The Sound of a Different Drum

Hello fellow Earthlings,

There's something we are born into here on Earth. It's called family. And sometimes, even though you love them all very much, you have to wonder how you got the family you did. Some schools of thought believe that our family members were our enemies in past lives and we are here to work out our karma with them. If you believe your family is PERFECT, then congratulations! Maybe there is nothing more for you to learn in this lifetime. I think there's a reason why it's hard to hang out with family for a long time. In the beginning, we are so happy to see everyone, but as time ticks on, we realize how different we all are and we wonder how we ended up with the lot we got. Some family members have not spoken in months and some have sons, daughters, mothers or fathers who they have not seen in years. I am fortunate in that I am still in contact with all of my family members and see them when I can. Even though we all get along fairly well and manage to catch up, share and have fun, it's hard to meet eye to eye on all subjects. In fact, some subjects we just steer clear of all together. It's easier that way.

But every now and then a comment will creep its way in and it takes me right back to when I was a child seeking approval from my parents. It makes me question the path I am on. I start to wonder about myself and think, "What's wrong with me?!"  I'm not living like these people at all. I've chosen a very different path and I play a drum with a VERY different sound. Are you sure these are my kin?

Well,  to be honest, I don't think I have ever been a pack animal. Not ever.

I play a very different drum and at times I sort of wish I were a pack animal. It's not easy to forge your own course in life or take the road less traveled. Along the path, you meet up with people on other paths who look at you through narrowed eyes that seem to say, "There's one who went astray." And at times it makes you feel very isolated.

I have felt isolated, but I will not change the path I'm on.

A deeper sense of myself, deeper than my ties to family, calls me. I am a stranger, at times, even to my loved ones. Yet, I love them, each one of them, for who they are.

This morning, my boyfriend, who stayed with my family for two days, left to go to work in the city. He knew I had been feeling a little down. I felt judged by my family for my decisions and for my lifestyle. Maybe it was my own sensitivity or maybe it was my need for approval, but I didn't feel good.

With loving eyes, my boyfriend, looked down at me and kissed my cheek and said, "Don't cast your pearls before swine!" I had never heard that before, but I knew what he meant.

Each one of us holds in us the jewels of who we are. So precious, these gem stones are! So brilliant and beautiful! Yet it is so easy to dim our lights and to even trample over our own pearls for the sake of fitting in with others and not rocking the boat.

And then there's judgement.

It's so easy to dish out judgement of others too. Why do we do it? Why are we so curious about others' lives? Why can't we celebrate our differences? Why can't we say, "Well, it's not my path, but I'm happy that you are so happy on YOURS! I celebrate your journey. I celebrate YOU!"

Strangely, we humans forget that we are all connected. We forget that we are part of a HUMAN family and that the way we act towards each other can have a ripple effect on the whole. I am not immune to judgement. I don't always suspend my opinions of others. I don't always have everyone's best interest in mind all the time. But I'm trying to understand. I'm trying to realize that I'm not isolated or in this alone and that each person I meet is just as deserving of love as the next, even though I may not understand their choices.

So, this morning, I walked through the silence of the house we are all sharing together and felt a calm. I felt the quiet of everyone sleeping snuggly in their beds and all was well. I felt a deep love well up in my heart that I still have family near me. My father, mother and step parents are all alive and well. I have a great sister, brother-in-law and nephews. How lucky I am!

 And with these thoughts, I slipped out of the house, up the road and into the woods.

I walked into the thick of trees and smelled the earthy, herbal smell of Salal berries and tasted them. Next, I popped an Oregon grape into my mouth and winced at the sourness of it. Finally, further down the trail I spotted an Evergreen Huckleberry bush growing out of an old stump. I reached up and plucked the small berries from the bush—a sweet and sour taste. All different, these berries, yet here they were in the same forest existing together.

The fragrance of these berries, pine sap, and wood created a heavenly fragrance as I trotted along the wooded path with Long Pond on my left. There I saw a gathering of birds in the pond together. There were ducks, Canadian geese and a few Heron all living, drinking and eating within the same pond.

I felt my body meld with everything around me—fragrant smells, birds chirping, the touch of a soft wind through the trees, the taste of a variety of berries. Everything all blended together and I was part of it all, yet I was a unique and important element to it all.

There's nothing wrong with the sound of a different drum. Mine is made from elk. I made it by my own hands. I smoothed the wet hide over the round wood with my fingers, feeling the essence of the animal that would make a sound in my hands. That animal lives through the drum and me, yet we are distinct and different.

