Indian Rocks Beach, Pure Magic

The Why We Are Here

A Buffalo Moon Press Memoir 

Who remembers catching fish off the IRB Pier and mourned its loss when the hurricane took it out to sea. The sands on IRB and the waves absorbed your tears in joyful life moments and sad ones. We all like watching beach people come and go talking about sands and tides and the moon ya know? And my husband and I met a recent widower there and struck up a conversation with him as his heart was healing.  He stopped as if tilting an object to the light to gain perspective.  The Red Lion....and Keegans which was a clothing store called The She Shop....Remembering The space shuttle launches if you look in the right spot.  The Beach  Art Center so artists could paint....and our once upon a sleepy time old bridge from long ago….  your family can experience the historical Marker….before the one we have came into being.  Pier 53 that is now Holiday Inn and oh those quaint Rock Houses dotting the beach....  my uncle owned the one with the historical marker on 12th and Julio has it now.   What Irb looked like before and how it looks now still has that old school  feel with the  "no more than so many feet high signs"  that keep it quaint.  The beach goers in and out of season.....  the beautiful sunsets and the coffee shop now reopening again after we sadly watched it close. Has your world been there on that beach and was every life decision you made there as huge as mine was? IRB having the welcome vibe of everyone around you....because we were all here to find that one thing... and we fell in love with IRB... every bit of it.. every beachy inch! All the good...the not so good and the brilliance of every wave that came onto the shore. Morning coffee strolling, sometimes families of stingray and porpoises and surfers and just the hustle bustle in season and the dead quiet out of season.   But we are all here because we love this place called IRB.   I will probably get teased because of the sentiment here but that's ok -  my heart is forever here and the IRB Salt life does that to those who visit.....and this is the beach that grew me up, got me married, watched my mom die from cancer and even watched grandkids renew the next generations love for the IRB TRADITION. .   Since 1972....  my family and I have been here... loved and died here... isn't that "The why" we are all here???  To create more reasons for all who experience this magical place. ❤

Anxiety is a pathway to Love

Meditation #22 – Anxiety and Enlightenment

Anxiety cloaks fear.   Even after waking up in awareness we can’t escape fear but we can be mindful of it.  In fact, Anxiety can be useful in awareness to untie many of the knots that we have in the human condition.  Kierkegaard said that,”Anxiety was his greatest teacher.”  Anxiety will teach the basic truths of impermanence and patience.   There is no pushing pain away when we are experiencing anxiety if it is mindfully approached.

However, I am assuming that you are no longer a zombie and have some semblance that anxiety cannot rule your life and you are living in the state of impermanence to some degree already.  

Anxiety kills.  It will take ahold of a spirit and wrack it with so many physical and emotional symptoms that one can experience an “emotional stuck-ness” that seems impossible to move again. Much like a 800 pound gorilla that is in the room with you and even sometimes sits on your chest.  That kind of anxiety is lack of awareness and faith in yourself. 

Oh but friends, all of you out there who are not awakened forget to realize that the “person” that you are attached to in human form is a program.  We are enlightened beings in a body that has been programmed to believe that we are limited in all that we can do.  We argue our limitations and then we own them which manifests in anxiety in a very unpleasant way that involves all sorts of thinking manifestations of the brain.  We believe and do what we think we can’t do.  We believe and do what we think we can do.  There is either liberation or not.  We choose not to be liberated when we are anxious.  

We pick our human programming to decide for us who we really are as a human.  But we are not human, we are programmed zombies trying to fit our human ways into an enlightened body.  That will never, ever work in a million years.

But if we use anxiety as a great teacher to move us forward into the next level of awareness and enlightenment, we will push out of our human “stuck-ness” into liberation.

No wonder why we have anxiety in our culture! We are trying to do the impossible.  But the “impossible” we experience with anxiety is human not unconditional.  It’s not enlightened and not awake.

What is there to be afraid of?  We have to remember during our awakening process that enlightenment and being awake involves the realization that we are not human at all.  We are dying flesh attached to a soul that knows and sees all things.

Even our brains are limited in their existence of this world.  We hardly use what we have that is human.  Sad, isn’t it?  If we are liberated and un-programmed to this world,  our “I” dies, our “ego” dies and that is human.  

We must not identify with our own “I” or “me”. We must not identify with the human programming that was thrown upon us in the human world.  

But Anxiety? People want to know how to deal, manage, get rid of, understand and even embrace anxiety.  Why?  Because we hate it, that’s why.   We don’t have to hate it at all, it makes us uncomfortable and uncomfortable is excellent when we are seeking our own awareness.

