Seattle Girl on Cape Cod: Widening the Lens and Getting a Bigger Perspective

 

Hello fellow Earthlings,

I love taking photos on my walks. Sometimes I'm so overwhelmed with joy and delight in what I am seeing and witnessing that I want to capture it all, but it's too enormous.

While I can Zoom in on a tree's branches covered with white snow and capture how things look up close, I realize that this tree also holds many different kinds of birds in its branches. There are small berries and leaves and a big wide trunk with roots that go deep down into several layers of earth and then there's an entire underworld happening there that I can't capture or even begin to know about. So I'm just getting one small perspective of this tree.

Whatever I see is only part of the bigger picture. 

When I step outside into nature, I'm also part of this picture. I'm part of the bay with the tide receding, the bright sun overhead, the snow melting on the rocks, the razor clam shells, the bright green seaweed. 

I'm every little tiny grain of sand.

I'm that sun that lights up the entire sky. The same one that sinks below the horizon like a huge, orange liquid ball of fire.

From the micro to the macro, I'm part of it.

When I zoom my lens out far, I get the entire scene, but it still doesn't do justice to what I'm seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, touching and feeling. 

I can't capture the sound of the waves or the taste of salt on my lips or the frozen feeling of my feet walking through soft snow or the smell of cedar burning in wood stoves in houses on the bluff.

These are all pieces of the picture. 

Out here on Cape Cod, the weather can change in an instant. We can go from a sunny 55 degree day in the winter to a frozen 28 degree day with wind gusts up to 70 miles per hour. You just never know out here. 

My emotions and feelings are a bit like the weather. Something can set me off and I feel myself reeling for a while. The funny thing is that when I witness the shift in weather on my walks, I'm able to recognize it simply as a change in weather.

Somehow emotions are bit trickier. It seems that everyone's emotions are on high these days. One little bit of information from a friend or loved one or a snippet of news from social media can set me off down a rabbit hole of confusion, anger or disbelief. 

Have you ever found yourself looking at one thing online and then next thing you know you've followed the information trail down into a hole that is a bottomless pit of information, opinions, ideas, thoughts, angry words or convincing arguments? It's pretty easy to do these days. 

Most of the information out there feels like it's meant to distract and divide people.

These days, when I feel that chaotic feeling creeping in from online information overload, I literally shut off every single device in the middle of whatever I'm doing and head out into nature. I'm able to walk away and leave my work for an hour or so because I work from home and I set the hours. This is one of the silver linings of my online job.

The other silver lining is being able to live out here on Cape Cod, out in the middle of the ocean, where nature literally calls me outside constantly. 

The bigger perspective is right out my front door right now. We don't have street lights out here, so millions of stars and the Milky Way are often visible on a clear night. Sometimes, while working, I hear an owl or a coyote and go up to the upper deck to listen. Sometimes the moon lights up our entire master bedroom on the second floor or the wind howls and shakes the windows in their frames or we wake up to snow gently falling all around us. 

The bigger perspective is always right there and it's not an accident that I've put myself  smack dab in the middle of Nature, where it's hard not to see it. 

The information highway comes to me through a tiny screen on either my phone or computer. It comes in pixels that join together to create this virtual reality.

Outside, the lens is wide. With each step I take outside my front door, I feel a release of all the heavy baggage that has somehow taken up space in my being. 

All of it leaves me instantly when I step outside. It's the one thing that is keeping me sane these days. A call and response conversation with a bright red cardinal high up on a tree branch is more real for me than talking into a computer with tiny squares of pixeled people.

I miss deep connections with people out here. I really do. I have my boyfriend and a few friends, but I miss face to face conversations and looking directly into people's eyes. I miss hugs and body language and laughter and sitting in the same room with people breathing. 

I get a sense of that when I walk outside amongst people, but it's not the same as sitting in a live circle with like-minded souls. 

Inside millions of rooms around the world people communicate with each other virtually. This is both amazing and disturbing at the same time. These quick, short words we type to each other don't tell the full story. The lens is too close. I can't see the full picture. 

I can't hear the inflection in your voice, 

Or see your eyes,

Or feel your touch,

Or really know what's going on inside. 

For now, nature will have to do until I can really experience YOU.

Divine Earthly Experience 6: Forgiveness is a Strength, Not a Weakness

“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.” Katherine Ponder

Good evening fellow Earthlings,

Wow, this Earth Game is not easy sometimes, right? So much going on in our lives and in the world. All of us carrying around one wound or another. It's as if we are not meeting, but our wounds are meeting each other. When our wounds meet each other, they don't usually shake hands or kiss or hug. When our wounds meet, they lash out! It's like a lion in its den licking it's paw—a bloody, mangled paw. Another lion or animal comes near and it reaches out with its healthy paw and STRIKES! Now two animals have bloody paws. Two animals are walking around wounded. Why did the lion in the den strike? Because it wanted to protect itself.

We are all doing this, to some degree. Some of us have become comfortable in hiding our wounds. We smile when we greet people. We even extend a hand. We say, "How are you?" And when we answer that question, we may say, "Oh, I'm great, couldn't be better!"

Is it true? You couldn't be better?

If so, I commend you! Your life is going GREAT and this is not the time to hear about wounds. In fact, you'd rather not talk about THAT because who knows what might come up that's just under the surface.