It's okay to make a different sound and play a different drum. What would our world be if we were all exactly the same. And there are no mistakes or ways in which we should have done things differently in my book. There is just life flowing, flowing, flowing. Things dying, things falling apart or coming together. It's all part of the great symphony of life. I don't need to please anyone in this world. I don't need to play my drum to suit you. I'm here to make my own sound and you are here to make yours.

The Light Behind Defeat

Dear Fellow Earthlings,

I will be honest. I am still releasing negative feelings and emotions almost three years after my husband left. It is not a constant thing and most days I am quite happy, but when I am silent, I am able to dive deep down into reservoirs of darkness and negative emotions. They are there and I am trying not to be afraid of them, but rather, to work with them for my own healing.

I can't say that I've perfected being a deep sea diver. Most of the time I'm looking for my water wings. I want my noodle, or maybe two noodles, so I can bob effortlessly up and down with the ocean waves. I don't want to go deep down where there are sea urchins, sharks, sting rays and other things that could hurt me. It's dark and murky under there. I don't know what is lurking or what might hurt me and I've already been hurt. Best not to risk it again, right?

I went to a psychic recently. Actually, I am a trained psychic too. I have given many psychic readings, but it helps to also receive them. The woman who saw me confirmed that I am diving deep. So deep that most people would have turned back long ago. I've somehow agreed to do this. Even my former spouse could not go where I was going. Instead of swimming down, he doggy paddled sideways towards another woman who he ended up having an affair with. I think he believed that somehow she would save him or he could lose himself and the darkness by taking up with someone new. But it doesn't really work that way. We can get guidance and help, but no one can live this life for us. Each one of us has to go through it and the more resistance there is the harder it will be. This is what I've found.

Don't be afraid of the darkness, because behind it is a light you can't believe. Skimming the surface will never allow you to catch a glimpse of this light. You can skim through your entire life if you want. No one will stop you.  But there is so much beauty deep down in there.

I also do tarot card readings and did one for myself the other day. In my mind, there are no "bad cards," but ones we can learn from. I recently chose the card DEFEAT.

When you think of defeat, what comes to mind? For me there is a feeling of losing. I've lost something. In sports we lose to the other team. In medieval latin, the word is disfacere which means to destroy, mutilate or undo. Who wants to lose or be destroyed? No one. We are in this life to win and preserve ourselves for as long as we can.

Henry David Thoreau, in his essay called Civil Disobedience, wrote:

The mass of men leads lives of quiet desperation

We don't want waves. We don't want to dive deep and face the darkness. In fact, most of us do everything in our power to avoid the darkness. We'd take boredom and predictability over uncertainty any day.We'd rather have security and know what's what. But do any of us know what's what? I believe there's actually more struggle in holding things together than letting things fall apart. Easier said than done because, for the love of GOD, who wants to open up that can of worms and expose who we really are and how we really feel?

But what if we did let go. Instead of holding tightly to the rope of fear, what if we just let it go. Instead of clenching fists of sand, what if we watched it sift through our fingers in amusement. We are all going to die, this is true, so what is the sense of holding on so tightly?

I'm not suggesting doing anything rash, I'm suggesting to ask defeat (or any other dark emotion) to sit down with you to tea. Maybe you'd learn more than you expect. Maybe you'd see beauty where you never expected to see it.

I let defeat come in. I let it come on a walk with me and the dog I'm caring for out here in Port Townsend. There is some anger in defeat for me. I lost my spouse to another woman. The world that I believed in came crumbling down and so did my identity of twenty years. If you were to lose your spouse, kids, husband, home, animals, who would you be? Do you depend on all these others to define who you are?

I've been playing with "now what?" for awhile. I'm testing out lots of different things. Instead of quickly taking on another identity or putting all my eggs in another's basket, my larger self, or "oversoul" as I call it, is asking me to not hurry to define myself again. It's telling me to linger at the bottom of the ocean for awhile.

And at the bottom of the ocean is a deep silence. A deafening silence. And a light so bright and so warm. I  heard this silence and I saw this light in a cathedral of trees on my walk with the dog. It shone right through the dark thickness of them, inviting me to sit down and listen. This grove asked me to put down my thoughts and stories and to enter empty handed. So I did.

I currently have no home to call my own. But I do believe I'll have one again. It's easy to feel defeated when you've given away all you've got and lost so much. But the other side of that is an unbelievable lightness and joy. There's nothing to carry except the present moment. Behind the swords of defeat there is a bright light. You don't have to die to see it. It's there every moment speaking in a butterfly that flutters overhead or in a thimble berry that begs you to taste it. Life is abundant even in defeat and sorrow. Even in my darkest hour, I feel the sweetness of being alive.

No, I'm not afraid of the darkness. Instead, I feel myself outstretching my arms and asking this uncertainty, sorrow, loss and pain to dance.