The juxtaposition of Anxiety is courage:   Bravery in the face of opposition and mindfulness enough to pursue all the opposition and oppression to teach ourselves the mentally healthy way to manage our souls trapped into this human body to reach the human uncondition, the enlightenment of everything oppressive.

Changing our framework in how we look at anxiety will help us get up and out of it.  Experiencing anxiety is a pathway to love.   

Anxiety meds will not change your soul.  It may change your “human” to some degree but it will not solve your problems.  Now don’t get me wrong, there are some folks who are humanly and truly imbalanced who need psychotropic meds to function.  But what I am talking about here is situational long term chronic anxiety.  

I have been overwhelmed with anxiety at times in my life that I lived in a brain fog of sorts. I would lose words, not perform well in social situations and my distraction level was higher than the highest mountain in the world.  I was not here, nor was I present.  My very soul would try to peek out from behind the cloud and shake me awake again and that was difficult.

But when I learned that the Anxiety is a pathway to love, my whole perspective changed.  You see, if we reason that we can pay attention to the intense feeling of causing your anxiety that stems from fear, you can figure out why and what these feelings are.  It will take some time perhaps or no time at all.  

Remember that Anxiety is a path, not a point on the horizon.  You are not going to go to that point on the horizon, you are going to walk past it.

Anxiety will also tug on you so hard that it can be almost impossible to ignore.  This is a blessing, not a curse.

What do you need for yourself to pay attention to yourself? What do you need to help you gain strength to power through these feelings of fear?

Plain and simple:  YOU NEED UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.

Anxiety is another layer to peel away.  Anxiety is a part of the program of being human and in the human condition.  Getting rid of anxiety seems like it would be way too painful and always will come up about the ways you are living daily life.

But what is daily life?  Doesn’t daily life exist in the human condition?  Isn’t that a program of sorts?  It is, isn’t it?  Do you want to be programmed forever or do you want to deliver yourself  into an awakened state of being, a state of not being a zombie anymore?

Let everything go.  Why does your fear matter?  There is, as I have said before, only fear or love.  There is nothing in-between.

Also the tricky part about Anxiety is if you withdraw from it, it will get worse.  You may bury it deeply but it will manifest somewhere in your life and in places that seem the least likely.  It will interfere with everything you love and block the pathway to love… because it is another pathway to love.  The irony is amazing here, isn’t it?

The lack of substance in our experience is our greed, cravings, addictions, aversion and pushing pain away;  hold no ignorance or belief that sustaining Anxiety will bring security or happiness!   Exploring anxiety relieves all that there is involved with it and brings recovery and ultimately unconditional love. 

The circular pathway is discovery, recovery then love.  They harmonize with each other in a circle of awareness that spirals up and inward.

Our souls exist out of the time space continuum, the pendulum in the middle or left or right.  It exists in abstraction in the uncondition of spirit.  Anxiety fights this existence to reason that our soul must live in certain place in our world.  It doesn’t.  It exists in an abstraction place called mind.  Mind is different than brain.  Using our mind is different than using our brains to solve a math equation.  Using our mind is the center link between our human-ness and our soul.  It is the link between the interconnected lack of time space continuum in the human uncondition and the place we know of ourselves in the world.

What does this have to do with anxiety? Quite a bit, actually.  If we believe that our mind and our brain exist on the same place, we will exist in a stuck reality that is conditional.   We have to be able to disconnect our mind from our “self” and our “ego” or out “I/me”.    

In a previous chapter I talked about how to do that to some extent or at least bring about an awareness in understanding the difference.  We cannot be two human people in the same body.   We cannot adopt the thinking that the ego and mind are the same.

Same goes for feelings.  Any feeling or emotion, in fact.  Feelings are simply defined, too.  They are the impermanent shifting body sensation which we label as pain or pleasure.  They pass through us if we recognize and embrace why they exist in our programmed world.  Our mind can handle our feelings better than our brain can which is the reason why being aware and awake when we experienced emotion is so important.

Back to Anxiety.  Be. Here. Now.  There is no other time to exist in the mind.  Remember that being human is a programmed set of values that is attached to a world that is set in motion by conditional stimuli.

No one should ever worry about being in the ‘now’.  Be not anxious for nothing, it will resolve itself.  We can nudge change to approach anxiety but staying anxious brings our past and future into our present.  Why would we want to do a preposterous thing like that for?  

Everything is now.  In fact, everything is always just this. Whatever you are doing is now and now the past. Like now… there it goes again.  Did we have anxiety for this moment we are having now that just past?  

