Aria Lunaria

Words to Feelings

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We Really Need to Catchup!

I want to tell you all my life stories. I want to listen to your tales. I want time to stand still, so we can talk for hours. My words intwined with yours.

Words.  

But time moves on and words become insufficient.

Maybe I can try something different. 

Maybe, I can look into your eyes and know, and trust that your adventures are truly perfect and beautiful for you, and mine for me. 

In this moment, no tales are told, no catchup happens. 

I see into you colour book and how perfectly outside the line your colours reach. And you, into mine. 

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Fantasy melting into relaxed frankness of moment.

Inspired by @digitalsymmetry

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“He didn’t text me back!” - Suffering through Expectations, A Tale.

In courtship, I often find that when ‘he doesn’t text me back’ in the period of time I identify to be ‘reasonable’, I check my phone every 5-6mins. I tell myself that ‘he is obviously into some other person’. Then I tell myself that I am wasting my time him. 

On particularly creative days, I conjure a conversation with him, that may sound something like this: 

Lover Who Did Not Text: I’m sorry I was busy, but I did message you in the evening...

Me: I get worried when you don’t message, but then I just figured you have better things to do with your time (insert sad eyes)

Lover Who Did Not Text: No! I like you, but work was crazy all day and then I just needed to hang out my friends and cool off. I didn’t know you require text messages every few hours.

Me: How dare you! I don’t! But, It shouldn’t be that hard to drop a line to someone you supposedly link. Just tell me you had a bad day. Tell me something! We do live in the cellphone era!! 

Lover Who Did Not Text: Gah! (looks to the sky in frustration) So on and so forth. Then, back to reality and I glance at my phone again. Hoping. Disappointed. 

So what’s going on here? 

There’s anger, disappointment, lack of love/ support/ respect. I feel threatened and I tend to think the worst about myself or the other person. To compensate, I sometimes create an grand image of myself being ‘the better person’.

The other thing going on in this moment is that I feel a sense of disconnect to myself.

That’s a hard one. Especially for those of us who know what the opposite feels like. It’s hard to feel your whole self as complete, beautiful, divine and authentic on some days, and on others feel like… well… none of the above. In this situation, so much of my sense of self is wrapped around, when my phone will buzz next.

This ‘expectation/idea’ we have of someone and how we feel when they don’t match that action is something we are faced with quite often. With lovers, partners, family, friends and even our kids. 

I can tell you that there is no way around of it. That the only way through this, is through it. It can start by watching and understanding what lies beneath the impulsive phone checking and when we receive something different than what we were hoping for. It is giving ourselves the gentle space of allowing the deeper issues to come up, whether it is fear of isolation, abandonment, need to constant displays of affection, need to control, or wanting something different than what person can give. We can support our walk through this by using own intuition, sitting with ourselves, meditation, journalling, art work, sound healing, or combine modalities. Most important, we need to find patience within ourselves, for ourselves.  Because it is not just freeing the other person from our expectation. But it is also freeing ourselves. So when messages do come, and when people are authentically themselves, they are singular, magical, celebrated by every part of you. They are fully received by us.

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Making S P A C E

Protecting personal space is so valuable!

It’s the space in which we can come back to ourselves and just be. We desire this feeling in times of stress and when moments become hectic!  We try to balance our personal space and time with everything else on our to do list. We say: “Okay, I’ll come meet you for tea, but I have to leave by 6pm (because I need some me time)!”

We take space and we put it into our schedule and make it into yet another ball to juggle.

We make space into a thing. When it is no-thing.

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We Really Need to Catchup!

I want to tell you all my life stories. I want to listen to your tales. I want time to stand still, so we can talk for hours. My words intwined with yours.

Words.  

But time moves on and words become insufficient.

Maybe I can try something different. 

Maybe, I can look into your eyes and know, and trust that your adventures are truly perfect and beautiful for you, and mine for me. 

In this moment, no tales are told, no catchup happens. 

I see into you colour book and how perfectly outside the line your colours reach. And you, into mine. 

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Words to My Friend

A confession dear friend. I have always cut you into bits. Compared a part of you to corresponding part of me. Your hips and breast to mine, your creativity and dance to mine. Your artistic talents to mine. Your successes and failures to mine. 

As I have judged both you and myself, I have felt tremendous love and tremendous jealously. When I work on my own self-worth, you encourage and sustain me with love, support and perspective. I glow when you tell my fragile, imperfect self that you’re proud of me, or that you enjoy my creativity. But this feels incomplete. I do not love you because of your compliments and perspectives. I love you because of all the things you are to me. Having now  sliced you into pieces, I cannot even see the whole of you. 

These last few days, I began to stitch back together the cut pieces of you. I sowed your perfect grace and your large thighs, your sense of humour and your awkward downward dogs, your beautiful hair, and the zit from yesterday, your inability to focus and courage of your heart. 

