Speaking Out Loud

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Heloise Jones

That day I saw beneath dark clouds,
the passing light over the water
and I heard the voice of the world speak out,
I knew then, as I had before,
life is no passing memory of what has been
nor the remaining pages in a great book
waiting to be read.

It is the opening of eyes long closed.
It is the vision of far off things
seen for the silence they hold.
It is the heart after years
of secret conversing,
speaking out loud in the clear air.

It is Moses in the desert
fallen to his knees before the lit bush.
It is the man throwing away his shoes
as if to enter heaven and finding himself astonished,
opened at last,
fallen in love with solid ground.
~ David Whyte (The Opening of Eyes)
*

Going every which way

clouds thru windshield

Beyond the factory tint, the purest blue and brilliant white.

I’ve filled the past four months with podcasts & webinars. Educated myself about online entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and givers. Gathered success tools for my insides and outsides. It’s felt grinding, like all I’ve done, like it took far too long to fine-tune aligning with the right people, ones who don’t amp my anxiety. For the right pieces in the puzzle to show up. I’ve come apart at the seams more than once. Then someone shows up like Hal Elrod, a high energy young dude. And I get what I need. The gaps in my centering – silence-meditate, affirmation, visualization, exercise, reading, writing. The trick to making goals for challenges. The reminder they may be things that scare me, that I don’t want to do, but they make me a better version of myself. That the challenge isn’t the goal. The goal’s what it gives us, makes of us in the process. This bundle of learning’s exactly what he’s talking about. Hearing it named, I immediately felt the stick I’ve been beating myself with – not clear enough, doing enough, fast enough, not enough not enough not enough – drop.

Amy McCracken’s a master storyteller and big-hearted giver. She met her challenge in an xtreme hike this past weekend to raise awareness for Cystic Fibrosis: “We got to the trailhead at 3:30 this morning. It was 42 degrees and raining. We were prepared. The night hiking turned into a (sort of) fun game of decision making with each step–do I step in the ankle deep mud or on one of the really slippery rocks? I fell four times before the sun came up. Still. No problem. It’s a long story (about 15 miles long), but the rain never stopped, the wind picked up, and the temperature was 39. We were all soaked and our hands stopped working from the cold. At the first aid station we found out we were getting off the mountain and not continuing. The whole point of this event is to raise funds and awareness for CF research–and that we did. Coming down I thought about all of Cheeto’s* challenges and disappointments and I felt so lucky to be able to keep her hope alive–even when it’s messy and hard–and not as planned. Today was amazing.” Amazing, she said. All that awfulness. Because the hike wasn’t the goal, wasn’t the point.

I’ve walked toward Venus shining big and bright as helicopter lights in the dawn sky all week. Watched the crescent moon circle her as if in a courtship dance. This morning I thought Venus. Love. Follow love. Life’s too hard, otherwise. And the other night I dreamt I had a book reading. I asked how many waited. Three, a woman said. More than one, I thought, feeling grateful. But a long line stretched out the door of the auditorium. I could see inside the room, the backs of people, the chairs filled. I walked past them down a dimly lit side aisle. Someone handed me a microphone. It didn’t work. ‘Can you hear me?’ I called. ‘Yes,’ the people called back. I talked about Patti Smith. Four points (I only remember two now) – her dedication to her art, her ability to connect. It was hard speaking without a mic. Someone behind me offered hers.

My deadlines for intentions keep shifting. I may indeed be in resistance, because I usually launch once a decision’s made. And I may be fine-tuning my listening. I’d like to think these migrating ‘finish’ lines are working together. That there’s a great weaving of something wonderful going on for my life I can’t see, yet. That love and kindness are involved in the challenges. That the offers I make will feed many Souls, including my own. For I am indeed in the midst of life as David Whyte says – vision of far off things seen for the silence <the mystery> they hold. The heart after years of secret conversing,  speaking out loud in the clear air.
Whatta ya think?

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
*

Venus Venus thru the palms.
*

A secret: I can be good at techy stuff.
A favorite: Seeing patterns, making connections.