Don’t waste your time on trying to control a racing mind or an anxious mind.  Controlling anything to the extent in which you think you humanly can is always going to be a soul faux pas.  You can’t control most everything in our human world.

You can’t outrun pain.  You can’t rationalize pain either. Your thoughts are going to race if you seek to control it.   Not doing so results in anxiety.

Face it, Anxiety will catch you if you try and run away.  Anxiety is unresolved pain that you repressed that is surfacing again.  You didn’t fully experience the first time around.  

So get back in touch with reality! The unexperienced pain needs to be experienced to its core so you can experience love in the liberation of anxiety.  Breaking through pain is ginormous, terrifying and can feel like you are dying at times.  That’s ok, you won’t die from experiencing emotional pain that seems endless, eventually by working through it, it will clear itself out.

This may take a few weeks or even a few years.  Don’t push it down inside but don’t rush processing your fear either.  Let it flow in and about you like a floating orb that you want to study and learn about. 

Eventually and over time, your anxiety will disappear and give way to a quiet mind.  There will be nothing left for you to rationalize your pain away.  You will be able to not outrun your mind and succumb to your brain.  The result is peace and liberation.  And in the absence of fear, there is love.  Your mind will think very little, it will stop racing and it won’t have thoughts intruding on your daily life that will rattle you.  Even in times of deep lifetime conditional human struggle, you will be able to manage it with a peace and quiet and embrace that will lead you into more awareness.

That is precisely why anxiety is a pathway to love. 

On Forgiveness

I’m being very philosophical here and typing out of stream of consciousness. My gut is telling me what to write…so it may turn out to be alittle off task here…but going with my gut usually has never been wrong. So here goes…

I’m generically going to be speaking of total unforgiveness here -- however that doesn’t strike me as a part of our character.  I believe ppl work on forgiving  in many ways for what others have done to hurt the ones we love the most.

My perspective about forgiveness is written within this stream of consciousness. Remember that I recognize that by doing significant self work at the same time and I accepting yourself as you are and as you approach this difficult situation. 

Forgiveness is the hardest part about these things that have wronged us. It's hard to ultimately determine if one bad thing (like abuse) outweighs another bad thing (like bank robbery)... I don't really want to say what happened to those who you love.... Or that this was a person making a mistake, either. 

Somewhere between the fine lines of humanity and mental illness is mercy. Mercy is not always within our power to give, though. Mercy is deeper than forgiveness. Mercy is something that is received and given as we understand it. Mercy is compassion from others as they recognize our weaknesses within us and accept us anyway.

Forgiveness is also not forgetting. By remembering what you give forgiveness for…teaches us how to manage similar situations in the future should they occur again. Don’t ever forget.

Learning to forgive implies that forgiveness is a learned process, not an automatic response. Our nature has a high resistance to laying offenses aside. It prefers to take on an offense and use the energy that the offense brings with it, in every negative way. Every part of our mind, our carnal mind, has a preference to take on an offense and a propensity to hold grudges, and seek its own sense of justice. Within the mind, retaliation is most often not an option, but rather it's a driving force, it has to get even! Sometimes as we are lacking illumination and understanding, we prefer to be judge, jury, and executioner of the offender even when that offender is our own self.

Control and forgiveness are total opposites in our hearts. Giving up control means letting go of a piece of ourselves to bridge the gap between the division of heart, mind and spirit. Forgiveness is not an easy task, at all. Unforgiveness also implies that the past may be more important than the future. We are all on a journey through life. Sometimes we make mistakes, which is part of a normal process on this journey. The mistakes that we make can result in painful experiences; these are the "lessons of life." But, it is through these trials that we learn the most.

The key is learning something from what has caused you extreme pain. Walk away from this situation with the knowledge that you are stronger and smarter. Forgiving will open that door. Second --- comes the actual act of forgiveness. I fear if people don’t forgive others, they will be holding onto the past. People can and may carry anger and resentment around with which will hurt themselves in the long run...more than the person who committed the wrongful act against you. Harboring negative emotions can create bitterness and resentment. It can and will permeate all areas of your life and it makes it more difficult to enjoy today.

Not forgiving keeps you trapped exactly where you don't want to be... holding onto memories of the past. And all the negative forces of the world will grip you tighter in your heart. Unforgiveness holds you steady in place where moving forward is extremely difficult. Do you want unforgiveness to control your life in ANY WAY? Do you want that situation to have any power at all in your life? I ask you to consider to try and not give anyone any power or control over your life.

Gaining control of your thoughts, releasing all of the negative memories and releasing all of the imagined confrontations you could have with this person will be the beginning of letting go of what is behind you and moving on to a better future. You can't change the past but you can make a significant difference in how you approach what's ahead of you. Stay focused on the positive. Stay focused on what you want, not on what didn't work.