Have you looked to see what's just under the surface?

My life, not too long ago, was going along swimmingly, so I thought. Everything I had dreamed about came true: I was happily married, I had traveled all over the world, I had become an internationally published author. I felt on top of the world. I was at my peak and there could be no valley.

But then, suddenly, I found myself in that valley. Everything that was important to me had been stripped away. Can you imagine this? Can you imagine all that you love right now suddenly not being there?

No, I know, you don't want to think about it. Life is going GREAT and this is not the time. I thought that too. In fact, I avoided all things that had the tone of sadness, defeat or depression. I defended strength and inspiration with everything I had in me. Anything with a whiff of negativity was quickly whisked away or shown the door. I couldn't relate to people who were down in the dumps because I was at the top of my game. I didn't have time for it.

Until IT became my reality.

Now I understand.

No one is immune to it, unfortunately.

When it happened to me, I was ANGRY. Yes, I'm not afraid to say that my go to emotion, when things don't go as planned, is anger.

"How could you do this?" I said, through clenched teeth in a tone that did, in fact, sound like a wounded or dying animal.

I had just found out that my husband had had an affair. That he'd been secretly dating someone else for several months.

Oh, the humiliation! After all, I'd written a book about our marriage. It had been published in other languages even. Now what?

And the pain. I used my anger to cover my pain. The pain was unbearable. To know that my partner of twenty years was now dating a younger woman, that all his love that was once for me was now going to her.....well, shit, that just plain hurt. And the way that he tossed it all away as if it were nothing....ouch!

Four months after my husband moved out for good, I attended a 10-day silent meditation course. Usually I come out of those courses feeling blissful, peaceful, new and refreshed. For years, I've gone to these retreats and found them beneficial and still do. During the course, you have to face your REAL self. Stuff comes up to be released and some of it is not pretty, to say the least. For the first time ever, I came out of the course ANGRY. I wanted REVENGE and the ways I came up with to get revenge, were, well, a little scary. I even scared myself by thinking them. I'll spare you the details, but I'm sure you get the picture.

I rolled in anger for months. It was not pretty. Luckily, I also threw myself into every healing modality out there: massages, spas, therapists, acupuncture, hypnosis, meditation, synagogues, temples, churches, prayer, meditation. I am currently a regular student at Psychic Awakenings in Queen Anne, Seattle. I'm now in an 11-month Clairvoyant Awareness Program learning amazing tools for healing and reading myself and doing the same for others. I think my classes there have had the most impact on my healing and where I am now, but all of it certainly helped. I was committed to healing myself. It was the only thing I knew for sure that I wanted to do.

And while I know, a year and a half later, there's still more healing to do, I can say that it's all paid off.

Last Friday, I met my ex-husband in a coffee shop. I'd met him on very few occasions over the course of a year and a half because I wanted to wash that man right out of my hair and send him on his way, as the song goes.

But this time was different. I wasn't angry. I kept waiting for my pulse to start rising. I kept waiting for the lashing out to start happening. I was waiting for my friend anger to show up, but she missed our coffee date completely. And what a relief that was. I can't tell you how good it felt to let anger go.

As I sat there, drinking coffee and eating a breakfast sandwich with my ex-husband, I instead saw him for who he was. I saw that he was a human, like me, currently going through a lot of suffering. I felt compassion. It surprised me. Compassion wiggled it's way up on the chair next to me and sat there attentively listening. I remembered the good times we shared over the twenty years we were together and even though it doesn't make what he did right, I forgave him. Right then and there, I forgave him. It wasn't just a word I said, it was a feeling of forgiveness. I really felt it. I wanted the best for him. I wanted him to be okay. I wanted him to find his spark again and I really felt it. It was a long road to feel like this. It could have been even longer had I not really wanted to heal or do the work to get there.

And what does forgiveness feel like?  To me, it feels light and loving. It feels like a big relief. It feels like dropping the protection and being vulnerable and real. It feels like coming out of my lion's den, even though I was wounded. It feels like freedom and permission to walk in the light again. It feels like connection and the understanding that we are all human and we all make mistakes. I forgive myself and I forgive you. I wish the best for myself and I wish the best for you.

I don't think I could have gotten there without forgiving myself first. I had to forgive myself for my anger. I had to forgive myself for being afraid of my wounds. I had to forgive myself for not being perfect or having a perfect life. After all, who the hell has a perfect life anyway? None of us would be playing the Earth Game if we were all perfect. We are all here to learn, not let everyone know that we are "perfectly fine".

If I hear anyone say, "I'm perfectly fine," I might be inclined to say, "Dig a little deeper." It won't be sarcastic; it will be an invitation. For whom are you living this life? For others? You have an opportunity to let go of a lot here. Evolution can happen, but not if you cling to old ways of being. Not if you hide your wounds deep down inside. Your evolution is the world's evolution. I believe this.

Go to the depth of your anger, sadness, ill-will, pain, un-perfect-ness....get down to the messy and uncomfortable stuff. Go in there. Don't be afraid. I promise you, on the other side of it all, there's love....a deep, deep wellspring of love. Love for yourself and for others. I know it's hard to believe and it doesn't come easy. I've still got a lot of work to do, but it's the greatest work I've ever done.

Have you ever forgiven someone? How did it feel?