*Cheeto in Amy’s story is Alyssa Doene, a beloved young girl with CF. I only knew her through Amy’s facebook posts, and I wept hard when she died, as if I knew her well.

The Fires of August

Posted on August 25, 2015 by Heloise Jones

Although we aren’t in immediate danger, fires are springing up all around,
so we’re taking time this morning to pack boxes of pre-digital photos, a few books,
a trinket box of precious family mementos… It’s an interesting process
to decide what you can’t live without. Finally, all memory is made up
of stories that we carry with us, whether the object continues to exist or not.
Let the fires take what things they will and spare the people.
Stories are sacred and survive as long as we are alive to tell them.
We must remember to tell our stories
so that others might find their way through the ashes…
~ Kim Barnes (Moscow, Idaho – August 22, 2015)
-line breaks mine-

kamiahfire_1

“Is there one single thing that you wish you would have taken that you didn’t?”
she asked someone who’d lost it all.

I’m not sure what’s going on. I had two days change of scenery. One full day of which I let go all intents ‘productive,’ making my second busy writerly day okay for vacation. Everything normal, until my first night home. I slept hard that night. Deep deep down hard all the way to the edge of dawn. Woke floaty, unfocused. I even let my hair appointment slip past. gasp And I napped, deep deep down hard. In it relived painful rejections by my first husband. A man I forgave decades ago in a state of grace. But in my dream I told him I hated him. Words I’m positive I’ve only uttered once to another soul. Worms boiling up. And floaty continued. I dreamt I drove carts down open hallways between shelves and stacks of boxes and books, all dead-ends or wrong direction. Again and again forced to back up. Then a simple map of lines on a white sheet of paper was laid before me. ‘Here,’ a voice said, ‘go in at this point. See. It’s connected to all the other roads.’ I remember the entry’s at the lower right side.

I’m working hard toward a Vision these days. Studying and looking for where I fit in the landscape of authors, coaches, and others with successful offers in the world. How I can bring who I am and what I know, and do, to benefit others. A goal I’ve held a long time, now can’t put off. We’re healthy, but getting kicked by surprising transitions of life. The kind that feels downright scary when I let my internal story carry it to all possible outcomes. And I’m feeling resistance.

Fires are not new to that region of the country where Kim Barnes lives (read her stunning essay ‘The Ashes of August’), but this year they’re fierce and plentiful. Reading her posts brings up memories of a few summers back in New Mexico. Fires on three sides. Two of them close. The obliteration of blue from the sky. My horrible allergic reaction to the smoke with chemicals. How some nights the sun set blood-red, the air yellowed like end days depicted in movies. A line of cars on the roadway one evening, people looking up. And the time I woke at 3am to my own home on fire. Hidden but for the power outage, the smell of burning electrical, the haze you could question for middle of the night. How when I pulled down the attic stairs after praying “please, not in the walls,” saw the flames, the ceiling brilliantly lit flickering gold, a wash of helplessness flowed over me like gentle water. My life could change forever right now my only thought, after how beautiful. Apocalyptic moments. And I’ve attached the word apocalyptic to this transition I’m in. One of Kim’s friends sees something different in these wildfires. “Some years ago I was driving in a remote corner of Wyoming at night with my daughters,” he wrote, “when the road ran along a ridgetop pointing us at a giant blood-red moon just rising. On either side were wildfires burning in the night, It was pitch black, no lights of houses or barns, no other cars in sight. We stopped and got out and felt were witnessing the dawn of time.” Kevin Taylor saw Creation. Apocalypse or Creation, associations we get thru image or experience, or both. Lightbulb! We can choose.

I had my palm read once. The woman said I have so many unseen guides and guardians, I would rise to the top of a tsunami. Could be true. I’m lucky enough to look up just as sunset on the Gulf colors the sheet of clouds overhead, turns the air golden or pink. Lucky enough to sometimes get out, stand in it before it fades, watch bats fly by. And just now, lucky I popped over to facebook, read this by Christine Mason Miller: Trust your dream. . . the one feeding you, pulling you, whispering in your ear, ‘Go this way, try that way’. . .all you have to do is let her lead. Christine’s talking about a Vision. Maybe my Vision drew that map. Whatta ya think?