And I know for a fact that everything will be ok for you, too. Before I found out the real facts about my birth father. I was lied to and my birth mom told me that my birth father raped her. My parents who raised me went through the same thing as you did. Then the truth came out 10 years after I met him. I lived with this lie for 10 years. My mom who raised me wrestled with forgiving my birth father for doing that to my birth mom, my dad was pissed off that I was the result of a brutal crime. When the truth came out…the roles switched and forgiveness was demanded on the other side for my birth mom. I was in the middle of it all watching all these adults go around and around. To me it seemed ridiculous. They all loved me, supported me and encouraged me to have a relationship with each other, but why couldn't they support each other as well? ..

One time I was in the middle of the four of them…they were in an argumentative state. I stopped them dead in their tracks and said, “Ok everyone..I’m playing the parent here…would you all just stop it! There is enough of me to go around! Please, you are hurting me..stop it!” That was the delineating moment where the truth was told and I was the one to lead the charge of building all relationships up right at that moment. All of them stopped in their tracks and remembered the focus: Megan and her future. They were supportive from the get go…but there were resentments on both sides. Those resentments switched back and forth from time to time. Those resentments turned to understanding and forgiveness over time…ultimately that led me down the aisle, too --which is a moment I will never forget. My birth father never in his wildest dreams thought he would walk arm and arm (with my mom who raised me) with his baby girl down the aisle. The healing that took place on a 50 foot church aisle was beyond words. My dad who raised me was already deceased and gave me away the first time…My birth father threatened to crash my first wedding.. I had police standing by at the time, if necessary. Forgiveness bridges the gaps between the least expected people. Each human has some minute something to offer so we can learn from them. Some have more than others. I gave the eulogy at my birth father’s funeral last August. It was an honor… my mom sent flowers to my step mom and held me when I cried about it. She became comfortable with me calling my birth father “dad” over time. She recognized he was the only one I had left. They were all friends in the end…with deep commonality and a bond with a child that will last beyond death and my lifetime. My love for all my parents exists in two places...in life and in death. I know that both my dads still love me as death holds those emotions frozen in my heart.

Because of my experience, I am proud to help ppl --  Because of my experience, I can help you walk your family through forgiveness and give back the hope that  was robbed.... Hope is what we are after. It gives us life and happiness. It gives us what we crave…a reason to continue in the best way possible…to role model that which we want to ultimately become ourselves and to experience serenity as it was intended for our lives.

You are my Stardust

Monday, June 12, 2023

You are my Stardust

  A Poem's Musing

That would make a great book wouldn't it.  

I think you and I know enough about soulmate love that we could write a book.  

It makes me think that I would love to share that love we have with the world in a way that is acceptable...and a book about soulmate love would be amazing and a place to put everything I remember to say when I can't say it in the moment.

But how would I start it... I know how it ends.  

Would I state my qualifications? or 

show ppl that soulmate love is possible...

complicated and sometimes 

a slow torture where lifepartner and soulmate 

are not the same person (they rarely are ...but it can happen).

But you definitely are my stardust.. 

my beginning and my end.. 

even with everything in the middle.... 

the back and forth, 

the absences to togetherness, 

the soulmate connection that stands 

the 

            persistence 

                                       of time.

I wish ppl could know.  

But I also know 

      there are others out there 

who share this love between them

     and they are as blessed as we are.. 

no matter the circumstances.

Sometimes our love can feel like 

      a hanging weight of a big trout 

on the end of a fly rod.. and sometimes 

       light as air... but no matter what

You are still my stardust forever... 

  The love that carries forward

    no matter what spirit we embody

       or emblazon

          or stumble across

             our ashes to ashes

                 and dust to dust

                   through earthly fire

                     and heavenly realms

It's always been you

The Old Harness Horse

-This Old Harness Horse 

Author: unknown

This old horse, the driver said, 

she’s seen some better days,

she’s eating up my profits,

and costs a lot for hay.

Another horse would suit me,

a stronger one at that,

shes seen a lot of miles

just like my old top hat.

This old horse, the driver said,

she helped me bring good cheer,

I’m pretty sure shes magic,

I know I hold her dear.

Another horse would suit me,

one that can run fast,

maybe one that’s younger,

or maybe one that lasts.

This old horse, the drivet said,

she’s long and far in tooth,

The shared miles I remember,

her fondly from her youth.

Another horse would suit me,

a gelding in his prime,

one that needs less fixin’,

that helps me save a dime.