In doing this with your image, I do this with my own. 

And one day, when I look at you, and voice of feeling rings through, I can tell you, truly - for who you are, all the parts of you, dark and light, fat and thin, pink and blue - I love you.

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...

There are parts of the world where marriage implies allowing of sex, regardless of whether it is desired in the moment or not. Poses an issue, doesn’t it. In these parts of the world, one can force themselves on their spouse and it is called ‘marital duty', not rape. It is one of the many times I’ve been pulled to redefine what marriage, union are, as well as the blurry space between sharing yourself and keeping your individuality. And then it hits close to home. 

A year after ending what can only be described as a traumatic and toxic relationship, a dear friend decided to seek professional help to guide her through and out of the emotional chains of the relationship. Over lunch some weeks after, she expressed her non acceptance and angry shock as her healer had used the dreaded 'R' word in reference to her relationship. There was force, there was passion, this I knew. But I took it, as she did, as part of their dynamic. I watched her as she fought with herself, coming to terms, but not yet, with idea that the person she shared such immense love with had violated her physically, and she had told herself that it was wanted, that this was ‘going with the flow’, allowing love, and if she surrendered to her lovers desire, that was the ultimate yield and expression of love. 

"How can someone who loves you, hurt and violate you so much? How can you not even know!!!” She says. 

My first thought is: ’There is a clear line that divides what is healthy consensual sex and what is rape.' My second thought is: ‘… in a textbook...’.

My shameful answer is that I do not know where this line exists. For another person, for my friend. I have some idea where it exists for me. But it doesn’t even look like a line really. It’s more of a moving wavy diagram with a shadow. 

How can someone who loves you, hurt and violate you so much? How can you not even know? 

Maybe we know. Maybe we are so giving of love, that in moments, we exude forgiveness and let ourselves be violated. Maybe that’s why it feels like vacuum after, when we are processing these happenings. When confusion, rage and mistrust set in. What feels exciting or exploratory for me differs from partner to partner and as my own definitions of sexuality and sensuality merge. So, in all this, all I can do is trust that my senses and intuition that what I engage in is safe and healthy for myself. 

  And for my friend, there is only one answer. Hers.

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Can we receive gracefully, the love that we give so willingly?

My Heart to Yours

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The Castle of Wuss

I am a emphatic person. I feel a range of emotions deeply and constantly. I am also an overly-sensitive cry-all-the-time wuss. Or have been called as such for most of my life. So, what’s a girl to do? Some stay with that label. But, if you’re like me, you spend time building this complex, beautiful wall of rock and bone. You take care to make archways and gates, tunnels and caves, so that the range of you can exist away from cruel words and eyes of others. You build high watchtowers and engineer a complex gate locking system. When emotions come, you run deep into the tunnels created and express them quietly, lest anyone else hear. You emerge feeling stronger and carry the strongest rock to pile onto your wall in celebration of your strength. This is inner sanctum. It is safe and beautiful. Here, you can be you and are protected from the harsh world. And then you meet someone. Someone who makes you want to let waves of butterflies wash over you. You are in love. They touch the outer edges of your walls with tenderness and you feel warmth, comfort and desire even in the tunnels. You open the gate, and you let them in. Thankful at a love that you can let into your inner city castle. As the moons pass, you find yourself lost, in your own sanctum. The now high walls seem ominous and suffocate. You want to scream to cry, but you can’t hide the sounds. The once before tunnels that held you, seem week. The watchtower is fruitless, for all you see is fog below and every movement incites panic. We ponder the happenings of our beautiful sanctum. Blame this downfall on everyone else. Curse the world for not seeing us for who we are. Spend enormous amounts of energy rebuilding larger tunnel, taller watchtowers, and more complex systems to safeguard. I have done this for years, some version of it at least. Until one day, I didn’t. Couldn’t rather. I lost the strength to rebuild any of the walls. I let my once beautiful sanctum fall to it’s ruin, breaking and cracking at the very seams that supported me time and time again. I cried a lot. And one day, curled up in a ball in a formerly grand archway, I felt something I hadn’t felt before. A bite of a tiny ant. It hurt as I scratched. I tended to it and returned to my ball-like state. But no tears came. Instead, I watched an army of ants go about their day. A little away, I noticed wildflowers that had never before grown in my pristine hallways. Bees and butterflies around them. I felt a tremendous sense of guilt. Was everything else working, except me? Dejectedly, I dragged the wreckage of me and to my glorious gate and unlocked it. The wall of descending dust brought tears and coughs. As I pulled one foot in front of the other along the walk way, I was consumed. With everything, all things, deeply and widely. Unable to take the hit, I fell and bruised my hands and knees, but the waves of all things didn’t stop. First came, pain and delight. Then sorrow and wonder.  A quick thought: how could anyone see who I was, when I was behind these walls. Then fear and excitement. Profound loneliness and a sense of unseen support. Finally, a blanket of confusion and loss. By the time I came to, the moon reigned the sky. Raw and bruised from feeling the things I had not allowed myself to feel for years, I yearned for comfort, but there was none to be found. It has been many moons since that day. And today, I still yearn for comfort as my life travels through versions of my fallen castle. But each time, the knowing grows stronger, my comfort and peace is found within myself. Not my castle, not any outward destination. It is holding my own bruised knee. It is giving myself a hug. It is deciding that I can and cannot do, and figuring out what type of help I need and which direction to get it from. It is staying with myself, and not running back to my perception of security within now fallen castle walls. It is knowing my environment and knowing that if I feel like crying for a pain that isn’t mine, then cry I shall. It is the difference between wanting support in a helpless form, and choosing to pause, evaluate and then nothing that support has always been there in the most subtle, yet profound ways. It is living a belief that vulnerability can be a choice. And when it is chosen, it takes more tenacity, daring strength and balls/ovaries of steel than repressing what is behind a wall.