Another small journey to mindfulness. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.
*

A Secret: I saw my first lotus at Epcot three years ago. It was a spiritual experience.
A Favorite: Waterlilies and Lotus flowers.

Photos:
Fire by Anthony O’Brian, taken from an eatery in the small town of Kamiah, Idaho
Lotus Flower in Ritan Park by Dan on Flickr

Active Surrender to Be Moved

Posted on August 12, 2015 by Heloise Jones

Finally I have meditated
 long enough
to realize
stillness is a ruse.

Everything riding this
rotund blue dervish
is in constant motion.

What the honeysuckle-infused breeze
asks of us
is not contemplative passivity,

But an active surrender to the possibility
of being moved.
~ Jamie K Reaser
*

horse in water

I’m feeling good today. Grateful after a week of weepies sparked by a cop-cam video of a young unarmed Black man gunned down. The sight of his body hammered by bullets off camera. The sound of a dozen shots resounding, pushing a burst of despair from my center. I want to inject right here I’m an easy cry. Anything that reaches in, touches or moves me – good, bad, sweet, sad, pictures or words – a spark. And this string of release was indeed note-worthy. Stopped only when imagined mold spores blew from our leaky ceiling because a professionally installed hose that forced air into rain-drenched cavities fell out, and my mind fell on threats to our carefully tended health. Helplessness. The meltdown that followed constrained proportion to the things I held. Not long ago a movie got me going. A predictable film with beautiful cinematography, likable characters. In it a writer talks about imagination. About how a character showed up, saved his life. I wept with recognition, continued nonstop until what I knew would happen, did. And a sound escaped, rasped my throat like a tiny gasp. I’ve learned to pay attention to such experiences. The first time I understood them I was a single mother with little support sitting through a second viewing of The Black Stallion. I saw how the loss, vulnerability, aloneness onscreen swirled inside me, too. Realized in watching I could safely feel myself.

There’s a taco place a few blocks away. Sun blazes over the length of the alley I cut down to get there. The path always seems longer than the block it is. I notice I have a ritual when I turn in. I pause, look the full distance, note the three smooth parking pads that wing off the uneven brick street. And I measure my progress as I pass them with a silent count ‘two more; one more.’ Feel I’ve traveled a far distance when I reach the trees at the parking lot. But on my way back I watch my feet, only occasionally lift my gaze to birdsong, voices behind fences. Two weeks ago I emerged so quickly from the alley I was sure I’d crossed my own street, was on the next ahead. Disoriented, I stood a moment before the landmark cottage with yellow trim, FL folk-art yard decoration and bloodroot colored slated fence registered. And in that space between confusion and recognition, I knew I’d passed thru a dimensional warp. The distance so short, the time so quick down that alley. And it came to me that’s how we get to something a long way off. Focus on what’s before us. Attend with presence the steps getting there.

I spent my tear-streaked week writing chapter summaries for an agent. Last time I did this was 12,000 words and years ago, when I had another agent. That time easy, loosely done because I did it for me. This time, grueling tedium. The word ‘willing’ on my lips each step of the way. Five weeks earlier I’d held another sort of willingness while doing edits. I didn’t ask while editing how to say something. I asked what did the work want to say. Issue or solution. Pain or triumph. The question ‘where’ in the spectrum of dichotomy of presence. Seems willingness and the steps getting us somewhere may run this way, too.

A dream: The man, age thirties or forties, flings his toddler out a window. I see her hair, its fine texture, curls, see her creamy skin as she tumbles in the beginning of her descent down what I know are many, many floors. A dream instant replay she grabs the sill, he breaks her hold so she tumbles away again, the arc wide like a dance. Horrible dream, I say as my eyes open. Thinking now on that arc thru the air, I wonder if perhaps she found wings. And I go back to The Black Stallion, a gorgeous film. For the first time watch the trailer. So corny, it begins, “If you want to believe in magic, in beauty, in friendship, and freedom. . .” And I say, Why, yes. Yes, I do. The heart of what I create for the world. Sometimes with tears. A good heart for offerings, don’t you think?

