Suffused in Blue

Something happened yesterday, a conflict with a person, and I struggled to release the energy of it. Was it I or she that caused that unrelease? Probably both, of course. I tried severing the energy ties, but it wasn't that simple. Those ties weren't there the way they used to be (a good thing), but neither were they entirely absent.

It wasn't obvious what to do. Ultimately, I found that if I held the space immediately around me, and envisioned suffusing that space with blue (which is for me the color of love), the sharp edge of what happened would dissipate. It was just me in a blue light.

I wondered, over the last week, in details inarticulable until yesterday, if she was setting up exactly this moment. She doesn't know how to let go, so she got me to do it for her. She's an odd one.

I wish her a life suffused in blue.

Insomnia (V): What I Risk for a Good Morning’s Sleep

After the hours of wakefulness--as time on the cushion comes to an end, after the glow of energy has subsided, as maybe just maybe a yawn comes--I usually put in earplugs. At first I did this because if I was going to sleep into the morning hours I didn't want a barking dog or a ringing telephone to wake me up.

It became a habit. I found that it helped. It blocked out the world, and the only sound was the resonance of my breath in my body. Just the deep ocean-wave sound of my own breath. I would fall into deep relaxation.

But I find, now, that it comes with a fear. I've become dependent on the earplugs. They block out the world.

What then are the chances I will hear the zombie's moan before (too late) I feel its hateful teeth?

Insomnia (IV): A Search for Ground

Yesterday I tried to do things a little differently. I came to the cushion after writing all afternoon, wondering if I could find a clue to this wakefulness (dark and quiet again right now, and hard to get out from under the warmth and comforting weight of covers, but harder still, far harder, to lie there awake, so I'm up) and I found my energy very high in my body--I could feel it like a cloud around my head--and I set about grounding it, breath by breath, exhaling the energy down and into the ground. It helped, I think. The clock's numerals this morning read a higher number, and its glow less harsh.

I practice drawing the energy lower while I work, trying to stay more centered. It creeps up and out. I breathe it down again.

I'm trying to learn to meet the energy of these moments, the shifts in flow. Stuff is happening. In trying to meet the energy, I'm also trying to shift the energy, change the energy, control the energy. I'm trying to expand my consciousness, to set the foundation for intuition and insight. I seek the blessing of a grounded center: If spirits be attracted, let them be benevolent.

Insomnia (III): Ghosts and Spirits

I do not fear these quiet early morning hours anymore (right now, the clock shows a number that should only be seen in the afternoon) but it is not to say that this past week-and-a-half, awake after four-and-a-half hours sleep every night, has not been frustrating. It's so hard to not ask, "Why am I up?" hunting for answers that don't come. I don't feel anything unusual when I wake up and can't get back to sleep. I'm just up.

Though this morning when I woke up it was a little different. I … kind of remember. An energy shift, maybe? Something happened. If I could just catch it. But as soon as I am awake enough to feel it and do something about it, I'm awake. I can't bring my conscious self to bear on the problem without being conscious.

Could it be that the exorcism of the three basement demons did not entirely do the job? Could what I felt be a ghost of their malevolent power?

There's a lot going on. Things got set into motion. I find myself in a space of uncertainty, of change, of movement. What spirits swirl in the below-consciousness wake?

Insomnia (II): Job. Hunting.

Up in the wee hours again...

I've been applying for jobs. Jobs I'm not sure I want but also not sure I don't. I can envision what would be good about them and what wouldn't be so good.

The process opens me to things, things I haven't felt in a long time. I haven't had a boss, not the way we normally mean we have bosses, since 1999. I don't really want one now.

Of course I understand that, whatever I choose, I really have the same boss I've come to have over all these years. Every other boss I have, I will ever have, is just a game we're playing. An agreement hedged with a glance of misdirection. At least, it is for me. They might not understand that.

I am scared, if I take those jobs, that I will struggle with my sleep. Not struggle the way I used to struggle. Now I sit on the cushion in the dark and play with energy and eventually I get back to sleep. But sometimes I sleep well into the morning. And those morning hours are the best hunting...

Am I awake this morning because something scares me? Or because there are some things that are easiest to say in the dark quiet hours of the nighttime morning?

Insomnia (I)

Waking up in the middle of the night doesn't scare me the way it used to. I'd realize I was truly awake, that sleep would not return, and a feeling would grab hold of me as I gave up and turned to look at the clock's red numerals' infernal glow to see just how few hours I'd slept and how many hours until morning. We call that feeling despair.

The waking still happens sometimes, but I'm confident now that I'll ultimately get back to sleep. It might take a while, often a couple hours, and while I'm up I'd certainly prefer to be able to fall right back to sleep. But I'm confident now that sleep will return.

Of course it's best when I just sleep through the night.

Sometimes I can point to something that happened: Oh, I did this and it kept me over-energized at bedtime, and so now I'm awake. Sometimes, though, it isn't clear. Tonight, this morning, I woke up at 3:00am and asked, "Why am I awake?" I couldn't see a good reason for it. Nothing in yesterday's behavior seemed to push me towards it. But I'm awake and not falling back asleep. Fine. I'll write. It's 3:54am right now.

Jerry wonders why I have to figure things out, what's the purpose of turning my mind to find answers to questions like this. Are you sure you aren't just putting energy into the problem itself? he asks.

It's certainly possible. But at the same time, there's this: I think my mind turns itself to answering questions, just like my eye turns to a sunset, my ear to music. It's what it does.

Do the answers matter? I don't know. Either way, sleep comes, or it does not.

These days, mostly it comes. 4:19am right now and I am not afraid.

A Different Sort of Victory

I tend to have a problem wherein I hold on to things forever and ever. What if I need them? That's the impulse that arises in my brain.

Thus the hard drive on my DVR fills up.

A few days ago I was scrolling through the recordings and found the last Super Bowl. Maybe I'll want to watch it again.

As is proper for Super Bowl Sunday, I was not 100% entirely sober when I watched the game. Thus while I was definitely entertained I find upon reflection that I remember exactly one play from the entire game, and if you watched you already know which one that was.

I started fast-forwarding through the game to see what memories it would jar. No score at the end of the first quarter. 7-7 just before the two-minute warning. A Patriots touchdown with 31 seconds left in the first half. An answer by the Seahawks 29 seconds later. "Goodness," I said. "This was an entertaining game. Should I actually watch it?"

I thought about it. Did I really want to see the Seahawks, the team with the human monster truck at running back, elect to pass on 2nd and goal from the one with 26 seconds left on the clock and still one timeout? Did I really want to see stupid, cheating Tom Brady and the stupid, cheating Patriots win for a second time?

I did not.

However, I remembered that there was one part that I definitely needed to watch a second time:
Katy Perry and the Lion
YOU'RE GONNA HEAR ME ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR!

I’ve Had Better Days

She held the knife just so. There is such a thing as a practiced casualness and then there is the casualness that is earned. There, a oneness that cannot be faked.

Guess which one I find more frightening. Guess which one she had.

She turned the blade back and forth, watching the light play against its sheen. She glanced up at me. "It seems we have a lot to talk about," she said.