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I fell apart many times, so what does that say about me, besides I live through wars

Nayyirah Waheed

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Circuit Board of Spirituality

I see developments we make in the realms of technology as pushing ourselves to edge. Challenging what technology can do for us and making it better, faster, ubiquitous. So that it serves the many aspects of our complicated lives better.

I see developments we make in our own spirituality as the time we take for ourselves. To question, to find our own flow, to find our own answers from within ourselves. A time to reflect, receive, consider, feel and rest. 

Both these worlds, different as they are, are a part of my life. I struggle with them, as it seems to me that their differences are the reason for conflict within myself. It reminds me of the battle of the sexes, where one tries to dominate, or one-up, the other.

A simple google search will give you a list of apps that support spiritual development. Apps help you keep discipline to your daily meditation, or for that yoga pose you are struggling with. We have created technology that supports our spiritual growth and development. But what about spirituality that supports our interaction with technology? I ask of myself and of others who share in these two different worlds, how can we harmonize? Can we reach a state of balance within ourselves where the technology we create truly serves our needs, as individuals and as a collective, without misusing it? Can it be build and used without damaging ourselves, those around us, and our environment?

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Uh-Oh, Emotions Just Got Physical!

I burnt myself last week. A 12″ burn left by scalding water that melted layers of skin on the left side of my torso. Breast to navel. It had been a heavy week. Emotionally, I was drained, dry, and my desires for ideas and plans were afire. Choosing to take no time, I pushed on my week, continuing to chase desires, until I was stopped in my tracks by seething firewater.

I consider myself emotionally in-tuned. And as I think back, I can now trace the times I didn’t give myself the cooling time I needed before my thoughts would run off to play with fire. A physical happening, in the nick of time. 

It sucks to get burnt. Skin feels like it is on fire and nothing will ever cool it again. The blisters form ugly heads and the purple and brown colours of scab paint the body. Anger and annoyance comes up. At myself for being clumsy. At timing and situation. 

But other things come up too.

It is a week later. The scab peels, and with each little bit of it that falls off, I see fresh skin, slightly pink, almost uncertain, making its way unsurely out.  It only hurt for a day, then discomfort. Wearing clothes became interesting. Wearing a bra impossible.

It was just a burn.

It was feeling pain of skin on fire, at the same time as feeling cooling of aloe and the comfort of lover beside me.

It was exploring a life without underwire bras and feeling the swaying perceptions around my femininity. 

It was the surprising ease that came with being vulnerable to the outside world, as I became less reliant on external protection

It was how I moved through the city and held up my body.

It was seeing all my ugliness in the mirror, at the same time as seeing all the beauty. 

It was just a burn.

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On Labyrinths

It seems there are so many journeys to be had in life. Many decisions to be made. Many places, many ways to get there... but what's right for you right now? I see it sometimes as the difference between a maze and a labyrinth!

In a maze, you go in, and it is decision time: where do I turn? is this right? how many steps to backtrack? Evaluate, return, goal, success. So, it is the equivalent of planning your vacation - booking your flight, your accommodation, booking tours of places and things you want to see, perhaps places you to eat and such. Which is as challenging a process as it is rewarding!