Why, they asked, then keep her?

why not trade her now?

bring her to an auction?

replace her with a cow?

The Drivers brow grew heavy,

he took a staggered step,

his eyes did show his hardships,

in wrinkles, as they crept.

His breath, he took in deeply,

as he poised to say his words,

it’s as if the earth grew silent,

that his message should be heard.

This old horse, the Driver said,

has given me her life,

I wouldn’t trade for anything,

nor either, would my wife.

Another horse would suit me,

and perhaps someday will come,

but this old gal, I love her,

she is the chosen one.

This old horse, the driver said,

her service she did lend,

her and I, have seen the years,

this old horse, she is my friend.

Another horse would suit me well,

but her home is here to keep,

I owe her sanctuary,

my love for her is deep.

Another horse would suit me well,

and younger days for me,

and I will keep my promise,

until our last breaths, set us free."

Farm Work

Farm work doesn’t make you stronger. It reveals you.There’s gym strong and then there’s farm strong.

They’re mutually exclusive. Hot cold tired and hungry.... farm work will kick your ass until you have no ass left to kick. Every muscle joint and tendon will be strained.  Even when fit.... Farm tired is not just being tired!

The toughest women you’ll ever meet spend their days on a farm.

“Well that certainly didn’t go as planned,” is one thing you’ll say quite a bit. Control is a mere illusion. The thought that you have any, at any given time, is utterly false.

Sometimes sleep is a luxury. So are lunch and dinner. And brushing your hair.

If you’ve never felt your obliques contract, then you’ve never tried stopping an overly full wheelbarrow of horse manure from tipping over sideways. Trust me, you’ll find muscles that you never knew existed on the human skeleton to prevent this from happening.

There is no other option & You’ll cry. Sometimes you get so hardened that you stop crying at all because  who has time for that shit!  There's work to be done! But you’ll never live more fully. You’ll remain present no matter what because you must.

You’ll find yourself saying things like, “we have maybe twenty minutes of daylight left to git ‘er done” whilst gazing up at a nonspecific place in the sky.

You’ll become weirdly obsessive about the weather.

You’ll go out in public wearing filthy clothes and smelling of dirt, sweat and poop. People will look at you sideways and crinkle their noses but you won’t care.

Your entire day can derail within ten seconds of the rising sun.

Farm work is difficult in its simplicity. You'll be drained before you start another day & forget that you didn't shower as you cave into bed. 

Socializing is rare because that energy is saved to pull out a foal from their mama.  Having time is a luxury.

Stamina ....  New meaning to the word.  Sandwiches will have dirt in them. And fingernails are constantly crusty.

You'll never live more tired and satisfied though.  You'll never live more appreciative of the miracle we all call life.

And at the end of the day..... You'll never love more deeply than seeing your faithful horse wanting a snuggle at feeding time.

♥️♥️

Letter to Aging Equestrians

An open letter 

To Aging Cowgirls & Horseman:

You horse fellows may be feeling as though your Strength is winding down as their passion is winding up. Your jeans fit differently perhaps but your new gloves and old boots make ya happier.   Your cowboy creases in your face are more of a twinkle than a complaint... And cowgirls Strength and resilience...  Have been your goals... not dyed hair or those bling bling things city girls live for.  Horseman and women you are not letting yourselves go..you're just getting fired up.  

Comfortable in your own skin, just like your worn out saddle, harness or favorite livestock halter.   We are now not too young to have well earned gray hair, a few hitches in our giddy up either.  But with all of this getting older stuff,  we value what means the most.  And when we're off the clock which is not often.... We try and connect with those who mean something to us in a way that matters.  We still sometimes miss the mark when times get lean and communication gets tire-some.  But each day we get back up to do it all over again embracing our farm, livestock or whatever  strength and resilience calls us to do for the day.  Our greatest daily accomplishment is hope. We hope things go as planned. We hope we don't have to do things over again.  We hope that those who depend on us know that we love them.  We hope that the stability in our character is projected as the rock for other people.  And we hope that all of this can be felt with love.  Getting older can be said it's not for the faint at heart. And those who said that are not wrong. In the corners of our mind when we age we acquire ourselves and the wisdom that goes with it.  And this wisdom is relative to the millions of memories we have experienced over the course of our lifetime.  And if we're lucky….by now, we have passionately kissed those we love, loved those we want to not love and understand that letting go of whatever brings strife is making way for peace. This way of life has brought us to our knees and also has had us standing up cheering.  The last goal of the season or the last heart horse who gives in to colic and life is taken away.  This is all of you my aging cowgirls and horsemen.  For our value lies within ourselves when we are called to love our life, love ourselves and love one another.