similar.
My whole life, I have been, I think, a healthy person. Around this time of year, I may get the sniffles as the seasons change. I dose up on vitamin C, fluids and rest, and in 3 days, I've knocked my cold on it's ass. All of that oddly changed almost a year ago. I was doing a show at the time, which was emotionally demanding--I hadn't been taking care of myself as well as I could have, physically, and before I knew it, my skin was breaking out in strange rashes, my eyes were swollen and puffy every morning, my glands began to swell, and my energy level plummeted. Come to find out, the mono virus was rearing it's head in my system, and I haven't felt quite the same since. Not like myself. Most recently, I've been dealing with a head to toe outbreak of what I believe is eczema. I never, ever wish this kind of ailment upon even my worst enemies. I was red and itchy--I've lost confidence, I've lost sleep, which in turn diminishes my appetite, makes me more irritable, motivation, passion, control has seemed to vanish, and, at times, it seems like a downward spiral of bad after bad.
I'm not in too much physical pain, I've not been deformed, and I am certainly not dying. But, when your physical world is shaken up, everything else seems to follow suit, and this is not something I have hereto experienced. My usual normal routine of going about my day suddenly became 'What's wrong?' 'What's this?' 'What symptom is going to pop up today?' I found my luck, my love, my outlook, my artistic zeal all dimming a bit under the shade of my newly found wonky outlook on myself, my health, and then the world. The past year has been like riding a strange roller coaster ride that I am ready to get off, but can't quite find the STOP button. Physically, emotionally, mentally--I feel sort of spent. The mind, the body, the spirit have dualities of being one but separate: they work together in tandem to create this experience we call life, I think, but ultimately, we are not our bodies, and we are certainly not our thoughts. I believe we are immortal souls using our bodies as a vehicle through which to gain enlightenment, to elevate our inner workings and our spirits to realize the God within us. We can pour light and love in to one element of our earthly being (or, on the other side of the coin, pour darkness) and feel the other elements begin to radiate as well. So, the more I look inward, the more I find myself going, "OK, life...you win. This is an experience. I'm learning something here. This, perhaps, is not necessarily a bad thing."
Fall is here, and I am where I am, and I find myself trying to find myself. In a good way. It's as if I've jumped in a pile of leaves, and I'm uncovering the layers again. I have still not gotten to the bottom of what my body is experiencing, nor I may never, but I've plumbed the depths of my heart and spirit a little deeper than I would have had I had a spectacular year of great health and no hard times.
I've tried to maintain hope throughout all this.
Most importantly, this past season, I've learned what to hold on to, and what to let go in this lifetime. I'm re-examining what I've been told--and because I am left vulnerable by the past month's experience--I am weeding out what, truly, insults my soul and giving myself permission to throw it the f@*% away. Fear clings, love lets go. So I'm loving and letting go and asking: What doesn't serve me? Am I clinging to this belief out of love or fear? How can I love more? How can I see, reveal the love and God-like qualities in every person with which I come in contact? More importantly, How can I love myself; see myself with new eyes, which, in turn, will lead me to be a better lover all around: a better lover to myself = a better lover to others, romantically and otherwise = a better lover of life = a more joyous, calm experience in this lifetime.
I used to find myself going, "How can I get back to before all this?" "How can I feel like my old self?" But, our experience here on earth is cumulative isn't it? We are beings who can't go back in time, but only look and move forward, yet try to maintain an openness to presence. Some might quote that beautifully bittersweet Joni Mitchell Song, "The Circle Game"
"and the seasons, they go round and round,
and the painted ponies go up and down,
we're captive on the carousel of time,
We can't return we can only look behind from where we came,
And go round and round and round in the circle game."
I get my optimism from my grandmother Pat, and I choose not to look at life as such a round about circle. We have peaks, we have valleys. A very wise woman I knew once said, "You know, I never anticipated the journey I've taken to get where I am. Particularly health wise. If I were to look at my life as a mountain climb, my path was not straight up, as I often wished it would be. I started at the bottom, and wound my way around. I got to the top, but it was a slow, circular journey. I made it, though."
I have a confession to make. I started writing this particular post two weeks ago. It started as something completely different. There were days in my very recent past when I felt like I was literally having to pick myself up off of the ground, plant my feet on the earth and take one step at a time, my stride has picked up now. Even between the time in which I began to write this post to now, my health, my energy, my mood, my outlook has taken a great shift. I'm looking up to the top of the mountain, and down a little bit below me at where I began.
Our bodies tell our story. What story do you tell? We can change our minds, we can change our bodies, we can change our stories, and we can change our lives.
I have decided to remove this shell, this armor this hide with which I harbored anger, resentment, hate, doubt, fear, sadness. It's time to compassionately remove that now. It no longer serves me to be the person I was meant to be.
I am shedding an old skin.
I am ending one season, and beginning another.
Literally,
Figuratively,
I am making a concerted effort to tediously examine and re-examine all I have been told at school or church or in any book. I am lovingly dismissing whatever insults my soul. With this, in Mr. Whitman's words, I think my flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of my eyes and in every motion and joint of my body.
I am beginning to love the poem of my body again.
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