Writing, Dreaming and Standing in the Pouring Rain
I wrote a note to send to you that I started last week. Sometimes I want to write to you each week, but can't decide if that is too much in your Inbox, so I have a couple of entries for you here based on my latest adventures with Me, Myself, and the Universe. It's a long one...get your coffee and settle into your comfy chair!
In other news, September is a month of eclipse energy starting with a solar eclipse on Sep 1 (which you can see if you live or travel to Africa or Madagascar...road trip anyone?!) and a lunar eclipse Sep 16 (which we won't be able to see here on this side of the world, either). Just because we can't SEE the eclipses, doesn't mean we can't FEEL them. Either way, September is a month that is trying its hardest to get you to come out from the shadows, to uncover that Thing that you keep hidden there, to believe in 6 impossible things before breakfast and make the changes you are so afraid of making.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel and a whole new world is waiting for you. Believe it because you have to to get through today. Believe it because it is true. Believe it because I've seen it and am here to tell you about it so you can go see it for yourself.
Writing, Dreaming, and Standing in the Pouring Rain
Writing:
I just finished a 30-day writing course...and I use the word "finished" very lightly. I don't think I did very well at keeping up with it because, like all new things we get excited about like exercising and eating right, I started out all gung-ho and optimistic and determined to Write. Every. Day. but I only got to about day 15 and then the course asked some very hard questions..."Where do you call home?" (I wrote about that one in my last Diary entry) Immediately I was in tears. I didn't know how I was going to answer that one. The place I wanted to call Home just couldn't be right now and it hurt too much to answer it or to write down anything at all. A few days later it asked another really hard question. "What is holding you back?" Wow! It was asking me to get real. Really real. Write what it was that was holding me back. I didn't want to see it in black and white. I didn't want to admit that there was fear and a sense of failure...but eventually I did. It felt good to get it all out.
I am now finding myself in a place where in order to get things sorted out I just need to write them down. To see them in black and white where they can feel real. To allow the flow of my fingers dancing wildly across the keyboard to find the right rhythm and the right words. In order to get things sorted out and moving forward I have to write it all down.
And you can't write backwards.
Dreaming:
I recently had a dream in which this was shown to me. There was a person driving a truck and I was sitting in the trailer with someone else. The person driving was trying over and over again to back the trailer up through an opening into a driveway or a road but couldn't quite get it to cooperate as it kept jack-knifing and getting a little too far over to the left and a little too far over to the right. The person in the back with me eventually went up and tried to back it up...but with no success.
There is no hauling your trailer full of your 'stuff' backward just like there is no going backward in your life. You must go forward.
Want to Tweet it out?
You must go forward in your life in order to get anywhere
Standing in the pouring rain:
Here in central Indiana we have experienced a lot...a LOT of rain lately. Last week I ran away for a couple of days to a friend's farm in central Kentucky and it rained. We were out in the barn, she was busy sweating and getting things done while I watched the clouds get darker and blow in. When it started to rain I said, "Let's go out in it!" She thought it sounded like fun but kept working. Me? I went outside and stood by the fence watching the horses, feeling the rain against my face and getting wet. A part of me wanted to lie down in the grass and be a part of the earth being watered and nurtured by the rain, but I was grown up and stood there. Really wish I had gone ahead and done that. Once the rain stopped, I walked...well, slowly ouched my way across the drive in my bare feet...over to the stone steps by the Wool House. I sat on a dry stone and set my feet out in the sunshine that was bravely shining through the clouds and noticed how warm the stones were! It felt so good to have the sun on my wet legs and feet and the warm stones under my toes! I just sat there enjoying everything about that moment.
A few days later, back in Indiana, I drove home through a torrential rainstorm wearing my moccasins. I took them off to walk inside and decided to go in, set my things on the chair and go out in the rain...it was raining much harder than it had in Kentucky. I stood just outside my porch for a while then walked to the water's edge. There I squatted down to be closer to the earth and the water (too many goose droppings to sit or lie down here!)
There is nothing like standing out in the rain, next to the pond, watching the water pour down from the sky, the steam rising from the water, and the raindrops punching the round drops in the surface that bounce back up; feeling the water run down your cheeks and washing away everything that ages you; standing there in your bare feet noticing the coolness of the water and the warmth of the wet ground. Priceless.... And I'm glad I walked out there, stood in it and forgot that I was an adult.
"Go to the Water"
I have been drawn to the water for the better part of a year and a half now and I really don't consider myself to be a "water lover." I have a lot of fear associated with big water because of past life experiences (You can read about my past with Margaret Wilson of Scotland if you like)
I remember, also, being drawn to the water during my darkest days of fighting depression and the eating disorder...standing under the running shower letting the water hit my heart as if it could wash away all of the pain right there in the shower. Sometimes I stood there and cried, and sometimes I just stood there...numb. I did that every single day and I truly think it is an innate sense of knowing that I had to let the water heal me.