Another small journey to mindfulness. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.
*

A Secret: Deep water holds fascination for me, and a deep fear I faced last year in Hawaii. Swimming in the ocean where it goes down 5,000 ft..
A Favorite: A stunningly orchestrated film.

Photo: Kurt Arrigo

Waiting on Me to Catch Up

Posted on July 6, 2015 by Heloise Jones

Are you ready at a cellular level
for the fact that
you can not change the course
of all that has been set in motion
long before you even knew about motion
or had met the course
but now your heart has had its recognition
and as the river moves forward
the realization hits that your heart has already
grabbed hold, when you weren’t looking. . .
waiting for you to catch up
~ Kathryn Schuth
Are You Ready

Just out of the solidity of immersion in a completed work I’m fully familiar with, I’m not ready to step back onto steep learning curves or dive out into air, which is what it often feels like before pieces of the Vision coalesce in the world. So I’m taking you to my (once) home in Asheville, when I was writing a novel.

First, pause a moment at the top of the Charlotte St. ramp, gaze upon the gray, blue, purple waves of the Blue Ridge. When done with awe, turn away from the downtown skyline, drive past the gas station and Starbucks on through the remnants of a neighborhood where signs and parking spaces squeeze amongst the trees beside large and small homes. When you get to the tiny rock house on the left that once housed the art museum, see the rock wall with pillars like giant beehives, the park beyond with genteel old homes on its far border, turn right. Go past the 10’ tall crucifix and stark white Jesus on the corner, the miniature Spartan cathedral behind it. Wind up through the narrow lane chiseled from a broad boulevard by plump medians and painted lines. Past stately residences with lawns and hedges. Past condos where the view of the valley and mountains beyond are the sole possession of empty rooms, saved for a few human eyes now and then. Past the entrance to the huge rock edifice and red roof reminiscent of a cottage gone crazy on steroids, to where the road veers right up into trees promising wilderness. Here the bank drops to a deep overgrown ravine on the left, and driveways snake up the hillside on the right. Turn at the second left, curve and coast down through a procession of remodeled 50’s ranchers. At the yellow mailbox beside wintering plants, turn toward the house with artsy bronze chimney stacks under two ancient oaks. A brick rancher morphed with tall ceilings and large spaces, dressed like a cottage.

Inside, walk through the neat, light filled rooms with comfortable furniture, handmade side tables of lovely wood, all color and texture designed to please. Pass the abstract paintings on the walls, shells and stones amongst art pottery and glass. Go to my office where the art turns personal and symbolic. Where photos of me in Hawaii and Santa Fe, my spirit-homes, are pasted on walls without fanfare. To where my everyday life’s divided into stacks. Spiral notebooks with sturdy cardboard backs, colored flags at the edges, their pages filled with scrawl in blue ink. Pictures, papers and periodicals for research and reference. Notes and books on the business of book marketing. Folders for my daily current events. My lives most recently passed, such as producer of The Honeybee Project, tucked away in file drawers. The files and artifacts of my previous lives – business woman, artist, project manager – all moved to the basement.

At night I turn my computer off because its moonglow shines into the hall outside our bedroom. My husband doesn’t mind, but it teases me. Perhaps I’m missing an email. Perhaps this thing stomping my brain can’t wait. Perhaps if I just got up I wouldn’t feel as tired as I feel in that moment.

Often the book’s characters talk to me at night. Whisper I’m doing okay telling their stories. I know come morning they’ll hover at my ear, or catch me in the shower. That they’ll forgive me, wait, when I neglect them for long stretches. I never tell them they aren’t my bliss because that’d be a lie. I look forward to the discoveries in knowing them, in their stories. I could never tell it as good as they do.