Then we have the labyrinth. The only decision here is the one you make at the entrance, Are you going in, or are you not? Because once you're in, there's only one way. Onward. Labyrinths have one set path, and you just go along, sometimes coming to same places again and again as the route loops. There's no decision as you follow the many turns feeling like a drone and helpless in the path of your life. Until part way you realize, you do have choices here. You can stop walking. You can stand. You can choose the hop, walk backwards or to dance the rest of the way. You can greet people passing you. You can lie down. You can touch whats around you. You can proceed when you want and how you want. The path onward still exists, but now you realize that you can choose how to and when to move forth. And then, it happens, you reach the Centre. You feel like you've made it. You stand. A sense of accomplishment that you have made it. Huzzah! And then you while you are basking in this glory, you look around and realize, that you can't stay here. Now you have to make the journey back. All of this walking to your perceived goal. For what? Only to turn back and have the same journey again? What??? And then again, you decide. Are you dragging your feet? Are you grumpy? Or will your dance/ walk continue? And you step, one foot in front of the other, walking the same way back. But it is not the same, is it? Because you are seeing it backwards. Because you've been through 'pushing on' and now what you are doing is more 'surrendering'. You realize that all along you had choice... your pace, your action, your reaction, the people, the environment... you can walk on your hands or your feet. you can be still for a minute before moving again. You can appreciate those people on their path going the other way with more patience and love. Their journey is different, but you can smile and tell them, to forge on, because you realize that while there is a multitude of life things we cannot control, what can find a place where we become the masters of our actions, reactions and thoughts.

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On Formless Love

Be the lion I’ll still be the water -       Nayyirah Waheed

Here I lie waiting. For, majestic love. I tremble slightly at the weight of your mighty paw upon approach to my shores. A moment, blissful moment, my desire of you is quenched by your desire of me. Every movement of you sends ripples deep within me.

Perhaps you will stay a while by my shores. Paw lazily drifting within me. Lost in yourself, you do not see me dance around you in synchronized ecstasy. You do not see the rhythm and resonance of every flick, drop and ripple.

The day wanes. It is time for you to join your pride. I ripple in one last moment of your touch before you turn away.

Dark now. The fog rolls in. I desire, painfully desire, to be as you are. To run and prowl lands as you do. To sleep, to wake, to hunt as you do. It is here that I lash out waves against silent shoes and pebbles. I feel pain as I feel release.

Under the light of a moon I cannot see, I cry tears of myself. I am now still.

In stillness, I notice the fog lifting. Now clear, crystal moonlight falls, not upon me, but within me.  I dance with her and I did with you. My dance is long, and slow. It lasts an eternal night, returning, and never having left.

I am altered. I have been altered. By every drop you took with you. By every drop received from stars.  With every dance I dance and ever ripple I feel. I stand now formless.

Be the lion I’ll still be the water

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What’s the .

I sit across from her. A bird in pain. She flew deep into her hell, caught on fire, and flew out screaming. Now, she sits across from me breathing, lying in her own ashes. She describes the tremendous weight and pain of humanity that she felt during her journey. Every loss of humanity felt.  I want to offer words meant to provide emotional comfort. “You are loved. You are light. You are a budding seed deep in the earth. Just a little longer until you break through soil and can bask in your own sunlight”. I say none of this. What would be the point?  What is point?  A point is a dot. A period. A tiny expression of emphasis, or action according to Google’s dictionary. We are offered in difficult times the advise to delve deep into the depths of ourselves. Find our pain, sit with it, look under rock and explore the true source of the pain. Work with strength and courage to accept it and then slowly find release in the form of breaking old patterns. Having experienced this, often on a daily basis, I can say that for me, this has it’s merit. In part. In another part, it is tiredness that comes with finding out that rock bottoms have their rock bottoms. And since all things are cycles of interconnectedness, rock bottom of an issue can actually be an elated sense of another deeper issue. And so we dig and stay. And dig and stay and then proceed to dig some more, until the day when exhaustion sets in. And we punch fists into ground, cursing ourselves and the heavens. Finding no inner peace, no reward, no rest for all our will and movement towards being better versions of us. At long last, exhausted from our exhaustion, we sit alone in this cold dark place, deep within ourselves, burning with rage and tears, sorry about our unlucky lives. What’s the fucking point?  Maybe, we then look up. In a moment of loss, confusion and deep seated darkness, we notice dots of light. Far away, through the cloud of tears in our eyes. In this cold dark place, we perceive a universe of fireflies dancing softly above our heads. This sight changes nothing. Misery, Anger and Exhaustion are still real. This sight changes everything. Because we also feel Wonder, Warm and Touched. So, what is the point? Where is this leading? There is no point. Only a collection of dots all around us. In a dance with each other. Each dot being one of us in a dark period looking at the other dancing dots. Embodying a range of dark and light in the same moment. Doing the things we feel we need to do and hopefully re-evaluating our time and space. This leads nowhere. Because we are not on a pre-built path, carved out just for us. We are our own pioneers pushing through the wild unknown terrain of ourselves, if we choose. Staying in one place and building camp, if we choose. Destroying everything around us and pushing our way into paths of others, if we choose. In this place, maybe we question our view of the point. Maybe we realize the point is actually our own unknown field. Each field with it’s personal hell and heaven, sky and underground. And as such, maybe we see ‘ the point’ as a much larger dot to be explored.