The past year and a half as I have muddled my way through the fragments of a marriage that has been part of me for half of my life I am again drawn inexplicably to the water and love that my apartment sits on a small pond and that I am across from the larger Reservoir and park in which to go find myself/lose myself...which all happens to actually be the same thing.
Feeling restless over the Labor Day weekend after working Psychic Fair both Saturday and Sunday all I wanted to do was to get out of town and go to the water. Big water with sandy beaches and wind and sky. I had been wanting to go up to Indiana Dunes State Park for months and so Sunday evening I packed a bag and headed out the door to the beach in northern Indiana. It's no Hawaii, but wow...it was just what I needed.
I checked into my hotel Sunday evening and spent some time online surfing information about the park and scrolling through social media. I came across a piece from Elizabeth Gilbert (of Eat, Pray, Love...the book I am really wanting to read, although I've seen the movie and love it) that was perfect. It was a visual with the words
I read through her words and was in tears. It IS an innate knowing that we have somewhere buried deep inside of us that draws us to the water to heal.
I slept well then got up (fairly) early Monday morning to head to the park. My first stop was to the Visitor Center, although I had already spent some time on Google watching some of the park's videos about the different trails and beaches. The guide at the center asked if I was going to do the 3 Dune Challenge. Well, I hadn't heard of this before, but I thought, "Sure, why not!" In looking at the map I decided to not only do the Challenge but to then go on down to the lake and walk along to catch another trail that traversed through the heart of the park. Seemed easy enough, right?
Well, I started out at the trailhead and realized quickly that the trail surface was sand. It was sand EVERYWHERE ... flat sand, uphill sand, downhill sand, sand in my shoes. The sand is called "Singing Sand" because of the way it makes a sound when you walk on it. My feet sang all through the trails to help encourage my burning muscles from going uphill in sand to the tops of the 3 dunes. I stopped often to catch my breath and take in the view.
Once I got to the water, I took off my shoes and walked in the lapping waves for a little over an hour and a half. The day was absolutely gorgeous but it was hot. I was hot and sweating and reached a place along the shore where there weren't really any other people and wished I had put my swimsuit on under my clothes and brought a towel. I didn't because I already had my camera bag and didn't want the extra stuff to haul around the trails. So I stood there with my feet in the cool water and thought how great it would feel to be really IN the water. Then I thought about how great it would be to be NAKED in the water.
I stood there, wishing I could...talking myself out of stripping right there on the beach and getting in that lake. I stood there and heard myself telling me that if I didn't put down my bags, take off all my clothes and get.in.the.lake.naked that I would regret it as early as later that afternoon. I stood there, looked the beach up one side and down the other...there was no one even close enough to see me.
So, I put my bag down, took off all my clothes and got in that lake! It was exhilarating and the movement of the waves was a little frightening because of the way they made me feel out of control. Mind you, I was only in up to my thighs and had sat down but it was still a little frightening...and exhilarating...and wonderful...and I was so glad I did it.
I stayed as long as I dared then got out and just put my clothes back on my soaking wet body. It felt so good and I didn't want it to end but the people were getting a bit closer.
After I (found) reached my car I went back to the beach, changed into my suit (swimming suit, not my birthday suit!) and joined the hundreds of other people on the beach to enjoy the day. I got in the water a few times, laid on the beach, got in the water, laid on the beach...it was part of the "get in the water" and "rest" from Elizabeth's post. I stayed for a while then headed out.
I walked miles and miles that day, up the beach and into the dunes and through the woods and back to my car. I walked for hours and I had only brought along a bottle of water so I was at this point, very tired and hungry. I decided to go into town to get some Mediterranean food, forgot to use the coupon because I was so tired and enjoyed my lunch/dinner around 4:30.
Part of the thing I also wanted to do was to sit and watch the sunset into the lake and take pictures so I drove around to find a place to park and get back to the beach. It is a popular thing to do up there and finding a place to park was not easy but the Universe had my back and soon I was on the sand again.
It was such a magical day. The whole day...walking, sweating, being outside, being in the woods, on the tops of dunes, by the water, in the water, taking pictures, unwinding.
By the time the sun was swallowed whole by the horizon whispering promises of tomorrows I was filled up. It was as if I had swallowed that sun and that water and the sand and the promises. I took a picture of myself and you can see all of that in my face and I carry that feeling inside me to get me through the other side to all of those tomorrows that were promised.
And it was a very good day.