And seems I’ve done a circle, because that last paragraph is where I catch up to the here and now. Big or small, things that give meaning, offer more to the world than the sum of me alone create solid ground beneath my feet. It’s when I catch up with my heart. We know how that happens, don’t we?

Another small journey to mindfulness. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

A secret: Surprise insight this very moment (gasp) I really want to do this hard stuff in front of me that I thought I was doing because I had to.
A favorite: Hearts, Stars, and Spirals, all kinds

Cloudy Stargazing

Posted on June 15, 2015 by Heloise Jones

All the stars were still there.
Cloudy stargazing isn’t terrible.
In fact, it feels like faith.
~ Amy McCracken

Faith3

See the egg?

I’m of an age that when I say ‘aging is weird‘ to certain others, I get nods and insider smiles in return. We consider ‘over the hill’ balloons at 40 ridiculous. We matured during a time physical proximity was a component to finding one’s tribe. When comfort or mirrors of one’s feelings weren’t available with the click of a mouse. I’ve stepped way past thinking I know it all, past achieving more than one outward definition of success. I’ve gained clarity on the lines I won’t cross. Had passion pricked from my chest so often I love the journeys as much as the destinations. I know what I want in big chunks of my life, as well as small everyday pleasures. And as a curious explorer, toe dipper and deep diver, my Universe expands into the Soul-Center of Mystery, what I call magical. I know I’m privileged, and I see gratitude and generosity as responsibility. Privilege the tool given to help, share the spoils in ways that benefit the planet and others. So, with all these awarenesses, I made a public declaration a week ago (read it here) to step out, make my best offers to the broader world.

Two days later, in front of twenty of my peers at a Florida Writers Assoc. meeting, I was tested. There to learn the changing landscape of email queries to lit agents, I was thrilled the presenter chose my letter to critique for the group. Then she asked my name – pronounced Eloise, with a silent H – immediately commented on the pointlessness of unnecessary letters in a name. It’s French, I said, my grandmother’s name. She started reading, slowed down to praise my writing, premise, craft, skill in receiving personal responses from agents. But weirdness followed. Multiple comments I talk too much. Jabs at my quiet corrections when she misread my words. Declaration I love adjectives (two, carefully chosen), code amongst writers for amateur. Bit by bit I slumped, shrunk in my chair. And more than anything she said, that’s what bothered me most. This shrinking. Pissed me off.

I got what I went for re. queries. Know her behavior was inappropriate on so many levels, obviously not about me. But it took time to process. And Peace did not reign in Dreamland where I miss my connection flying because I help a boy, and a shuttle doesn’t take off. No win. Far from home with neither computer nor underwear. Gasp. My dead mother giving me new, size 3 pale yellow & pink flowered panties that appear will fit my size 2 frame. Yes, numbers in my dream. There’s urges from others I make new reservations, but the temple on my eyeglasses falls off, and I discover the bridge broken in two. I ask for superglue. All after fearful running, men wanting to mess with my mind, bursting in the moment I think I’m safe, put down my one treasure – a framed portrait of my son I painted years ago. I need superglue.

Here’s the kicker. Despite my years, my baby girl vulnerable self is still learning not to care about attacks. And my wise woman self is still remembering that though forgiveness for my trespasses, sins, and trip-ups may be hard, I can pardon myself. And in the end it is about me. The buttons pushed. The Universe asking when I make a declaration if I mean it, really mean it. Offering the chance to choose again, grow into it, say Thank You.

Occasionally butterflies flutter at my window. The side with raised blinds, where I can see them. Nothing’s flowering out there. I think they’re messengers.

Tell me. . .what declarations have you made?

No, the egg wasn’t intentional. I puzzled it for a while. I forgot Faith.

Faith2

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.
*

A secret: On a lakeshore in Washington state I asked for a heart rock and found one right there at my feet. A perfect heart bigger than my hand. But I can have the hardest time asking anyone on earth for help.
A favorite: Rocks, and shells, in all states of being.